Infected
closed starter with @chrispeenus
After the Battle of Hogwarts, things began to change in the Wizarding World, for better or for worse.
Child victims of the war were given the option to continue their studies at Hogwarts or to take an honorable leave, many of students taking the latter option. Now ex-students, returning to their homes and their families, many students struggled to adjust back to everyday life. Facing the traumas of what they had faced and many losing friends and family, much of the population throughout Britain's Wizarding World was struggling to recoup to how things once were.
And for a while, that seemed to work. With forced smiles and a willingness to move forward, Britain looked like it could maybe one day remember Voldemort as a distant nightmare.
That wasn’t far from the outcome they earned, but what plagued the world was debatably far worse than what they had faced at Hogwarts only a year ago.
It started off with only a few disappearances. The disappearances then multiplying, people found themselves being attacked on the street by wizards that had seemingly gone mad. No spells appeared to kill them and they’d bite those who they managed to grab. Out of fear, people began to stay indoors and try to avoid the outdoors, but the infection of the bites rapidly spread and in a mere twenty-four hours, the wizards that had been bitten were not only dead, but reanimated and incredibly hostile, like the ones seen on the streets.
Like a swarm of locusts, the undead began to rise among the streets, taking over towns and eventually cities. Many students fled to Hogwarts for sanctuary, only to ultimately find even the old castle no longer safe. Spreading to the muggle world, the undead became a world-wide epidemic; borders shut down and everyone lived in fear as they tried to find a way to survive.
A year had passed and it was a sickening thing to say that zombies had become ‘the norm’ of sorts.
After Voldemort’s death, Draco’s life, while safer, left him without any meaning. A traitor to his school, his friends dead, his family torn apart, Draco was struggling to get by in his day-to-day. Both equally having no one else to rely on except for his parents, and yet also wanting to be anywhere but by their sides, he was at a loss. If he stayed, he faced the scrutiny of his father and mother, and if he went outside, he face the yelling of the public who believed he and his family should all be imprisoned, bearing the marks on their arms to prove it.
But things couldn’t get possibly worse. The worst of it was over, it was time for everyone to try and move on with their lives. It was said that ‘time was the best healer’ and as much of a hippy phrase that it sounded, it was the one thing Draco could hope for.
Then it turned out that time enjoyed playing torturous games with them and just loved to try Draco’s patience.
When zombies had first started appearing, Draco and his family stayed barricaded inside their home. No one would leave the house and no one would enter. People had come knocking, begging, needing somewhere to go, but Lucious’ answer was always the same. Family first, and as shitty as Draco knew it made them look, he agreed with his father whole heartedly for once.
Draco wouldn’t say that the epidemic mended his family life in anyway, but he couldn’t argue the fact that it did bring them closer in some ways.
Until one day, after leaving for food, Draco’s mother never returned. No message, no warning. Just, gone. Surely, she couldn’t have died, right? Right?
The missing case of Narcissa then proceeded to wreck whatever mending relationship had begun between Lucious and Draco to say the least. The two argued, fought, and drove each other to the point that their hair may as well caught fire. Neither could withstand being around each other for too long of times, it not being terribly uncommon for Lucious to fly off to find time for himself.
During one of their arguments, Draco found himself left in the house without any food and his father, still gone. Not unusual, but normally he left something in the house for Draco to eat and drink.
Having left the house a few times previously to go on supply runs, Draco wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with dealing with the zombies, but that wasn’t to say he was fully used to them either.
If nothing else, Draco had learned a few things in his outings--muggles could be killed by spells, wizards needed to have the head destroyed. While out, if you take out one of the undead, Draco would always completely remove the head for his own paranoia’s sake. Along with that, he knew he should always pack light and look out for himself first and foremost. He’d come across enough desperate wizards, ready to manipulate or even go as far as kill other wizards so that they could loot their victims. If Draco wanted to survive, he had to keep to himself and only worry about his own life.
It was a bold decision, but if Draco knew anywhere that likely had not been completely looted out yet, it would be Borgin and Burkes, where his father had regularly frequented to sell and purchase particular illicit goods. The local supermarket was a no-go, having been looted ages ago, and Draco didn’t trust himself enough to enter people’s homes by himself, so to Borgin and Burkes it was.
Entering the familiar shop, it was incredibly dusty, a sight that made his nose crinkle up in disgust. For the most part, the shop looked almost entirely untouched. Good, surely the old man had to keep some sort of non-perishable food around here then, right?
“Lumos.” He whispered, his wand lighting up the dark and dank building, slowly exploring around before taking his time up the steps. One hand on his wand, one with a bat, Draco began to explore the upper level with slow, uneasy steps. In his backpack slung across his shoulders he had a few other essentials, but not much.