Ronald Malfoy was going home for the first time since he'd left for school the previous Fall. A small part of him, something slow to change, was happy about it. Another part, something very foolish, was ready for a fight, as if heading into a quidditch match. And yet another part was afraid for himself, and for his parents who had taken his mother's mad sister and her wicked master into their house. This part knew this trip home might be his last trip anywhere.
Exactly as Professor Snape had predicted as Ronald stepped up to the Floo in his office, Bellatrix Lestrange was waiting at the fireplace at the foot of Malfoy Manor's grand staircase when Ronald arrived. She wasn't as careful of the flames as a sensible person would have been, her hair and clothing smoking as Ronald collided with her on the hearth.
She shrieked, not at the near miss with the flames, but at her first sight of the second Malfoy heir. It was a sound of triumph, delight, and cruelty. Her sister did not want her near this - this boy. But here she was gripping his arms all the same, her hands strong and dangerous as hawk's talons. "Well, if it isn't that beautiful bastard's beautiful bastard. Ronald Malfoy. Aren't you lovely."
He tried to step back to a more polite, less insane distance for conversation, his back pressed hard against the stonework of the fireplace. "You must be Au - Aunt - "
"No, no, no," she interrupted, one hand covering his mouth, her flesh reeking of brimstone beneath his nose. "You and I are not related, Ronald. Not by any blood." She beamed at him as best she could with a mouthful of grey and broken teeth that almost made him sad for her.
She gripped his arms again, feeling along their lengths. Ronald had good arms - firm and well-muscled. He knew it. Everyone did, including this creature groping them as she leered greedily into his face. Her lingering resemblance to Narcissa was a sick parody. "At last, a Malfoy who can be admired without the inconvenience of any," she rose on her toes to speak into his ear, "taboos."
She bounced back on her heels, cackling madly as he fought not to wipe the wet vapour of her breath out of his ear.
Instead, Ronald spoke to her slowly, calmly, as if to an irresponsible stranger's near-feral pet. "Erm - well then, nice to make your acquaintance, Madam Lestrange."
He glanced up the stairs, hoping to see his parents rushing to save him. There was no one. Were they locked up somewhere? No, the enchanted old house would never let anyone use its doors and walls, its locks and bolts to imprison its masters.
Bellatrix linked her elbow through his and batted his sternum forcefully enough to make him cough. "Oh, listen to you. So proper and polite." She dragged her fingertips down the length of his neck, her fingernails biting just enough to leave rows of red lines on his unbroken skin. "Polite is not like your father. Not when it comes to me. Though this jawline…" she left his neck to trace another red mark along his face. "That's your father. And the nose. How old are you, darling? Same as angel Draco, is it? Sixteen?"
"Y-yes, Madam."
She whistled. "All grown up."
"Not so very much - "
"Well-developed on the outside. That's for certain. But what of the inside?"
She clamped her fingers around his chin, tilting his face to look down into hers, her eyes wide and wild, focused on his. This was it. This was Legilimency. His head felt like one of the drawers of cards in the library if it had been pulled all the way out and dumped into a cyclone. The rush and blast of it left him helpless as Bellatrix Lestrange kicked and clawed and tore at the cards. His eyes shuttered themselves but it was too late, she was inside, invading, violating.
He was angry - furious. This was wrong. He needed something right. What was it? He'd been telling Snape, just moments ago. There was something right that he was going to show these monsters instead of letting them rampage wherever they liked.
Pansy - Ronald had promised Snape he'd fill his mind up with nothing but his sickeningly sweet, all-consuming memories of being with Pansy. It was a strategy Draco couldn't use, not when Hermione was Muggle-born and had to be kept out of the path of the Dark Lord's rage. But Pansy happened to be pure-blooded, someone to flaunt and to satisfy them. Ronald had to find her in his mind even through the heavy traffic of his revulsion for Bellatrix. He had to find Pansy and not Harry.
Anything but Harry - no, no, no - no, Harry.
The pressure in his head raged higher as Harry's name formed in his mind.
No.
Pansy - Pansy Parkinson on the night of the DA raid, finding him at the end of a long chase, leaping to throw her arms around his neck, so relieved he was safe, and that it was her who'd found him. He'd been miserable, worried about Harry being dragged off by Umbridge, worried about the rest of the DA, his brothers and sister.
And she'd whispered comfort to him, promising him he was still good. He was still in the right. She'd smoothed his hair from his face, kissed his forehead and eyelids. He had clung to her, grabbed her by the waist, jumping as his fingers touched the warm, silky skin of her back instead of the coarse wool of the waistband of her school skirt. Her shirt had come ever so slightly untucked. She hadn't even known until she felt his skin against hers. She had gasped against his throat, plunged her hands into his hair as his fingers slipped past the hem of her shirt, up to his wrists, and -
"Ah, you're even more grown up than I could have hoped, Ronald." Bellatrix's voice was pitched low now, twisted by the wicked grin through which she spoke. "And you're more like your father than your mother would have feared, I daresay."
She was withdrawing from his mind. Feeling her leave was like coughing a peach stone out of his throat. He was choked and angry, his joints slack as he slumped against the face of the fireplace.
"You may share the rest of your mind with the Dark Lord himself," she said, straightening her robes. "He has oh-so many questions for you, Ronald Malfoy. You will find he will cut through your dirty little fantasies quickly enough."
"Madam Lestrange," a voice was calling down the corridor.
Ronald cringed at the sound of it: Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail, Scabbers. "Madam, what are you doing with the Dark Lord's boy?"
She grit her teeth. "Welcoming him home. I'm his aunt, aren't I?"
Pettigrew came no closer, calling loudly from the drawing room doorway, making sure whoever was inside heard every word. "Madam, you are first and foremost the servant of our Lord. And this boy is brought here for his purposes before your own."
She spun on the ball of her foot. "Shut up, Wormtail, we're coming."
"Not you, Madam. Send him along unaccompanied, uncoddled by his doting aunt."
Her lips curled away from her teeth, her eyes narrow with fury as she shoved Ronald from the fireplace. He staggered away from her. "Go on!" she shrieked after him.
Ronald moved slowly, watching her storm up the stairs. If he was lucky, she would find his parents and taunt them about bringing him here. Then he might stand a chance...
He felt anything but lucky as he set off down the corridor, dragging a deep breath into his lungs. The air didn't taste right, didn't smell right. There were few things more recognizable to Ronald than the smell of his own home. Some of it was still there - the scent of the grit wearing off the stone the building was made of, the lingering air of his mother's signature narcissus flowers, and always a hint of wine. But tonight, there was a stench of musky rot.
He had come far enough along the corridor to be able to discern the whiskers on Pettigrew's face. There was no warmth in their reunion, the ratty little man standing aside to let Ronald pass into the drawing room.
In the dimness of the firelight, Ronald's eyes followed his nose. There was the source of the new, wrong smell - a massive green snake. It raised its head, its tongue flicking, tasting the Malfoy in him drifting on the air. It hissed, as if angry about the charm that held it back from attacking Ronald.
"Hush, Nagini," a high, papery voice said. "Do not vex our host."
As she did on most evenings between school holidays, Molly Weasley sat at her kitchen table, alone. The long table was empty except for Arthur's tea sitting under a warming dome, waiting for him to return from yet another late stay in town. The house was quiet enough for her to hear the mice running beneath the front stairs outside.
The sound of movement in the kitchen clock was unmistakable, and she tracked its motion with her eyes, expecting to see one of her adult sons on the move again, as they always were. She'd been thinking of reworking the clock, converting the useless "dentist" sector to "date." But it wasn't Bill, Charlie or Percy who was on the move. It was Ronald. His hand had moved from school to home.
Home - home with that Bellatrix Lestrange creature, the criminal who, not one month ago, Lucius had been scrambling all over Britain to keep Ronald away from. Had she gone? Was Malfoy Manor safe for Ronald again? Molly's eyes were still fixed on the clock when it answered her question, clicking from "home" to "mortal peril."
Bellatrix Lestrange was still in the house, and perhaps she had not come there alone.
Molly's chair fell to the floor as she stood, inches of stitches slipping off her knitting needles and onto the table.
"Bloody Lucius," she said through gritted teeth, pulling on her coat. In the yard, she took a broom from the shed and stood on the green, wand ready, breathing deeply, fighting to quell her anger, willing herself to be calm so she could do what must come next.
"Expecto Patronum."
The shining form of a bird appeared from the end of her wand. It was shaped like a pigeon, like her long lost familiar from her school days, only in the silver light of a patronus, it was a dove. It circled around her head as she spoke a message to it, and sent it to London, to Arthur.
When the dove had flown, she brandished her wand again, turned on the spot and disapparated to Malfoy Manor.
An icy cold crept over Ronald as he stood in the doorway of the drawing room. Peter Pettigrew was crowding him from behind, raising one skittish hand to Ronald's back, forcing him to recoil, lunging forward at the eerie familiarity of his touch.
"Come, Young Malfoy," the papery voice rasped, speaking to him from his father's armchair.
Pettigrew nudged, then pushed him forward. Ronald kept his eyes on the floor, looking at nothing but the grey, bone-thin feet on the rug.
"Ah, yes," the Dark Lord said. "Beautiful child. Very fine. I ought to have expected it but - I ask you, Young Malfoy, do you know who you are? Who you truly are? Who your parents are?"
Ronald nodded, croaking through a dry throat. "Yes, sir. My father is Lucius Malfoy."
The Dark Lord hummed. "And your mother? Not our Narcissa, but the woman who gave birth to you?"
"Molly Prewett Weasley," he said, barely above a whisper.
"Yes," the Dark Lord answered, a hiss. "I had regretted her status as a blood-traitor, but looking at you now, Young Malfoy, I see there is no unfortunate cross that Lucius Malfoy's genetics cannot salvage. A foolish, all but useless man as a servant, truth be told, but there may be no finer breeding stud in Britain at this moment."
He was rising from the chair, coming toward Ronald, intruding into his line of sight. "Heredity, inheritance, bloodlines," the Dark Lord said. "They fascinate me so. It's a shame your father hasn't sired a hundred children by a hundred witches. Ah well, there may still be time for that…"
He paced about the room, keeping to a tight circle around Ronald himself. "But you have an excellence of your own, haven't you, Young Malfoy. You succeeded where your brother did not, and made yourself the confidante of Harry Potter."
Ronald managed a small scoffing sound. "He's my roommate at school along with three others, if that's what you mean, Sir."
The Dark Lord laughed softly. "Oh, it's much more than that, isn't it Wormtail? My servant here was something of a roommate to you as well, as a rat. And then later, as a man, he saw you stand on a broken leg to defend Potter's life."
Ronald was murmuring excuses. "They'd wound us up so tightly over Sirius Black at school that year, we were all ready to kill him."
The Dark Lord clucked his tongue. "Come, Young Malfoy, it will be easier for all of us if you serve your family, your noble bloodlines properly and tell us everything you can about Potter. One way or another, we will find him out."
Ronald said nothing, his eyes still on the rug.
"I give you until a count of five to explain on your own accord. After that, I will reap your memories as I see fit."
Ronald kept quiet. It was coming again, more Legilimency. He was steeling himself against the attack, against his own anger. He was searching for memories of Pansy, in a field of flowers, her torso warm beneath his…
"Five."
Cold fingers grasped his chin, wrenching at his neck, leveling his gaze to bring his eyes to meet the red malevolence of the Dark Lord's.
Lucius shouldered past Bellatrix Lestrange, leaving her in his bedroom with Narcissa, sprinting down the corridor to the staircase. She had come to them sneering and talking in clues. He didn't need to listen to all of her nonsense to know she had forced Snape to send one - or perhaps both - of the boys to the manor.
He'd taken off his wet boots upstairs and came smacking into the drawing room barefoot. Too late, Peter Pettigrew stepped in his path to keep him out of the room. He was inside, standing on the rug with the Dark Lord as he held the face of Lucius's firstborn son between his long, grey fingers.
The Dark Lord was speaking, uttering a spell, "Legili - "
"My Lord!" Lucius called out. "Pardon the interruption. I'm just back from London with urgent news."
The Dark Lord's wrist snapped away from Ronald's face, dropping his chin back into his chest.
"What is it, Lucius?" he spat.
"I have intelligence from Remus Lupin and Sirius Black," he said, catching his breath. "Potter is studying Occlumency, trying to end a connection with yourself, my lord. There are moments when he sees what you see, feels what you feel. He was a magical witness to the snake's attack on Arthur Weasley last winter. And if he can see into my lord's mind, perhaps the reverse is true."
The Dark Lord turned away from Ronald, facing Lucius. "What is this?"
"There is no need, my lord, to collude with children, to rely on the inferior intelligences of anyone else. Your own is more than sufficient. Potter's mind is open to yours. It is yours to manage, to manipulate," Lucius said, taking Ronald by the wrist, drawing him toward himself with gentle pressure.
The red eyes blinked. "Potter saw the Weasley man in the Department of Mysteries?"
"Yes, my Lord. His mother hinted as much to me the morning after the incident. Black and the werewolf confirmed it as I listened in on them talking in town today." Lucius had moved Ronald fully behind him now.
The Dark Lord had dropped himself back into the armchair, reeling from the revelation. "For how long?"
Lucius shook his head. "That I can't say. Ronald?"
There was nothing to be lost anymore. "Since the beginning of the school year," he said.
"The headmaster," the Dark Lord hissed. "He would have known all this time. He would have been teaching him. That explains…"
He said no more, and the room hung in silence as Narcissa skidded to halt in the doorway, jostling Pettigrew, Bellatrix following her, chuckling over her shoulder.
"Wormtail!" the Dark Lord snarled. "Summon the others. We must confer. Go."
The room emptied without a sound, Bellatrix and Pettigrew rushing off to assemble the Death Eaters, Ronald trotting into the arms of his mother. The manor itself slammed the door shut behind the Malfoys as they went.
Outside the manor's black iron gates, behind what would look to passing Muggles like an overgrown hedge, stood Molly Weasley, one of her sons' old practice brooms in her hand. This house was known to be one of the best magical fortifications in all of Britain. Its gates would certainly not admit her.
Instead, she would fly over the hedge, over the vast slate roof, hoping to glimpse something through the windows. She'd summon stones to drop against the house's protective wards, demanding attention, drawing away whatever was threatening her boy, bringing the monsters upon herself.
She was about to kick off into the dark sky when a crack sounded behind her.
"Arthur!"
He sprung forward, catching her arm, keeping her on the ground. "Hang on, Molly. Our Ronald's in there, is he?"
"So said the clock, yes," she answered, unshed tears in her voice. "I should have brought it with me, I suppose."
Arthur cracked his knuckles. "Right. No worries, love. Hand us that broom. It's been years since I've had a proper go with old Lucius."
"Stop your nonsense," Molly said, yanking the broom out of his reach. "It's not Lucius who's put him in mortal peril."
"Isn't it?"
"No. There's no time to waste," she said, bending her knees to spring up.
"Wait," Arthur said, his hand closing over the broomstick. "Lucius comes and goes from our house when on urgent business that concerns Ronald. Maybe you'll find things the same here when it comes to yourself. Try the gates."
Molly huffed. "Impossible. This old house is as brittle and as fussed about bloodlines as everyone in it."
"That is exactly my point, dear," Arthur said. "Maybe it will recognize you as the blood of one of its heirs. Narcissa's not a Malfoy by blood either, and I'm sure she doesn't have to beg Lucius's permission to come and go from here. Try it yourself before you go flying off."
She sighed, dismounting the broom and approaching the black gates, curving her fingers around the rough iron of one of the long, vertical rods between all the twisting ornate patterns. She stood in the quiet darkness for a moment, waiting with her palm against the cold metal for a sign the house would let her enter.
Molly clucked her tongue. "We're wasting time - "
At the sound of her voice, the iron began to grind and creak, shifting aside, revealing a space large enough to pass through. She chirped in surprise. "This is it, Arthur, come along."
But when she passed through and turned back to reach for him, the gate was closed.
"It's alright, Molly," he said, mounting the broom himself. "I'll give you what cover I can from above."
She set off, disheartened by the noisy crunch of the gravel beneath her feet. Stealth was impossible. In the dark, the hedges of the manor grounds felt maze-like, as if she was caught in them, at the mercy of a horrible power. High above her, she spotted the glow of Arthur's wand, and the sparks warning his feet were too near the Malfoys' unseeable barriers.
Inside the barriers, the house stretched out in front of Molly, its walls high and white in the moonlight. Yellow light appeared as the doors at its centre opened, and a figure, wraithish, perhaps a ghost, drifted down the stairs, searching for the intruder, coming for her.
Molly clutched her wand, and then she heard her own name.
"Madam Malfoy!" she answered back. "Ronald - "
"You've missed him," Narcissa said. "We've just sent him by Floo back to school."
"Did anyone - "
"No. He is completely unharmed."
Molly sank to her knees in the gravel. "Oh, thank the stars!"
Narcissa was tugging at her arm. "Indeed, but you can't stay here. And get your husband out of the sky before he's killed."
"Don't you take that tone with me when it comes to managing a husband - "
"Mrs. Weasley," Narcissa called over her in an imperious voice, "you need to leave. In minutes, the Death Eaters will be converging here for a meeting. You'll be outnumbered and abused if they find you here."
Molly lifted her chin to watch Arthur circling overhead. "Right, we'll go. But you must promise me one thing."
Narcissa glanced over her shoulder, looking back to the house. "Tell me what. Quickly."
"The pair of you, as Ronald's other parents, you must come to the Burrow tomorrow evening. The stakes are now sufficiently high that we must stop working at cross purposes where Ronald is concerned. We need to coordinate our efforts to have any hope of protecting him from," she gestured at the house, "from an evil the likes of that. We are his only chance, his and your Draco's too. They need all of us, together."
It rang true in Narcissa's ears, every word of it. She hung her head, nodding. "Yes," she said. "Tomorrow. We will be there."
"Harry, come down!"
From where he'd been flying over the empty quidditch pitch on a broom borrowed from the equipment room in the field house, Harry peered at the spot of dark bushy hair that had to be Hermione. Still reeling from Snape's memories of James Potter as a teenaged bully, Harry was in no mood to speak to her, especially if she wanted her usual report on how the Occlumency lesson had gone.
"Harry!"
But there was something in her voice that Harry recognized. It was fear. He sighed and tipped the broomstick toward the turf.
"Where is Ronald?" she said without a hello.
"I dunno," Harry answered. "Maybe ask Draco?"
"I can't find him either," she said, her lip quivering slightly. "Snape is searching everywhere for him. Frantic. The - the people at the manor have sent for him. It's some kind of emergency. And if they can't find Draco, Snape is going to have to send Ronald instead."
Harry's head snapped as if he'd been hit. "Ronald can't meet Voldemort. He hasn't practiced a lick of Occlumency in his life. And even if he had - "
"I know," she interjected, her eyes wet and glistening. "Help me find them. You were the last one to see Draco, at your lesson."
Harry's face was a horrible grimace. "It didn't go well today," was all he was ready to say. "I left early, and they were already rowing before I could even get out of the room."
She was frowning back at him. "Malfoy was fighting with Snape? That's absurd. About what?"
"I don't know, Hermione," Harry said. "Really, I don't. I was distracted by my own issues. I've got no idea what set them off. All I know is, Draco hasn't been out here. But I'll check the Slytherin change rooms. Come on."
From the outside, the fieldhouse looked dark and empty, but they pressed on. Hermione stood behind Harry as he pushed open the door to the Slytherin change room.
"Hello?" he called.
A long, peeved sigh sounded on the other side of the door. "Potter. Looks like we both had the same idea on how to put that disaster behind us. Didn't I tell you not to - "
"Just shut up and listen for a second," Harry began.
"Malfoy," Hermione called, pushing past Harry.
"Granger?"
"You've got to come back to the castle. Now." She gave a quick explanation of the demand from home that he show himself at once or Ronald would be sent in his place.
Draco swore, but instead of tossing his broom back into his locker, he rushed outside with it, snagging Hermione by the hand as he went. She stifled a squeal as he pulled her onto the broomstick in front of himself. His hands gripped the broom in front of her, his body curved over hers, his arms like safety restraints on either side of her as he kicked off, speeding along the steep slope of the hill in the low, dim light, racing back to the castle.
It was too fast - terrifying for Hermione. She'd never moved so fast on a broom before, and it left her speechless, her eyes closed, her face turned to hide in Draco's chest. He pushed on anyway, faster, offering comfort with a kiss on the crown of her head.
"It's alright," he said, his mouth near her ear. "It's just speed. My speed, and I won't let it hurt you."
Unable to answer with words, she answered with a tiny nod against his shoulder.
In an instant, Harry was flying at their side. They were at the castle in less than two minutes, dropping the brooms on the grass, Hermione still wobbly and breathless but eager to keep up with the boys as they crashed through the doors and scrambled across the Entrance Hall.
In Snape's stairwell, Harry rattled the doorknob. "Locked."
"Make way," Draco said, trying it himself. Smooth as greased steel, the magic lock to Snape's office slid open at Draco's touch.
Hermione gasped. "How did you - "
"Later, Granger," he said, pushing the door open before them.
Green smoke from the Floo still hung in the air of Snape's office. A heap of tousled black fabric lay heaving on the ground before the fireplace. It was two bodies. One was Snape, pushing himself to sitting, propping up a lolling head of ginger hair - Ronald.
Draco rushed at them, falling to his knees beside them.
"He's alright, Draco," Snape said.
"Yes, no thanks to you!" Draco shouted. "How could you send him? Don't you understand? If they get him in the end, everything I've suffered in his place is for nothing. Nothing!"
Ronald was blinking, sitting up, away from Snape. "Easy, Draco. I'm alright. It was my choice to go. There's no need to talk to Professor Snape that way - not at the moment, anyways."
Harry extended a hand to raise Ronald from the ground as Snape righted himself. Only Draco was left kneeling on the floor. Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder. She called him by name. "Draco, get up. Ronald might have learned something we can use. We need to plan what's next, before they try something like this again."
He hung his head, his heartbeat in his ears, but his voice held in a tone he hoped sounded calm. "I'm sorry, Granger. I will plot and plan with you. But not quite yet."
As Draco rose to his feet, Snape turned to the window though it was too dark to see anything but reflections in it. Draco paused to look at his back, the unreadable tension in the black fabric between his shoulders.
Snape seemed to feel it. "Be sure to be in your dormitory well before curfew tonight, Draco," he said. "We will talk then."
Harry waited for Draco's faithful "Yes, Sir." It never came.
Draco didn't speak a word, squeezing Hermione's hand once before leaving them there.