No Higher Honour
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No higher honour. That was what Bella said after the Dark Lord had moved into our house. Mine and Lucius' house. There could be no higher honour than to have Him here.
But honour is cold company. As cold as shame. As cold as fear.
It is our house no longer. Merely the familiar walls and rooms and things of the place where we made our home together, that are now turned against us. The silver chatelaine Lucius gave me on our wedding day is useless now. The doors are locked, and my keys cannot open them. Where we may go, even within the house, is prescribed, restricted. And we have no say about it.
"You lost your authority when you lost your wand!"
That was what Bella said when – the prisoners – came here; before them, before the Snatchers, jeering at Lucius. Hate her as I may have done at that moment, she was right. The Dark Lord has taken everything from Lucius: his home, his power, his position, his wand, his freedom. For one mistake, he is wand-less, and his punishment is slow.
Where will it end?
I do not know, I only fear. For now there is Draco, too. And Bella. They too are both wand-less. They too are prisoners here.
We still have our house. We still have each other, Lucius and Draco and I. Except that fear drives up the barriers between us; and Bella's restless pacing around the house does not help.
Bella. I should pity Bella. My big sister, the oldest one, the one I always looked up to. She has nobody, now. Everything in her life has been for the Dark Lord. There is Rodolphus. But whatever love Bella ever had for him seems to have perished in Azkaban. Does Rodolphus still love her? I do not know. But the Dark Lord drives them apart, anyway. Since our fall, he does not come here.
Perhaps that, after all, is love. One less visitor to see our shame. There are plenty of others. They mock, they scorn, they laugh. All those who have always been so polite, so humble, towards Lucius; so grateful when his efforts kept them free after the first war. Now they sneer.
Like Severus Snape. It was probably a good thing Bella did not have her wand last time he came. He marched into the drawing room – what was once our drawing room. Some sealed message to be left for the Dark Lord. It could not, of course, be left in our hands. He left it sealed on the table, under a charm to stop us touching it, as if we were naughty children. Then he ran his finger along the mantelpiece and looked at it. And then at Bella. "Not quite the flair for cleaning that your cousin had."
At least he did not laugh at Bella's scream of rage. I used to laugh, when Bella or Lucius or our various guests told the tales of the muggles they hunted. A good hostess laughs at her guests' jokes; a good wife laughs at her husband's jokes. The only laughter in this house now is madness. That trapped, panicking fear we laughed at lives in our house, day and night. Night is worse. Lucius tosses and turns, moans, cries out. I lie awake each night as I am now, and fear. Where will it end? Why Draco too?
He does not toss and turn. I know – I listen at his door, some nights. Whatever else Bella has done to our son, she has at least taught him Occlumency well. The Dark Mark despoiling his wrist does not send him writhing with unconscious fear through the night, as it does Lucius. But I still listen, and then creep back along the hallway of doors locked against me, to lie beside Lucius and wait for morning. Another morning, another day, just like the last, of no higher honour, or shame, or fear. This is our life. Like our house, it has not quite been taken from us. Like our house, it is not ours, any more.
But it is not the daily facts of our existence that keep me here, lying awake, tonight. It is the thought of tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I must beg. I must bow and crawl and ask a question I dread to ask. I must ask if Draco will be allowed to return to Hogwarts, as all his peers will, with tomorrow's end of the Easter holidays.
It is not the asking that I dread, for I am asking for Draco, and I will go to the world's end on my knees on red hot coals for him. It is the answer that I dread.
Perhaps it will be 'no'. And then he must stay here, to share our moment by moment torture and mortal danger, imprisoned within these walls. Stay here, torn away from his rightful place in the House of Slytherin. And then his House mates will mock, and scorn, and laugh; secure in their favour or freedom from the Dark Lord, as Lucius' old companions do.
Or, perhaps, it will be 'yes.' But these long months have taught me that 'yes' will be, really, no better than 'no.' Draco would be safe, for the moment, in the comparative safety of the Carrows. But the Dark Lord will not let him go un-shamed. Draco is wand-less, and even did I dare ask, nothing will bring back his wand. There are other wand makers, now Ollivander is lost to us. But I know too well to ask that I will not be allowed to take Draco to the Coburg-Drury's wand shop in Kentish Town, or Cobb's in Tintagel. He has lost his wand. And the Dark Lord will send him to Hogwarts, in that state.
To be without your wand, is to be without your power. I do not mean influence, position, prestige. I mean to be crippled. To be without all that has made you, since the moment you were born magical.
I know this. I have seen what it has done to those I love; to Lucius, to Bella, to Draco in these last few weeks.
Tomorrow, I will know it first hand. Tomorrow I, like Lucius, like Bella, like those who beg along Diagon Alley, will be wand-less.
I will be wand-less for love.
Perhaps that will make all the difference.
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A/N: I was trying to write a Remus/Tonks one-shot. I think I missed!
For the Coburg-Drurys, see 'Blood Status'; for Bella, see 'Pawns'!