smoked."
"You don't know a lot of things about me," Blaise said.
"So it's you, then. You're the Recruiter that's got the Ministry in a snit."
"Yeah." Blaise definitely looked amused now. He dropped the cigarette butt and stubbed it out with his foot.
Draco could not help but tense as Blaise walked over to the lever. Thankfully, murder most gruesome was apparently not on Blaise's mind as yet, because he pulled the lever all the way back with a loud, rusty, crank.
Draco' s legs were not prepared for sudden use. He slid down the wall bonelessly, some ten feet of slack chain lay either side of him on the stone floor. The returning flow of blood to his joints was excruciating. Blaise walked over, squatted beside him and roughly pulled the splintered wood out of Draco's thigh.
White, hot pain blinded his vision momentarily, but he gritted his teeth and kept his eyes trained on Blaise.
Drip, drip, drip. The water continued in the distance. He clung to the noise.
"I gather Pansy told you?" Blaise said, in a perfunctory manner. "That stupid bitch could never keep a secret, not even under the threat of death, it would seem."
"Touch her at your peril, Zabini," Draco winced out.
Blaise smiled. His white teeth were wolf-fang yellow in the lantern-lit gloom. "I don't think Pansy's peril you should be worrying about. Though I may be moved to compassion, seeing as we're such good friends."
"You' re not my friend, you arsing bastard. Voldemort' s standards have seriously dropped if he's interested in the likes of you."
"You think so?" Blaise asked, only he wasn't Blaise. He was Potter. And then, he was Hermione. Draco's heart seemed to swell and explode from the unexpected emotional assault of seeing her. He could not contain the small sound that escaped him.
"You'reyou're a metamorphmagus!"
Blaise, who was now Blaise again, grinned. "Cool, huh?"
"Why? Why all this?"
The smile vanished. "You' re a smart fellow, Draco. The 'why' is rather moot, don't you think?"
Draco sneered at him. He tried for indifference, but he knew he was looking nothing short of murderous. If he had been gone for three hours, it wouldn't be long before Pansy was questioned about his disappearance.
If some sort of rescue mission was in the works, he'd have to stall for time before Blaise handed him over to Voldemort.
"The usual then? Power, influence, wealth, women?"
"Actually, I was bored," Blaise shrugged. He rose to his feet and began to pace. "Bored out of my fucking skull. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to see a man like Dumbledore, with all that power and wisdom, to see him waste it by being so bloody unrealistic? I would have followed power like that, but the man hasn't a clue what we need. We, us, wizards! We need leadership. We need long term."
Enough feeling had returned to Draco' s limbs to allow him some movement now. As discreetly as possible, he began coiling the slack chain behind him. If he managed to get Blaise close enough to knock him out, he'd have a wand.
"And you think you're the one to provide that plan, do you?"
"Yes. I do," Blaise nodded. "Voldemort makes a hell of a lot of sense some of the time. I'm sure your father would agree. There is no such thing as good or bad, dark or light. There's just life and power what we choose to do with it. The magical world suffers from an over abundance of categories, I think."
Draco did not have to feign his disbelief. "Oh, I subscribe to that newsletter as well. There' s just one problem with your 'editor' . Voldemort' s a few columns short of a balanced ledger."
Blaise smirked. He had always enjoyed Draco's quick wit. "I noticed. But he' s on his way out. Trust me. A younger, new generation of Death Eaters will not remember so well what it was like to truly fear him. His influence is diminishing. Suffice to say we get away with bloody murder half the time. Pun intended."
"How did you find him? What, did you place an advertisement in the Prophet? 'Up and coming sociopath seeking equally unstable Dark Lord for Evil Mentoring' ? "
"I didn't find him. He found me. Rather, his men did. I started asking the right kinds of questions in fifth year. Spent my summers in places you wouldn't visit without an armed escort. Recruitment was wishful thinking then. Death Eaters are a dying breed, getting older, fatter, slower...This helped, of course,"