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Chapter Fifty-Four—Deceptions and Their Ending
Theo eyes the letter that appeared next to his pillow the night before. When he found it there, he immediately placed it under several charms that would drain any curses on it of power over time and then went to breakfast.
But the letter was still there after lunch when he came back to the bedroom to retrieve his books, and it lies there now, too, on top of the covers. He reaches out as if to touch it, then takes his hand back. He knows it bears no curses, but a letter that could only have been placed by house-elves can contain no good news.
Of course, he'll have to open it anyway, because he wants to know what it says more than anything. It will hurt him, but it will also warn him, and that is all he can expect.
He reaches out, and a hand closes on his wrist. Theo turns his head, but he's only surprised until he sees Harry. No one else would be able to get close to him without Theo's senses screaming at him, but Harry is trusted enough to do it.
"Are you sure you want to open the letter?" Harry asks quietly. "Does it matter so much what your father says?"
"I need to know what he's going to taunt me with so I can handle it. And it might be from my stepmother."
"But do you need to suffer from it?"
Theo briefly squeezes Harry's shoulder. He knows why Harry is doing this. He doesn't want anyone to bear pain anywhere close to what's gone through with being tortured and losing Chaos. "I would suffer more later if I don't read this now. Especially since I have no idea what it says. For all I know, my father is planning to execute me when I go home and my stepmother is trying to warn me."
"You shouldn't go back home," Harry says, but he lets go of Theo. "If you have no idea what's going on. If your stepmother really is pregnant."
"That's the last thing I think has actually happened," Theo says, as he uses spells to unfold the letter. It's much shorter than he expects, and not in his father's writing, although it doesn't look much like the few letters he's received from Lindanora before, either.
Do not fear to come home. By this evening, it will be done.
Theo stares at it and then uses a spell to flip it over. No, there's nothing on the other side. He casts a few charms that would reveal invisible writing, the sort of thing that his father made him learn when he was young. But no, that's the only message that's there, and he doubts his stepmother would have sent him something that was unnecessarily complicated to figure out. She has no way of knowing the kind of training he's gone through.
"Theo?"
Harry is rubbing his temple when Theo glances up. Theo nods. Because of the link between their minds that Professor Snape established so Theo could guard Harry's dreams, his worry is probably hurting Harry. "I don't know what to make of it. See what you think." He Levitates the letter and watches Harry read it.
"Huh." Harry doesn't bother asking if Theo is sure that's all that's there, which is gratifying. "Do you think your stepmother is accelerating the poison that you gave your father?"
"I don't see why she would. As long as she's married to him, she has prestige. But if he dies before she gives birth, he probably has his will configured so that she wouldn't inherit anything." Theo stares again at the letter. "And there's the fact that this letter doesn't look much like her handwriting."
"Someone outside the house?" Harry cocks his head. "Would they know what's going on?"
"I don't see how." Theo's father keeps his business private. He ends up shaking his head. "I don't think I can know what's happening, and I can't think I'm going to get any other news before the holiday starts."
"You'll be coming home with me."
Theo eyes Harry sideways. "Right. Because Professor Snape will love that when he's trying to make sure that you heal and you're taken care of."
"Professor Snape will love it," Harry says calmly. "Because you'll be there to also harass me about resting and eating and seeing my Mind-Healer. You're the only person I know who's more rabid than him about it."
Theo blinks. "You can joke about it."
"I had my skin removed, not my sense of humor," Harry says, in a grave voice that Theo doesn't know how to respond to, and takes his hand from Theo's shoulder. "Come on, I don't think you can influence what will happen one way or another. Go to sleep and make sure that you're on hand to guard me from nightmares."
Theo gets the distinct sense that he's being managed, but he doesn't mind. Not if it means that he'll have a place to go this summer, and Harry can stay safer than he's been in the past.
"Why did you bring me here, Mother? It's too soon."
Narcissa takes a deep breath and stands back from the gates of the Manor. "I know, dear one, but the house-elves said something strange to me when I came and tried to enter the house so that I could retrieve some clothes I didn't bring with me. They wouldn't let me in. I thought you might have more luck, as you are a Malfoy by blood."
Draco frowns at her, but nods and turns to face the gates. For a second, he waits there, breathing softly, and Narcisas's heart aches. For all that Draco's face resembles his father's, there's an endearing hesitance to him that Lucius never had, or that perhaps was trained out of him by the time Narcissa married him.
"Malfoy house-elves," Draco says, and his voice seems to swell from a long way away, "answer me!"
There is a silence that's longer than the distance Draco's voice seemed to travel from, and then two house-elves appear on the other side of the gates. Narcissa recognizes one of them, Pobby, who obeyed her orders to put potions in Lucius's food. Both of them have mournful looks on their faces.
"I want to know why you haven't let my mother into the house," Draco demands. It's said with less graciousness than Narcissa could hope for, but these are house-elves and it's hardly public, so she can wait. Graciousness will come.
"Because of Master Lucius's orders, sir." Pobby is wringing her ears.
Draco stares at her. "What do you mean?"
"He says that we never be obeying anyone but him from the time he gives the order," Pobby whispers. "That includes you, young Master Draco. His last order was to lock the Manor down and let no one inside. That be it."
"But my father is dead," Draco says. He has a thick sound in his voice, and Narcissa understands. She can feel the reeling amazement at Lucius's stupidity in her own mind. "That negates his orders."
"He said." Pobby glances at them both and shakes her head. "Pobby cannot be disobeying."
"But death makes a difference," Draco says, and he is heroically restraining himself from stomping his foot, if Narcissa knows her son. "It means I inherit. That means that I now own the Manor, and everything inside it, and you as well."
"Master Lucius not be making an exception for death."
Draco turns to Narcissa with his heart in his eyes. "Did they tell you this?" he whispers, and she has to put her arms around him and comfort him, while the elves look on with dreariness in their faces.
"No," she says. "They wouldn't explain it to me that clearly when I was last here, because I'm not a Malfoy by blood. But I suspected something of the sort had happened based on the hints they dropped about you not getting your inheritance. I'm sorry, Draco."
"Does that mean—did Father not make a will?"
That's an interesting question Narcissa hadn't considered. She glances at Pobby, and Pobby bites her lip and nods. "Master Lucius be leaving orders. He say he be changing his will, but he not make a new one. He burn the old one with Fiendfyre."
Which means there is no chance of reconstructing it from the ashes, as can sometimes be done with parchments destroyed by less magical flames. Narcissa closes her eyes in weariness.
"I be sorry, Mistress Malfoy," Pobby says.
"It's not your fault," Narcissa says. It's the kind of thing she could once never imagine herself saying to a house-elf, but graciousness is indeed the best tactic right now. Maybe in the future, it will pay off. "I'll be contacting the Ministry to find out what happens when a pure-blood dies intestate."
"The Ministry not be helping, Mistress Malfoy. Not for a master and a family like the Malfoys being."
And that is probably the truth. Narcissa gives a long sigh just so that the house-elves can't miss how disappointed she is. It's the only relief available to her right now. Then she turns and puts a hand on Draco's shoulder.
Draco stares at her. "Is that it?"
"I'm afraid so," Narcissa says quietly. "There may be a way past the wards or the house-elves' orders in the fullness of time, but at the moment, we can't do anything else."
Draco blinks, and blinks again. "But all your clothes are in there. And the library books we didn't take with us. And my toys that I had when I was a child."
Narcissa nods. "Along with the jewelry and the plate and the other heirlooms that you should rightfully have, Draco. Your father was a monster of spite not long before his death. I believe that he intended to disinherit you formally, but he didn't have the time."
"Or maybe he was going to reverse his orders and reinstate me. You don't know."
Narcissa is in fact sure she does, but she gathers Draco close and doesn't require him to do anything other than sob in painful confusion against her. She glances back at Pobby, who is holding the bars of the gate and looking longingly at Draco. The elf only turns her head and vanishes into the house, and the other elf, silent all along during the confrontation, follows her.
I should have given him orders when he was potion-bound not to act against Draco inheriting the Malfoy fortune, Narcissa thinks wearily, and then prepares to Apparate. The vaults in Gringotts are still open to them as far as she knows, but they will probably be allowed to remove nothing more than the customary amount of expenses that Draco usually needs for school and that she was allowed for her own use when she went to the shops. Without a will…
You were always selfish, Lucius.
"Where are you, my dear?" Tarquinius hears the edge to his voice, but it isn't one he can subdue. Lindanora left the house earlier without his permission, and she didn't come to apologize when she came back. That means that he has some discipline to mete out, and he'll have to teach her the consequences of defying him in some way that doesn't affect her pregnancy.
Of course, once his heir or heirs are born, then he needn't worry about that.
Lindanora is in the library, staring absorbed at a book. Tarquinius sighs as he leans against the doorway. "Where did you go earlier?"
"Oh." Lindanora starts and looks up, although Tarquinius doesn't think she has the shadow of the fear she should in her eyes. "I went to visit my people. It was a long time since I've seen them."
"Your people," Tarquinius says slowly. He is remembering scattered fragments of a time when Lindanora talked about her family, but he thought most of them were dead or estranged. And she never spoke about them like this, in the sense that magical creatures usually do. "Do you have Veela heritage that you aren't telling me about, my dear?"
The edge in his voice is real now, ready to cut. Veela heritage would be the only acceptable kind of creature lineage that Lindanora could have been concealing. If he has married someone who descends, even remotely, from a goblin, or a giant, or a werewolf…
He may not wait for the pregnancy to end, not when the potential children would be tainted as well.
"Oh, no. Not Veela." Lindanora gives him a smile that is almost embarrassed. "But I do think it's time to tell you the truth."
"The truth." Tarquinius's wand springs into his hand, and he sends a call throughout the house for his beasts to come to him. "I do wish I knew what that was. I wonder what you can think to conceal from me. What leniency did I show you, or did you think I showed you, to make you believe such a thing was acceptable?"
"I have no need of leniency from you."
Abruptly, Lindanora's voice is deeper, and she seems taller than she was. As she focuses on him, Tarquinius is caught for a moment by her eyes, and it seems to him that the fragments of memory when she talked about her family are joined by others that she—
Took from him with the effect of her gaze.
Tarquinius is far more furious than afraid. He levels his wand at her. "You will not get away with killing me. You have no idea how many allies I have here." He can hear the click of metal claws behind him, the sweep of metallic wings.
"And you have no idea what I am. Although you should have known what I was, when you set yourself against an ally of Harry Potter's."
Tarquinius stares at her. Her form is rippling, changing, and his only thought is that perhaps the creature heritage she spoke of came from a werewolf after all. But he never thought this had to do with Potter. It seems far likelier that it has to do with his money, and her plan to bear him tainted children to ensure the downfall of the Nott line.
"I will kill you and those tainted children in your womb," he promises.
"Oh, as if you set them there," Lindanora says, and her hair seems to flow around her, and her eyes are much larger than they used to be. "As if I have a womb."
Tarquinius staggers back as the form before him proves familiar after all. Lindanora has melted into Lyassa, the Speaker who came to visit him once when he reached out to them to confirm the alliance on behalf of Harry Potter. A rolling green serpent's tail has replaced her legs, and her shimmering green hair, half-scales, hangs around her head as she slithers forwards. There are bulges in her belly, but Tarquinius is utterly sure now that they are eggs.
And her eyes are wide and slit-pupiled and hypnotic, and the same color as Lindanora's.
It occurs to Tarquinius, as if from a dream, that perhaps there was a reason he never saw Lyassa in her human form.
"You are going to kill me," he says. "Or try."
"Why would I do that when you are so much more useful to us alive?" Lyassa's tail lashes, and she gives a low chortling sound that is mingled with a hiss. "I did think about it, mind you. But then I discovered the delightful work your son did on you, and I don't want it to go to waste. I only want to defend one of Harry's allies, and to give Harry another safe place to come to if his current homes are compromised."
"I will never welcome him while he associates with my insubordinate son."
"You thought that you could father children, too. It's time to learn that the rest of the world doesn't live by your delusions."
Tarquinius begins to say that he is immune to the Imperius, but Lyassa is already lunging, and nothing he has ever seen moves as fast as she does. By the time he registers the movement, she has already withdrawn, leaving a bleeding slash down his right arm that bubbles with green near the edges.
"The taste of human blood is foul," she remarks, her tail twitching. "But needs must."
Tarquinius feels the venom speeding through him, and at the same time, feels his mind clouding. He manages to force his mouth open. "My beasts obey none but me."
"My dear man," Lyassa says, "I have no intention of changing that."
The haziness grows worse. Tarquinius stumbles. Lyassa holds him up with a hand under his arm, and clucks and shakes her head a little as she helps him to a couch. "You'll wake up soon, you know. With a bad dream lingering in the back of your head. A dream that you had a wife, and heirs on the way, and you plotted to kill them. But now it's gone, and you're in your right mind. And you're utterly dedicated to your goal of providing safety for Harry Potter and his allies, and being a remorseful father to your son."
Tarquinius starts to shake his head, but it doesn't move. He manages to work his jaw. "Why—did you pose as my wife for so long?"
"Well, I had to evaluate you from close up. I thought your son might be exaggerating the threat you posed to him or our ally. But also, your library has some very interesting books, and your potions lab was interesting, as well. I arranged to generate my own eggs without needing to mate with a male. I can think your library and lab for that." Lyassa laughs softly. "And I wanted to give you memories to excoriate yourself with while you're watching through your own eyes, trapped, helpless, in the back of your mind."
"I will break free!"
"You have no idea how to counteract a Speaker's venom, Tarquinius, don't be ridiculous," Lyassa chides him, sitting back on her coils and watching him. "I wonder if even you knew what side of the war you really served? Well, you've chosen one, now. Be a good boy and get ready to send the results of Harry's test in front of your Silver Hourglass to his guardians. I know that you kept them hidden for a reason, but that reason is gone now."
Tarquinius flings his considerable will into the battle for his body, and feels it slide off like water from stone. Tarquinius's body stands up, bows to Lyassa, and walks out of the room in the direction of his private study.
"And, of course," Lyassa calls after him, "I'll need to stay here and play the part of devoted wife who redeemed her husband. This will make a fine lair. If you do come up with a way to counteract the venom, then I'll be there to help."
Tarquinius screams in his head, but there is no one to hear.
