Red Dragons

Chapter One

By Mell8

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A.N.

Previously titled Dragon's Strike, Red's Salvation. I decided the old title was too long and found something a bit better.

I've completely edited this story! It has always been one of my favorites, but since I wrote it so long ago there were a lot of amateurish issues that needed to be fixed; things like wrong homophones, basic grammar issues, and punctuation mistakes around speech were all terribly, horribly wrong.

I haven't overhauled the plot because I like it so much, so if you've read this story before you'll recognize a lot. I just cleaned it up quite a bit and I finally decided to break it up into chapters, rather than leave it as a one shot.

I hope you all enjoy!

Mell8

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Present:

"Hey, D-man. Wha'dya sugge'st?" Draco curled his lip, looked down at the bruised boy crouching at his feet, and brushed a lock of white blond hair out of his face. "Ay mean, we're gettin' trashed!"

Draco surveyed the wreckage in front of him and let a cold smile slide onto his face. "Not for long," he murmured and the boy laughed.

They were in an old abandoned warehouse, their headquarters, and the fight was nearly over. Injured bodies littered the ground and the last combatants were letting their fists fly in bloody arcs. Nearly ten of the Poison Adders were still standing while the Dragons were nearly decimated. Only Draco and their leader, affectionately named Blade owing to his skill with sharp weapons, were still standing.

Usually gang fights were one-on-one battles fought in the back alleys of the city. This fight was different in the fact that nearly thirty of the Adders had snuck into Dragon territory and had ambushed a strategy meeting. Draco was used to gang battles starting with small bloody attacks of unknown origin that slowly escalated into an all out fight like this one. No one was expecting the Adders to show up tonight so the Dragons had been horribly unprepared.

Blade was taking on three Adders in the center of the warehouse. His long knives were in his hands and every time he moved another slash opened on a body of the enemy.

Blade was doing well against his opponents but there was no way the man could defeat the ten waiting Adders with all of the injuries he had sustained. If all the Dragons lost, the Adders would take their territory and the Dragons would be disgraced as a fighting gang.

Draco carefully placed his bag next to the injured boy before moving into position.

"Watch this for me," he said with a glare at the boy. His wand and the other magical items that Draco had managed to hold onto all these years were hidden in the bag. The boy knew not to open it as the last person who had peaked into Draco's belongings had mysteriously disappeared. That was more than enough deterrent against anyone opening Draco's bag. Besides, he did not need his wand for an easy fight like this.

"Blade!" Draco called with a smirk on his face. "Do you want me to take out the rest for you?"

Blade took a second to glance away from his fight to look at Draco. "Do what you want, Dragon," Blade grinned. "Just leave them alive this time."

Draco sighed and nodded. He kept walking into the middle of the fray until one of the uninjured Adders noticed.

"Where 'dya think yer off ta, punk?" The man was a good head taller than Draco and easily outweighed the blond in muscle mass. Draco just smirked. The man snarled. "I'm gonna erase tha' smug look off ya face!" His meaty fist swung up from his side into Draco's stomach. The blond did not try to avoid the hit.

Draco was pushed back half a step but his face never flinched. He lifted an eyebrow at the man.

"Shall I show you why I'm called the Dragon's Strike?" Draco hissed. The man sneered and lifted his fist again.

This time as the fist came down, Draco slid to the side. When the brute was unbalanced he punched him in the back of the neck. He went down into an unconscious lump on the floor joining the rest of the offal of bodies. Draco turned and ducked under the foot of his next opponent who had snuck up on the blond. Draco finished him with one deadly stroke.

The rest of the fight became a blur of bodies and fists and dodging weak attempts at taking down the Dragon's Strike. All too soon Draco was standing alone in a circle of moaning Adder's.

He panted for breath and assessed his injuries. He had one bruise on his shoulder that might freeze the muscle if another fight happened before it had a chance to heal and a small knife slash on his forearm that would need stitches. Otherwise the fight had been painless and far too easy. He was barely even winded.

"Ah, my handsome Dragon! Yet again you have come to rescue of the Dragons." Blade came over from his own circle of downed bodies and clapped Draco on the back. "You make me gladder after every fight that I decided to allow you to live."

Draco sneered. "I could have killed you then, I can kill you now."

Blade laughed and turned away from Draco to the small group of conscious Dragons who were slowly standing despite the fact their injuries must make every move painful.

"My dear Dragon's Strike, you would be nothing, nothing, without me. I know this, you know this, and because of this you will never betray my trust."

Draco laughed quietly. If Blade knew exactly who and what Draco was, the leader of the Dragon gang would be afraid of him. He was Draco Malfoy, the most wanted Death Eater in the world for the murder of Albus Dumbledore and a fully capable Wizard in his own right, and if any of the Muggles he currently ran with found out…well, it would not be pretty.

"Besides," Blade looked over his shoulder with a smirk on his face, "whomever you're hiding from can't find you as long as you're under my protection." He saw Draco's look of fury and laughed.

III

"Report Jonnie! I want to know exactly how the Poison Adders where not only able to find our training headquarters but were able to bring a force that big, unnoticed, into our territory." Blade was sitting back in his chair, slouched down as if he were completely at ease, but Draco could see the contained fury in Blades' otherwise casual stance.

Jonnie was on his knees in front of his leader. There was blood running out of his smashed nose and his face was swelling quickly. He looked around the room furtively as if looking for an answer or for help from his comrades. Nothing was forthcoming.

Draco already knew the answer; he had walked past Jonnie at his watch station right before the attack and the idiot had been sleeping the deep sleep of a drunkard. Blade had sighed in resignation when Draco told him. Now they were waiting to see if Jonnie would tell the truth.

His brown eyes lighted on Draco and Draco could almost see his thinking process as an idea formed. Draco was leaning against the dirty wall drinking piss poor beer in the dirty back room of a bar in a back alley in Dragon territory. How, Draco mused, had he fallen so low? He had been the richest man in the Wizarding World and now he was a guttersnipe.

"Dragon did it! I saw 'im!" Jonnie pointed towards Draco with a shaking hand. "He was doin' his rounds, ya know, an' when dem Adders started sneakin' in I saw 'im turn away. When I tried ta sound da 'larm he come up be'hind me and 'it me."

"Really," Blade said with a quiet smile. "Dragon, what do you have to say about this accusation?"

Draco slowly put his beer down on a grimy table and stalked over to Jonnie. He gently stroked the boy's cheek before suddenly gripping him around the neck. With that one hand Draco lifted Jonnie up off the ground.

"I believe he is lying, Blade," Draco crooned darkly. His face was the blank mask he used to keep all of his feelings from showing. His ice gray eyes were cold and emotionless. Slowly Draco began to squeeze his fingers around Jonnie's neck until the boy was struggling in his grasp and gasping for breath. "Maybe he would like to reform his previous statement," Draco added and a small smile lit his face, making everyone in the room shiver in fear.

"Mayhap," Blade said with an unconcerned shrug. He was used to Draco's odd moments and understood the blonde's various flashes of insanity. "Strangely, I think you might need to put him down before that can happen."

Draco laughed and let the murderous facial expression he had learned while a Death Eater slide onto his face as he leisurely lowered the quivering boy back down to the ground. His arm had never started shaking from strain like a normal Muggles' would have.

That was something he had learned soon after entering the Muggle world. For some reason he was physically stronger than an average Muggle. It was like the difference in muscle between a female and a male. In general, if a woman worked really hard she could become as strong as a strong man the same way that a Muggle who worked out could become as strong as Draco.

He wondered if it was because he was a pureblooded wizard. Draco had never gotten in any physical fights while in Hogwarts; everything had been about magic, especially duels. He did not know if he was stronger than a mudblood or half-blood as he had never tested it. It could also be because of a spell or potion his father had foisted upon him during his youth. Draco could not be sure. All he knew was that this specific advantage was the only reason he was still alive.

III

Past:

All he really remembered of that last horrible night was following Professor Snape out of the castle and across the grounds. The ghastly Dark Mark hung low in the sky, coloring everything in a sickly green light as Draco stumbled down the lawn.

"Listen, Draco. When you get to the Forest you will be out of the wards. Apparate somewhere safe."

Draco glanced back at Snape, horror in his eyes, but the greasy haired man was busy taunting Potter. Clearly Snape did not know that Draco had never learned to apparate. He knew the logistics of it, destination, determination, and deliberation, but had been too pre-occupied with fixing the vanishing cabinet and worrying about his mission to really pay attention in his lessons.

He ran into the tree line and saw, with a hint of panic, Snape disapparate. Therefore, it was up to himself to get somewhere safe.

He tried picturing that damned hoop in his bedroom at home, and then he tried focusing on his mother's face. He opened his eyes again only to see trees and saw, to his horror, that Aurors were beginning to enter the woods to search for him.

He took a quick step forward—if he could not apparate he could always run—and looked over his shoulder to see which direction would be safest. His foot slipped over a wet root and he twisted as he fell. Suddenly Draco was hurtling through blackness, squeezing, airless, blackness. From far away he felt his body hit the ground before everything went dark.