The Mark of a Death Eater

The Astronomy Tower

I scanned the place quickly. Professor Dumbledore stood against the ramparts, looking pale but completely unafraid. A broom stood next to him. Clearly, he had flown here.

"Good evening Draco. And, ah, Miss Evergreen."

My eyes fell on a second broom. "Who else is here?" I demanded.
"A question I might ask you. Or are you acting alone?" he asked.
"No," Draco said. "We've got back-up." He took a step forwards. "There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight."
"Well, well," said Dumbledore, as if Draco had impressed him. "Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?"
Draco didn't take his eyes off him. "Yeah. Right under your nose and you never realised!"
I didn't feel like bragging.

"Ingenious," said Dumbledore calmly. "Yet, forgive me, where are they now? You seem unsupported."
I sneered. "They met some of your guard. They're having a fight down below. They won't be long... We came ahead. We've... We've got a job to do." I gripped the handle of my wand tighter.
"Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear girl," said Dumbledore softly.

I froze. How could he be so calm? I was going to kill him! We were going to kill him!
And then, incredibly, the man smiled.

"Draco, Emma, you are not killers."

"How would you know?" I demanded. Then, realizing how desperately childish I sounded, I blushed.
"You don't know what I'm capable of," I snapped. "You don't know what I've done!"

"Oh, yes, I do,l said Dumbledore, still calm. "Between the two of you, you almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley. You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me to say this, but they have been rather feeble attempts. So feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it..."

I felt a burst of rage. Not because of the accusation, but because I knew he was right.

"It has been in it!" Draco retorted angrily. "I've been working on it all year, and tonight-"

He stopped speaking the same time I heard it. A muffled yell down below.

Dumbledore, apparently nonchalant, continued. "Somebody is putting up a good fight. But you were saying, yes, you have managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school which, I admit, I thought impossible." He glanced between the two of us interestedly. "How did you do it?"

I turned my face away from him. I couldn't look him in the eye. I realized how silly I must've looked. A child, shorter than Draco, with green hair and a sunken face, with her wand pointed at the greatest wizard of our time.

I wasn't listening very much. There were muffled sounds coming from downstairs, and I was straining to hear them.
I was aware of Dumbledore engaging Draco in conversation, but I couldn't hear. There was a ringing in my ears, and my I could almost feel the blood rushing in my head.
I could see Draco, his wand aloft, lot by the green glow of the dark mark, speaking to Dumbledore. And Dumbledore himself, looking utterly unperplexed, talking back. It seemed as if he was trying to postpone his death, but that couldn't be, because he didn't look nervous.

"Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe."
Was he speaking about us? Did he really think us to a innocent? We had tried to kill him! We had injured several others. We brought death eaters into Hogwarts, and they were hurting, possibly killing, people below. We were going to kill him! How were we innocent?

I was aware of him engaging Dumbledore in conversation, but I couldn't listen. My stomach lurched, and I fought back to urge to throw up. I took several deep breaths and blinked to clear my eyes.

"Got there at last, have you?" I heard Draco taunt nastily.

Every time I thought of down below I felt sick. My thoughts wondered to Daphne, to
her sister, to Snape, to my professors, to the students, to... Oh god. Zayn. I hadn't thought of him in so long, my focus been entirely on my misery. Zayn had been a part of the group, Dumbledore's Army, last year. We'd had a big row over it, but this year we'd put it behind us. He had no love for death eaters. What would he think of me? What if he was hurt? What if he got killed?

"...tell me, how have you been communicating with Rosmerta?" I snapped back to attention. "I thought we had all methods of communication in and out of the school monitored." Dumbledore looked at me as he said this. Was it my imagination, or was the look he have me slightly pitying?

"Enchanted coins," I breathed. "It was my idea, after the necklace failed. I had one and she had the other and I could send her messages."
"Isn't that the secret method of communication the group that called themselves Dumbledore's Army used last year?" asked Dumbledore, sounding mildly interested.
I swallowed hard.
"Yeah, I got the idea from them. I got the idea of poisoning the mead from the Mudblood Granger, too."
Dumbledore's forehead creased. "Please do not use that offensive word in front of me," he said.
I laughed, albeit slightly hysterically.
"One of us are about to kill you, and you care about me using the word mudblood?" 
"Yes, I do," he said. My laugh slipped off my face.

"Speaking of, is this what the hesitation is about? Are each of you waiting for the other to make a move?"
"We aren't waiting for anything," Draco argued, but his hand was shaking.
"It seems to me, that both of you are hesitant. Here you are, both of you with wands, and me alone and defenseless. Why have you not acted?"
I didn't answer. I felt suppressed fear and anger pound through me.
"Let us discuss your options, Emma."
I saw my hand shaking, and I gripped my wand tighter to steady it. "I haven't got any options! This is my only option!"
"Ah, Emma. I would be inclined to believe you, if it wasn't-"
"Stop talking," I said coldly. "You know nothing of what I've been through. My entire family, everyone I care about will die if I don't do anything. They don't even know what I am now."
"So, forgive me if I am being... insensitive, but if you do kill me tonight, will that not alert your family as to what you have become?"
I didn't answer. My world was ending, so was his. How could he be so CALM? It frustrated me beyond anything else.

I heard Dumbledore speak to Draco, undoubtedly talking him out of killing him. I didn't understand this man. Was he trying to talk himself out of being killed, or did he truly believe in the preciousness of our innocence?
'Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe.'

"...in case he used Legilimency against you," continued Dumbledore. "But now at last we can speak plainly to each other, no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your unintentional victims survived...
"I can help you, Draco."
His voice was soothing.
"No, you can't," said Draco, and his hand shaking very badly. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice."

"Come over to the right side, Draco, Emma, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your family tonight to hide them likewise. Your father, Draco, is safe at the moment in Azkaban, and when the time comes we can protect him too.
You are not killers..."

His offer was so compelling, it almost hurt my brain. I blinked slowly, gathering my wits. Maybe that was true, but tonight, we both had our wands pointed at The Albus Dumbledore's chest, and he was disarmed.
"But we got this far, didn't we?"
I sucked in a breath. "You're in my mercy now."

Dumbledore looked at me dead in the eye, and I froze. "No, my dear. It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now."

The words felt like a blow to my head. I took a deep breath, and made up my mind.

At the exact same time that I raised my wand the tiniest fraction, I saw Draco lower his the same.

And the door of the tower burst open.