It was not the first time Draco had appeared before the Dark Lord, and if his father had any idea of anything, it would not be the last time he felt completely unprepared. Perhaps the dark wizard's number would come up soon, but there was nothing outwardly wrong with him, not after defeating four of the greatest wizards in China, all knowledge and all reason suggesting they were four of the greatest wizards in the world. He had come with his Aunt Bellatrix, who was there to report on her success with the dark wizards of La Habana, while his mother and father had gone elsewhere in the New World.

"Tell me, my lord, how did you prevail against their combined might?"

"I had no intention of facing their combined might; I fought them separately. That they have given up their attempts to end my life means they have realized what was obvious enough to me; if I have killed one I can kill the rest. The challenge, if it can be called that, was keeping them off my trail and thereby forcing them to split up and search for me, lest I take them unawares. I understand I have your nephew to thank for that."

"Draco? I thought he had displeased you."

"Indeed, he took quite the long time to be more of a salve than salt to my wounds. I forgave him easily enough for attempting to prevent me from reaching the Stone; his actions were so perfectly ineffective I decided I would permit him to pretend he had only been trying to deceive his classmates and teachers, if he actually succeeded in doing that. Albus Dumbledore is a fool. He trusted Severus Snape after a single good deed that resulted in my temporary death, while the man had a long history of bad deeds. However long Lucius has served me, he has successfully claimed he was under the Imperius at the time, his son's attempt to stop me from regaining my life would have been quite the feather in his cap for those deluded enough to believe in good and evil."

There was a pause. Draco had never once considered ostensibly joining with the forces of good as they styled themselves, even though in their painful naivety they might have even believed him. It would have given the Hufflepuffs even more cause to call them blood purists, but then they finally would have had the fight they wanted. His true allies would line up behind them and there would only be the saviors of the magical world and those who would ruin it, with no middle ground left. Even if they demanded that he recant all of his previous views, the Slytherins would know the truth of it and the conspirators would never have believed it. Though his father had actually been under the Imperius, if given a limited amount of orders, they rejected his defense for no legitimate reason and it would be the same with him.

"Yet, my lord, I am not sure how you managed to defeat even one of the Xian, even with all that I know of your power."

"Again, Bellatrix, your flattery, while deserved, is not necessary. It is a wonder any wizards consider themselves experts in the mind arts without having read my original research. I was capable of removing myself from their minds before they saw me and a simple killing curse was all it took after that. Perhaps they were great wizards by some metric I have not observed, but even Albus Dumbledore could not have fended off that which he did not see coming. It shames me, somewhat, that there are those in my service who believe they could destroy me, when they had as much trouble with him, while he was occupied with a far greater wizard."

"Traitors? In our midst?" she asked.

"Even now, yes," the Dark Lord said, staring directly at Draco. It was a meeting of only the three of them, of course, in the Headmaster's Office at Durmstrang, where he had been taking summer lessons. "All the same, I have no fear of them. Their presence is no more than an indignity, and I suffered rather enough of that as a shade that I can endure it whilst they persevere in their hopeless, secret struggle. One of them was more amusing than the others, a half-blood named Gagarin who seemed quite convinced he could us my own apprentice against me."

"I should not think a boy as green as young Draco would allow it to enter his head-"

"Green indeed," the Lord Voldemort observed, sparing a moment for a mirthless laugh. "Evan is young and passionate, but there is no more vibrant green than the envy in his heart. The expression he wore when I told him that I am the true Heir of Slytherin was truly priceless, a pity for the sole proprietor of the Philosopher's Stone." A look of confusion passed over Bellatrix's face. "Ah. I have not told you his true heritage because I saw no point in it. On my first meeting with him, in this very room, I needed no more than look at him to confirm my suspicions. Contrary to popular belief, I did not burn him to death; I suspect his adoptive father was the start of that rumor. I must commend him; his having fed and nourished the boy for over a decade is the only reason I breathe today."

The numerous curses the Malfoy heir had applied to his face were the only reason his pupils remained at a normal dilation. A human horcrux? The Dark Lord accidentally made one out of a baby he was trying to kill?

"How, my lord?" Bellatrix said, for once her nephew sharing her awe, if his had a greater measure of fear.

"The use of the killing curse splits the soul, when there is a target. A fragment of my soul traveled to the target and as soon as the curse connected, I was destroyed. Whatever complex protective charm shielded the child, it caused my soul to collapse at the other end of the temporary connection. I regret I could not have spared Lily Potter for Severus as he asked, but I found her rather imprudent, and it seems it was worth the trip for him all the same."

"Are there any who know of this?"

"I expect my enemies have discerned the truth, as little as it will benefit them. Evan is no loyal servant of mine, but he is capable of exactly nothing that I did not show him, hardly the manner of prophesied hero who will destroy me. What does present something of a threat is the standing army being built in Europe, but I have every confidence that my Death Eaters will stay the course and refrain from causing any problems on that front."

"My lord, the Prophecy could have applied to another boy-"

"Yes, you would be familiar with his family. Regrettably, your skill was insufficient to have his location out of his parents, else you and I would not be having this conversation. Your husband and his brother are making themselves useful to me oversees, and the same has been true for you thus far, and yet, since you have not divined the truth, I have decided I must personally tell you a second, secret purpose behind scattering my followers throughout the world."

"Have you been looking for him?"

"I should think that was rather clear by this point in the conversation, if not in the last year. Perhaps your admiration is false, if you did not suspect I had more than one goal by dividing my forces."

Draco stared at his aunt as she breathlessly denied that she had never, not for any reason, thought so little of her lord and master. How confused she must have been when Lord and Lady Longbottom refused to divulge the location of their son. Fitting for a childless marriage of pure alliance, I suppose.

"No matter," the Dark Lord said, cutting off further praise. "I have said that there are only those I fear and those who fear me, but it appears there are also fools. See that you do not become like them, Malfoy," he suggested, turning at last to the younger wizard. "Would you like to see my original research?"

"I would be honored. If I may, what are the plans for young Longbottom?"

"You dare-"

"Enough, Bellatrix. I was circling back to this subject, anyway. There is serious doubt that he can defeat anyone with greater skill than an indolent heir, so as soon as he is discovered, his death is assured, as there is no one left to stand in my way. I need not trouble myself with the search, even disarming him can be left to another, yet I would prefer to kill him myself. As I have interpreted the prophecy, only when I kill him is the prophecy resolved; in any other event, I shall be forced to kill Evan."

"That would be most unfavorable," Draco said. "I would have liked to get along better with the supposed Heir, but it seems he did not see things the same way. In the interest of preventing threats to your person, how is it that the standing army will present any more trouble than any law enforcement unit or Auror corps if it cannot find you?"

"I suspect they intend to have a force large enough to force a conflict, but I need not involve myself in it. For every land they turn over in search of me they will run into thousands of discontents. It will not be enough to stop them, of course, yet they will have to slaughter them and prattle on about not distinguishing between dark wizards and those who harbor them. What is more likely to be a threat to me is the Department of Mysteries, and with the army moving about, I suspect it will be difficult to gauge their progress in what machinations they have been developing. Did you ever hear of the Time Turning Experiment?"

"Only the slightest measure, my lord," he said.

"No matter. Before his capture, Macnair told us the experiment was declared a failure around seven years after my disappearance, at which point you would have been younger than what Hogwarts accepts. It was determined that time travel to the past was simply impossible, but the Department has been quieter than usual lately. With no further concern of Death Eaters bringing secrets back to me, it might be time to return to that point of contention."

Fear flooded Draco's mind. The kinds of horrors the Ministry would wreak against the public with that amount of power superseded his ability to scoff that they deserved what happened to them for how foolish they had been, going along with the new school, going along with the Edict before that, and going along with the Inspections before that. As little respect as he had for them, he had no desire to see their souls sucked out by dementors, which was what would happen as wands continued to be snapped and hope of resistance became a steadily crueler joke.

"My lord, as little chance of victory as there may be-" Draco started as soon as the use of his tongue returned to him.

"You would have us return to the island, then?" the Lord Voldemort asked. "Perhaps I could cut through enough of their forces, but that is precisely what they expect. How is it that we know the Department of Mysteries works on the important projects in the basement of the Ministry, as opposed to a muggle flat in Douglas? If they are anticipating a frontal assault by a powerful wizard, they will relocate their secrets if they have not already relocated them in the past nine hundred years."

The scion to the Malfoy House only stared back.

"You recognize, as do all my Death Eaters, that you would require my assistance on any such flight of folly. I owe my magical power to my wisdom, to my having learned the truth of magic far earlier than any other, and if you know you are lost without my power, I fail to see how you do not recognize you are lost without my wisdom. Stay the course, Draco."

He nodded before leaving. Your planning for the last four years has left us in a state so mean and desperate we have no choice but to rely on you further. A pity you could not say the same of those you claim to oppose. As much as it made him snarl to himself, it made sense; the blood purists had every intention of disposing of their master once he had eliminated everyone they needed him to eliminated, so out of all the potentially functional plans he invented for winning the war, by his own definition, he chose one that would force his servants to rely on him until the bitter end, one way or the other.

It was fortunate he did not have classes, else he would not be able to meet with Travers, who had taken to being their communication with Grindelwald after various plans in Africa failed. The Death Eater wore a morose expression. Draco wore none.

"Ill news, I presume?"

"The madness is spreading to the continent. It will be on our doorstep before long. I always thought upper years at Durmstrang could stand to learn the Patronus."

It was perfectly clear he referred to the efforts to curtail the dementors. While the Prophet could probably invent windmills for Crouch's tilting, furthering public dependence on the authority for safety, the more effective boggart-under-the-bed was a real problem, and the wizarding populace could feel the dementors. Banning formal instruction of the Patronus Charm a few years earlier had been to prevent an invasion of Azkaban, but it worked rather nicely as a way of feeding the wraiths those who lived too far from London for the appropriate channels to care about them. There was some word that they had taken part of Norway, but he had yet to see what had developed from that. From what little he knew of Scandanavia, the states were rife with much of the same problems as his homeland.

"The dementors are one matter. The standing army is another. Do we at least know what they're calling it?"

"It's the Secrecy Defense Force in most languages," Travers said. "Had some trouble figuring that one out. It's been long enough since Grindelwald was up and about, so it's not really controversial to put together a fighting force on the pretext of going after him."

"That much is easily guessed. If they intend to defend Secrecy rather than simply root out discontents and kill them to further centralize control, they will have their work cut out for them. If the newspapers are any indication, they have no idea where the old warlock is."

"The Dark Lord has instructed us not to reveal his location. I could not say why, only that I would have thought that was the plan at some point. More importantly, have you got your dark shield working?"

"I have. I can consistently block dark magic."

The way he understood it, the game of dueling was one where each approach had its advantages and disadvantages. A light shield, as it had come to be known only after the invention of the dark, could block physical objects and light spells adeptly, though it was a more advanced shield that could block things like memory charms and oddly enough, tripping jinxes. A dark shield could block both light and dark magic with a relatively high degree of reliability, but physical objects passed right through. Physical shields took a degree of skill, but could block dark magic and obviously physical objects, but were ineffective against many light spells like fire charms, water charms, memory charms and so on.

"That's good; you'll do your father proud. You'll also need it."

"Our enemies have started to use what they claimed to oppose?" he asked.

"It was Crouch who came up with the kill on sight order, remember?" Travers prompted. "He knows it works. They all know they needed to use dark magic to have a chance against us; it was just a matter of time and getting the right people in place so they could change some definitions around. It's concerning, but there's nothing we can do but get ready."

"Indeed. Are Inferi among our concerns?" It would certainly explain how they managed to get a standing army together.

"It's possible. At a low level, they're not hard to raise. We might be dealing with higher levels of Inferi, though; old Rookwood said something about the Death room pushing the limits of what you could do with them. It's a pity he's had to flee with Snape."

"Truly," Draco said, sighing internally. Augustus Rookwood had no children, which was a boon, as the Ministry would have kept tabs on them, but he had met the old man once or twice. He had worked in the Department for decades, but they had no intention to hire him again after his departure from Azkaban, so he had no recent insight into the enemy's plans, only memories of projects they had probably already scrapped. "Does he know anything of the Time Turning Experiment?"

"No, that was after Karkaroff squealed on him. We've already lost all of our other Ministry plants."

"I was aware." Yaxley and his father had been instrumental in the amount of control blood purists were able to exert over the government. He found himself fondly remembering the time he accompanied his father on a trip to intimidate old Fudge into going along with some initiative of theirs. Things seemed so simple in those days.

Draco left Travers after a polite farewell. The wizard had his uses, after all. He understood that his Aunt Bellatrix would be returning to the Cubans and most likely meeting with the people of Haiti after being dismissed; what escaped him was why the Dark Lord had to personally debrief her to evaluate her progress. There must be something of interest in the New World, some secrets art that would turn the tides of war.

The only dark wizards apart from the locals would be the Knights of the Golden Circle, and it was his understanding that as much as the Death Eaters had attempted to reach out to the people of North America, he was not aware of any attempt to reach out to them specifically. Much of their efforts to establish themselves from the nineteenth century to the present had failed, owing to the strength of not only their own countrymen, but the lands they were trying to conquer as well. They were more successful with a practice known as filibustering, in which they took pieces of muggle states in secret military campaigns not approved by anyone.

They more closely resemble vikings than anything else. Harald Bluetooth allowed his people to raid other countries and set themselves up as rulers of whatever little plot of land they could manage to hold. There were wizards involved with that, of course, not that the muggles remember.

In those days, magical knowledge was so limited the only benefit the wizards could provide to muggle armies was divination, and that was even more notoriously unreliable than it was in the present. The foundation of Hogwarts, the oldest concurrently running school, gave young witches and wizards access to the combined libraries of four noble houses, and essentially changed everything. A fighting force of wizards could reasonably defeat any fighting force of muggles; the problem was that the muggles realized it and tried to eliminate them as quietly as possible rather than forcing an open war. Various governments as well as the church would kidnap little boys and girls when rumors of magical ability sprang up, and their parents would never see them again. It was substantially more effective than the open witch hunts; all they had to do was pretend they did not believe magic existed while actively trying to destroy it. When Secrecy became law, the memory modifiers were almost surprised to find far fewer people than they believed actually knew of the parallel world they were setting up. For the vast majority of the muggle population, whether they believed or did not believe in magic, they did not know one way or the other.

Draco began to compose a letter to his lord father in his head.

Dear Father,

I have decided that I shall use my vassals for the purpose of a filibuster. In that the term describes an invasion without cause or approval, it differs from the political maneuver. In that I have gained some tacit approval from the Dark Lord, I allow myself a degree of confidence in our success.