Chapter 7: The Curse of Fortune

For one who was born in and made from the dark, the night girl's will was as resolute as her eyes were bright; but despite her narrow escape, despite the mettle in her bones, she could only carry the day boy so much. It seemed, for a time, that they stood in the midst of an unknown land, neither of them able to move a step; each supported only by the weakness of the other; each ready to fall if the other were to collapse, or be subjected to fear. But where weakness was balanced, so, too, was strength, and after a time, the day boy was revived; in the promise of the night girl's tenacity, he grew brighter in his lightness.

In the same instance, the night girl grew frightened of the sting, of the suffering, as the depths of the dark seemed too poisonous to bear upon return; though she had tended to the day boy, and guided him, and propped him up with the unyielding stiffness of her nerve, she found herself a child in his arms, her head lying on his shoulder.

But for all that her strength was sapped, she rose; indeed, she triumphed, and between her and the boy, she was the greater. For she had suffered more; and for her suffering, she feared nothing.


"So," Harry broached carefully, sidling next to Hermione as she eyed their camp, shielding her face from the sun with the flat of her hand. "He came home late last night."

"Hm?" she asked indistinctly, not taking her eyes off where Ron and Bill were plotting, heads together. "I hadn't noticed."

"Lies," Harry determined, smirking. "He normally stays with you longer."

"Is this some kind of intimation, Harry?" she asked, pursing her lips. "You know I prefer you not to be so coy."

"Ah, you take the fun out of everything," he sighed. "And yes, I'm 'intimating' that perhaps your hold over him is not as firm as you might have thought."

She looked away, casting her eyes to the ground, blinking away the image of Draco's face.

"He is . . . one of them," she reminded him, trying not to squirm at the jolting implication; the swarms of masked faces. "He may have tasks I don't know about."

"Perhaps you should ask," Harry suggested.

She grimaced.

"I seem to have constructed you badly this time," she murmured, lifting her chin to look him in the eye. "You sound too much like me."

"Well, memories fade," he commented reassuringly, undeterred. "Can't blame yourself."

"I most certainly can blame myself," Hermione retorted, a little disgruntled by the suggestion. "I can, and I will. And I do," she added, punctuating the point by turning back to where Bill and Ron sat deep in conversation.

Harry sighed. "You've been fixating," he pointed out after a moment, gesturing with his chin to them. "Why?"

"You know why," she reminded him.

He channeled his skepticism into a half-hearted shrug. "You blame him still," Harry postulated. "For what happened?"

"Haven't you been listening?" Hermione snapped. "I blame myself. For this," she added, swallowing as she watched Bill lean conspiratorially towards his younger brother, "and for not interfering sooner."

"You would have been met with quite a bit of resistance," Harry reminded her firmly. "Everyone was caught up in it. In the idea of exposing the Death Eaters, and showing everyone what we were capable of."

Hermione made a face. Showing everyone what we were capable of. "Those are Bill's words," she recognized, flinching. "Everyone was parroting them," she added scornfully, "like he was suddenly - "

"Of course you can say this now," Harry interrupted. "But at the time - "

"At the time, I was busy," she supplied, her teeth gritted at the thought that she had ever considered something - anything - to be more important than her friend's life. "Running this camp. Trying to strategize," she added, laughing humorlessly.

"Which you did flawlessly," Harry insisted. "It was a sanctuary, you know. A home. And it only worked because of you."

"I have somewhat of a knack for providing order," Hermione permitted, though she found herself a bit sulky at the concept that that was her deeply unimpressive gift. "Inherent bossiness and all that," she sighed.

"You thought of everything," Harry argued, and she recognized the awe in his voice as being real. He'd said as much before. Second-in-command, wasn't she? He was the charisma, he was the sword; but she was the gavel. "You gave us a plan, you gave us order - "

"A side effect of having to organize people so many times," she remarked. "S.P.E.W., Dumbledore's Army - "

"You were busy," Harry summarized curtly, bringing them back to the point. "You were keeping people safe. Keeping them in line."

"Yes, and where did that all go?" she asked grimly. "After the Ministry - "

"That was after," Harry cut in firmly. "Stay here."

"Here," she echoed. "In the now?"

"In this now, anyway," he said, though he spared her a somewhat darkened grimace. "You owe it to Ron, don't you think?"

She looked up, wondering for a moment how he could ask her that.

"Not fair," she murmured. "Not fair."

She closed her eyes, heard a soft rustle beside her, and then she knew Bill was there; she could tell by the way the air had shifted. She could tell by the tension in her neck. By the brush of his hand on her lower back, drifting up her spine; hopeless, tormenting. His touch grazed lightly over her skin, like his fingers themselves were sighing.

"Ron didn't kill Nott," Hermione said, swallowing. "I knew he didn't."

"I'm aware," Bill muttered, sweeping her hair over one shoulder to place his lips next to her ear. "You made an unpleasant fuss."

"He must have just found the body, didn't he?" Hermione whispered, letting her head loll back as Bill's lips traveled to her neck. "When he was in the house." Her eyes fluttered open. "I had chosen Nott Manor for him, hadn't I?"

"It was one of many accessible homes, thanks to your handy work of cracking blood wards," Bill agreed, and she felt his chin dig into her shoulder as he nodded. "Who knew blood chemistry was so easily manipulated?" he chuckled to himself.

"Purebloods," Hermione murmured, as Bill's hands shifted from her waist to her abdomen, teasing the lip of her trousers. "The problem with purity is that it's so easy to recreate."

"A stroke of genius," Bill said, grazing her shoulder with his teeth. "I knew you were special, you know," he said quietly, "but after that - "

The rest of the sentence melted into her skin and she looking up, watching Ron pull the cloak over himself and Harry; she watched them disappear as she had done countless times. Watched herself calling after them - only what we need!

"He came to you in private," Hermione said, recalling the night. She'd been exhausted, bent over something that now seemed unimportant. Rationing things, probably. They trusted her to be fair; she was, because it would never occur to her not to be. Checking the Daily Prophet, maybe. Directing them, like always. "He spoke to you alone."

"The original Order was all but wiped out," Bill said, shrugging. "You were all quite eager to elect me your source of wisdom." His voice was tiptoeing a line of rare hesitation; almost like he wished to add - but you shouldn't have. "Only my parents were left, and they were so closely watched - "

"We trusted you," she cut in wryly, an echo of regret tinting the statement. But we shouldn't have.

He spun her around, catching her wrists and bracing them against her chest.

"What would you have done?" he asked, nearly begging in desperation. "What would you have had me do?"

She was silent for a moment, letting him pull her into his arms. He held her like they were dancing, adrift in a melancholy waltz, and she couldn't summon the energy to fight him.

"Why Ron?" she asked instead, not knowing how to answer him. "Why was he the one to take the - " fall. "Credit?"

"Harry, the Chosen One, cast an Avada?" Bill countered dubiously. "You know why, Hermione." His name on her lips made her shiver; she fought it. "Harry was the beacon. So Ron had to be the teeth."

She nodded soberly. "I never brought it up to Harry," she said. "I didn't want to force him to relive it, but - "

"Surely there would have been no benefit to asking," Bill said distastefully. "Your need for answers wouldn't have been worth his grief."

"Right," she sighed, "but - "

"You remember the letter, don't you?" he asked.

She did. How could she forget?

Your ivory towers won't last.

"I remember the story you crafted," she replied.

You cling to righteousness of blood, but in the end, don't you still bleed?

"Self defense," he reminded her.

No crime can go unpaid forever.

"Self defense," she repeated mechanically.

What you do in life will follow you.

"They were supposed to recognize us as a threat."

It will haunt you.

"Didn't they?"

We will haunt you.

"Not one worth bargaining with."

Take this as a promise.

"You should have known," she whispered.

Make peace with your abuses, or we will do it for you.

"I think I did."

P.S.

Yes, fucker. We always rise.


"There's someone in the house," Theo said, straightening. He paused, his head tilted as he focused on the intrusion. "There's someone here."

"All the other Notts are - " Draco stopped, grimacing at his choice of words. "You're the only one, aren't you?"

"Yes," Theo replied uneasily. His lips were pressed in a thin, distinctly somber line.

"The Order's been getting past blood wards," Draco reminded him, though the timing would be more than coincidental; fortuitous, really, and just when he had thought himself long abandoned by luck. He was a little breathless at the thought. "It could easily be - "

Theo grabbed his wrist. "Come on."

He apparated them downstairs, casting a quick disillusionment charm; Theo's specialty. He had, after all, always been exceptional at being invisible.

There was a voice in another room.

"Think anyone's home?"

Draco's eyes widened in alarm; he glanced at Theo. "Potter?" he mouthed, recognizing the timbre.

Theo nodded. The muscle twitched around his jaw.

"Doubtful. Bloody hard to tell, though. Magnificent arses, these rich pricks. Houses so bloody big." A scoff. "Study, yeah?"

Draco's breath caught. Beside him, Theo stiffened.

"Seems to be a habit." A lightly cleared throat. "Mulciber, Yaxley, Rowle - "

"All kept their vaults in the same place. This floor, you reckon?"

"Hermione found the floorplans. In a museum, if you can believe that. Famous architect, I guess. The study's down the hall."

Their footsteps echoed as they wandered through the house. Theo grabbed Draco again, disapparating a second time and landing them softly behind the desk in the study just as Weasley and Potter wrenched open the door.

Or would have, if they were not also somehow invisible; Draco squinted to catch a glimpse of their feet as they padded softly inside. Cloak, presumably, he determined, still not sure whether to breathe.

"Fuck." Potter's voice.

Theo's eyes dropped to the floor.

"Harry, fucking - bloody hell, what - "

"This is Nott, isn't it?"

Potter threw off the cloak, his face wretched with shock. Theo's own face twisted at the sight of it, a reflection of his misdeeds.

"Yeah," Weasley grunted, his freckled face markedly pale. "That's him."

Potter bent, disappearing from sight as Theo and Draco strained to see him.

"No pulse," Potter determined flatly, rising to his feet. "Dead."

"Fuuuuck," Weasley breathed, releasing the word in a slow exhale. "Natural?"

"Doubtful," Potter said, flinching. "Looks like someone was stealing from him." He glanced up, eyeing the bookcases against the wall, and Draco shook his head in disbelief; they clearly had an uncanny understanding of pureblood vaults.

"To be honest, Ron," Potter ventured slowly, "it looks a bit like a page out of our playbook."

Draco and Theo exchanged glances.

"Could it have been one of us?" Weasley choked. "We're not there every time - "

"Like Hermione would allow that," Potter determined, grimacing. "Or Bill, for that matter." He swallowed, running his hand through his unruly hair. "This wasn't us. This - " he hesitated. "I don't want to be paranoid," he said slowly, "but I'm thinking this might have been staged."

Theo's eyes widened; Draco's veins tingled with a cool rush of fear. Potter was right in front of him, Draco thought frantically, wondering if things were about to sour. Both Potter and Weasley had their wands lowered; they were totally unsuspecting. It would be an easy grab, an easy victory; it would mean the end of -

The end of what, exactly?

He widened his eyes meaningfully at Theo, who shook his head. Not yet, he was saying, a finger pressed to his lips. Not yet. Wait and see.

"I'd like to shake hands with whoever who took this bastard down," Weasley muttered, jutting his chin out. "The world's better off, frankly."

Theo made an indistinct choking sound that only Draco caught. If he didn't know better, he might have thought it was a laugh. Potter, though, was not amused.

"Maybe we should go," the dark haired wizard sighed, reaching up to rub his forehead. He seemed tired, Draco noted. Only half present. "Just get out of here, before - "

"Before what? They blame us?" Weasley cut in skeptically, making a face. "How would it be any worse than how they already talk about us? You've seen the papers," he added, a little sulky. "You've seen what they made us out to be."

"Criminals," Potter agreed. "Hermione said they would."

"We're going to get blamed for this," Weasley grumbled. "Who bloody cares what the truth is anymore?"

Potter looked up at that, something flashing momentarily in his green eyes. "That," he pronounced slowly, "is very true."

"This is going to get out, and we're going to be blamed," Weasley spat. "They'll issue a statement about how you're completely unhinged - "

"Maybe not," Potter murmured, half to himself. He crossed his arms over his chest, broadening his stance as though to accommodate the idea that was flooding him. Beside Draco, Theo was nodding, catching Potter's hints well before Weasley himself took notice.

"I can see it now," Weasley groaned, "Harry Potter, Boy Who Killed; the rumors will swirl - "

"Maybe," Potter pronounced curtly, "or maybe this time, we write the narrative ourselves." He looked up, and Weasley's eyes narrowed.

"Harry," he broached carefully, "what - "

"Come on," Potter said, and then he was hardly recognizable from when he'd first appeared; it was like lightning had struck in his spine. The exhaustion was gone, and something fearsome in its place. "We have to see Bill."

Weasley's face contorted in doubt. "Harry - "

But Potter had reached out, grabbing him by the collar; Weasley had barely a moment to register his dismay. They vanished with a loud crack, and only then did Draco release a shallow, gasping breath, his head spinning.


"Fuck," Draco shouted, sitting upright with a jolt.

Not again. This could not be happening again.

"Dreams," Theo had remarked unhappily, two glasses into Draco's spontaneous visit from the previous night. "Not good."

"I fucking know that," Draco snapped, raking his fingers through his hair. No thought had ever been safe; no memory had ever been secure. "That's why I'm here. That's why we have to do something."

"Are you looking for Potter, or are you looking for redemption?" Theo countered, standing to join him by the fire. "Better decide now, Draco."

Draco bristled at the comment; at the sheer audacity of the intended warning. "How is your conscience, Theo?" he demanded. "How secure are you?"

No crime can go unpaid forever.

"I have the great benefit of not having brought the manifestation of my guilt to subside in my house," Theo reminded him. "I made a point to ask you what you were doing. You seemed to have known at the time."

Cursed from birth, Draco heard him say. And we taught ourselves to hide.

"That was before," Draco managed hoarsely. "Before it came back to me."

Make peace with your abuses, or we will do it for you.

He shuddered at the memory, pressing his fingers to his temples.

"I didn't put my wand to his head, Draco, I don't have that on my conscience," Theo said quietly. "Forgive me if I can only live with what I did," he added, looking Draco in the eye, "without being made to suffer everything."

Draco said nothing.

"Do you regret what you did for me?" Theo had asked hoarsely, and Draco shut his eyes.

We have blood on our hands.

"No," he'd said, and he meant it. "Never."

He threw his legs over the side of his bed and leapt to his feet, squinting at the clock. It was early afternoon. Shit.

What time had he gotten home from Theo's last night? Well into the morning hours, he imagined; he couldn't have arrived in his bed before four, and he clearly hadn't bothered with changing, he thought, grimacing at the wrinkles in his trousers. Too many other things on his mind.

Even with Theo on board there were still countless things to worry about. Visiting Hogwarts was no easily accomplished task. Movements in and out were tracked closely; the Dark Lord kept his "curriculum" isolated within the castle walls. There was only one person Draco could think to contact, and he would be far too clever not to ask why. They had spent half the night just debating whether to tell him.

They'd gotten nowhere, of course, and didn't entirely come to a satisfying conclusion; the problem with people who were far too clever was that their cleverness couldn't be trusted out of context. In the end, the letter, which took three hours to draft, simply read: We're coming. Hogsmeade weekend?

And a late response; he never slept.

Noon. My office. We'll walk over. - BZ

Tomorrow, then. Back to Hogwarts. Draco nearly shivered at the thought; he'd never quite recovered. He'd never regained his footing from the whole ordeal, so to speak, and it seemed his life since then had been an unending stream of things that should never have happened. The first time he felt his Mark burn. The first time he pointed a wand in someone's face and muttered something he couldn't come back from. The first time he realized his silly boyhood rivalry was now truly a matter of life and death.

An enumerable list of things that should never have happened.

He wondered if going back to the castle would wake him from a dream; bring him to a world where the things he'd suffered were limited to his imagination. Perhaps there was a version of himself out in the universe where something had gone differently. Maybe he'd never disarmed Dumbledore in the tower. Maybe he hadn't let Theo go home that night; maybe he had taken Theo away from the start. Or maybe fucking Potter shook his fucking hand, and everything was different.

Or maybe he was what he was: a coward whose father won a gamble of allegiance. Maybe there was only one life, and it was this one.

And maybe the girl in the other room was hungry, he sighed, and he should get the fuck to the kitchen.


She heard his movements and couldn't fight a sigh of relief; she burrowed lower in the blankets, content to wait in the dark.

She liked to occupy her mind elsewhere for the most part, drifting off in her memories. But from time to time, she enjoyed being here, in this room, in this time. There was a comfort to knowing he was somewhere outside, someone tangible and real, and frightened in a way that she herself once knew how to be frightened; the fear of someone who wishes for something more. Who still believes more to be attainable.

She wondered if he ever considered the foolishness of his animosity, the childishness of his prejudice. He had the look of someone weary, someone borne along by circumstance and not by choice; and she, who had witnessed hatred in a multitude of flashes, no longer saw it in him. Maybe there was another world somewhere - some other universe - where he'd realized it sooner. Maybe he hadn't been born as he was, or called as he'd been. Maybe -

"Maybe he's just an arse and you're getting carried away," Harry cautioned her.

She ignored him.

A boy so steeped in sun, she murmured to herself, and when he opened the door, she had to squint at the light that gleamed from the outlines of his angles.


She pulled herself up from the covers, managing half a smile at him. She looked lost in thought, and he wondered how he must look by comparison.

"Food," he said, always terrible at attempting conversation. "If - you're hungry."

He waited for her to tilt her head, to stare blankly at him, but she seemed determined by something; even anxious. She slid her legs out under the duvet and began to slowly melt down the side of the bed, her feet meeting the floor with a light thud as she moved to straighten. It was Draco who stared after her, mutely watching her stumble to take hold of the bed post, her eyes widening as she unexpectedly tipped sideways.

"Fuck," Draco swore instinctively, dropping the tray of food in his hands and stepping out to catch her; he slipped an arm around her waist and wrenched her upright as she looked up at him, still searching, before bracing herself against his chest.

It felt like he looked at her for almost a full minute before speaking, and then he kicked himself for his disfunction.

"Do you, um," Draco began awkwardly, "do you - "

"A walk," she offered quietly, her expression wistful. "If that's - "

"Okay," Draco agreed quickly, shifting his arm around her ribcage. "Bath first, or - ?"

She shook her head. "Walk," she said again, quieter this time, though slightly more firm.

He nudged her forward. "You set the pace," he suggested. "I'll just . . . try to keep up."

She gave him a rueful little twist of her lips that he took to be a smile, and they set off at a snail's pace, with her leaning heavily against him for balance.

"You seem better," he remarked, as they exited the bedroom and turned into the second floor hallway. "Moving around."

He glanced at her; she wasn't listening and was concentrating on her steps, each one deliberately placed, one in front of the other. They were halfway down the corridor when she seemed to gain some certainty, slowly leaning away from him and balancing on her own.

He found himself conflicted by her strength; the distance between them left him breathless.

"Maybe we might have a chat," he suggested, grimacing as the suggestion emerged like a fanciful sigh. She looked up at him and he instantly felt foolish; her brown eyes were unnerving. There was still some coldness he hadn't quite figured out.

"Once upon a time, there was a prince," she said, and he sighed.

"Or we could do this," he muttered.

"A prince," she repeated, giving him a lightly scolding glance, "who wished to make a name for himself, and to find himself a hero in his realm. Raised as he was in righteousness and morality," she continued, eyeing her feet as she made to take a more confident step, "he wished to find himself a defender of good, and a defeater of evil."

"One day while he was traveling, he came across an entrancing princess in the woods, locked away in a tower. He saw that the princess, whose voice was so lovely and enticing as to lure him towards her song, was kept under the watchful eye of a terrible monster."

"The prince watched as the monster, who came during the day, called for the princess to lower her hair, so that the monster could climb the tower and be in her presence. The prince, then, resolved to do the same. 'I will climb it,' he said, 'and in so doing, I shall seek my fortune.'"

She stopped then and Draco tightened his grip, his arm wrapped snugly around her ribs. Weasley again, he suspected, and felt the cool rush of remorse through his veins.

"The prince, who had only known righteousness, believed the princess in the tower to be kind and faithful, and she begged him to free her," she said, turning herself to begin to walk the opposite way. "She requested that he bring a silken rope for her to make a ladder and escape, and the prince, in his wish for fairness and virtue, agreed, arranging with the princess to return another night."

A princess, Draco thought, frowning. Someone on her side?

"What the prince didn't know," she continued quietly, sagging a little in his arms, "is that the princess was little different from the monster, for she was quick to give into her own selfish impulses. The monster, discovering their plan, offered her power in exchange for the prince, and she hastily agreed; for she, a princess knowing only of isolation and loss, was beholden to her selfish desires."

The Dark Lord a monster; Weasley a prince. But who -

She stumbled and he hooked his arm further around her, careful not to let her fall despite the ill-timed foray into his thoughts. The story was more dizzying than usual, but his analysis would have to wait, he thought, holding her close.

"When the prince returned and called down for the princess, he rapidly climbed her hair, as he had done before, fueled by the dreams of fortune that danced in his mind's eye. But fortune, for him, was a curse," she determined bitterly, and she started to waver under his arm, the movement of her footsteps disrupted. "The monster was waiting, hands rubbing together as he laughed; and the prince knew that he had put his faith in the wrong person. He looked into the menacing eyes of the selfish princess, and failed to recognize her for her greed; he begged for mercy, but she would give none."

She was choking on her words now, struggling to continue, and Draco pulled them to a stop, leaning against the wall as she stared angrily at something he couldn't see.

Something in her past, he thought, waiting for her to continue.

"And so, with no aide, and no escape, the monster took hold of the prince, his eyes glittering with malice," she said hoarsely. "And he spoke - 'You come for your darling, but the sweet bird sits no longer in the nest, and sings no more - "

She broke off, her face wrenched in pain, and buried her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and he stroked her hair.

"No," he said helplessly, "no, you don't need to - "

"I'm sorry," she said again, "it was my fault, everything - "

"I'm sorry too," he said back, pulling her against him.

Make peace with your abuses, or we will do it for you.

I'm sorry, they both said, as they sank slowly to the floor.


"You took some liberties," Harry said morosely. "Rapunzel, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Hermione confirmed, knowing he wouldn't care for her rendition.

And he clearly didn't.

"The princess in league with the monster," Harry mused skeptically. "A dark twist on an already horrendous story."

Yes, apologies for not blinding anyone. She stiffened, fighting a harsh response.

"This may shock you," she managed drily, "but I'm not finding myself in a very sunshiney mood."

He failed to be put off by her acrimony.

"Who was the princess?" Harry pressed, ignoring her subsequent glare. "Bill?"

"No," she said moodily, sitting up slowly. At Harry's questioning glance, she sighed in resignation. "Yes," she muttered. "No. I don't know."

"You don't know," Harry repeated dubiously, one brow raised. "Liar."

She said nothing.

"In league with Voldemort," Harry pressed, glossing over her falseness. "Harsh."

"Fine. The princess wasn't . . . Bill, exactly," she admitted. "Not really." She paused, trying to put her feelings into words. "It was his goals, you know. His motivation."

"Greed?" Harry echoed blankly, parroting her word choice. "Selfishness?"

"You remember the letter," she said sharply. "He put a target on us all. He taunted them. It was never supposed to be like that," she reminded him, turning to face him. "We didn't have to turn Nott's death into such a - " she cut off, wincing. "A spectacle."

"Bill lost his wife to them," Harry said gently. "He wanted them to feel what he felt."

"And that's not greed?" Hermione countered. "That's not selfishness?"

Harry fell silent; Hermione leaned forward, resting her hand on her elbows as she eyed the floor.

"I don't want to be like this," she whispered to Harry. "I'm tired of feeling - "

She didn't know the word, and so she stared at the ground, trapped in introspection.

"Helpless?"

She felt a small thrill and looked up, meeting the soft, pale eyes of Luna Lovegood.

"You always know the word," Hermione said faintly, not sure whether to be pleased.

"You know it too," Luna replied, sitting cross-legged on the bed and smiling. "You just don't trust your words not to turn on you once they leave."

Hermione sighed impatiently. "What does that mean, Luna?" she asked, a little disgruntled by her own lack of understanding.

"Oh, nothing," Luna said faintly, though her wide eyes flashed with fondness. "But maybe," she continued, shifting to sit beside Hermione, "maybe a happier time would help?"

"I don't need to be happy," Hermione said crossly, carelessly brushing off the thought. "I'm just tired of feeling weak."

"Ah, but you really aren't, are you?" Luna asked, a slow, knowing smile spreading over her lips.

Oh Luna, Hermione thought with a sigh. You always know more than she should.


"They must get their strategy from - the mudblood," Theo said, coughing up the term. "I imagine she's the only one with sufficient ingenuity to track these," he added, gesturing to the rolled up Daily Prophet in his hand.

"What, current events?" Mulciber prompted wryly.

"Auction reports," Theo corrected. He threw the newspaper onto the table, pointing at the article that was now lying face up. "A year ago, Avery" - he looked up, eyeing Avery where he sat - "put up a couple thousand galleons at auction. His was the first estate struck. Then," he said, letting another newspaper thud on top the previous, "Lestrange did the same. A month later, a disturbance in his wards, money and heirlooms gone." He reached behind him, digging into his bag, before dropping another dozen or so papers onto the table. "Mulciber, Yaxley, Rowle, the list goes on."

"And then," Theo continued grimly, while the rest of the room marinated in silence, "two weeks ago my father spent a small fortune on a rare item of some . . . hazy significance," he said, and Draco watched him apply a wounded mask, a pained expression. "And we know what happened after that."

Theo sorrowfully dropped his chin, lowering his gaze to the table; the other Death Eaters at the table did the same. Only Draco could see Theo's sharp green eyes travel from face to face, reading his performance. Theo, wisely, waited a moment before he delivered the final blow, which he and Draco had spent the entirety of the previous week exhaustively preparing.

You'll have to play the part, Draco had warned.

I can do that, Theo had promised.

"Yesterday, the Prophet printed an account of the most recent auction at Borgin's. The headlining item, the ring of Madurra, went to Rosier, for a price of ten thousand galleons. Congratulations, by the way," he added coolly, his gaze flicking to where Rosier was now fidgeting in his seat.

They all glanced up sharply at that, looking at Theo like they were seeing him for the first time; Draco could see the shift in their faces, the slow melting of the dubious glassy stares that gradually became hardened expressions of malice.

"The Order killed my father," Theo said, artfully permitting his voice to break, and for a moment, even Draco forgot what he knew. "I don't believe that you would expect me to let them get away."

A prolonged silence. A hazy chill.

A perfect performance.

"I will speak to the Dark Lord," Mulciber said slowly.

Draco tossed in his sleep, wiping sweat from his brow.

He was in Rosier's house, mask on, under a disillusionment charm, when they heard Weasley's voice. The five of them lined the room and he could feel Theo fidgeting beside him; Draco reached out, gripping Theo's wrist.

Steady, his fingers said; though Draco wondered what gave them the right to speak.

He tried desperately to wake. He didn't want to relive what came next.

Weasley's voice - he wasn't with Potter - he was with the oldest Weasley, the tall one, and they were trapped -

Draco turned, trying to clear his mind, but some things couldn't clear. Things like Theo's eyes under the mask - things like Rowle's voice and the words, the words Draco could never bring himself to say - things like seeing Weasley drop to the floor -

He only realized he was sobbing when he felt a hand on his arm, pulling him out of the abyss; he clung to her, pulling her beside him.

"You have nightmares," she murmured, resting her head against his chest. "I have them too."

"Is this not the nightmare?" he asked hoarsely.

Her fingers swept across his jaw, resting lightly on his cheek.

"Well," she said softly, "it's certainly not the dream."

When he closed his eyes again, he only thought of her.

For all that her strength was sapped, she rose; indeed, she triumphed, and between her and the boy, she was the greater. For she had suffered more; and for her suffering, she feared nothing.


a/n: Story influence from Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm. Dedicated to habababa . . . this is a tough one for a translator, considering pieces of it are intentionally patterned on a very archaic English writing style. I'm so grateful you still find it worth reading!