Written by: Giulia “Kagome-sama” (now JuliaFC)

Beta-read by: Chibisarel and Porlock (in 2003); Silver1119 and MysticRaven20 (2022)

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Chapter one: The Fugitive

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Draco ran, without a destination, through the dark and lonely streets of Muggle London. The rain hit him and wormed itself everywhere: under the neck of his shirt, down his jeans. Shaking from the cold, he took the first street to his right, then quickly turned left and continued to run, trying to find an opening where there were people, where he could vanish into the crowd.

His heart was bursting out of his chest, and his breath echoed throughout the deserted alleyways. The Muggle clothes that he wore were completely soiled and soaked. They stuck to him and greatly annoyed him. His feet were frozen inside his wet shoes that squelched with every step he took. His fists tightened and felt like blocks of ice.

How he hated having to dress like a Muggle, having to constantly mix with them, having to sleep in hotels that were smelly and too full, often sharing the room with someone. Not because there was no space. Nor because he didn’t have money…but he had no choice, to hide himself from the Dementors.

He couldn’t carry on like that. Why had he been so bloody unlucky?

“Mr Malfoy, good evening. Mr Malfoy?” The smiling face of a girl with brown hair appeared, urgently, in his mind.

No, it’s impossible, it can’t be. Go away! Don’t follow me! As he continued to run, Draco brought his hands to the sides of his head. He didn’t want to remember!

“Mr Malfoy, look…it’s snowing!”

Quick! He had to find a shelter, a place where he couldn’t be found, a place where memories wouldn’t attack him.

Damn, why did the Dementors have to find him? Why was it that today he didn’t get a bedsit in one of the many hotels and hostels in London? Why couldn't he find even a single bloody person on the street to be confused with?

“I’ve always loved the snow, Mr Malfoy. But my family moved to Miami, in the last few years. This is the first time that I’ve seen snow in a while!”

Turn right, to the lef—no, a blind alley! Go straight. They can’t catch me…they can’t catch me…they can’t catch me! Draco’s heart echoed his thoughts with tumultuous beats and seemed to want to establish itself in his throat while his knees began to buckle. His legs felt heavy; he wavered.

NO! I must find people. Damn, why isn’t there anybody around? He tripped and fell. He got up, tired and gasping for air, and looked around, granting himself the luxury of a short rest.

It was eleven o’clock on an icy mid-December evening. The rain was pelting Draco's skin like a whip; only a little colder and it would've been snow instead. His breath looked like a thick cloud in front of his face and his muscles burned like fire under his soaked clothing, as his frozen feet shot icy waves of pain through his core. He coughed from fatigue, but his eyes continued searching feverishly. The darkness that enveloped London’s roads and alleys didn’t help at all. He saw a flash in the shadows and his heart skipped a beat.

“Mr Malfoy, do you know what becomes of snow when it melts?”

“Well, sure…water? Vapour?” echoed his own voice from his memory into his head.

Draco had finished Hogwarts four years ago…and had passed the last two hiding from the Dementors who hunted him everywhere he went. They tormented him, bringing back to the forefront of his consciousness all his resentment, all his pain and remorse—all his hate.

“No, Mr Malfoy. You are mistaken! It becomes spring!” Her luminous smile had warmed Draco’s heart; he remembered it as if it had been yesterday. He remembered the short girl he met at the Ministry of Magic. She used to talk to him about snow melting into spring. Marion… Marion was her name.

No, please! Don't make me remember her! I don’t want to remember. I can’t…

He looked around, terrified.

I can’t allow myself to remember, again.

Every angle that the spectral lights of the lampposts left in the dark could hide traps, or worse, a Dementor ready to suck his soul. No! He’d like to hold on to his soul, thank you very much.

He resumed running, even though his legs were giving up on him; even though his eyesight was becoming clouded. Even though his heart was bursting in his chest and the pain at the back of his throat was making his endurance reach its limit. He felt his lungs with raw precision. He would've been able to tell exactly where they began and ended. His spleen made its presence known as well. His knees shook and his feet slid around in his sneakers, too wet to adhere to the slippery floor.

I’m a coward, a selfish idiot, Draco thought, his gaze still darting around. Anything would do: a gate ajar, a disco-pub still open; anything that took him off the street and brought him among people, where the Dementors couldn’t find him.

Perhaps it would be better to end it, he thought, slowing down. To die was perhaps more dignified than to continue living as he had. He wouldn’t be able to resist much longer anyway. But something prevented him from letting go. Was it a survival instinct? Was it a will to hold on to life or at least to a memory of it? Or was it, perhaps, his pride?

Of course, not…the truth is that I’m a coward! he thought, hurrying his steps. I don’t have the courage to die.

Turning left without looking where he was going, he found himself on a dark alley, feeling the squishing of his feet in the puddles as if they came from another world.

He bumped against someone and uttered empty words of apology; he turned and struggled not to fall and continue running. A car went to a halt in front of him. The headlights hurt his eyes, which by now were accustomed to the dark. To avoid collision, he stepped to the right and continued straight, his eyes still dazzled from the headlights. He did it without watching where he was stepping or where he was going. This alley was just like any other alley, right?

Wrong. He reached a dead end.

Draco did an about-face. Still blinded, he blinked as he observed the road he had left, trying to focus his gaze on it. At the end of the alley, just ahead of his only way out…there it was!

The Dementor.

He tripped over his Muggle shoelaces and fell.

“Father, what are you doing?”

“Father, let Marion go, what has she done to you?”

“Marion…now she’s become Marion. We have arrived at this?”

The dark and angry face of Lucius flashed in his memories. He wore a fixed glare loaded with contempt. A contempt that hurt him in the deepest parts of his soul. It made him feel like a Mudblood. Even worse…it made him feel like less than a human being.

No, no…

The Dementor was slowly sliding towards him. Draco was still, crouched on the ground, his hands resting on the soaked asphalt. His breath created solid clouds when he gasped for air in the cold of the night. He was exhausted. He couldn’t do anything other than observe death approaching. He’d be worse than dead. A body without a soul.

Like his father.

And, what made it even worse was that little voice in his head…his conscience, telling him that he deserved it.

“Crucio!”

“No, Father! No!”

“Draco! This whore is only trying to take advantage of you. She only wants your money!”

Lucius’s hard eyes had sweetened in the veiled sarcasm of madness. He looked as if he was trying to convince himself of the truth of what he was saying.

“It's not true!” The painful cry of the only woman who had succeeded in melting his heart echoed in Draco's head.

No, please, please…By now he was trapped in the memory. Frozen on the spot, he couldn't move a finger. The Dementor seemed to be enjoying his terror and nourishing itself on his anguish, on his pain, on his disgust towards himself; on his sense of guilt. Draco was drowning in guilt.

He couldn’t remember how to protect himself. He cursed, blaming himself with his last clear thought for not having paid attention to those lessons of Defence Against the Dark Arts. But by now it was too late for stupid regrets.

“It’s true! This woman is lying to you! Do you want to tarnish the Malfoy name!?”

The look on Lucius’s face would have frozen an erupting volcano, but it hadn't intimidated him. No, Draco wanted to defend the woman he loved. Lucius had slapped him and was ready to hit him again if he objected. And, at that moment, Draco had hated him. For the first time in his life, he hated his name, from the deepest reaches of his heart. He hated his lineage and all it meant.

But what was worse, he hated his father.

His idol.

His model.

The one who represented everything he’d intended to become.

The utopian image that had been forged in his mind since his childhood had broken into a thousand pieces, and this had made him feel devastated, even more so than Marion’s screams.

“NO!” she'd howled between spasms of pain. “Mr Malfoy, I’m not lying! I’m not lying…”

But her pleas could hardly be heard between her screams and sobs. Draco’s hand was still on his aching cheek, as he watched his father approach Marion. He placed himself in front of her, trying to prevent his father from torturing her further. His pale eyes were glaring at the man he had at one time considered his whole world.

No!

“Remove yourself from there, pitiful excuse for a son!”

“No! I won’t allow you to keep hurting her!”

Draco’s look in his memory was firm, hard and cold. It was the first time in his life that he’d felt true hatred towards someone. Not even towards Dumbledore, not even towards Potter he’d tasted hatred so dark and penetrating. In that very moment, Draco was ready to do anything, even to kill his own father.

NO!

“Remove yourself, I said. If you don’t remove yourself, I’ll torture you as well,” his father’s voice threatened.

I beg you, NO!

“You won’t dare…” Draco’s voice in the memory said, while his hand ran to his wand in his pocket.

“No, Mr Malfoy, don’t do it! It…It’s true! It’s true…I…I tricked you, Draco. I’ve taken you for a ride. I’ve done it only for the money. My family’s drowning in debt and I…”

Marion’s voice echoed in his head, her pleading face flashing in his memories. He remembered his own shock. He remembered how he turned and watched her in disbelief. It couldn’t be true. He saw in her eyes that it wasn't true, but that moment of uncertainty had been his downfall.

NO! NO!! The Draco in the present brought his hands to the sides of his head and began mumbling senselessly. He crouched, embracing his knees and rocking back and forth. Tears ran down his cold cheeks, reaching his mouth as he sobbed, making him taste salt and bitterness.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The heart of the Draco in the memory stopped as he looked in the direction his father had moved. Lucius was standing next to Draco now, and his father’s wand pointed at Marion behind him. Draco’s blood froze into his veins—he'd got distracted for a fraction of a second and had lost track of his father. He had allowed this tragedy to happen. A flash of triumph crossed Lucius’s eyes.

NO!! I beg you, enough, ENOUGH! Please. Anything you want. Kill me. Strip me of my soul. Render me a vegetable…none of it matters, nothing! Nothing! But don’t…

The Draco in his memory turned around slowly towards the point where, until a moment before, the woman he loved had suffered, his throat clenched, his soul bruised as he searched for her.

Don’t…

The only person who'd ever loved him.

Don’t…

The only one that had made him feel alive.

Don’t make me see her again!

And then, he’d seen her lying on the stone pavement; her hands still joined in prayer, tears still wetting her cheeks, her brown eyes still open wide. Those eyes that until just hours before, were sweet and full of life. Full of mirth. Those eyes that had stricken his heart and made him experience so much joy. Those eyes were now cold, and empty…and staring at him.

‘NO!!’

He withdrew into himself; by now unaware of the rain, of the mud that stained him, of the cold that penetrated his bones and made him shiver. He knew that within moments he would be worse than dead. Having now caught up with him, the Dementor would suck his soul and leave behind only an empty shell.

As the monster took him with both hands and pulled him up, it stared at him for a long moment. Draco looked Death in the face and found himself resigned to it. He deserved it; it was what he wanted now. He wanted to get rid of the pain, to get rid of the anguish, to get rid of the fear.

I’m soaked, I lost all dignity, will and honour…dressed in Muggle clothing and hating my name and myself. Cornered like a rat in a foetid and dark alley. Like a criminal. What a beautiful way to die, for the last of the Malfoys…

‘EXPECTO PATRONUM!’

The urgent cry of a male voice ripped through the air, echoing around the deserted alley.

Draco turned towards the sound, dripping with sweat, rain and tears, his eyes still red from crying. He couldn’t believe his luck, but he was seeing it, indeed. A beautiful Patronus in the shape of a stag took aim at the dark figure in front of him.

The wonderful creature caught them and wrapped itself like a shield to protect the blond wizard from the monster. The Dementor howled spectrally; it was an acute and strong howl, enough to freeze the blood. Then, it fled. Gagging, Draco fell to his knees and saw the monster sliding away in the darkness. It felt strange to still be alive…

‘Move. Before that thing returns with reinforcements!’ said a male voice, bringing him back to reality. Someone stretched out a hand, and he took it. It was warm. Draco didn’t know the identity of the person who saved him; he couldn’t see him in the darkness. But he would have followed the stranger until the ends of the Earth.

‘I…’ he mumbled.

‘Questions later…Now run!’

His saviour helped him up and started running, dragging him along. His mind still blank and filled with cotton, Draco concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and followed the person.

They ran at break-neck speed through the dark roads of London, ignoring the sleet that was slowly covering them and the puddles that soaked them even more to the bone. Suddenly, they saw a gate half-open, and they entered it, closing it behind them.

Falling to their knees, they both gasped for air. Draco was still in a state of total confusion. He felt as if he was living in a dream and did not want to wake up…But it wasn’t a dream, he realised. He was cold and his teeth were chattering. His feet, still frozen, tingled painfully. There wasn’t a part of his body that was dry and the icy drops that fell from his hair flowed down his neck and trickled down his back. But….He was alive! And most importantly, he wasn’t an empty shell.

‘I…’ he muttered between breaths, not knowing what to say.

He knew that he now owed a life debt to this person, according to the Wizards Code of Honour. From now on, he was linked to this person with ties that were stronger than any Muggle contract.

‘Are you feeling better?’ his saviour asked. Draco nodded and finally raised his gaze. As the light shone on the ledge where they were sheltered, he was able to see the face of the person he was now in debt with—and his heart stopped.

The jet-black hair was a little dishevelled. The glasses, round and soaked, were covering a pair of shining green eyes that looked at him with a mix of amusement and worry. On his forehead, under the wet and dirty hair, he caught a glimpse of a scar shaped like a lightning bolt.

‘I have a feeling that it doesn’t please you to see me, Malfoy,’ Harry continued between breaths and an amused grin on his lips. ‘It would be nice to hear you say thanks, but I know you won’t.’

Taking his glasses off to give them a quick clean, he looked at Draco mockingly for a moment. Then, the amusement vanished from his gaze and his face took on a more serious expression. He looked at the ground, putting his clean glasses back on.

‘I didn’t save you to make fun of you. It’s just that…nobody should die in a back alley in such a horrible way. Not even you.’

Draco shivered when his companion glanced at him again.

Potter. Yes, Harry Potter…had saved his life.

To be Continued…