emmagrant01 | FIC: Surrender the Grey (16/30)

NOTE: This is the first draft of this story. The final version can be read HERE.

Title: Surrender the Grey
Author: Emma Grant
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Draco Malfoy returns to London after five years of self-imposed exile to start a new life with Harry. But will the secrets of the past destroy everything they've worked for?
Sequel to: Left My Heart. This will make much more sense if you have read that first!
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no copyright violation intended.
Length: 150,000 words
Status: COMPLETED November 2, 2005 (Posted March 2 - November 2, 2005)
Notes:
1. Please don't archive this story yet! This is the first draft, and in the next few months, it will be revised and edited. I'll post the final version on my website and a few other select archives, but in the meantime, feel free to link to this post.
2. There aren't enough words to say THANK YOU to

jedirita,

hazelhawthorne, and

(16)

Draco stared at Cho in disbelief. She appeared to be in the middle of a discussion with Lucius, something that surpised him even more. He'd been suspicious she was working with Death Eaters, but with his father? That was something he hadn't expected.

She cast a sharp glance at him as he entered and then turned back to Lucius. "And I end up looking the fool, of course."

"Draco was not to be touched," Lucius retorted, sitting casually in his chair and fingering the stem of his glass of sherry. "That was the agreement."

"The agreement also entailed his remaining in exile," Cho replied.

"What?!" Draco exclaimed. There had been an agreement about him?

"Stay out of this!" Lucius spat, at the same moment that Cho hissed, "Shut up!"

Draco clenched his jaw.

"The moment he set foot on British soil, that agreement was null and void," Cho said, turning back to Lucius. She looked surprisingly strong with her feet planted on the Turkish rug and her dark hair flowing past her shoulders -- almost like one of those warrior-girls in Chinese movies, Draco thought. She glanced at him, as if she had heard that thought.

"If the agreement is null and void, I owe you nothing," Lucius snorted. "You and your colleagues at the Ministry have lost control of the situation. I have no choice but to proceed on my own."

"This is ridiculous!" Cho spat. "You only stay out of Azkaban because of this agreement. You need our cooperation far more than we need yours."

"I beg to differ," Lucius replied. Draco couldn't help but envy his calm demeanor. "Without my cooperation, you will have a war on your hands. I am the only one who can keep the rebel movement from becoming a true threat."

"Like you did so very well in Durham?"

"The situation was under control until your pathetic little unit arrived," Lucius snorted. He sipped his sherry. "If the Ministry believes it can handle this threat on its own, by all means--" he made a sweeping gesture with one arm "--go right ahead. We'll remove the smothering spell from the Ministry complex and let you take your chances with an angry and betrayed work force, a suspicious populace--"

"This bickering is pointless," Cho said, cutting him off with a sharp tone. "I am not here to dissolve our earlier agreement, but to resolve the current terms. I 'm disappointed that you decided to undercut our authority by removing Draco from our custody, but--"

"And I am shocked, Ms. Chang, that you consider your personal vendetta against my son more important than the stability of our society."

Cho's jaw tightened, but she didn't look at Draco. "It was not a vendetta, Mr. Malfoy. He committed a murder. He was never brought to justice."

Draco's breath caught in his throat at the words.

Lucius shrugged. "Weasley's death was in the line of duty, as you well know. People die in a time of war. Should you be brought up on charges for the people you've killed?"

Cho made a sound like a laugh. "I will not discuss morality with you!"

"As you wish," Lucius replied with a smug smile.

"As I was saying," Cho continued, her voice assuming a steely edge, "We are disappointed by your blatant disregard for the law, but we are willing to overlook it. The smothering spell will remain in place. You will continue to provide us with information on the whereabouts of the rebel Death Eaters, and we will continue to arrest them."

"Anything else?" Lucius asked. The tone of his voice indicated he wasn't in the least intimidated by her demands.

"Yes." she replied. "Don't interfere again."

Lucius's face clouded for a moment, but before he could respond, a house-elf appeared out of thin air and whispered something in his ear. Lucius stood and offered a stiff smile. "If you'll excuse me for a moment." With that, he left the room, leaving Draco alone with a fuming Cho.

It was silent for several long seconds. Cho sighed and turned to look at Draco at last.

"What did I do to you?" Draco asked before she could say anything. "This isn't just about Weasley. It's more than that."

"The irony is that you don't even remember," Cho said, shaking her head. "I didn't realize that until a few days ago."

"It's ridiculous to hate someone for something they don't remember doing," Draco said.

"Oh, but I have so many reasons to hate you," Cho replied, looking almost wistful. "And I take a bit of pleasure in the fact that you will never understand."

Draco shook his head, half a smile gracing his lips. "I almost feel sorry for you now."

Cho crossed to him and pulled a wand from the inside of her robe. Draco took a step backwards, startled. He had no way of defending himself.

She turned the wand around and extended the handle towards him. It was his wand, he realized. Bewildered, he reached out and took it from her.

"This is the only favor I will ever do for you, Malfoy, and rest assured I'm not doing it for you entirely." Cho cast a glance towards the door Lucius had left through. "I know your father is holding you here against your will. I want you to use this to escape and go back to New York. And for Harry's sake, stay there."

Draco stared at his wand for a moment. "Why is it in Harry's best interest that I leave?"

"It simply is," she replied, stepping away. "I know you care about him. I had my doubts before, but…" She looked away. "He is better off without you, especially now."

"How would you know what's best for him?" Draco retorted. He tightened his fingers around the handle of his wand.

"Oh, stop playing the fool, Malfoy," Cho spat. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Surely you realize what is happening here. Your father doesn't want you; he wants Harry. He has set a trap and you are the bait."

Draco's eyes narrowed. He had no particular reason to believe her. Of course, Lucius had been after Harry for quite a while. He had almost caught him in San Francisco, and might have had Draco not intervened. Harry had information that Lucius wanted.

Draco swallowed. He needed time to think about this. "How is Harry?"

Cho shrugged. "I've no idea. The story of your arrest and dramatic escape hit the papers, along with all the sordid details of your affair with Harry, then your betrayal of him. It's the biggest story of the year, naturally, so I wouldn't show my face in public if I were you." She smirked, and Draco wondered if she had been responsible for that particular leak. "Harry's been hiding from the press for the last few days. Hermione has refused to tell me where he is."

"I'm not surprised," Draco retorted. "She's not particularly fond of you."

"That's rich, coming from the man who murdered her husband," Cho replied.

Draco felt himself pale at the words. He hadn't thought about Hermione, about what she must think of him now. When had he started caring about whether or not Hermione liked him? Of course, he didn't remember killing Ron. That must count for something.

Cho's smile was smug. She wrapped her cloak about her body and turned to leave. "Tell your father I will contact him later this week. I can't wait any longer." With that, she swept out of the room.

A few seconds later, Draco heard the pop of her disapparation. He rolled his eyes -- she'd had to make a dramatic exit first, of course.

But he had his wand now. And despite her dire warning, he had no intention of leaving.

He sat at the table, waiting for Lucius to return. A glass of sherry appeared and he sniffed at it, and then cast a quick detection spell on it to see if he was being drugged again. The glass sparkled -- it was clear. He tucked his wand into the sleeve of his shirt just as the door opened again.

Lucius strode to the table and sat. "Ms. Chang declined to stay for dinner?" he remarked.

Draco snorted in response.

"Why does she dislike you so?" Lucius asked in a tone that suggested he knew the answer to the question.

"I spurned her advances back in school," Draco lied. "She's never forgiven me."

"I thought perhaps it was an old Quidditch rivalry," Lucius quipped.

Draco frowned. His father was being unusually cordial this evening. "You aren't planning to drug me again, are you?"

Lucius laughed. "Don't be ridiculous, Draco."

Draco stared at the glass in his hand, tilting it to examine the brick-red color of the liquid, the way it clung to the sides. He tilted it up again and saw his own reflection in the glass, distorted and strange. "Why am I here?" he asked.

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Where else would you be?"

Draco looked up. "And for that matter, why did you come for me? How did you know where I was? Why was I being protected in the first place?"

Bowls of soup appeared before them, but Draco didn't break his father's gaze.

Lucius picked up his soup spoon. "Your cousin Nymphadora was kind enough to send an owl to your colleagues at the FBI office to let them know where you were. Your assistant contacted me to relay the information. I assumed you would appreciate my assistance."

"Grizabella contacted you?" Draco asked.

Lucius smiled. "Her uncle is Adolfus York, you know."

Draco hadn't known. York was an old school chum of his father's, and was probably in his inner circle. Manny had done the background check on Grizabella and said she'd come up clean. Perhaps she had been spying on them all along for Lucius.

Not that it mattered now. Draco stared into his soup. "Am I a prisoner here? If I wanted to leave, could I?"

"Why would you want to leave?" Lucius replied. "You are safe here."

"If I'm untouchable, aren't I safe out there?"

Lucius's sigh revealed a hint of frustration. "Your face and ridiculously detailed accounts of your recent activities fill the papers. You are, unfortunately, the subject of prurient gossip everywhere. Moreover, you are regarded as an escaped and dangerous criminal. I would think you would prefer discretion at the moment, lest some young Auror with delusions of grandeur decides to take matters into his own hands."

Draco pursed his lips. His father had a point, unwilling as Draco was to concede it. "I need to know what you want from me," he said after a long moment. "If you really expect me to work with you, I must know everything that has happened, everything that you know."

Lucius didn't look up. He sipped his soup as if he hadn't heard.

Draco stared at him for thirty seconds, willing him to look up. He didn't. "Did you hear me? I need to know who the rebels are, and what they are rebelling against! Why did you have an agreement with the Ministry? Who is responsible for the smothering spell? What happened to Voldemort? How was Harry involved?"

Lucius stilled, his jaw tensing, but he said nothing.

Draco picked up his soup bowl and flung it across the room. It shattered against the wall, splattering tepid liquid everywhere. "Tell me!" he shouted, rising to his feet. "Or I will leave and take my chances with the press and the Aurors."

"You won't get far without a wand," Lucius retorted.

Draco let the wand drop from his sleeve into his hand and pointed it at his father. "Not a problem."

Lucius's eyes widened. He placed his spoon next to the bowl and sat back in his chair, regarding Draco anew. "If you truly wish to leave, I won't stop you. But we want the same thing, son. We want to know what happened three years ago in the dungeon below this very room. We both want to know what happened to Voldemort. And we both know Harry Potter is the key to finding out the truth."

"Here?" Draco breathed. He kept his wand focused on Lucius as he looked at the floor beneath him. "It happened here?"

Lucius sighed, and then pushed away from the table. Draco's hand tightened on his wand, but Lucius ignored it. He stood and walked to the door Cho had disappeared through. "Follow me," he said.

Draco kept his wand at the ready and followed Lucius into the parlor, down another flight of stairs into a room he'd yet to visit, and across the room to what looked like a blank wall. Lucius whispered a word and the wall melted away, revealing another staircase heading down into darkness.

Lucius waved his hand and torches lit the passageway, revealing a corridor that appeared disused and crumbling -- the stuff of Muggle horror films. Draco pushed the thought out of his mind. The door sealed itself behind them after they passed through it, and Draco questioned his own sanity at following his father down into the darkness.

They descended perhaps 100 meters before a large room opened up before them. It was indeed a dungeon, almost in the medieval sense, with soot-blackened ceilings and niches in the walls that may once have held chains. The center of the floor was covered with a series of large scorch marks.

Draco wanted it to look familiar, even tried to convince himself that he'd seen it before, but there was nothing -- no feeling of déjà vu, no sense of familiarity at all.

"You have indeed been here before," Lucius said, his voice low and gravelly, as if the very darkness of the chamber had affected it. "Three years ago."

Draco swallowed. "I don't remember."

"And that is most unfortunate," Lucius replied.

Draco turned to look at him, still gripping his wand tightly. "I assume you had something to do with Harry's memory loss, and mine."

Lucius shook his head. "Would that I had." He turned to face Draco. "I can answer your questions here. The Ministry has not been able to enter this chamber."

Draco tried not to let his surprise show -- the castle was under surveillance? He ought to have suspected as much. Now that he had his wand, he'd have to check his room.

"Four years ago, the war was taking a toll on us all," Lucius began. "Both sides were evenly matched, and it began to seem little progress was being made. Worse, the Dark Lord…" He paused, almost as if speaking the words was difficult. "The Dark Lord began to grow weak, for reasons none of us could explain. No trace of a curse could be found, and nothing could be done.

"This weakness was not limited to his physical being, however -- it became clear that it was affecting his mind as well. He remained as magically powerful as before, but he was unbalanced. He took risks. He made bizarre demands of his followers."

Hadn't he always? Draco thought. He shifted his weight and was surprised how that small sound echoed through the chamber. Lucius looked up as if startled, and fixed Draco with his gaze.

"You knew all of this once. Do you remember any of it at all?"

Draco shook his head.

Lucius nodded and continued. "The Dark Lord became obsessed with finding a solution to his physical deterioration. This task was assigned to me and a small number of others -- Snape, Avery, Driftwood -- men the Dark Lord regarded as experts in Dark magic, if not men he trusted.

"We could find nothing, and the more we searched for a cure, the more it became clear to us that none existed. The Dark Lord began to behave more erratically. The attacks he planned and carried out were indiscriminate: terrorism and little more. He killed thousands, even his own supporters, without a thought as to the consequences. And with Dumbledore gone, the situation only spiraled further into madness. He was beginning to endanger the cause."

"And that is why you began to plot against him," Draco whispered. The pieces of information he had learned were falling into place, forming a twisted landscape.

Lucius looked away. "In a manner of speaking, yes. At first we thought we could do it ourselves, contain him somehow. For the sake of our cause, we had to act. We would have a new leader, one who could benfit from the Dark Lord's remaining power and continue in his place, changing the tide of the war and ensuring a victory."

"You?" Draco asked. He knew his tone was flippant, but he didn't care.

Lucius snorted. "I was the natural choice. The others agreed, and we began to devise a plan."

"But you couldn't do it alone," Draco said. "You had to turn to the Ministry."

"That was Severus's idea. There were people within the Ministry who were sympathetic with our ideals, if not our methods. I approached one of my contacts, and within a week, we were collaborating to bring Voldemort down."

Draco blew out a breath. He had never thought it possible that his father would betray the Dark Lord, despite the mounting evidence suggesting it. It was nearly too much to comprehend. "How did you keep this secret?"

"We couldn't," Lucius replied. "Voldemort soon became aware that there was a plot against him, and we all had to back away, deny our involvement. But the damage had been done. None of us could be involved. We agreed to provide our allies at the Ministry with intelligence, and they agreed they would devise a plan to capture and contain Voldemort."

"Is that where Harry came in?"

"Against my wishes, of course -- but the Ministry were convinced he was the only one who could complete the task. We feared we had lost control of the situation, that the Dark Lord would be destroyed and our fight along with him. So we insisted that a representative from our side be part of Potter's team. He refused everyone we suggested, and then he made a strange request of his own." Lucius turned back to look at Draco.

Draco swallowed. "He requested me?"

"Yes," Lucius replied. "You, whom we considered all but a traitor, living in self-imposed exile. But it was our only chance to maintain control. I spent a month searching for you, and I learned that you had done rather well for yourself in New York. Your services came highly recommended from some prominent people, in fact."

Draco allowed himself a smug smile. The East Coast Death Eaters were not men to be trifled with.

"You were reluctant, but you named your price: a sizeable sum of money, and a promise never to contact you again."

Draco frowned. He didn't remember a sudden increase in his bank account. Apparently his father hadn't met the terms of their agreement.

"After you arrived and were briefed, I had little contact with you. I had no idea if you could be trusted, but I clung to the fact that you hated Potter and Weasley. I assumed your allegiance would remain with your blood.

"Two weeks later, we were informed that the Dark Lord wanted to meet with his generals. I offered to host the meeting here, and sent a message to you with that information. Everything was set in motion."

"How did you manage to keep this a secret from Voldemort?" Draco asked. "I thought it was impossible to lie to him."

"By that point, he lived in a constant state of paranoia, but fortunately he had lost some of his ability as a Legilimens. We arranged for the Dark Lord to arrive early, under the pretense of ensuring the security of the building. And your team waited for him here."

There was a long silence, during which Draco could hear his own heart beating. "What happened?"

Lucius stared at Draco. "I don't know. Four people went into that room. Only two emerged afterwards -- and neither of them had any memory of what had happened during the previous two weeks."

Draco swallowed. "And Voldemort?"

Lucius looked away. "There was no trace of him. We have no idea if he escaped, or if he was destroyed."

"And Weasley was dead," Draco said. "By my wand."

"Yes," Lucius replied. "I assumed Potter and Weasley had betrayed you and you attempted to stop them."

Draco shuddered. Was that what had happened? Had he killed Weasley in self-defense, or in anger at being betrayed?

"There were those in the Ministry who came to the same conclusion and wanted you charged with Weasley's murder. I took you back to New York before they could imprison you. No one knew what had happened, and efforts to recover Potter's memory failed. We reached an agreement that none of us would reveal what we knew publicly, that we would endeavor to keep it a secret." Lucius bowed his head, as if overcome by the memory. "The war was effectively over."

"And the smothering spell at the Ministry was part of that?"

Lucius nodded. "Some became curious about what had happened, including Potter. They needed to be protected from themselves. If anyone learned what we had done…" He turned back to Draco. "All was well until a year ago. Some of our fold began to suspect there had been a conspiracy, that we had cooperated with the Ministry. A few began to suggest that I -- and others -- had abandoned the cause. Rumors surfaced that Voldemort was about to return, and that he would punish those who had betrayed him."

"And that is why you came searching for me," Draco said. "You wanted to find out what had happened."

Lucius's face was impassive. "You want to know as well, Draco. I can sense it, hovering at the edge of your thoughts. You need to know what happened." Draco swallowed, trying to break his father's gaze. "And you also know that Potter is the key to the truth. We both want the same thing. We can help each other."

Draco stared back at him, uncertain. He and Harry desperately wanted to know what had happened, but what if it revealed secrets that should remain in shadow? The idea of cooperating with Lucius to solve this mystery was unnerving, to say the least.

But what if Voldemort was out there somewhere, gaining strength, waiting to strike? Surely he would seek to destroy Harry. If they didn't learn the truth, how would they be able to defend themselves?

Draco took a deep breath. "I won't endanger Harry. You must stay out of this."

"I made that mistake three years ago," Lucius replied, eyes hard. "I won't be fooled again."

Draco let his eyes narrow, but did not reply. Perhaps Cho had been right. Draco needed to keep control of the situation, and that meant keeping Harry as far away from Lucius as possible.

"I want you to come to a meeting with me tonight," Lucius said at last. "I have a task for you."

Draco nodded. It was an opportunity. He needed to get a message to Harry, somehow.

"I will be watching you, Draco." Lucius's eyes narrowed. "I expect you to cooperate completely."

Draco allowed himself a tight-lipped smirk. "As you said, we want the same thing."

Lucius gestured toward the stairwell, and Draco walked ahead of him into the darkness.

+++++

Go to next part

Note: Many of you have asked how many more parts there will be. At this point it looks like there will be approximately 23 in all, so about 7 more till we're done. It may end up being one more or less, but that's my best estimate.

Thanks to

charlotteschaos for the banner!