Chapter 2: A Potter in the House of Malfoy
The next week was spent wandering the vast chambers of Malfoy Manor. No part of the manor was to be taken lightly. Though a vast portion remained above ground, I soon learned that it served as mere facade to the true realm beneath it, a labyrinth of stone and rich, old tapestries.
Touches of magic forbade me entrance to those rooms made for ritual and the deep library, where the family grimoires were likely held. There were many curses sunk deep in the stone, redcap curses meant to lead those not of the blood to various deaths. It was not a welcoming place to any guest.
On the other hand, the rooms above ground were bright and beautiful. The dance hall was magnificent. Magic made the walls stretch into sky, mutable with the occasion. Large marble columns, bred with tendrils of silver, stretched as least sixty feet. Crystal glories clenched tight in wait below a dome of glass.
Void of guests and hosts, it carried an aching emptiness, desperate for music. I didn't think my violin had made the journey from Bathilda's house, but it would have been inappropriate to fill the room with such crude fumbling anyway. Such places were made for grace and nothing else.
The dining halls came in varying moods, some somber to display the host's displeasure, but the best had glass doors leading to a veranda. The grounds spread out in excited green, swollen with spawn. The beds and plants were meticulously trimmed, but nothing, not even Malfoy magic, could curb the eagerness of summer. It held none of the variety of an international business and everything of an old European family. Ivy and roses and magical flora that piqued the green with purple and strange shades of orange.
Everything one would expect of the house of Malfoy, proud and rich of heritage.
I saw little of my owners, but it was natural that they would be watching me, deciphering the mysterious girl brought by Dumbledore. I hid nothing, inspecting the quality of the chairs and admiring the decor.
They had so many house elves I saw no real use for a servant like me. They enhanced their standing merely by hosting me, but there was little in labor that I could contribute. Their dinner appeared and left according to their will. The elves cleaned far better than I could dream. I suspected my true worth would come later when it came time to parade me before society.
Of course I knew they had a son, Draco Lucius. I spent five days acclimating to the manor's hostile attitude before I met him. Malfoy Manor had three libraries, not including the one below ground. I did not know their individual history, but I found the one on the second floor in the west wing the most kindly. Its dominant color was red, a hue I had always been partial to. The walls fell into a circle, casements of cushioned stone lending seats to windows full of magicked sun. It remained forever noon in this room, the low ceiling creating a homeliness not present in any of the others.
Nearly at the end of my wandering, I'd returned to catch the titles I'd skimmed. At first, I did not see him. He'd taken a seat on a casement, in full view of the door but sheltered by rays of light. A book settled in his lap, propped by his hand, but he looked up when I entered.
He had his father's eyes, the same shape and silver lashes. But he was missing the elegance, the fortitude that defined Lucius Malfoy. His hair fell down informally, his shirt untucked, though everything about him remained the height of wealth and refinery.
Soon, the boy sneered, ruining the last visage of grace in his face. I stood to attention, my back straight but my shoulders low and undemanding.
"Well, another bloody Potter." He snapped the book shut, adding flare to his words.
An unbred Malfoy, nothing like his father. I hadn't expected this. I thought a wizard come into his inheritance would seem less like a child.
"Master Draco," I said simply, respectfully, tipping my head deep enough to show deference.
He blinked. Surprised I'd know the formalities? I adjusted my view of him again. But the shock faded quickly, succumbing to the child.
"Another of Dumbledore's precious Golden children," he said, trying to write me off. "You aren't going to be treated like royalty here." He gave an anticipating sneer, cruelty lighting his eyes like off crystal.
"I have no such expectations," I said and frowned. "I also am Dumbledore's nothing. I belong to Malfoy."
He raised one delicate brow, the arch absolutely perfect. "Really?" he asked.
I watched him stalk between us, reaching me in several drawn seconds. He pressed me against the bookshelf, a wand at my throat.
"Then, you won't object," he said in a voice like oil. His hand skirted my waist, floating upwards and groping my breast.
What a curious creature?
I readjusted the shelf along my back. "Of course not."
He glared for a moment then huffed indignantly and backed away, removing his hand, the picture of sullen toddler.
Draco Malfoy was a near carbon copy of his father, save the widow's peak. How could someone who looked so similar be so different. Did this boy even know the meaning of subtlety? I never knew such hotheaded creatures existed, especially of purebloods and heirs.
"Is it permitted to use your library, Master Draco?"
His stare was blatantly suspicious and surprisingly open. So much so that I had trouble controlling a smile. When he remained stubbornly silent, I removed a volume from the shelves. Most of the content of this library had been recorded before the advent of the printing press. Most were bound with crude dragonskin, which had been illegal for nearly a century. Wordless, the titles were scrawled in elegant calligraphy on the inside cover, most likely by the hand of a monk. The yellowed pages were bound together by horse string and preservation spells. The books on these shelves were probably the only ones in existence.
CuttingCursesandHemophilia. It came without an author, the starting C taking up a full quarter of the page. The second i in Hemophilia was marked off by several dots as the ink dripped. With a slight hum, I set it back on the shelf. My finger ran along the coarse spines, pulling out and putting back.
PotionsofPainandTolerance. I pulled out the volume.
Draco had retained his seat, pretending not to watch me, so I took my own, angled to be in his direct line of sight. I curled my legs beneath me, discarding my shoes. Certainly, it was hardly proper, but my stockings felt good against the leather and I rather liked the way Draco's eyes glazed over when he was shocked.
I will always remember that first meeting and in a way specifically different than I remembered my meeting with Lucius and his gorgeous wife. Draco was another animal. I knew without a doubt that Lord Malfoy was dangerous, that he enjoyed playing games with people's lives. I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that the whole world would have to change before his son could follow in his footsteps.
Lucius Malfoy was an arrogant creature. While Draco certainly carried the pride of an heir, his arrogance was of a shallower breed. Of course, I learned this much later, but it was part of the reason why I held Draco so dear to me. Much dearer than his sadistic father. I could never have told at that first meeting what made me smile. Indeed, even now, I can tell nothing of the nuisances of the heart, a being far more mysterious than magic.
o.O.o
After a while, Draco returned to his book, and I began to read mine. We sat in comfortable silent until it became time to change for dinner.
Dinner was a silent affair as usual. Meals were perhaps the most formal affair between purebloods, and even though the Malfoys had no guests, they maintained the decorum of an elite house. I had been trained to serve in such affairs and waited by the wall in my crisp serving gown, my gaze staunchly on the floor. I held the water and wine in cylinders of air. I knew enough wandless magic and concentration to balance them on the tilt of my fingers and had trained hard enough to hold it for hours.
I slid the liquid into their glasses, a shadow on the wall, not looking up from beneath my lashes. This too would have been a test, as very few servants retained any magic at all, much less to perform such a task. It increased the prestige of the family that I could do so.
The thought made me smile. For a moment, I was greedily captivated by the crest on my gown.
It was done in silver on the left breast. Two rams, proud and fierce, butted heads over a stylized M, the font thin and crisp. The potter crest was very similar save that it held the thrown back thrust of two stags, an traveler's cloak unfurled in the center.
I caught Draco staring at me. He sat further down than his parents, a distance that forbade any casual conversation. Manners dictated that I be invisible, but Draco didn't seemed to care, watching openly while he called for more wine.
I filled his glass, ignoring anything else, but his gaze might have well have been mercury, scratching my flesh. Later, I would wonder why I didn't take his stare as a challenge, like I did the glasses. Why I wouldn't modestly bury my head and think him foolish for believing he could tempt me.
But I looked up.
For a moment, it was just the two of us in that large, overdone room. A son sitting on his father's right, a spearing knife in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other, his eyes captured by a comely stranger. Though standing in my new Malfoy crest, I was nothing but an outsider in my master's home. Still, this was as close to a home as I would ever know.
Such things, though cold in their diamond beauty, were not so unapproachable.
o.O.o
The rest of the week passed quickly. On the seventh of August, I turned 17 and was legally bond to the Malfoys. No ceremony took place. Just a quiet understanding that my magic and life was bound to theirs. That I had now irrevocably become a part of them.
I was in the library again when Draco decided to make my life even more interesting.
His hostility towards me had ebbed. Whether because he knew I acknowledged his superiority or out of impatience and laziness, I did not know. Maybe it was out of pure boredom what he did next.
Long before I stopped reading, I noticed that Draco had been paying no attention to his book. At first, I thought he was deep in thought. However, I soon began to realize that his thoughts were somewhat less self-involved that day.
It came as no surprise to me when he rose out of his seat. However, what did surprise me was when he leaned quite close into my chair.
Smirking, he drew the book out of my hands. "Tell me. What precisely are you looking for? What do you want?"
The first thing that ran through my head, embarrassingly, was that Draco had rather high cheekbones. His smile was more leer, and I noticed that his teeth were all straight and white. I had never seen his eyes so close. Cerulean silver. I couldn't help but love the way they shone, like dents in well-worn armor.
"Whatever you want of me," I told him.
His gaze was full of rude disbelief. "Don't you know the feud between our families?"
He was rather naïve for an heir I thought.
"Your grandfather saved my uncle."
"Traditions are not what they used to be," he responded scornfully, but there was a sadness of a creature out of water in the back of his gaze. "The old bastard would have found a loophole."
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Dumbledore. I shook my head. "I was born to serve you. It's all I was meant to do."
He didn't believe me, but I didn't think he cared much either.
"You are nothing like Potter," he muttered, almost in disappointment.
"Harry Potter?" I asked.
He fixed me with a glare. "For all you look just like him," he muttered irritably.
"I wouldn't know, my lord. I've never seen him."
He stared at me incredulously for a moment then laughed. "You've never seen Harry Potter?"
He was still leaning into me, and I found that I also loved his laugh and the disheveled way his hair was flung into his face.
"No," I told him.
"Merlin," he finished, shaking his head.
"Is Harry Potter truly that important?" I asked.
Obviously, it was the wrong thing to ask. "No," Draco snapped, his pretty face sliding once more into a sneer. "He's a worthless, spoiled brat who hides behind everyone else whenever he's in trouble."
It took an effort not to laugh in his face. "As you say, Master Draco."
He stared at me with some unreadable expression. Then, he leaned further down. His lips met my own with a softness I had not expected. I had thought he would be harder, possessive, but the kiss was chaste and irritably gentle.
I had never been kissed before. I knew all about sex and the rituals surrounding it, but I had never imagined that someone would kiss me. It was something Bathilda didn't have to warn me against wanting.
But something surged within me. Logically, I knew he was teasing, trying to find a weakness that his violent approach had not won. I didn't care. I never knew that other people could be so warm and real to me.
I was forming myself into him, kissing him back. Distantly, I controlled myself and did not drag him atop me or, heaven forbid, loop my arms around his neck. But I was angry. I was angry that he was being so slow. It was impossible to pretend otherwise, to fake such vapid docility.
Then, he pulled away. I wanted to go with him, but I remained in my chair, wondering what he would do. I would have entrusted the world to him then if he asked, and he knew it. I let him see it.
I had never wanted something before. I wasn't even sure precisely what I wanted now. But the bubble of my existence had been punctured. I felt it fading, evolving into something else, brilliant with the anger of my kiss. What I would have given for Draco to give me an order then. Some, any use.
When I got to my room, Lucius was there, standing by the door. He was a tall man and his lean was as imposing as his stand. Arms crossed, hair falling over his shoulder from its loose tie, I saw the warning in his gaze. I would have been lying to say that I was not a little scared. And I would have been a fool not to be.
He left without speaking, and I let him leave without responding to the subtle display of power and the lingering threat that he marked at my door.
So he was a father after all. I respected his threat but found it silly as well. I had no will but Malfoy. To think that I would betray his son. The world outside the cottage was strange, that even Lucius Malfoy would not understand the depth of what I was.
o.O.o
The silence stretched on after Dumbledore finished speaking. The Order of the Phoenix staggered the room. Some stood and others sat but they were all entirely speechless.
"… I have a cousin?"
Harry's numb voice broke the spell as the members simultaneously began yelling out across the table.
"Why was I not told of this?" McGonagall half yelled and half accused, her heavy Scottish lilt pervading the chaotic screeching.
Molly Weasley's voice, bolstered by rearing seven children, hovered over the uproar. "Where on earth have you hidden the child, Albus? Why wasn't she with Harry?"
"You hid her from her family!" If anyone was surprised by the anger in Remus Lupin's usually mild voice, they did not show it.
After the yelling carried back and forth for a bit, Dumbledore raised his single unmarred hand. The room settled into indignant murmurs. Dumbledore's quiet eyes met Harry's over the table, and the room finally fell completely silent.
"Why?"
One word, saying everything and nothing at the same time, fell from Harry's lips. It spoke nothing of the outrage in the beautiful eyes behind bulky glasses. There was no twinkle in Dumbledore's gaze. As he spoke, he certainly looked every bit of his prominent age.
"I promised your grandfather, Harry."
Lupin leaned carefully over the table. "What are you talking about?" he said, butterscotch eyes weary but demanding.
Dumbledore's gaze never left Harry's, who did nothing more than stare back. The old man took in his breath.
"The Potters were an old family, Harry," he said, addressing only the boy sitting across from him. "And while James certainly never carried any of the old fashions into his life, his father did."
He steepled his fingers but did not stop talking.
"He never told me the details of the incident. I don't believe anyone but the two of them truly knew. But, the fact remains. Abraxas Malfoy saved your grandfather's life."
Several of the older family members gasped, knowing what such a thing would mean to the descendents of the Ancient Houses. Minerva paled, her fingers twitching like the tail of an angry cat.
"Cayden Potter was the patriarch of the Potter line at the time," Dumbledore continued, ignoring everything but Harry's unwavering gaze. "There are certain rules, rules that reside even today, that he was obliged to follow. He now owed a life debt to the Malfoy patriarch, the same type of life debt that is owed you by Peter Pettigrew."
Dumbledore's blue eyes, soft as a robin's egg and as knowing as the sky, pierced Harry. "By law, Peter's life is forfeit to you."
Harry opened his mouth to speak, a scornful reply on his tongue, but he was forestalled by the slight lowering of Dumbledore's gaze. Harry remained silent and Dumbledore continued.
"However, Cayden's life was much more complicated. As a patriarch, his duty to his family was stronger than that to the debt. Normally, the debt would have fallen to the next of kin. However, his only son was already promised to another, your mother, Harry. And she was pregnant.
"His brother Osric took the responsibility that would have fallen to you by offering his daughter, Rosalind. As a matter purely between two old houses, they kept the affair quiet. When Osric and his wife both died, I decided that it should remain a secret as well. Rosalind Potter is your second cousin, Harry," he said, his summer eyes sad over his wrinkled face and half-moon spectacles.
Itwouldhavefallentome?Harry thought quietly.
"But where has she been all these years?" Molly asked impatiently.
Dumbledore turned his gaze to her. "Cayden bade me to keep her safe until she reached of legal age. She was to be a secret," he said again, "which I fully enforced after entrusting Harry to the Dursleys. Voldemort could not know."
In the shudders that went around the room, Harry raised his head.
"Where is she?" he demanded. Low though it was, it seemed to fill the room.
Dumbledore looked down at him. "I kept her with a dear friend who could school her. Now, she is with the Malfoys."
"WHAT!"
No one could be sure which voice screamed it first, as over half the Order converged on the table. Harry noticed Ron yelling beside him, his freckled face red with anger. Again, Dumbledore remained stoic in the onslaught. He waited patiently for them to subside once more.
"She is 17," he said in a clear voice. Several people scoffed at him. "It would serve no purpose for Voldemort to kill her," he promised. "As soon as she set foot in Malfoy Manor, the Malfoys became responsible for her wellbeing."
"That's the whole problem!" Ron yelled and was for once not admonished by his mother.
Dumbledore looked at all of them silently. This time his gaze barely lingered on the seemingly only composed person across from him. He let out a deep sigh and looked down at the table.
"I am sorry."
He looked up into the startled gazes around him. However, Harry noticed that this time, he was glossed over completely.
"But it was her or Harry."
No one spoke. The numbness that had consumed Harry broke. He rose. In the silence, his chair screeched across the floor. He left the room, and they could only watch his back.
The door, blown by a nonexistent breeze, closed behind him, leaving the Order alone.
