Conspiracies

Author's Notes: Same again! Two drabbles in one chapter. The dates and words start the chapters--hope you like!

July 12th

1. gustatory

2. troglodyte

3. emolument

4. contemn

5. propound

6. puerile

7. antediluvian

There were so few private places within Hogwarts; he had never noticed it before, but now, when he sought to separate himself from the others—from everything—there seemed no escape. He had his room, of course, but that seemed no safe cocoon—it stifled him, even if it was larger than the room at the decrepit house that the Ministry had granted the Malfoy family. Despite the fine fabric and the warm bed swaddling him, he longed to have the bare walls, tattered curtains and creaking cot of that ramshackle building—that was his home. The short—painfully short—letter that he had held and then destroyed had encouraged his intense dissatisfaction to mature and swell within his chest.

Sighing softly, Draco sat at the back of the room and waited for the teacher to indicate that he was ready. At first, he had hated the ordeal, then he had come to dread it, but now, he let it drift over him. He ignored the puerile sniggering, and when summoned, he walked calmly over to the desk at the front of the classroom.

Due to Draco’s ‘unfortunate choices’, the Board of Governors had decided that he should familiarise himself with what he had decided to contemn. Thus, he was one of five students taking NEWT level Muggle Studies.

Professor Hardwicke watched Draco approach, the bushy eyebrows that seemed to be attempting to compensate for lack of hair were drawn together in disapproval, and for some reason, the suspicion that the Muggle-born wizard should pity him made Draco burn with bitterness.

He had not fully grasped the nature of the punishment handed out to him—Azkaban, he had understood intimately!—and the confiscation of his wand had not hit him until that first day back at Hogwarts almost six months ago.

“The Ministry are quite detailed in what they propound, Mr Malfoy,” Professor Slughorn said softly. “I can understand their desire to ensure that your fellow students are protected, but I fear that they have neglected to consider your confinement to Azkaban.”

Draco sat quietly while inside, it seemed that his brain screamed and his heart thundered. It all seemed so disconnected; he half expected the scene to become vapour and the horror of his cell to condense into view, just as his hopes and dreams had done for the four months that he had been within those terrible walls. He still lay awake at night, fearing sleep, fearing waking and knowing that it had been an illusion.

“Have you read this document, Draco?”

In the expectant silence, Draco felt Slughorn’s gaze heavy upon him, but he hadn’t spoken in months—screamed, but not spoken—and now, he found it difficult to make his throat work.

“At such times when you are not in a lesson, I will have possession of your wand, and in class, your wand will be returned to you at the teacher’s discretion. Contact with various other students is prohibited, and communication between you and your family while at this school will go through myself or the Headmistress. Do you understand, Draco?”

Draco managed the smallest of nods, but it seemed to rile Slughorn who slammed the scroll down hard enough to rattle the collection of glittering phials on his desk.

“You do not understand what this means, Draco,” he said angrily. “If you did, then you’d be incensed about this travesty and this humiliation!”

Laughter bubbled up his throat, threatening to erupt from his closed lips.

Humiliation! Slughorn had no idea what humiliation was!

But Draco knew! It had been his emolument for trying to appease a monster and his retribution for his successes. He knew that the Ministry’s antediluvian notions of what constituted fair punishment could not equal the ones invented and perfected by the Dark Lord. Ironically, but not surprisingly, it had been Voldemort who had cleansed Draco… And he had managed it years before the boy had presented his innocent left arm.

The storm that had split the ravens and loomed menacingly had dissipated with preternatural speed, but the surge of energy that it had inspired still carried him forward. It was ironic that after bemoaning the sameness of this land that a sought-after feature had worried him so acutely. Lost in his thoughts, it took the cawing of the birds to remind him that he was searching for something… Something that they had found! Stumbling mid-step, his eyes saw the rounded hillock in the distance.

Squinting, he thought that he could make out a deeper shadow… almost like the mouth of a cave. Scrutinising the local environment, he wondered if the dark streak in the gorse, running close to the possible cave was the river. Knowing that he needed to rest out of the wind that still battered at him, he edged his bets and aimed straight for what he hoped would be shelter. Behind him, a conspiracy of ravens roosted and watched.

Draco extended his thin hand, and Hardwicke slapped the slender shaft of wood into his palm, but did not release his hold when Draco’s fingers curled around it. Surprised, Draco’s gaze flickered up, and he caught frustration in the old man’s hazel eyes.

“I’m getting tired of the constant disruption in my classes, Mr Malfoy. And it seems that I’m not the only one.”

Frustrated that he was being blamed for the Ministry’s precautions and puzzled by the wizard’s odd closing statement, Draco gripped his wand tightly and strode back to his seat.

Chest constricting with emotion and his eyes straining to produce tears, Snape slipped into the small cave. All he needed was some gustatory delight, and he would be one happy troglodyte!

Laughing and weeping, he curled up on the dry floor, pressed his hands against his painfully insistent stomach, and while he cramped from hunger and fatigue, his mind finally accepted the demands of his body, and he fell asleep.

July 17th

1. cupidity

2. fiduciary

3. mephitic

4. anodyne

5. tatterdemalion

6. malinger

7. insensate

Looking like a tatterdemalion, Snape stretched painfully out on the cold floor, but his discomfort was nullified by the gnawing pain below his ribs—he had to eat! Years of potion study had given him a broad knowledge of what edible delights existed, ready to be picked from the land, but his eager eye had not seen anything that equated to food. The ravens that seemed to have adopted him were his hope for a meal—the carrion creatures had to survive on something!

Using a trick that he had learnt as a young child, he tugged his belt tighter, and he lumbered to his feet. His search for food had to begin in earnest. Braving the cold wind, he left his little cave. His eyes firstly sought out the ravens, and he was relieved to see the half that had stayed with him were dotted around his domicile.

As a child he had known hunger; it hadn't struck very often, but it had lurked on the edges, waiting. Money had always been cited as the problem, and that was true, but when his father died, his land had become one of milk and honey. Of course, debtors came round for the monies that his father had owed from various card and dice games that the dead man had been rather dismal at playing, but his mother had come alive after the Wake, and her wand had nullified the cupidity of the callers.

This place was a nightmare! Or maybe the lack of people actively trying to kill him gave him too much time on his hands, but such memories and thoughts had plagued him since his arrival here. The peace that he had hoped for after death eluded him, and he felt that that was the greatest betrayal of all! Frustrated and bitter, he kicked out at the furze which merely scratched him and bounced back mockingly.

Not quite knowing what he believed, he hadn’t dwelt too deeply upon the notion that he could be with Lily now; he felt that to do so would have been masochistic, and he had organised his head to prevent such dalliances towards self-torture—much to his dissatisfaction.

Potter! Now there was a name that he could dwell happily upon! He snorted into the wind at the image of two black-haired fiends, and he felt his lip curl up. It seemed that his life and future had been set by those two—one set his unhappiness, and the other set his longevity. He wondered bitterly if James was in some way pleased that he had suffered or whether he had writhed at the thought of Snivellus being a primary fiduciary of his son. But he knew that those were trivialities compared to his most fervent desire—forgiveness from Lily! With tears prickling his eyes and the furze his shins, he turned away from the wind and wept into his hands.

You’ll never get that!

His head snapped round, and he staggered as the sudden motion generated waves of dizziness. Trying to focus on the vista, he searched out the source of the voice. The ravens looked at him almost with bemusement flickering in the onyx depths, but otherwise, they seemed oblivious to any words carried on the wind. Thinking that his mind was fabricating demons to torment him further, he snarled out and strengthened his mental barriers. He had faced worse than a boring landscape, and he was damned if this place was going to break him!

No matter what you’ve done or what you do, you will always have had a hand in her death. It was you who told the Dark Lord of the prophecy. She’ll know by now that it was you! I doubt that dear Sirius would let you be a hero! He’d gladly tell her that it was you who sent her to her grave. That it was you who orchestrated the intended killing of her son!

Swaying on the spot, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth hanging open, Snape tried to deny the whispered words thundering in his head. But he knew that they were right! At his first scream, the ravens tensed; at his second, they took to flight, and while the man they looked over screamed and writhed in the furze, they flew in lazy circles in the darkening sky.

The quality of the air in the cell was mephitic in more ways than one as Meadowes backed into it with his mop and bucket. It seemed that no one had been in the room for days to cast a Purging Charm, and the air was downright fetid! Not that it really mattered as the only person who entered the room was the humble orderly—no Healer would willingly sully themselves with such a thing as either a Death Eater or a dirty floor. But something seemed amiss… But that was daft, surely! She was just in one of her snits and wanted to unsettle him. He mopped the floor close to the bed, and something disturbed his anodyne motion of cleaning. Hoping that his old eyes were betraying him, he looked again, and after the third study, he knew that his eyes were uncaringly accurate—footprints on the floor! He looked across at what he knew was a completely insensate Bellatrix LeStrange, and fighting the urge to vomit, he fled the room.

The mop left a slick trail that dried up just before the office and Meadowes only realised he still held it in a vice-like grip when he tried to knock on the door. Disgusted at his own foolishness, he lodged the mop against the wall and knocked on the door lightly. Forcing down his anxiety and faking a downcast look, he entered the room, looking for the matron. It was something that he hadn’t done—oh, he had had time off work before, but always with good reason, and now he had good reason to malinger! Too good a bloody reason!