(A/N: Hey look it's me again! I'm back with another installment of this wonderful story. I don't know how long my muse is going to last, so until it bites the dust again I'm going to try to write as consistently as possible for you guys. Anyway, on with the show!)

A Cold Sleep

Part 22

The library, with its constant sunlight and inviting smell of old and new books, had never felt so tense. The entire household had gathered to look over a rare and fragile collection of maps. It had been handed down in the Malfoy family since before the founding of Hogwarts. Now those maps were critical to their plans, indeed to the future of the Wizarding world. What they depicted, in sharp lines and angles as well as graceful curves and spirals, were not roads or rivers, but streams of magic, better known as Ley Lines.

Hovering above the maps were tokens depicting the schools and Ministry buildings that occupied the various nexus points where the lines came together. There were only a handful of spaces where lines crossed or joined each other that had not been taken up by structures. There were two in the UK and three in continental Europe.

"Why didn't Dumbledore use one of the ones closer by?" Hermione asked softly, her eyes flicking from one place to another, rapidly reading the ancient language that had been so carefully written on the locales of the map.

"He needs one partial to the Dark; at least that is my assumption. The more soft curving lines you see, the more likely he has selected it as his destination," Tom supplied and Hermione's eyes shot up to stare at him in curiosity.

"I thought the soft curving lines would be the Light?" she questioned, now chewing her lip and clearly curious.

"One would think. But Darkness is soft, seductive and alluring. Light is hard, straightforward and uncompromising. The bias against Darkness tends to color perceptions, hardening it into something sharp and cruel, just as the bias towards Light turns it into something soft and welcoming," Tom explained carefully, his focus shifting to Hermione so that she knew that he was actually listening to her. It hadn't taken him long to pick up on the insecurity within her, she feared being ignored and so he did not ignore her.

"Oh, I see. I supposed then that that is how Dumbledore was able to make Dark magic look like Light magic all these years," she said and looked back down, her brow scrunching up as she surveyed the lines with new understanding.

"Yes, I would wager that it is exactly that. But once he communes with the nexus there will be no hiding the nature of his magic," Tom's voice was confident and strong, a reassuring presence at Harry's side.

"But then, if it is inevitable that his magic be revealed for what it is, why don't we just wait for his followers to realize what he is and turn on him?" Harry spoke up, his voice seeming too loud for the space that they occupied.

"Ah, but chances are that they don't even realize what it is that they have done. He took the most powerful of the teaching staff with him. I am betting that they did not go willingly," Lucius said, leaning back in his seat and placing a hand delicately on Narcissa's knee.

"You think he's controlling them?" Harry asked, shocked, but not without hope that the teachers he had known for so long were not blindly following the mad old bastard.

"Yes. There is magic inherent in the contracts that teachers sign in order to teach at the school. That magic is enough to give the Headmaster some small power over their magic. Usually it is so that he can summon them to meetings and the like, but for an unscrupulous man it would be an excellent way to sneak an Unforgivable into the mix. Likely they are not themselves and when he is revealed for what he is, he will be able to solidify that control over them," Narcissa took over explaining, her expertise in the contracts and doings of pureblood society making her one of the most informed people in the room.

"But surely the Ministry will know by then that he has gone down the road of Darkness," Remus said from where he stood behind the ranks of Weasley children. Truly it seemed that not one member of the household had been left out of the conference that was taking place. But not all of them knew what it was that had happened, after all the meeting had been called the instant after the early breakfast, before most of the manor had woken up. Most of the people in the room were still in their sleep clothes and dressing gowns.

"They know already, and are powerless to stop him. They've stripped him of his titles, of his holdings, but they cannot take away the power that he has built up from decades of drawing from the nexus beneath Hogwarts. His magic is far too powerful for even us," Lucius informed, his face a mask of carefully constructed blandness, his voice however, was one that demonstrated a sense of anxiety.

"So, what do we do then? How can we beat him if he's too powerful for the Ministry?" Sirius stood to one side of Remus, his arms around the other man's shoulders, not offering reassurance but seeking it.

"That where Harry and I come in, and well, the reason for the maps. We plan to travel to one of these nexus points to attempt to take the magic there into ourselves," Tom provided and there was a collective gasp from the occupants of the room. Harry blushed so fiercely that he was certain his ears were going to start steaming in the chill of the room. He reached down and twisted the ring that he wore, it had not been there for long, but already he couldn't imagine his hand without it.

"That's incredibly risky. You'll be completely vulnerable while you're communing with the magic of the nexus. You'll need a guard," Bill Weasley spoke up, Harry only just recognized him from the few weeks that they had been at the manor.

"I will have my Death Eaters and Harry, if it is not too forward of me to insinuate, will have all of you," Tom said and no one in the room disagreed with him.

"Of course he'll have us, we wouldn't dream of letting him get attacked," Ron said fiercely and Harry smiled, a tear springing to his eye at the kindness of his first ever friend.

"Now that that matter is settled, we've only to pick the location where we stage our coup. While it would be poetic to use Hogwarts against the old man, I dare not risk the involvement of the students. Instead I say that we use one of the unoccupied locations here in the UK. Neither is more than a few hours away and we would have plenty of time to prepare," Tom said and once again everyone's attention was turned to the set of maps that had been laid out upon the expanded table at the center of the room.

(A/N: Well that's it for now. Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a review to let me know what you thought.)