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Part Five

Idunna moved slowly into the room, gesturing everywhere with her wand. Narcissa stood near the doorway and watched in silence. Now that the door was open, she could feel the foul magic that she had sensed from Harry's Horcrux in the moment before its destruction by the ritual.

Still, that didn't tell her anything about the direction they needed to move in. The floor was covered with dust and piles and piles of rubbish, everything from torn cushions to crushed portrait frames. Narcissa shook her head a little. She could understand why this would make a good hiding place for a Horcrux, but not why it had become one in the first place. Did no students ever want to throw something away instead of hiding it?

Idunna paused in the middle of the room and closed her eyes. Her lips moved in what Narcissa thought was a chant to restore some of her magic, and sure enough, when she opened her eyes again, they looked more like polished coins than they had. "Come with me now, Professor Malfoy."

Narcissa followed again. There were small, winding paths between the stacks, but no sense of order or organization. Narcissa smiled a little as she imagined what the Malfoy house-elves would have to say about this.

"Is something funny, Professor Malfoy?"

"Not at all," Narcissa replied blandly. "Only thinking that I have underestimated how messy students can be."

Idunna paused. Probably scanning my words for signs of evil Darkness. Then she turned away with a curt nod and began working her way further and further into the room. Sometimes they had to turn aside to avoid a bedframe, an ancient wardrobe, or something else too big to force their way over, but not often.

Her magic is leading her to it, Narcissa thought contentedly. And will hopefully help her identify any traps that surround it before they go off. It would be a waste if her Horcrux hound died the first time she encountered one.

Idunna stopped abruptly and closed her eyes, swaying back and forth. Narcissa wondered why for a moment until she saw the air in front of the woman congealing, turning green and greasy. A snake-shape formed there, swaying with Idunna. Then Idunna barked a word and extended a hand, and the serpent dissipated into a shower of sparks.

"It makes sense that someone from the Slytherin House would use a serpent as his guardian."

"It seems to be a unique spell. How did you defeat it?"

That gave Idunna the chance to give her a lecture, which seemed pleasing to the woman. In truth, Narcissa already suspected it was a use of the Sleeping Serpent Curse, and nodded and gave her as much attention as she could fake while keeping an eye out for the Horcrux. The vibrating feeling of darkness was close now.

"Halt!"

Narcissa froze in place. Idunna was kneeling in front of what looked like a lamp with stained glass panels, but two of the panels were broken and their glass scattered on the floor. Narcissa let her eyebrows creep up. The lamp looked neither ancient nor sturdy enough to hold a shard of Voldemort's soul.

"There was a spell cast on this lamp that makes everyone the light touches cursed."

"Is the wick lit?"

"No, of course not. But it is my duty to destroy the lamp so that no one else can ever again be harmed by it."

Narcissa had practice not rolling her eyes at Lucius, and she put it to good use now. "I understand, Idunna. But will you still have the magic left to combat the Horcrux if you take care of the lamp now?"

Idunna tossed her hair back with a frown. "And you think the Horcrux will be such a strong battle?"

"Well, it is corrupting me, and it is keeping a Dark Lord alive." Narcissa lowered her eyes to the floor. "Of course, you are the expert."

"Then treat me like one."

Already the truce is loosening, Narcissa thought, but took care to wipe any trace of expression from her face and keep her tone mild and meek as she said, "Yes, Idunna."

The woman began a complicated chant that first repaired the lamp and then wrenched something within it, making it emit a long hiss of steam and a faint dying cry. Narcissa held back a snort. The curse hadn't been a powerful one, and in fact probably wouldn't have been able to work at all once the glass was broken. Idunna must have known that, with her "expertise," but the look of satisfaction on her face said she didn't care.

"Now for the Horcrux," Idunna said, and they rounded one last corner.

Narcissa's gaze locked at once on the silver diadem hanging over the ear of a cracked bust. Her eyes narrowed. That looked much like the picture of the lost diadem of Ravenclaw that she had once seen in an ancient schoolbook. It would make sense that Voldemort had managed to find and corrupt a priceless artifact. Narcissa shook her head slightly. He would have got much more good from being known as the discoverer of the artifact; he could have had fame and fortune simply from that.

Of course, she had long since established that her blood had not transferred any traces of common sense to Voldemort.

"The diadem is corrupted."

"I will remain back, Idunna."

Idunna advanced towards the Horcrux and jabbed her wand at it. The air around it flared in a pattern of light like the bars of a cage. Narcissa raised an eyebrow slightly. Those were impressive traps, and she hadn't dealt with any others like them. Then again, Voldemort hadn't known Harry was a Horcrux, and the diary, if she was correct about it, had been meant to go out and corrupt others. Traps to prevent someone from touching it were beside the point.

"He has tarnished a powerful artifact."

"The diadem of Ravenclaw?"

"How did you know that?"

"I have seen pictures of it." Does she think that no one in the world could know anything but her? Then again, Idunna's tendency to treat Narcissa as a child was what had allowed Narcissa to fool her in the first place.

For a moment, Idunna eyed her as if she had trouble believing that, but Narcissa only stared back blandly. In the end, Idunna shrugged and murmured, "He has done an evil deed. At one time, it was said that Ravenclaw's diadem could grant perfect knowledge to anyone who put it on."

Her hand twitched a little. Narcissa nodded to the web of intricate lines in the air, to remind Idunna of the traps' existence. "What do you think will be the right method to disarm them?"

"They are based on the anger and hatred that anyone might feel when they come near an artifact this Dark." Idunna laid her wand on the floor and reached up to unbraid her hair. It tumbled over her shoulders and down to her waist with one pull of a golden cord. Narcissa raised her eyebrows. She would have to study her memories of this moment in a Pensieve later, to see how Idunna had done that. It could be a useful way to braid extra weapons into her hair.

"What are you doing?" Narcissa asked when Idunna reached out bare hands.

"I have made myself defenseless. I reach for the diadem in trust and love."

Narcissa braced herself, but Idunna's hands did indeed slide through the dark lines as if they weren't there, and closed around the diadem. She caught her breath sharply, making Narcissa narrow her eyes.

But when she lifted the diadem off the bust, she didn't place it on her head. She smiled a little at Narcissa, using the condescending tinge without which she probably couldn't smile at all, and murmured, "The traps were anchored to the place where the diadem stayed. We now only have to destroy the Horcrux."

"Will you use Fiendfyre? Or basilisk venom?"

"Both those weapons are tools of the Dark."

Narcissa let her eyebrows rise slowly enough that Idunna turned to look at her and saw them. "Fiendfyre is indeed a Dark curse," Narcissa murmured. "But basilisk venom is neutral, like any poison."

"It takes Dark magic to hatch a basilisk in the first place. Do you truly imagine that I would use it?"

Narcissa let herself take on a chastised expression again, and Idunna waved her off. "In the meantime," she said, and laid the diadem in the middle of the room's floor, before she began to conjure a sheet of silk. She then pulled a vial of something thick and silvery from her pocket and dripped it into the silk.

"Is that willingly given unicorn blood?"

"Yes. It will purify the silk into a weapon that can contain the diadem."

Narcissa did not need that explained, but she again adopted that docile expression. Idunna tucked the diadem away when the silk was fully watered, and slipped the whole package into her pocket. Narcissa followed thoughtfully.

She only hoped that the diadem could not also possess people, and that Idunna would not find herself tempted to place the diadem on her head before taking care of it. On the other hand, if that happened, Narcissa knew she could take care of it.

"Mother, Professor Freyasdaughter was staring at me all through class today."

"Was she?" Narcissa kept her voice light as she watched Draco shape the shield he'd found around himself, a thin cocoon of blackness that only shimmered and flickered for a moment before it disappeared fully into his skin. "Has she burned you again?"

Draco shook his head and lifted his hand to wipe the glamour away with a swift motion of his wand. The sunburst had healed except for a faint lingering trace of pink on his cheekbone like a blush. "But it makes me wonder if she knows that I'm using Dark Arts."

"If she tries to assign you a detention, then tell her that you would prefer to serve it with Filch than her."

"Mother."

"She must not be allowed to get you alone. There are spells she could cast that would reveal your use of the Dark Arts."

Draco paused. "Even with the shields? The books said they were supposed to keep the nature of the spells I was performing secret as well as keep her Light magic from affecting me."

"It would depend on the Light magic she used. She would need time to prepare, and it would resemble a ritual more than an incantation. That is why she must not be allowed to have you alone. If she is in front of other students, she wouldn't be able to cast it."

Draco nodded, his eyes shadowed. "Do you think that if she does assign me a detention and insist that I serve it with her, I should try to get Harry into the same detention?"

"Either that, or have him come with you under his Invisibility Cloak and watch. He would be able to recognize the beginnings of the incantation and disrupt it more easily than you could when she can see you."

The beginning of Draco's glare of resentment died, but he did say, "How come you never taught me to recognize the beginnings of those incantations, Mother?"

"It did not seem to me that it was knowledge you needed, when I knew you would never wield Light magic. But if you would like to learn them now, as part of the process of recognizing an enemy…."

"Yes, Mother. Please. I don't want to know what would happen if she managed to get me alone in a corridor or something."

"She would die. But that would come later."

Draco gave her a slightly uneasy glance, and then seemed to decide she meant that she would kill Idunna when she found out about it, when in fact Narcissa would keep Idunna alive for some time to explain all the subtleties of her displeasure to her. "All right. What are the wand motions?"

Narcissa showed him the first ones, and watched him write down the neat, precise descriptions he had learned to write from his father before he went to Hogwarts. Lucius was a master at that, one of the skills Narcissa valued in him. "Now you want to—"

She winced at the sudden explosion against the back of her mind. Evidently Voldemort had decided to try again to punish her for what she had done to him. She shook her head at Draco and said, "Study them for now," and turned inwards to focus on the battlefield.

This time, the angry, empty space between them, forged by the blood-link, was quivering and trying to form into something that looked like a dark forest. Narcissa sighed at the lack of etiquette some Dark Lords had and changed it into a drawing room. There were soft white curtains against the windows and the light of a dim grey day coming from the outside. Bookshelves stood along the walls, but before Narcissa could populate them, Voldemort was in front of her.

"You will cease this!"

He wanted to make her kneel, or so the blast of magic that hit her a moment later signified. Narcissa coolly lifted the techniques of the discipline against it. She had learned to use and wield deadly weapons and poisons from the moment she could place her hands on vials. She would not have succeeded without the ability to keep calm under any circumstances.

"Cease what, Voldemort?" Narcissa asked, when the onslaught had stopped. He was staring at her with his mouth open in a crooked kind of snarl, baring teeth that looked as if he never brushed them.

"Defying me. Freeing your husband!"

So he had found out about that, as both she and Lucius had predicted. Narcissa wondered if she should bring Lucius to Hogwarts for the next part of the ritual. At least he should be safe behind the wards of the Manor. "No. Why should I? He is mine."

Voldemort flung back his head and screamed. Narcissa waited until that too died away, then said, "You'll wear out your voice."

This time, the strength that reared up against her was like a black wave, and did crush her to her knees. Narcissa frowned when she saw the curtains and the windows wavering, and thick dark trees crowding in. "It's rude to change someone's décor without permission," she said.

"Do you even understand that your life ceases today, Narcissa Malfoy?"

"You do enjoy the word 'cease,' don't you."

Voldemort slammed her with enough darkness to drown her—well, to drown an ordinary person. Narcissa thought that he still did not understand that she was not ordinary. She lifted mental shields against it so that the magic flowed away on either side of her. Voldemort advanced towards her, his hand out.

"I will draw your heart out through the chest wall and eat it."

Narcissa focused strongly. She had done this before, but admittedly not for years. She had had no need of this skill in most of her assassinations, and Harry had not reached the level where she could attempt to teach it to him yet.

As Voldemort's hand touched her chest—at least the ribs, not the breasts, he had some shred of sense left—Narcissa cast a spell in her mind. "Colliquesco!"

Voldemort screamed as his eyes began to melt out of his face. He reeled back, hands reeling to scratch through the disgusting black mess. Narcissa stood and began to strengthen her shields to drive him out. It would cause him pain, but not actually cause his physical eyes to melt. She needed him out of her head, now.

Voldemort was already beginning to fade. Narcissa slammed the shields down, and watched in some regret as the unfinished drawing room dissolved. She opened her eyes, to find Draco and Harry crouching over her with pale faces.

"Are you all right, Mother?" Draco whispered.

Narcissa reached up and squeezed his hand. It did seem as though she had fallen to the floor when Voldemort made her kneel. Disappointing. She would have to work again on the mental aspects of her shields. She nodded and managed to sit up. Harry helped raise her the rest of the way and escorted her to a chair while Draco fetched her tea.

"Thank you, my dears," Narcissa said, and sipped. There was the taste of a Strengthening Draught in the tea. Well, that made sense. Draco had probably fetched it when he saw her fall.

"Do I still have to do something about Voldemort?" Harry asked. His hand was resting on his faded lightning bolt scar, and his mouth was set in the thin smile he wore most of the time now when she was training him.

"No, darling. Why would you? Your Horcrux is gone, and you weren't the one whose blood he used in the resurrection ritual. I will have to do something about him." Narcissa sighed. "I did hope to have some more time in which we could hunt down and destroy the other Horcruxes. But he is rude and annoying enough that he needs to be taught a lesson before then."

She smiled at her sons. "It's a good thing I'm a professor."