CHAPTER 1: THE BROKEN MISSION
The smell of old parchment and stardust usually comforted Harry, but tonight, Dumbledore's office smelled of confinement and something vaguely metallic, like dried blood. It was the first week of September, and the forced normality of the Hogwarts Express and the Welcoming Feast already felt like ill-fitting skin.
Dumbledore was not sitting behind his desk. He stood by the window, observing the dark grounds. His right hand, the blackened and withered one, rested on the sill.
"Professor," Harry said, closing the door.
"Harry. Thank you for coming so late." Dumbledore turned. The moonlight caught the exhaustion in his eyes. "I will not offer you a lemon drop. I feel we are both past the need for pretense."
Harry nodded, tense. The last time they had been alone in this office, Dumbledore had smashed half of his magical instruments in a fit of grief. Harry still felt the echo of that grief, of Sirius's death, like a broken bone that had never set right.
"Is this about Voldemort?" Harry asked, getting to the point.
"In a way," Dumbledore said, moving slowly toward his chair. "It is about one of his... tools."
Harry waited. Fawkes, the phoenix, gave a low, melancholic trill from his perch, as if he sensed the conversation before it happened.
"As you know," Dumbledore continued, lacing the fingers of his good hand, "Lucius Malfoy's fall from grace at the Ministry has left his family in a precarious position. Voldemort is not known for his mercy."
Harry's stomach tightened. "Malfoy? You called me here to talk about Draco Malfoy?"
"Voldemort has tasked Draco with a mission," Dumbledore said, his voice dropping to a grave whisper. "A task he is to fulfill this year, within Hogwarts."
Harry felt a spark of cold anger. "And what? You want me to spy on him? You want me to—"
"He is to kill me."
The silence that fell in the office was absolute. Even the portraits of the old headmasters seemed to hold their breath. Harry blinked, processing the information. The idea was so absurd, he almost laughed.
"Malfoy? Kill you?" Sarcasm dripped from his voice. "Good luck with that. Let him try. It'll be fun to watch."
"You don't understand, Harry." Dumbledore's voice was sharp, losing its grandfatherly tone for an instant and becoming the general's. "He is not expected to succeed."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The mission is a punishment. A punishment for Lucius, for his failure. Voldemort enjoys irony. He forces the son to attempt an impossible task, ensuring his failure. When Draco fails, he will be killed. If, by some miracle, he were to succeed... frankly, Voldemort wins either way."
Harry crossed his arms. The hatred he felt for Malfoy was an old, comfortable thing, like a worn-out coat. But this... this was dark in a way that sickened him.
"Professor, I still don't understand what this has to do with me. He's Malfoy. He's a Death Eater, like his father. If Voldemort wants to dispose of him, it's one less problem for us."
Dumbledore watched him, his half-moon spectacles doing nothing to hide the intensity of his scrutiny.
"Last year, at the Ministry, when Bellatrix Lestrange attacked you, you attempted the Cruciatus Curse."
Harry stiffened. It was an accusation. "Yeah."
"But you failed. It didn't work. Do you know why?"
"Because I didn't mean it," Harry muttered, repeating Bellatrix's own lesson.
"Because you did not wish to inflict pain for its own sake, Harry. You desired justice, you desired revenge, but your soul... your soul is not made for that brand of cruelty." Dumbledore paused, letting the words settle. "I am not going to ask you to use an Unforgivable Curse. I am going to ask you to do something much more difficult. I am asking you to save a soul that is being made for cruelty, before it is lost for good."
Harry recoiled a step, shaking his head. "No. Absolutely not. You want me to be... friends with Malfoy? To protect him? After everything he's done!"
"I am not asking you to like him, Harry!" Dumbledore's voice boomed, and Fawkes rustled his wings, unsettled. "I am asking you to see the chessboard! Voldemort wants this boy to die. He wants his soul to break in the attempt. He wants to prove that there is no redemption, that darkness always consumes. Your mission... your true mission this year, beyond our private lessons... is to prove him wrong."
"Why me? Why not Snape? He's his Head of House, his... godfather, for Merlin's sake!"
"Professor Snape has his own part to play in this, one you cannot know." Dumbledore rose, his robes swirling. "Besides, Severus looks at Draco and sees Lucius. Or he sees himself. He cannot do this. But you... you see a rival. A bully. An enemy. But you do not see a murderer. Not yet."
"You're wrong. After the Ministry, after Sirius, I can see him doing anything."
"Then look at his face tomorrow at breakfast," Dumbledore said, softer now. "Truly look at him. Not the braggart you know. Look at the boy who knows he will die before the school year ends."
Harry clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. It was an impossible mission. It was a distraction from what really mattered: Voldemort. It was a trick.
"And what am I supposed to do?" Harry asked, his voice harsh. "Invite him to a Quidditch match? Help him with his Potions homework?"
"Approach him. Find out the plan. Offer him an alternative." Dumbledore came closer and placed his good hand on Harry's shoulder. The touch was light, but the weight of the request was suffocating. "Your mother, Lily... she died to save one soul: yours. I ask you to honor that sacrifice by saving another. Even if it is the soul of Draco Malfoy."
Harry said nothing. He couldn't. He felt nauseous.
"You may go," Dumbledore said, turning back to the window. "Do not give me an answer now. Just... look."
Harry left the office feeling as if the stone gargoyles were watching him with pity. He descended the spiral staircase, his head spinning. Save Malfoy. The idea was disgusting. It was a betrayal of his parents, of Sirius, of Dumble—
He stopped dead in the middle of the seventh-floor corridor.
There he was.
Draco Malfoy was not swaggering with Crabbe and Goyle. He was alone, leaning against a tapestry, almost hidden in the shadow of a suit of armor. Harry froze, watching him from a distance.
Dumbledore was right. This was not the Malfoy he knew.
He was paler than usual, almost sallow under the torchlight. He seemed taller because he was thinner, the school robes hanging off his shoulders in a way they hadn't before. But it was his eyes that stopped Harry. They were restless, darting up and down the corridor, gray and murky with fear. There was no arrogance in his posture; there was the tension of an animal trapped in a cage.
Approach him. Dumbledore's voice echoed in his head.
Harry swallowed, the hatred and the new mission warring in his throat. How did you do this? How did you "approach" someone you'd been trying to hex for five years?
He did the only thing he knew how.
He took a step into the light, his shoes echoing on the stone.
"Malfoy."
Draco's reaction was instant and violent. He sprang from the wall, his right hand flying instinctively inside his robes. His eyes locked on Harry, and for a split second, Harry didn't see hatred. He saw pure, animal terror.
Then the mask settled. The familiar sneer twisted his lips.
"What do you want, Potter?" Draco hissed, his voice lower than Harry remembered. "Come to gloat about my father's imprisonment? Enjoying the view?"
Harry felt his own anger ignite, hot and righteous. It was so much easier than the confusing compassion Dumbledore demanded.
"Maybe," Harry snapped, taking a step closer. The mission was already failing. He knew it, but he couldn't stop. "Or maybe I was just wondering when you'd officially join him. The Dark Mark itch a little at first, or did you get used to it fast?"
The little color left in Draco's face vanished. His knuckles, clenched around his hidden wand, went white. Harry had expected an insult, a threat.
Instead, Draco seemed to shrink into himself. His eyes glistened with something that wasn't anger... it was... moisture.
"Go to hell, Potter."
He turned and strode away down the corridor, his robes billowing behind him. He didn't run, but his pace was desperate.
Harry stood alone in the hallway, his heart pounding from the confrontation's adrenaline. He had won. He'd made him run.
Then, he noticed something on the floor where Malfoy had been standing. A small, crumpled piece of parchment. Harry bent and picked it up. It wasn't a note. It was a timetable. Draco Malfoy's sixth-year schedule.
And Harry noticed something else, on the stone floor, almost invisible: two small, glistening drops of water.
But it wasn't raining inside the castle.
Harry looked at the schedule in his hand and then at the empty corridor where Draco had disappeared. The feeling of victory soured, turning to ash in his mouth.
Truly look at him.
He shoved the schedule into his pocket. The mission had just begun, and he had already broken it.