Lucius' wand lay at his feet. Gasping, Draco stared at it purposefully and then reached for it.
He needed help from Hogwarts. The problem was that Hogwarts did not know they were there.
"I volunteered your dad's wand as our prototype," he remembered Moody telling him in Dumbledore's office. "Naturally, we picked the Malfoy standard as a Marker during the testing. The spell was still in place when the wand was taken."
The dead man in the watery grave had somehow been in possession of Lucius' Ministry-tinkered wand when he had died. Draco was willing to bet that the man was the missing Auror, Donald Bligh.
From experience, only one spell tended to send the right kind of people running straight toward it.
This would be the first and the last time he was going to cast the Dark Mark, and it was going to be for a good deed. The irony of it was almost enough to make him smile.
If Hermione survived the next sunrise, Draco was going to kiss Mad Eye Moody' s club foot the next time he saw him.
He took his young wife's cold hand in his own, raised his uninjured arm above him and cast the spell Voldemort seemed to think he was born to use. It took something out of him to say it.
He felt the dark rush of less-than benign magical power surge from his core and up his arm, into the wand. It sapped what little energy he had left.
"Morsmorde."
The last thing he recalled seeing was the Dark Mark looming in the bright, blue sky, just before it turned into the Malfoy Dragon.
Chapter Forty-eight
Draco observed three things when he opened his eyes.
The first was that he was dressed in blue and white-striped pyjamas, which probably meant that he was at St Mungos.
Second, he was wonderfully pain free, which after two weeks of injuries, accidents and several near-death experiences, was just capital.
Thirdly and lastly, Albus Dumbledore, dressed in magenta robes embroidered with gold, was sitting on the foot of the mattress sucking on an obscenely long piece of red liquorice. It looked to be mid-afternoon, judging from the deep amber sunlight that came through the windows at the far side of a room that smelled like lemons and antiseptic.
"Headmaster," Draco greeted. His voice sounded better than it ought to, given that his throat felt like someone had force fed him bobotuber pus.
Dumbledore popped the candy out of his mouth and beamed at him so widely his cloudy blue eyes nearly disappeared behind a sea of soft wrinkles.
"Welcome back. I hope you don't mind that I've been helping myself to your collection of Get Well Gifts." The Headmaster inclined his head to the right.
From under his long fringe, Draco turned to look at the tiny bedside table almost hidden under brightly coloured boxes of candy and other wrapped confections.
He blinked at this unfamiliar sight. The only candy he ever received was normally from his mother and it was usually the kind of rich, dark chocolate you would only ever eat in small quantities. Not the type of stuff you'd shove fistfuls of into your mouth.
Pansy usually just brought gossip. Millicent was more of a cashmere scarf sort of gift-giver, while Goyle probably thought of 'gift-giving' as a way of openly questioning his masculinity.
"I'm at St Mungos?" "Yes," said Dumbledore.
Draco willed up some saliva to assist the questioning and sat back against the headboard. He stared down at his blue and white torso.
"That would explain the pyjamas."
Dumbledore smiled again. "Haven't changed since I was last admitted, which is a fair while back."
"She's alright, isn't she?" Draco asked. There was no fear in his voice.
The question was rhetorical. Hogwarts' Headmaster would not be demolishing candy in front of him if Hermione was dead.
"Miss Granger is fine, but you knew that already."
Draco said nothing. He allowed himself to relax now as he scanned further down the room, noting that there was an old man prodigiously snoring in the bed across from him. Trust St Mungos not to bother giving him a private room, despite the massive donations his father had made during better times.
Not that such things really mattered any more, Draco supposed. It was quite a thing really, to have your whole universe turned upside down practically overnight. Priorities were troublesome, he decided. Most especially when they changed.
First things first. A bit of housekeeping.
"So what's going to happen to Blaise?"
Dumbledore's smile dissolved. "Mister Zabini is in Ministry custody, likewise the ten