EMERALD

Summary: Draco needed the Black House to protect his mother from Voldemort. The house went wrong and accidentally bonded Draco with Harry. Draco had no choice but to help with the horcruxes hunting. Timeline: starts from year five on. Slightly canon divergent.

WARNING: Please DO NOT repost, DO NOT translate.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

A/N: This is a slow-plot story. So please enjoy this in your leisure time.

~~~Happy Birthday Draco Malfoy!~~~

I. AGGRAVATION

"Damn you, Potter!" Draco amassed stacks of papers on his father's desk angrily.

Draco had learnt and worked those files immediately as he returned home from his fifth year. It had been three weeks since his head was grinding on the papers of the Malfoy enterprise. With good amount of the Malfoy's grand businesses in the Wizarding World and investments in the muggle world to take care of, Draco felt that it was all out of his capability. How did his father manage to handle them all by himself?

Twice his mother found him in the manor's library looked distressed because of the responsibility that was now put on his shoulder as the heir of The Malfoys after his father was sent to Azkaban by the bloody Ministry. His mother had offered to take care of everything again as she was originally did it all first before Draco returned from Hogwarts. But Draco would never let her.

"If Potter weren't in the Ministry that night, they wouldn't have gotten Father!" Draco sat down on the armchair in the library. Fists slammed the wooden desk with hard force.

"If the Dark Lord didn't send your father there, he wouldn't have visited Azkaban." Narcissa stared at her only son from her seat before now-Draco's-desk in the library.

At hearing the Dark Lord mentioned, Draco's face paled instantly.

"Draco?" Narcissa leant forward, noticing her son's sudden change of expression.

"He's going to get us I'm sure of it! The Dark Lord, he'll never forgive Father's failure." Draco stood up and started pacing back and forth in the library.

"Our wards are strong. This manor is protected by ancient blood wards. Not even the Dark Lord will be able to penetrate it." Narcissa's eyes were following her son's movement.

"Yes, Mother. But I am certain he had anticipated it. He must have found a way to enter this manor."

"But that's not possible. Our ancestors' wards are strong." Narcissa stood abruptly from her seat. "Besides, he had never stepped a foot in this manor."

Draco stopped his pace and stood still facing his mother. He was most definitely certain the Dark Lord would be able to enter the Malfoy Manor without alerting the wards at any moment because…

"Mother… I..." Draco inhaled and exhaled smoothly, contemplating on whether he should tell his mother or not about something. In the matter of five seconds, he decided to be honest with his beloved mother. "Do you remember the Dark Lord had given me a task right after Father was sent to the Ministry? That he ordered me to connect two Vanishing Cabinets," Draco said carefully.

Narcissa gasped softly as she remembered, dropping her body on her seat heavily. She knew full well that the task hadn't been bestowed on Draco as a reward but rather as a punishment for Lucius' failure. The Dark Lord thought that Draco wouldn't make it.

"We know one is in Hogwarts, and the other one… I'm sorry, Mother. When you were unaware, he told me that the other cabinet would be sent to the manor. And it's now in one of manor's rooms." Draco felt so fool now and he feared for his mother's safety. The Dark Lord could have attached something on the cabinet as a way to enter the manor.

~o~

"Show me where the cabinet is." Narcissa arose from the chair heavily.

Narcissa had checked the Vanishing Cabinet kept in an empty room at the east wing of the manor. It had no trace of the Dark Lord's magic.

"I cannot be sure if he didn't leave his magic from the beginning on it. Or even if he did, his magic might have left the cabinet and found itself a secure place somewhere in the manor," Narcissa shared her thought with Draco.

"It will take time to check the whole manor…" Draco said to himself. He could connect and merge with the manor to examine any foreign magic signatures in the manor fast and easy. But it would require full mastery of the manor to possess the building and its wards. And currently his father was the one who held the mastership. Maybe Draco should visit his father and persuade him to pass the mastery to Draco, later.

After a brief moment of tense silence, Draco's mother looked at him in the eye.

"The Black House," Narcissa walked toward Draco, taking his cold hands, "We can take shelter in the Black House. It's protected with blood bond ward. We'll be safe there. Only those with Black blood can enter the house."

"But Mother, doesn't it mean aunt Bella will be able to enter the house, too?" Draco squeezed her mother's hands.

"She can't. She has been disowned and blasted off The Black family tree tapestry."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go there now! The Dark Lord might come at any moment without alert!" Draco let go of his mother's hands and started to walk toward the wooden doors when his mother grabbed his wrist.

"We can't. The last owner was my deceased cousin, Sirius Black. And he had given the house to Harry Potter, according to his Will."

"What?! Why Potter? And how did you know about it, Mother?" Draco's eyes were almost popped out of their sockets.

"It seems that Sirius was Potter's godfather. I knew about his Will because under certain circumstances, I got notified by Gringotts. We must ask Potter if we want to seek protection from the Black House."

"Bloody Potter! Why it always has to be him! Mother, I'm going to see Potter now." Draco was about to leave the Vanishing Cabinet room when his mother stopped him for the second time that late noon.

"Do you know where he is now?" Narcissa asked.

"No…"