Title: Rebellion
Author: Wildecate
Email: wildecate@hotmail.com
Summary: Draco Malfoy rebels.
Notes: Set post BTVS S7 and post ATS S4 and definitely post OOTP.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.

Dumbledore was seated working peacefully at his desk and glanced up as a bright green fire flared up in the grate. The figure of Draco Malfoy emerged from the flames, stepping on the rug and shaking off the soot that clung to his clothes.

“Mr Malfoy, you’re back early” Professor Dumbledore laid down his quill and stared at the blonde haired boy intently.

Draco Malfoy gazed back at him levelly, a shuttered look on his face. He wasn’t going to be pushed around by this man. He was Draco Malfoy and this time, he wouldn’t forget it. He wouldn’t be led astray be delusions of being Draco Potter. Once a Malfoy always a Malfoy.

“LA air not agree with you?” Dumbledore asked.

“Apparently not, Sir” Draco replied, hefting his broomstick on to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry to hear that” Dumbledore eyed his student concernedly “Do I take it a decision was reached?”

Draco, who was heading down the steps towards the door out of Dumbledore’s chamber, dropped his broomstick and strode back to the Professor’s desk.

“So much for all of your assurance that I would be safe, free from being watched! So yes, Professor Dumbledore, you can take it a decision was reached.”

“It was the safest place we could think of at the time. Rupert Giles is the closest thing you have to family who isn’t still connected with Voldemort. We thought it might help, the time away.”

“We?”

“Professor Snape and myself. He has a great deal of regard for you.”

“I was followed. I was watched.”

Dumbledore looked extremely worried “I had hoped that Miss Rosenburg’s spell would be able to repel Voldemort’s followers for a short period of time.”

“Well it didn’t work.”

Draco turned away from the Professor and picked his broom up again.

“Even if I wanted to” he said, in a low voice “I can’t. There’s too much at risk if I do. Too many people would be in danger.”

“And if you don’t?” Dumbledore asked.

“If I don’t?” Draco sighed and his shoulders dropped suddenly and he looked weary, tired, exhausted from fighting his place any longer.

“If I don’t, it means certain people are safe.”

“How very courageous of you, Draco” there was no sarcasm in his headmaster’s tone.

“My name is Malfoy.”

Giles knocked on Dawn’s door before opening it cautiously, well prepared to duck in case she threw a shoe at his head.

“Dawn?”

“Go away”

Gone was the angry shouting girl of half an hour ago. Dawn was sitting on the bed facing the door and she looked up as Giles came in, closing the door behind him.

Her face was tear stained, her eyes reddened with crying and Giles suddenly hated himself.

“Dawn, I’m so sorry”

“It’s OK. It’s not your fault. You can’t help it if some stupid, sodding English boy is a total and utter lying bastard.”

Giles’ mind noted briefly that Dawn had picked up Draco’s speech pattern, he never would have heard her use the word “sodding” before.

“Actually” Giles sat down on the bed next to her, the mattress sagging beneath his weight. He pulled his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose – a gesture which told Dawn she wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say.

“Actually, I rather think it is my fault. Partly, at least.”

“How could it be your fault?” Dawn’s confusion cleared and she looked up at him. “You knew.”

“I knew” he confirmed. “Draco Malfoy is my godson. I attended school with his father, Lucius. When Lucius married Narcissa and they had a little boy, Draco, Narcissa requested that I stand as god father.”

“You sound like you knew Narcissa very well” Dawn commented bitterly as she caught the tone of love Giles used.

“Not as well as I thought I did.” Giles remembered the laughing girl he had fallen for at School in comparison to the remote, haughty young woman who had told him coldly that she was engaged to be married to Lucius Malfoy. She had broken his heart that day.

“So? You’re Draco’s godfather.” Dawn prompted.

“You have to understand, Dawn, there’s a whole world you don’t know about – witchcraft and wizardry are part of every day life. The school that Draco attends is a school for magic users. Had Willow been picked up by the American school, she would have attended there and been trained.”

“Draco is a magic user?”

“He is. Very skilled from what I’ve been told.”

“He hasn’t used his magic here at all though, I don’t understand” Dawn felt that she was saying those words a lot.

“He’s not allowed to. Not until he finishes school.”

“Great” Dawn looked down at her fingertips, picking at a straggly bit of skin.

“Draco’s family, the Malfoys are part of the aristocracy of the wizarding world in Britain. They are termed “pure bloods” completely magical. Lucius has some very definite views on muggles – non magical people.”

“Why?”

Giles sighed and put his glasses back on. Dawn watched as he stood and began to pace around the room. It occurred to her how much he had changed. Gone was the tweed, the stuffy attitude, the stuttering. It had all been an act, a disguise. Like Draco’s. Now Giles was closer to how he had been when he was younger than he had ever been. Dressed in battered jeans, a well washed shirt and a sloppy jumper had become his uniform now. His hair, once brown was now peppered with grey, his face well worn in now with wrinkles that hadn’t been there five years ago. She realised how much she loved him, how much he meant to her. He had been more than a father to her than her own father had been. She knew there were things that he kept hidden, things in his past that he would rather they didn’t know. It looked now as if his past was coming back with a vengeance and there was nothing he could do about it.

“I’ll start the beginning. There is a wizard, he’s evil to the core in a way I couldn’t even describe. His followers are called Death Eaters, they are all tattooed with his mark, its called the Dark Mark. Voldemort, that’s the wizard’s name, only has to touch the mark for each Death Eater and we are supposed to go straight to him.” Giles pulled his jumper over his head and rolled up his sleeve to reveal the black tattoo that marred his tanned skin.

“I thought that…”

“Was the Mark of Eyghon? Yeah. It was already there. Lucius, Ethan and I had already gone down that path. It seemed just as easy for Voldemort to use that sign for me.”

“So you were a Death Eater?” Dawn was incredulous.

“I was. I was what Draco is expected to become. I got out. I can’t even believe that I did. I had already started to regret what was happening, the havoc we were causing, the people who were being killed. My father and the Council gave me an option – a way out. To be a Watcher. They dealt with everything, faked my death, covered their tracks. Only Ethan knew. He caught me as I was leaving – I had to tell him. He kept my secret though, the only noble thing he’s ever done in this life.”

Dawn sat silently as Giles spoke, telling her of Voldemort’s followers, of Draco’s family, his mother Narcissa. Giles explained Draco’s place in the world and why he hadn’t wanted to say anything to anyone, why Draco had stayed silent on the subject of himself.

“There are very few things that Draco holds dear in this world. His mother is one. And I think that you are another.”

Her head jerked up at this. “Me? I don’t think so.”

Giles dropped to his knees in front of her and took hold of her hands.

“Dawn. You are in danger. The two men who you met, Crabbe and Goyle. Unsavoury characters but they’re Death Eaters as well. Probably sent by Lucius to keep an eye on Draco. They know you now, Dawn – you’re a weak spot and Draco is making sure you can’t be exploited.”

The tears which had stopped for a while began to flow out of Dawn’s eyes again.

“He was trying to protect me?” she whispered in horror “Oh god, all those things I said to him.”

“Were perfectly justified. But now you understand.”

“Oh god” Dawn whispered again “I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself Dawn. You weren’t to know. He should have told you.”

“Where is he?” Dawn stood up suddenly “I have to find him. Apologise.”

“Last I saw he was downstairs, with Buffy.”

Dawn brushed her tears away impatiently. She hugged Giles hard, almost squeezing the life out of him before running out of the room, down the stairs and into the lobby.

Giles followed at a slower rate, walking down the stairs as she ran out into the garden calling his name.

“Draco? Draco!”

She ran back in again as Giles reached the lobby.

“Where is he?” she asked, looking around her.

“He left.” Buffy now came in from the garden. “He went back.”

“When?”

“Just now I think. He said he didn’t want to be protected, he said he had people of his own to look after. He went back.”

Dawn’s face crumpled up and Buffy moved to hold Dawn in the same way Draco had once held Buffy.

“It’s OK honey. It’s OK.”

Buffy’s eyes met Giles who smiled sadly but shook his head. Buffy understood very clearly what he was telling her. Draco was gone. And he was not coming back.