The dark wizard had been entirely unapproachable for hours, if not the entire day.

Few people in the room understood what Hogwarts meant to the Lord Voldemort except for Draco, and he had every expectation the master would disguise his rage, his heart burning for the loss of pure blood heritage and tradition, not the books and proud academic history. As an orphan, the school had been his first home, and no great fortress or stately manor could replace it. He had called a meeting in the secret grove belonging to the Lestrange family, a dreamlike place where the grassy hills had been enchanted to be comfortable, and the rain light and warm. Seasons resulted in chromatic and aromatic changes alone, as he was told; by day a gentle sunlight filtered through the low branches of the trees, and by night it was dark enough to sleep, but everything in the grove produced a slight glow.

There was no peace in the garden, however, with the Dark Lord displeased.

He had not spoken a word since being informed of the destruction of Hogwarts; he sat still and calm under an apple tree, and yet the anger radiating from the dark wizard was enough to keep everyone from so much as approaching him. Whispers crept among the Death Eaters, though Draco was left out, the youngest among them by far. His vassals were already going back in the Durmstrang ship without their Headmaster, though he and 'Karkaroff' would be along soon enough.

At long last Aunt Bellatrix approached, looking more of a wreck than usual.

"My lord... you must abandon the caution of those around you and strike with fury... the destruction of the castle must not go unpunished..." Whether the tears she was choking back were genuine or feigned her nephew could not have said.

"If I may, my lord," his lord father intervened. "Honor has not been directly injured as you are now the Head of a school of your own; tradition and men would view you as a rival. There is no immediate need to abandon the plan."

In the gloomy twilight there was a pause as the wizards waited for some sort of response.

"Lucius... always the voice of reason, yet never the voice of action. You propose, correctly, that the course remain, yet I wonder if any among you but noticed the loss of the school. Bellatrix... the time comes slowly that I shall make a ruin of those who have so angered me, but dying and returning from death has taught me patience, and I doubt you would be pleased to learn it the same way. To take a Paralyzing Poultice from its heat source even a moment before the mistletoe berries boil completely is to spoil the whole brew."

"Your wisdom is unparalleled as ever, my lord," Draco's aunt said before rejoining the gathered crowd of Death Eaters.

"Lucius, for you there is another matter," the Lord Voldemort said, eyes narrowing. "I had been under the impression that the circumstances surrounding the Minister were contained. A sudden resignation is most... unexpected."

"Now that he is irrelevant to the plan, I can assure you Cornelius Fudge will feel your wrath through any combination of us."

"Of course, Lucius, of course, and yet, I found myself wondering who it was that had me under such a false impression," the dark wizard continued, another pause taking shape. "Should I doubt this particular source in the future? Perhaps a second set of eyes would benefit us all." By the whispers moving through the garden it seemed to Draco he was among the last to realize the Dark Lord meant to have his father watched by a man more loyal.

"In the sense that all predictions are uncertain, by the slightest margin at least, you should doubt what you hear, my lord," his father replied. "For no fault of loyalty or ability would I fail to report the Minister's resignation in advance. The old fool no longer cares to notice my use of the mind arts, and I can assure you that even he knew nothing of his resignation before the Heir's rather... spectacular victory in the Tournament."

"True, true, young Evan does have a flair for the dramatic, though the uninspired would use the word 'gruesome'. Were it not for his father raising him with ideas of good and evil, he might already be a truly remarkable young wizard. Be away, Lucius, I imagine a regime change in the Ministry would require your presence, and you are hardly the wizard I loathe the most this particular hour."

Draco contained his overwhelming feeling of relief as his father walked to the border of the property's warding to disapparate. It seemed everyone was waiting for the sound before speaking again. I suppose such is the price of making a conspiracy of Slytherins.

"Who is the wizard you loathe the most, my lord?" someone asked from the crowd.

"Severus, regrettably. I had hoped his distractions had met their end and he would serve with unerring loyalty, though it was anything but a deeply held conviction. His duties forestall his punishment in the present, but he was Headmaster the better part of a year before the school was destroyed."

The Malfoy heir had difficulty containing his pleasure, redoubling his efforts on occluding his mind. Though he acknowledged that Snape's warnings generally proved true and the punishments administered were warranted in context, he genuinely hated the man, and no amount of cruelty to the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs would make up for it. To see the wizard punished would be a delight, and the best part was that he no longer had any specific authority over Draco or any of his vassals.

"Is that all? What will his punishment be?" It sounded like Dolohov.

"No, he also erroneously protected specific students by failing to report their actions as they relate to the Heir." How does he know? Did he investigate while pretending to be Karkaroff? I suppose he would have a pretext for being concerned about Evan. He might have been able to get through Snape's Occlumency, though the theory suggests the defender has the advantage. "Fortunately for me, we have one of them, the second most deserving of my loathing, in our numbers right now."

Draco felt himself being forcibly moved directly in front of the Dark Lord, though he had a thought it was one of the subordinates looking to be obedient while the master was angry.

"My lord-"

"You were the last to see Hogwarts standing, were you not?" It was hardly a question. "You saw Crouch as he was making to destroy it-"

"I implore my lord, there was nothing I could have done- the four of us who were left would have been killed and enough of them would be left standing-"

At least two voices muttered the incantation of the Cruciatus from behind him and he attempted to jump out of the way, but was struck all the same. The feeling of his bones splintering, of some corrosive force striking his spine like a bolt of lightning floored him with a strangled scream, and he found himself thrashing, his instincts confused between fight and flight.

"Perhaps that much is true, Malfoy," the Lord Voldemort supposed. "What further use do I have of you, if you cannot kill when I need you to kill?" He waved his wand, lifting the writhing young Slytherin from the ground. ...he punishes failure, not negligence... "Perhaps Severus made some effort to protect you because he saw promise, but you have confessed to me the exact opposite. I would resolve to punish him more thoroughly for making such a mistake, but I expect the both of you delight in each other's suffering more than you languish in your own." The dark wizard had adopted a bored expression by the time Draco could meet his eyes. "And yet, had you died, I would have been unable to kill you, as you are unable to return from death. Your punishment will not require your death, but it will continue until then." He waved his wand as the Malfoy heir managed to regain his footing, forming an illusion, a tower rising from a black cloud. "The best part is that your task, as likely as it is to result in your death, presents no risk to us, even as likely as it is to result in your failure," he mused.

"Is that..."

"No, you fool..." the Dark Lord answered. "This is Nurmengard Castle, a keep designed by the great Grindelwald to contain his enemies, but today he is the only inhabitant."

Nothing was said.

"Are you- my lord, are you compelling me... to free him?"

A smirk, an inhuman twitch of the lips formed under scarlet eyes.

"There is no need to destroy the prison for this, not at the present. A dragon could reduce it to ashes with enough time, but that rarely makes for a profitable venture." Polite amusement rose from the crowd. "Should I need to destroy it in the future, I shall spare not a moment. What I desire at the moment is the freedom of Grindelwald."

"My lord-" Selwyn started abruptly. "Perhaps his ambitions of world domination have not in fact been tempered by his incarceration."

"Then his release will serve my ends well. We shall allow him to gain a few followers, but keep him from reaching Britain. Does it not seem he would agree to that much?"

"Even if he were to refrain from invading this island, he threatens Secrecy itself."

"Of course, of course; I imagine no effort will be spared to contain the threat. The engagement of continental forces against him will serve my purposes and the course I have set for us."

"There are so many ways, my lord, that, in a less than ideal-"

"Malfoy may not succeed, yes. I shall curse him that his failure means death, yet his death will not hinder my aims except with the distraction of his father. I would, however, prefer that he succeed, and for that reason I shall allow him to bring along any advantage that might help, excepting the Heir."

"There are other matters to discuss-" someone started from the crowd, perhaps seeing an opportunity.

"True, true, there remains one thing I desire of this one before you may begin the many other elements of this meeting, the first in years as it is," he said as he turned Draco's head to face him. "Did the school die a noble death?"

"My lord?"

"Did she force her last enemy to besiege her walls with great conjurations of dark magic? Did she remain standing until her last ward was painstakingly unraveled?"

The questions has a mocking tone, but the young Slytherin understood.

"No. She fell quickly. I heard a fair few advanced explosion charms, but..."

He could not finish the sentence. Had I been asked a year ago, I would have said it was effectively impossible to destroy Hogwarts.

"I harbor a suspicion the castle's enchantments had been weakened, though it will be for my servants who remain in Britain to determine the reason. I took the opportunity to examine the damage I dealt to the identification wards and the destruction reached no further. Much of what I inspected, including the Anti-Apparation sigil and the layered warding between the towers serving to protect the students was effectively intact, though there were measures against dark magic I had not known to exist, as they had been unraveled before my time."

There was a disconcerted looking about and there were disconcerted whispers. Voldemort was the oldest among them, as most of his old school friends were dead, meaning whatever removed the enchantments or warding discouraging the dark arts had predated all of them.

"That means the protections that were destroyed were destroyed deliberately." Whose voice is that?

"Yes, Carrow, thank you for making it clear enough for the rest of us."

"He's only saying what everyone else is-"

The Dark Lord waved his wand and everyone was silent. It had seemed he was interested in discussing the subtleties of warding, but no one else wanted to speculate, or provide additional information. There were times his father regarded him as half a Ravenclaw, and he had the boldness some would mistake as a Gryffindor trait, but there was not a mote of Hufflepuff in him, or at least that was what all the Death Eaters said.

"If discussions of interest to me have concluded, it would be well that I return to Durmstrang."

"There are other matters to attend, of course," Selwyn started back. "We have some idea of what you have been doing since your resurrection, but what are your plans for this point on?"

"Perhaps there are those of us who have forgotten, but I have not," the Lord Voldemort responded. "I am aware many among you seek my undoing, and I mean to accept your challenges to my teaching and designs. As I doubt you would propose a duel, remember that your plotting is entirely too easy for me to predict, and my magical power makes a mockery of your own."

There were no words for a few moments as it seemed everyone was quietly shelving the thought of opposing their master. They would not abandon it, no, to do so would be to abandon magic and its world, but it was impossible to oppose him while surrounded by supporters; even those with ambitions of their own would defend him, as long as it was easier to fight his opponents than join them.

Grindelwald.

Draco occluded his mind, redoubling his concentration as some breaking of the silence went on around him.

He is an old man in a cell for longer than I have been alive, but his legend remains.

The illusion of the tower vanished before him, suggesting the thought no longer occupied the mind of the Dark Lord.

Everyone expects me to die.

The Death Eaters were doubtlessly bringing important matters to their lord, but the Malfoy heir could not have cared less what they said.

That's why they took care of my father's business first.

He tried to remember anything he could about Nurmengard Castle and its sole occupant, but it was really a question he would ask Nott, or possibly Davis.

I shall require the aid of all of my vassals.

Daring not to look around the room, it seemed everyone had forgotten him, at least for the moment.

I must continue to hide the displeasure of the Dark Lord from them.

He caught sight of Lestrange offering him a brief look of pity.

I must continue to hide my station among the nobility.

Selwyn appeared to be scanning the crowd.

Their faith in me will be tested again.

Draco had stood and dusted himself off, but no one in the room was accustomed to his head being held high at all times. He doubted Voldemort thought any less of him than Snape; it was just that the prior was more outwardly expressive of his vexation. His issue with the now former Headmaster, former Potions master, former Death Eater was that he had shown some promise at a young age, naturally raising the dark wizard's expectations. Following that, which he knew had been due to no academic excellence of his own, the war rekindled and proving himself could hardly be his priority. Longbottom's complaint that everything was going better before the war made him realize that the injustice of it all had never entered his mind.

Perhaps that's how it has been on both sides. If the war never ends, the sides never disperse. They know who is to blame for the war starting in the first place, and those same people are to blame when it picks up again.

Whatever personal costs he had endured because of the return of the Dark Lord, he knew nothing changed his stake. Protecting the magical world and its proper citizenry came leagues before his own life, which in turn was more important than what Snape thought of him.

What had the potential to change his stake was the inaction of the Death Eaters. A boy of pure blood and proud heritage was being punished unjustly, and rather than uniting against a common enemy, whom they no longer needed with the death of Albus Dumbledore, they weighed their options and kept eyes on each other. He knew there were those like his aunt who had always been loyal to her master first and everything else after, but previously it seemed there were more than enough purists to fight off the combined force of the Lord Voldemort and his passionate supporters. They don't trust each other... since the return, the more avowed blood purists would have been making fewer outward remarks of 'blood first, power second'. The others would take this to mean there are fewer of them. He scowled internally. Still more would have been seduced by their own ambition. They lost their master last time, and the sclerosis to which the world of magic returned convinced a few of them that they made a mistake in letting him go to his grave, though none of them knew.

He tried to think of whether he would have saved the Dark Lord from his fate if he were transported back in time, but it seemed completely impossible to make a decision. With him dead, he knew what would happen, but if he had lived, would he have gone after Hogwarts? Before anyone else, before anything else, Tom Riddle served himself, and dying had only made him less willing to work with his followers or hear their concerns. Perhaps he was a powerful wizard on their side, but the idea of asking him to go and kill someone was unthinkable.

He would never have gone after Dumbledore himself.

There were several reasons, but they all led back to his having no intention to ever die. Because of this, even if he knew the old fool were weaker, he would not go out and start a duel while the risk of dying was not negligible. Secondly, he hardly needed to kill someone older than he, that was what his followers needed, and as soon as they had it, he was a problem for them. His role is that of a shield, not a curse. His true purpose is to keep powerful wizards away from the Death Eaters, because killing them would require them to kill him as well.

Thinking on Dumbledore himself, the warlock might have kept the position at Hogwarts due to an uncommon belief that Lord Voldemort was still alive, of if dead he could return. If he died, he died under suspicious circumstances. The Potter family was odious enough, but not an obvious target by any means. His corpse was charred beyond recognition, prompting an investigation... one way or another, one day or another, if he ever came back, his target was the school and Dumbledore knew it. He took a deep breath. His advanced age might have contributed to a reason he kept the Philosopher's Stone at a wand's length. He wanted it where his enemy could not find it, but where he could retrieve it to drink the Elixir every so often- must have been clever enough not to rule out other means of returning from the grave.

It was a dark day he would give an old enemy credit for anything, but he could substitute naivety for folly, if he remained intent on criticizing the former Headmaster.

The meeting seemed to be mercifully nearing its conclusion around him. Before long he would suffer an international apparation and go to Durmstrang for the first time, where the shoe would be on the other foot with Evan. He scoffed internally. I lost my advantage over him when I helped him escape and delivered him into the hands of the Dark Lord. Had I allowed his arrest, my reputation would have suffered, but he would be less of a threat to me.

"I have a final question, master," his aunt announced, only a hint of pleading in her voice. "Shall I be allowed to punish Severus? He has been exceedingly naughty, after all-"

It appeared Voldemort had hit her with a silencer, and that Mulciber failed to conceal his smirk.

"I care not what you do with him if you manage to catch him. His punishment will be greater than you can imagine."

A stillness passed through the crowd. Their lord was not given to exaggeration, but was given to boldness.

"My lord?" Aunt Bellatrix asked, having removed her own curse. I suppose she has skill, if not sense.

"I shall take from him what is most precious, nothing more and nothing less."

The Dark Lord disapparated almost immediately, and quietly Draco supposed he had been promised there was only one more matter to attend. There was of course, a final question, presumably in the mind of every Death Eater, but certainly in his own.

What the devil did he mean?