Narcissa had gone very still in her seat after Hermione uttered the name. Slowly, she asked her son, "Draco, why did Fenrir Greyback think that you were...involved with Astoria Greengrass?"
"Because I am."
At his answer, she twitched almost imperceptibly, and whispered, "Damn it, Draco." She took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her a little, and continued, "And how long has this liaison been going on?"
For all that he was still pale and looked like he could be sick again at any moment, Draco answered his mother's question with his head held high. "A few months now. After the incident, Snape entreated the Dark Lord not to punish me severely, so instead he put me in charge of the werewolves. Monitoring their activities. Keeping them in line."
Harry stiffened when he heard Malfoy say "the incident." That's all Dumbledore's death was? The bastard had watched him die in front of his own eyes not five minutes after receiving an offer of mercy and all his death was to him was an incident?
Sensing his rage, Hermione bumped Harry's shoulder and he relaxed slightly and continued listening to Malfoy's story.
"I think it pleased the Dark Lord that I had to spend a lot of time in close quarters with Greyback and has pack. Most of them were monsters, even in human form. They were dirty, perverse, uncivilized. Tori wasn't like that. She was kind and smart, and she told me what to do and who to talk to so I could manage The Dark Lord's will and get out in one piece. I-I fell in love with her."
Narcissa snapped, "Draco!"
"No! I'm in love with her. You and dad weren't much older when you announced your engagement." His eyes flashed when he said the last part, and Harry noticed that he carried the same cold fury as his mother, but with only a fraction of the self control.
Narcissa, meanwhile, was furious, but her anger manifested itself in a calm stillness and Harry imagined in that moment how easy it much have been for her to shoot Greyback. The angrier she was, the more steady her hands. "Your father," she said, "was not a werewolf."
"Tori's a pureblood."
Harry interrupted without thinking. "There's a pureblood werewolf?"
When both Malfoys turned to look at him, he instantly regretted speaking. Draco's cheeks were flushed and he was shaking slightly. It reminded Harry of the night in the bathroom and he found himself looking at the open neck of Draco's shirt to see if he could see scars.
Narcissa just looked murderous and, not for the first time that night, Harry wanted to kick Ron for his assessment of Malfoy's mother. How hard could it be, my arse.
So, Harry was very surprised when Draco, without even a hint of malice, answered his question. "There's a lot of pureblood werewolves. Greyback and his ilk went after children and they didn't much care what they're blood was as long as they tasted it fresh." He gave an involuntary shudder, which marred the illusion of composure he was trying to maintain in the face of a very angry mother. "Most of their families disown them. They go to orphanages or they're picked up by the pack. Tori's family wasn't like that. They tried. They taught her at home because having her at Hogwarts was too dangerous, even with her sister to look out for her. She told me they were going to let her try to join the second year class if Professor Lupin had worked out, but when people found out he was a werewolf, they ran him off."
"Professor Lupin went to Hogwarts." Harry wasn't sure why he made the observation, but it felt important.
Draco scoffed, but it lacked venom. "Yeah, and he almost killed someone because his friends tried to pull a prank. I heard the story from him and I heard it from Snape. I also heard it from Tori. The story of how Sirius Black and James Potter tried to kill Severus Snape using their best friend as a booby trap is used as a cautionary tale to the young werewolves that think they can be normal. It's bullshit."
Narcissa murmured, "Language, Draco," but she seem content to let the exchange continue for the moment.
Harry said softly, "My dad stopped it." His father was not to be used as a campfire tale to frighten baby werewolves.
Draco regarded him coolly. "Bully for him." He took a breath and continued. "Tori's parents taught her at home right up until the Dark Lord started recruiting the werewolves. Then Greyback started coming around again, hassling her family to give her up, saying it was her duty to join the pack. She ran away after she heard that he'd threatened her sister on a Hogsmeade weekend, and she's been with the pack ever since."
He turned back to address his mother directly, "But she's normal! She's a pureblood witch and she knows magic, which a lot of the wolves don't, and she knows manners, and she'd probably always know what fork to use at dinner, and she's..." He ran out of steam then, painfully aware of how ridiculous he must have sounded.
Narcissa replied to him, "The moment that girl's blood was infected, it stopped being pure." She might have gone on, but her eyes widened fractionally as something occurred to her, and she asked, "Draco, are you sleeping with her?"
Slowly, he nodded, and then everyone saw what it looked like when Narcissa Malfoy lost her composure.
As they listened to various iterations of, "How could you be so foolish?", "What you could have done to yourself!", "Putting your entire family at risk!", and "I love her, mum!", Hermione softly told Harry and Ron, "The probability of female-to-male lycanthropy transfer via sexual intercourse is 5%. It's higher in male-to-female relations, something like 8.5%."
Ron whispered, "Bloody hell, that means that if Malfoy shagged his girlfriend a hundred times, five of those times could turn him into a werewolf?"
Harry answered, "I'm not sure that's how math works, Ron."
Hermione rolled her eyes and continued, "There are ways to protect against it. The human partner can drink an infusion of wolfsbane and lavender. There are also some spells, but all of it is very highly regulated and none of the regular preventative spells cover lycanthropy. It's very unlikely Malfoy would have known any of this." She paused and smirked a little. "Of course, it's also very unlikely that he shagged his girlfriend one hundred times, Ron."
Harry whispered, "So he's probably okay?"
"Yeah, he's probably okay."
Narcissa, having shouted enough to fill her quota for the next year or so, settled herself back in her chair and stated plainly, "This is unacceptable, Draco. I know you know that."
Draco, having weathered his mother's outburst with his pride mostly intact, said nothing.
"Does anyone else know about your unfortunate liaison? If Greyback figured it out, there must be others. Does Severus know?"
Draco shook his head. "Snape doesn't know. I made sure of it. I think most of the werewolves knew. They could-" and he flushed deeply, "They could smell it on us. And I told Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle." He thought for a moment. "And Tori told her sister, Daphne, which means Blaise probably knows too. I think that's it."
Narcissa sighed. It had been a very long night. "Draco, you are going to go up to your room, you are going to owl all of your friends and tell them that your dalliance with a mongrel bitch has run its course, and you are to end this thing before you put yourself and your family at any more risk."
Now it was Draco's turn to shout. "I will not! Pansy and my friends understand that this is real love and fuck you if you don't! I'm not ending it. I'm going to marry her." He stopped short, as if only just realizing what had left his mouth. Then he took a quick breath and continued, "See if I don't. Besides, wolves mate for life."
The Malfoy family shouting match probably would have continued for longer if Hermione had been able to keep herself from interrupting, "Actually, that's not strictly true for werewolves..."
Both Narcissa and Draco quieted then and stared at Harry and his friends, as if suddenly noticing that their living room was presently occupied by teenagers and not just talking furniture. Then, shocking pretty much everyone, Narcissa began to laugh.
She laughed until her eyes watered and when she finally calmed down enough to speak, she said "Draco, go to your room, get cleaned up and get some sleep. We will deal with your poor decisions tomorrow after breakfast." She waved him out, and he hastened to go, for the first time noticing how much his mother resembled her mad sister when she lost her composure. He supposed he was lucky it didn't happen often.
Narcissa turned to the trio, still bound on the couch and ever-so worried that she had asked Draco to leave so that she could perform unspeakable tortures on them. She delicately wiped her eyes with her sleeve and said, "Now then, what am I going to do with you?"
Ron ventured, "You could let us go and we'll promise to be very sorry and never speak of this again?"
Narcissa smirked, "I'm afraid I can't do that, Weasley. You could cause no end of problems for my family and as you can see, we've got quite enough to deal with. Mingy!"
Mingy scurried into the room, and no one thought it polite to tell her that she had a bit of shrubbery clinging to her tea cozy. "Mingy is hearing Mistress call?"
"Yes, Mingy. I want you to take our guests up to a bedroom in the east wing. You may remove their bindings, but ensure that they cannot leave. If they escape, it's clothes for you." Mingy gulped. "Prepare a plate of tea and biscuits for Master Draco. He's had a long night. And-" She regarded the trio with distaste. "I suppose you can feed our guests as well. They certainly look like they need it."
Ron opened his mouth to say that his mum was was feeding them perfectly well, but thought better of it.
Mingy nodded fervently, so that her whole body was essentially nodding. "Mingy will do this, Mistress! Mingy will not fail!"
Mingy probably wouldn't have failed, but before she got a chance to do anything, there was a disturbance at the fireplace and Severus Snape stepped through.
