Artemis

I could feel my mind racing as we reached the spiral staircase to Dumbledore’s office. I stared at it blankly for a moment. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to go through with this. It wasn’t like me to kill someone, at least not someone I knew. My thoughts swirled, churning. Even now, I still didn’t know how we were going to pull this off.

I felt a nudge against my shoulder, shaking me away from my subconscious. I looked to my right and saw Malfoy giving me an expectant look. “Are we just going to stand here, or are we going to kill him?” he asked.

“Yea, we’re going,” I muttered almost incoherently. I looked to the door. And I said the only password I could ever remember Dumbledore having. “Lemon drops.”

Right before my eyes, the statue twirled, allowing us access to the stairs. Malfoy and I began our climb, slowly towards the room that held our destiny. Upon reaching the room I drew a deep breath before stepping into the dim lighting of his office. Dumbledore sat at his desk, working on who knows what. I cleared my throat, hoping to get his attention. Sure enough, the old man looked up at us.

“Good evening, boys,” he greeted, wearily. “What brings you here after I accept visitors?”

I looked to Malfoy, hoping he had a witty response to Dumbledore. When he said nothing, I knew I had to do it. “I don’t suppose you’ll consider a peaceful surrender?” I wondered, carefully drawing my wand from my pocket, aiming it at the headmaster. I noticed Draco had done the same.

He was taken aback for a moment, almost shocked that this was happening. “Lower your wands boys. Whatever this is, we can talk about it without them involved,” he muttered calmly, though I had noticed he had pulled his wand out as well.

“Expelliarmus!” I cast, knocking his wand out of his hands, causing it to fall to the floor several feet away from him.

“You don’t get it old man,” Malfoy hissed. I wasn’t expecting him to go that far. “We have a job to do.”

“Then go right along and do it, boys,” Dumbledore insisted.

I glanced over to see how evil Draco truly looked right now. I suddenly wondered the same about my face as I added, “We have to kill you.”

Dumbledore was silent for a few minutes, piecing things together in his brilliant mind. “I trust that Lord Voldemort has put you two up for this?” When neither one of us responded he continued. “You know you don’t have to go through with it. The Ministry will protect you, and all those you care about. Your families, Ms. Taylor and Ms. Parkinson...”

“You obviously haven’t noticed we’ve infiltrated the Ministry,” I brought up. “We’re in control. We have all the power. And in order to keep it, we have to get rid of you.”

Dumbledore seemed to be at almost a loss for words for a moment. “You boys don’t have the kind of character to kill someone. You don’t have it in you. Neither one of you do. You both are better than that.”

"You don't know what I'm capable of; you don't know what I've done!" Malfoy retorted, rather aptly.

I decided to play with his mind. I used my vampiric speed and moved to the other side of the office, allowing Malfoy and I to practically corner him. “And you obviously don’t know who you’re dealing with,” I hissed. “I am capable of more than you could ever fathom.” I was sure he had caught a glimpse of my fangs in the lighting, and, quite frankly, I didn’t care.

Dumbledore sighed deeply. “Artemis, I was always aware of your special abilities. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been able to get in to Hogwarts. No one wanted a vampire around the other students, but I didn’t find reason to discriminate against you. After all, your parents were outstanding so the same was expected of you.” He paused for a moment. “Though none of us expected you to become a Death Eater. What would your mother think?”

My mother…. I hadn’t even thought about her in all of this. She never knew I was in this, never knew I was given this task. What would she think of me? I shook it off. This had to be done. I’d have to worry about my mother and her feelings later on.

“My mother has nothing to do with this,” I eventually replied. I kept my wand steady, though my mind was beginning to lose its drive to continue. “It’s over. You lose.” I kept my wand pointed at the old man’s face. I took a deep breath and readied myself for what I was about to say. “Ava-”

My Unforgivable Curse was cut short when I caught someone come into the room from out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Snape standing between Draco and myself. Dumbledore also noticed and greeted my professor.

“Good evening, Severus,” he greeted weakly.

“Good evening, Headmaster,” Snape droned. He didn’t even look at us as he said, “I see the boys haven’t completed their task as requested.” Before anything else could be said, he drew his wand and said the words neither Malfoy nor I could bring ourselves to say, “Avada Kedavra.”

And with a flash of green flaming light, Dumbledore fell to the ground, dead. Malfoy and I stared at his lifeless body for several moments before Snape left the room, leaving us there alone. I turned to Malfoy, who had a look of unknown terror on his pale face. I had never seen him look so disturbed in my whole life.

“You… okay Draco?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Let’s… let’s get the hell out of here…”

I nodded and we turned to exit the office when we realized we probably weren’t going to be leaving anytime soon. Coming down the corridor towards us were Harry and Ron, both with very unpleasant looks upon their faces. I wasn’t sure why they looked so frazzled, but they soon answered my question.

“You’re no good, Fowl! You know that, right?!” Harry shouted at me.

“No good? What do you mean ‘no good?’ I didn’t do anything wrong,” I shot back.

Ron decided to jump in. “You know damn well what you did. You used Harry to kill Dumbledore!”

I rolled my eyes. So that was what this was all about. “I didn’t kill Dumbledore, so let’s get that straight. And whoever told you that I did is an idiot.”

“So now you’re calling Harry an idiot?” Ron questioned.

“You stay out of it, momma’s boy,” Malfoy glared at Ron.

“Leave my mum out of it,” Ron hissed back. “She has nothing to do with this mess you have created.”

“If she wasn’t so fat, her Patronus wouldn’t be a cake,” Malfoy added, though it fit nowhere into the argument. Something told me he had been sitting on that joke for quite some time.

Ron lunged towards him. In the process, I had noticed my wand was still drawn and launched a spell at him. Ron crashed into the ground, head first. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what I used against him. He got back to his feet, and Harry stood in front of me, angrier than he was when he had entered the room.

“I can’t believe I believed you,” he spat.

“Most people don’t,” I shrugged. “I didn’t think you would to begin with. I’m just as surprised as you are that you did. And look where it got you.”

“Exactly! You killed him!” Harry screamed. I thought I heard my ear drum rupture, but it didn’t. “Dumbledore is dead, and it’s all your fault!”

I was really getting sick of being accused of killing him. “I. Didn’t. Kill. Dumbledore. For. The. Last. Time. Snape killed Dumbledore.”

“You would’ve killed him if Snape didn’t walk in,” Malfoy added, at the worst time ever.

“Shut up, you’re not helping!” I yelled at him.

Malfoy didn’t say another word as Harry continued his rant. “You have gone too far. You have humiliated me, my friends. You betrayed my trust, not to mention that of Nikkie and Audrey. I bet she doesn’t even know you did this.”

I was okay with his argument until he drug Audrey into it. He didn’t know us, and now was the time to let him know exactly how much he didn’t know. “As a matter of fact, Audrey does know what was supposed to happen tonight. And I told her to go back to the dormitory. You think you know her, but you don’t know her at all, even though she spends all that time with Nikkie. But I guess that’s suspected. You thought you knew me, of all people, but you never even got close to the real me.”

Harry, as I knew, was never the most level-headed person. I awaited the hell he was sure to try to counter me with. When he drew his wand, I knew it was on. Let the duel begin.

Before I could utter any spell, Harry shouted, “Flipendo!”

 Next thing I knew I was flying backwards, flipping aimlessly. I hit the ground with a slight thud, but rebounded quickly, getting to my feet much quicker than he anticipated. I turned to him and launched, “Stupefy!” Harry dodged it, which pissed me off slightly, so I cast, “Levicorpus!” Harry didn’t dodge that one, and before he could figure it out he was dangling upside down by his ankles.

I glanced over to Malfoy. I hadn’t even noticed that he and Ron had started dueling as well. Ron was currently stupefied, lying on the ground. Malfoy looked over at me and I knew he was ready to get out of there just like I was. I took one last look at Dumbledore’s corpse, and knew there was only one last thing to do. I put my wand to the sky outside the open window, and in a whisper commanded, “Morsmordre.” I watched as a green light flew from my wand, bursting into the Dark Mark as it hit the sky.

As Malfoy and I decided to leave, Harry couldn’t help but shout one more thing, “You’ll never get away with this, Fowl!”

I ignored him, which I think annoyed him more than it would’ve if I had answered. We made our way out of the office area, down the spiral staircase and back into the main corridors. As we headed towards the Slytherin common room, I got a knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with flying through the air. I had a bad feeling, one about Audrey. My mind knew then we had to get back soon. She was in trouble…