Act III: Braid
"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end." Leon Trotsky
In which there is no happy ending.
Chapter 30: Gibel
Lord Draco Malfoy returned Blaise Zabini, Unspeakable, to the Department of Mysteries. Lord Malfoy cited priority investigation for the reason of departure from duty, and made perfectly clear in sneering terms that justification would not be disclosed to mere admin wands.
It was stupid to get involved, for this inarguable defense would connect Draco and Blaise. It ensured that their secret departure was noticed. Yet, Draco was holding onto a thread and could not let go.
The strain of the Inquiry passed in greyscale reality. Draco mostly remembered the way that rainwater seeped into the stone of the room.
Since Draco's departure from Hermione and Krum, the instability fractures in reality were null. He came back to Malfoy Manor's Office after the Inquiry, his cloak still wicking water off from the dreary day.
Fat raindrops fell in slow soft tempo on the windows overlooking the Garden. As Draco watched the water trace into patterns, he eased the protections he had built in his mind. Like a Beast oozing it's way out of a intestinal carcass, the monster load of his emotions and thoughts crept out. After regaining his breath, composure, he felt the ends of his fingertips and adjusted his cuffs.
He returned to his desk, intent on beginning the work that had cost so much.
The world ripped apart from him. It was not like the other times of instability. Those had miraged in his vision. This was visceral. He felt flames, smelled charred wood, then as if a hook in his gut, a bright office with two desks, then a horrible wailing spilled back into destruction and cracked to silence.
After too long, it settled.
Sickened from the prolonged fractured reality, he used his desk to pull himself up and stumbled to his chair.
Draco rasped, "Wisp,"
He took out a handkerchief, "Wisp!"
"Slytherin's sack- WISP."
But Wisp did not come. His mother appeared at the door. She was wearing a hat decorated in a halo of moisture, her wand out. She appeared more gaunt than last he had seen her.
Narcissa said, "Darling, the wards. Your father felt them breach."
Draco ran towards the window, only to see his father outside. Arcing a miasma of green light, wraithed in shadow. Draco ran into the hallway and came across his father.
Lucius and Draco's wands were pointed at one another.
Draco said, "Father, I know we've not seen eye to eye, but I was unaware you would replicate yourself?"
Lucius let his blue eyes meet Draco's. Draco and Lucius exchanged briefly. It was not a reading of thoughts. It was the essence of their connection. It had been established as a quick way to measure against any polyjuice, and disguise transfiguration two years ago. Imperius was easy to check for, unless it was Voldemort. And they had learned the hard way.
It had cost Lucius more to learn of Draco's mixed feelings than it had gained Draco anything. They never spoke of it. Lucius's gaze moved towards his wife. They nodded.
The three Malfoy's turned down the stairs to the foyer. "Who is that out on the grass?" Draco asked.
Lucius responded with an unusual lack of vitriol, and said an unusual thing, "Likely your elf friend."
If Draco hadn't checked that it was his father, he would have held his wand up again. Draco flung open the doors and tried to take stock of the multitude of unrecognizable intruders. Neither Society or Resistance.
This had never happened before. He had made sure that information was something carefully collected.
The group was struggling and failing against the Wild Magic of whatever elf friend it was. It was Voldemort in some angles, Lucius in another, Draco another.
A trifecta wrapped in some dementor's robes, which flared as the creature bound each of the mages. A boggart.
Draco raised his wand, but for the magic of him he did not know how to find humor in the situation. The creature folded away, and with a pop: An elf.
The potential for malignancy did not lessen in this form the creature took. They had wide, dark eyes, and none of the nervousness of Wisp. Their ears were sharp, pierced with odd things; buttons from the drawing room couch, feather quills, and Draco's cufflink dangled from their ear.
Their voice was a grating bow string, strong and thready, "Draco, they intended harm." Their small mouth looked to curl in a snarl. "You raise your wand to me?"
Draco lowered his wand immediately. He tried, "Wisp?"
The elf smiled, teeth sharp. Wearing swan feathers tangled in Unicorn hair for clothing, the strands and feathers refused to plaster even in the rain.
Draco shuddered. His mother took his hand. Draco said, "Excellent work, please… take them to the dungeon so we can interrogate them."
Wisp said, "No, I think I'll have some fun rifling through their pockets. You can float them, they're dressed like little piggies. Scree Screee!" Wisp already had their fingers in the pockets of one wizard. The unknown wizard was softly crying as Wisp imitated a hog. He struggled against what looked to be root coils.
Draco swallowed. Lucius was expressionless but immediately did as Wisp asked. Narcissa wore a small relieved smile, as if this had all turned out better than expected.
Draco knew that the last Shattering had done some Bollocked Load of shite. "Right." He hadn't done anything. "Right." What had he done? "Of course. Would you join me in the office when you are finished, Wisp?"
"I will if there's milk." Wisp stuck something they had found in the pockets of an unconscious interloper in their mouth.
"There shall." Draco levitated a writhing witch who turned to try and spit a curse at him. He said, "I will succumb to the height of absurdity. Do not-"
She drew in flem with a obstreperous hack, and Draco summoned an apple into her mouth.
~oOo~
Five legilimency and obliviation supplementations later, Draco brought the tasteless liquor to his mouth in the office. The plan was already in motion with new players on the board. Was he even looking at the same field as he had in Krum's kitchen?
They were of a population not associated with his resistance, The Dextrosinestral core. He and his schoolmates were instigators of Resistance to Voldemort's Society, but the population who had plotted for months, and melted ancient wards, stolen and made wands, only to be thwarted by three minutes distraction of an elf. They had broken onto his lawn, but lacked resources, lacked security. Essentially untrained rabble rebels. Their numbers were much higher than he and Pansy had previously estimated. Draco did not think it an error, but rather an aspect of the Shattering.
His mother brought two warm glasses of milk on a porcelain tray. He had never seen her carry anything like a servant in his life.
After she set it down neatly she said, "I'm proud of you," and then came to place a kiss upon his head.
Draco was quiet as she went to the double doors of the dark wood office. Just as she placed two hands on the door's handles, he probed to see if his deception was still forthstanding, "For my dedication to torment?"
She stared at him, looking hollow, "For surviving. For helping others…survive. You torment yourself enough."
She shut the door, and Draco leaned forward, trying to breathe in.
With nary a whisper, Wisp was there, spidery hand on the warm glass of milk. Draco, still in the middle of having a ghosting panic attack, did not startle at the elf's appearance. Wisp guzzled the milk, and once done with the glass relished the milk mustache with a strangely green brown tongue.
"Why are we friends, Wisp?"
Wisp turned the glass over in their hands and looked at Draco with oily pupils. "Always shared your milk with me." Wisp crouched on the desk to look at Draco in his eyes. "You were a lonely child. And when the dark came, you hid me."
Draco shook his head, in a twitchy nod.
One long, six jointed finger tipped with a sharp black nail pointed at him. "You have been leaking, and leaking you will go, but today you are…" Wisp popped their mouth and poked Draco's head with their poky pad.
Draco recoiled back, "Yes, yes I've been told…by…" Theo. He needed to write Theo and start on the plan.
Draco wet his lips, "Would you- would you be able to do something for me, Wisp? For us? To make sure the dark is…dimmed."
Wisp thought and suspiciously narrowed their eyes, "What are the terms?"
Draco said, "In the Black family library there should be a book. 'Ancient and Fabulous Books and the Libraries that House them'," I can't be seen with it. Will you get this for me?"
Wisp twisted their head in an odd sort of way, "Is not theft."
Draco said, "No, it isn't, but I cannot be seen there."
Wisp held out their hands and touched Draco's face. He could feel the bones under their fingertips, the razor edge of their nails. "You will work- you hurt- to end the infernal eternal dark." Power graced the concordant syllables.
Draco nodded.
The elf wisped away.
~oOo~
Draco knew Pansy had arrived from the smallest music room's fireplace because she and Theo had been keyed into the wards, and the fireplace only permitted six.
Wards which he had somehow lost access to as the Head of Malfoy Manor in the Great Shattering. He had remedied his access a day after he had dealt with the new category of Resistance.
Pansy shrugged off her coat and whipped her wand around the room in one motion. Theo followed closely behind, armed with a bag.
Pansy met Draco's eyes, "The guards are turning. The alert will be put out soon. I estimate we have five minutes or less before you are personally summoned."
Draco took stock of the filth on her robes, the black fine hairs sticking to her forehead, "You've come here directly."
Pansy tilted her head at Theo, "Not directly."
Theo started pulling implements out of his bag and Draco put a hand out to stop him. "In my lab. Come,"
Theo followed Draco's stride. There were shadowy figures in bucolic pastures. The eyes of family relations in chiaroscuro followed them.
Mindful of the portraits in the house, Theo rambled, "If Pansy didn't so enjoy your mothers tea's I feel that we should hardly see each other. So fortunate that you've heard of my little- astronomy hobby. Shame that you have what I need, otherwise it'd be perfectly personable- my visit."
Pansy snipped, "Coming for tea once every few months- it is a good thing you have taken an interest in combining astronomy with potions, sweet boy." Draco saw that her eyeliner had smudged and she had not fixed it.
"It was on the seventeenth I had visited."
Draco added, "Nott, helpful- as always."
The door shut to the laboratory and Theo scathed, "I hate that pun. I hated it when we were in first year, I'll hate it til the end, which coincidentally is just around the bloody corner." Theo began pulling implements out of his satchel with some amount of rage but a good deal of clumsy chaos.
Pansy intoned a droll laugh but it ended in an abrupt squeak of fear, indicating she was having difficulty controlling her emotions, "The dementors nearly swarmed, if it weren't for Thalia…" Now in the well lit lab, Draco could see Pansy's normally coral undertone to her fair skin had yellowed.
The vampire from Erikur's Rune & Sigil. Pansy had been working with Thalia on and off. They weren't supposed to have been seen together and what they were doing together was a mystery to Draco, but that was often how it was these days. He went to his cupboards to try and find a Calming Draught. Perhaps an anti-acid.
Pansy shook herself and resteadied. Theo reached for her and she slapped his hands lightly away, "I owe my advantageous departure for Theo to Thalia." Pansy continued on bracingly. "All that I could see is that the Inferi-the guards- they have them as guards- began to- began to e-e eat." Pansy looked as if she was trying to wrestle with the concept. She defensively rushed out, "No one could tell what was going on because of the dementors swarming-"
Draco was horrified, and grabbed the vials he could set out for Theo to give to her when he was gone. "You were at the selection event?" Inferi, Dementors- Pansy's dress.
It was usually not their business. Draco had made sure it wasn't their business. They had too much on their plate with what they managed. They couldn't risk being tied directly to any disappearances of muggle borns, and the failure of who they couldn't save was too much.
Pansy rolled her head back to express the obviousness of that. "I've no taste for the Sacrificial Ceremony, so I must make appearances at the selection bouts." She slapped the back of her hand on the palm of her other. Sacrifice and Selection. A way for genocide to take place and for fouler magics to bolster those who were now quite literally, Death Eaters.
Theo abandoned his set up, "Pansy,"
"Stop." She held him away. "Not now. I can barely stomach feeling as it is."
Theo absently touched their wedding band and turned to Draco.
The sound of the front doorbell chimed through the Manor.
Theo said, "I'll start the chronomeasurements. Try and find any entropic signatures."
Draco placed the vials on the counter and made eye contact with Theo heavily before striding out. He met his father on the landing.
His father smelled like he had been drinking, but Draco could not tell whether Lucius had been in bed, or if he were merely standing like a golem for the last four hours waiting to be called on. Draco did not think his father- once confident enough to use lowly physical altercations to his distraction and advantage, would not tolerate a single relaxed hair after Azkaban.
Draco heaved the door open without the signet ring still adorning his father's hand, "The urgency must be very great-"
Before him stood enforcers. Shubridge and Fawley. And someone who had fallen to Greyback but was now standing before Draco. Quite whole. Draco didn't remember their name, just the way their face had looked in death. The walking dead person person had a hard fat tilt to them and a ruddy face. There was something cunning in his eyes, beyond their duty. Likely what had gotten them killed in the first place.
Fawley was around Draco's age, and had a distorted sense of self importance matching his unfortunate bone structure. "Lord Malfoy's. The Dark Lord seeks your presence at once. The Ministry. If you'll allow the use of the Floo-" Fawley decided to try and move Lucius Malfoy by merely stepping forward. Being a fifth cousin of the Blacks did not afford stunning features, except for a stunning lack of awareness.
Mired in the reality of the situation, Shubridge was older than his father, with salt and pepper curly hair, and dead eyes. He hadn't moved.
Lucius placed his wand cane down on the tile of the foyer with a click.
Lucius drolled, "Don't be ridiculous. The halls will retain it's grace and our wards unsullied. We've already had to cull a rebellion this week." Lucius drew his silver etched mask over his face.
Draco waved the wand pattern that coalesced the Death Eater mask with his pattern. It did not make him sweat, suffocate him, or obscure his vision as it once had when he had gone with Ron to collect wands.
The gates opened and all Apparated away.
~oOo~
Lord Voldemort never confronted any of his followers at the places where he spent his time away from the public eye. The Dark Lord did like to spend time in the Department of Mysteries- ensuring that there were no time turners. Studying the ancient power loci appealed to him.
There was a Gate nearby. Draco felt it call to him in his bones as the elevator doors opened.
Draco steadily walked, alone now, to Voldemort. His father was left behind to confer, likely a separate interrogation or as collateral. Draco opened the door, or the door opened for him. Solid black stone peeled away like a keyhole opening. Silently. He felt it ought to have noise- and he resented his own mind supplying music box as a possibility.
Blaise was in Inquisition binds. The whole of the place was illuminated poorly, with flickering white light common to the Department of Mysteries.
Draco bowed.
Voldemort appeared as a man. His monstrous physical appearance had been remedied. It did not do for people to sit with the true visage of their overlord. His most devout were in power, and he needed sympathy from the paltry masses. Morality derives in some part from aestheticism.
Still, the Flying Death Man walked like a predator and his movements were reminiscent of a dramatist emulating a snake. "Hello, Draco." Voldemort laid a hand on Draco's shoulder.
Draco kept his eyes lowered demurely as he continued his bow. Then, as was expected custom, met Voldemort's eyes with as little Occlumency as he could manage. It wouldn't do for Occlusion to be detected.
Voldemort smiled. His irises a solid mahogany red. Usually, there was some pressing rage that swayed mercurial moods and impressed his tenuous insanity. Now, it seemed, Voldemort was rational because of his suspicions.
"My Lord, thank you for selecting me, for whatever task I am wanted for." Draco never quite managed to be humble, but simpering came easy- regrettably.
Draco's eyes went to Blaise. Blaise's muscles were twitching in a senseless dance while he was held in stillness.
Voldemort caressed Draco's cheek, "We find ourselves in a system of failures. I would suggest sabotage…"
"But you, my lord, are absolute." The physical touch sent the ache and disgust like worms into Draco.
Voldemort turned and swept to Blaise. "Yes, as we say. There is good news to be found in your friend. An unexpected boon. I can see why you thought I would disapprove, yet I find that I am grateful."
Draco tilted his head. This was a game, a composition in which he had to predict the next movement. He said, "I am but a mere mortal."
Voldemort was not a king, manipulative and charismatic as he was, he wanted to be a god. And the magic he consumed had to feed his rapacious need for conquering, and power. Always more power.
Voldemort ran a finger along Blaise, "So many secrets from the bind that keeps this place safe… ancient and weakened if I were to break it." He sounded genuinely mournful of the Unspeakable vows. Voldemort turned slitted eyes to Draco, "But… personal secrets have no place with me."
Draco said, "Yes. Zabini is my friend and we share… many predilections."
Voldemort looked between Blaise and Draco. Draco felt a stab into his mind. Voldemort rifled through some hypothesis that Draco felt would be suitable; flashes of skin, images of keeping the people in the Malfoy dungeons. Voldemort paused on a flash of Thalia's stomach, pouring wine. Three people engaging in the Rune & Sigil, serenaded by a violinist.
Voldemort said, "Your connections with the vampires. I need them to be deployed in areas where our Inferi are no longer able to control themselves. It has never been done before, so I can foresee that I will need…time."
Draco bowed, "Relationships and potential alliances are why I am useful to you."
Voldemort cocked his head, "Yes. Indeed."
"Zabini also has some vested interest, and would be useful."
Voldemort paused, "I suppose you do not wish for me to discuss Inferi with our friend who is familiar with the room that may hold answers…"
"You are the wisdom here, my lord."
Voldemort narrowed his eyes and appeared in front of Draco.
Draco bowed his head.
"Oh you are very good Malfoy scion. But your mistake is that you are wary of me for the wrong reasons."
Draco said, "It is a time of unexpected change, and - have confidence in your skill but your punishments serve….as a reminder. Has he done something wrong?"
Voldemort bent and with his middle finger and thumb plucked a stone from the ground. He straightened and Blaise collapsed. It sounded strange in the empty room. Draco's brows twitched. Voldemort did not summon the rock into his hands.
Voldemort's voice padded, as he swept coyly around Blaise, "In time. There will be many things that go wrong but will be righted once I turn my sights to them."
Draco bowed for his permission. "My lord, shall I look for directions regarding the werewolves?"
Draco kept an eye on the polished stone rather than directly look at the Lord.
Voldemort paused, "It depends." He looked unusually pleased, nearly greedy. "We need them in short order."
Draco realized neither of them knew where the werewolves stood- whether Voldemort had recruited them or if they were dead. Draco said, "I will confer with an expert."
Voldemort giggled, "Oh?" His laugh faded too quickly, "Then do so. Recuse yourselves from my presence. I have much to do."
Draco knew that Voldemort was looking for an alternative source for who could have changed the world in such a way. Draco needed to become immune to Voldemort's changes yesterday.
~oOo~
The Dextrosinestral Group were always in attendance of Pansy's parties for the Society. Though of late, the attendees had been changing. The bright woods and rich brocade cloth that clothed the Greengrass Parlor was lovely, as usual, but there was no silver under the doily's for the hor d'oeuvres, or gleaming in floating stacks.
Draco knew that this was because Erikur, the Vampire owner of the Rune and Sigil, and his two best were in attendance.
Draco held his glass and gold spoon and thought it a lovely alternative. Vampires were newly praised and socially accepted by Society members, but long since recognized by the members of the Dextrosinestral.
Society members were invited after some scouting to see if they would be a good fit for some more radical and dangerous conversation topics. Everyone else was under the impression they were at one of the most coveted parties in the New Societies order. In actuality, those that had made it there, either continued to attend in order to make new assurances disguised as money exchanging hands, or there were only one or two assurances they felt capable of making when the time came.
Draco filtered through the attendee's, making a mental assessment of the kinds of assurances they would need, and from who, how much needed to be kept compartmentalized from others. He tried to spot any potential ashwinders in their hearth.
Thalia was charming several half-blood prominents, and a cousin of the Patil's near the card and gambling tables. Thalia's dark hair gleamed in her heavy, wealth of a chignon, but wore a brutal blade. Vampires were still not allowed wands, but from Pansy's experience and Draco's machinations, vampires were considered indispensable against the wandering Inferi. Draco discovered Inferi were currently being contained by their ilk and the werewolves. Dementors were proving… untenable.
Werewolves were of a diminished number, and there was no Greyback. The Lycanthrope categorisation had changed- something about their status before the New Society.
The bouncer whom Zabini has professed Draco's passage to at Erikur's Rune and Sigil, was speaking near the fireplace. Draco had been introduced to him as properly as Brew. The dark haired, light eyed bouncer held a book, limp in one hand and poured another glass of bloodwine with his other.
Brew was speaking to one of the original Old Guard, a Selwyn minor Lord who had only recently joined Pansy in her efforts without a private meeting with Draco. Their conversation had notes of threat to it.
The rest of the party was carrying on exactly as Pansy had planned. Several interesting ceremonies had been minutely adjusted and excused to the New Society whole. Some changes he needed to consider had been smuggled to him via Hogwarts. Draco had familiarised himself with the new acquisitions he had gotten.
Blaise, though fully recovered, was not present. Blaise was on what he flippantly liked to refer to as a 'quest.' Theo nodded in Draco's direction, eyes bruised from lack of sleep from the recordings for chronomancy.
Theo sidled up to Draco, "Could you imagine how annoying a low level ward on silverware would be?"
Draco looked at Theo a little more closely. Theo's face was sharp, and his pallor had a little more resemblance to brittle gypsum. "Have you been sleeping?"
"I've not not been sleeping. But could you imagine, anti-theft wards on these?" He wiggled a little spoon and then made a sucking whistle sound with his mouth. "Woop there's the ward and then it shatters. Shatters everywhere."
Draco took Theo's drink from him and drained it, then gave it back, "I'll let you know if it's poisoned, but you don't need to be here any longer."
"Nonsense. When was the last time I came?"
"That's a matter between you and your wife-"
Theo wheezed and staggered to sit on the arm rest of a chair, leaning his legs against it. "Morgana and mimzy Draco." Then he got a stubborn peculiar look on his face when he said, "It has been- just that once in sixths, right?"
Draco hated the way his lip tightened over his teeth, "Yes, you nitwit, you were dogged on me when I wasn't courting her and upset that I didn't-"
"Well, she's very beautiful."
Draco sighed, "Don't- don't become any more inebriated," he tapped Theo's shoulders until the disaster got up and walked towards the refreshment table where Pansy was leading a bit of a false tune.
Draco scanned the room and saw Astoria make her way toward him. She shimmered in the lovely lighting. She reached out for his hand to press another Dubonnet in. She leaned in, "You're cold."
"Didn't you know, darling? Any colder and I'd be 'Narcissus' in ice sculpture."
Astoria, with her perfect painted lips, twitched a hopeful smile at the inside joke. Her wide dark eyes promised that she'd try to melt him. "I think that you care for my Echo's more so than he."
Draco leaned in to whisper business in her pale, pinking ear, "And our agreements?"
Astoria let out a little breath, "Pansy has more than doubled our assurances." She was wearing her distinctive perfume just behind her ear.
Draco leaned back and drank, scanning the drawing room of the Greengrass Estate, "No one here hasn't assured."
Astoria grew quiet, "She's made good on the opportunities you've carved out." She brushed his arm reassuringly.
Draco was quiet. It was a small, precious thing he needed.
She whispered for reassurance, "Tonight?"
Draco glanced at Erikur. The tall man was stoic but offering reassurances. He took a sip of his glass and used the motion to meet Draco's eye. He nodded and there was sorrow on his brow.
The other vampire, with curly brown hair and glass green eyes, lifted a glass in Draco's direction.
"Sooner."
Her eyes dimmed but she nodded, "You'll be gone for a while."
Draco did not think of Hermione when he sought to ease his loneliness with Astoria.
~oOo~
Draco closed 'Wild Magic' and locked its insane coding mechanisms away in habit. Then, placed the litany of book lists and keys with Hermione's notes upon its usual spot on the shelf. He dusted all his shelves with a yet to be perfectly practiced flick. It was paranoid- but also he liked things clean.
Draco allowed the office doors to open for him. He took a detour to check his hair, and on second thought decided to check his appearance in the window reflection. Still he avoided looking too closely in his eyes. Habit as mirrors had adapted some nastier personality traits over the years. They would have to be replaced, but he wasn't going to bother.
Draco walked down to the front door where the post was stored and defragmented. After some nastier post incidents, it was standard issue for all known ruling members of Society. Besides the Malfoys might have been traditional but they never distained of modern power.
Of the post, he opened two and took the others to his parents in the family breakfast room which had the sense not to be placed directly East.
Narcissa looked up from her tea and Lucius placed his newspaper down as Draco placed himself, fully alert, and dressed at six thirty am across from his parents.
He left most of the duties of the Wizengmont to his father.
Only one was of note for himself. It possessed no return address and so warranted a specialized pass through. Draco produced a potion from his pocket. He had spent some time decompressing at Astoria's last behest, and had enjoyed adjusting the recipe he had found in his family's library during the difficult transition. Time and Fate were fickle friends.
Draco said, "Mind yourselves." Then popped the cap to the potion.
Lucius curled his lip, "You take that outside if you're suspecting it. I do not wish to step in to ensure your mother retains her favorite set."
Narcissa smiled, and whispered into her cup, "You detest this set." Coquettish.
"Daisies are common." Lucius's delivered with a stiff upper lip. Adoration.
Draco rolled his eyes and droppered the potion. He had no idea what had changed his parents in some ways, but some characteristics and arguments simply didn't. The potion revealed no harmful magic.
He slit it open.
It was a series of music notes wrapped in concentric circles. There were two embossed letters emblazoned in four metals.
S.T.
"What is it darling?" Narcissa prodded.
Draco decided, "I'll be in the music room."
Lucius frowned. Narcisissa was delighted.
~oOo~
In exchange for the freedom of said thieves, we will flex on the divined day.
~Ada
~oOo~
Draco closed the door to his lab after three in the morning, dreadfully in need of a shower. But his mothers and fathers voices turned him away from his chambers. Draco did not like the tone and Draco couldn't decide how to trust them.
Though he had been so very close, so many times recently. He crept up the stairs and stood silently in the hallway. Listening behind the closed door.
"It wears on you." Narcissa was soft.
Lucius said, "I - do not think we will survive with Draco but I cannot live without … him. I- "
It was the emotion in his fathers voice that made Draco knock on the door.
Narcissa turned, in her sleeping robe. His father hesitated at the table.
Draco worked his jaw briefly, rolling the pommel of his wand between his finger's. "I need to tell you something." He threw up extra wards before his finished his sentence.
Narcissa protested, "Wards in our -after everything-"
Lucius stood up and pointed his wand at Draco, "Now, now. Not just wards."
Narcissa shoved at Lucius' hand, but Lucius strong armed her around him.
Draco had finished his wandwork and pointed it at his father, "You will drop your wand. You will have one chance- one chance, to listen to me on how we will survive the next week."
"Unlikely, you degenerate, traitorous- should finish it now before we're subjected to debasement during execution- "
"Lucius, he's our son-"
"AND HE'S BEEN PLANNING A-"
"SURVIVAL." Draco bellowed back. It so shocked Narcisssa that Lucius had placed up a protego rather than finish swearing.
Draco licked his lips, "I swear it. I swear it father."
Narcissa stepped towards Draco, her hand out while Lucius held hers.
~oOo~
"It is death. Not survival." Lucius judged.
Narcissa was pale but her grip was firm on Draco's hand. "You cannot kill yourself over this."
Draco said, "I will die either way."
Lucius took in a breath and said in a forcibly even tone, "The backfall, you have three open doors and a false floor."
Draco swallowed down the reflex to sit like his father, and girded his face against a snivel over a bleeding steak, "It's the long game father. I've been planning this for years."
"It requires- too many people. Too many motives." Lucius was echoing a previous lesson.
"Pansy's taken care of it. Astoria has-"
Lucius waved away Draco's statements of trust. He switched his point, attacking with logic. "It's a false floor. You can't get around that your eventual goal is to undo all your work and the risk is that everyone that turned against him, the one who led the charge- will be demolished."
Draco was quiet for a moment, "That's the brilliance. You don't have to trust everyone. Just enough people. It's not a single point."
"The point! The point is that he's had magic and power beyond what anyone has. The cost is not worth the gain- which is death."
Draco thought of the book of 'Wild Magic' in the safe. "No, not really. What's been lost to the rest of us and found by him does not belong to him alone. It was here centuries before the Ministry of Magic, centuries before the Wizengmont."
"The false floor cannot be discounted, how often have I pointed out the plans-"
"Either way, Father. You can be there or you can know nothing."
Narcissa was the one who asked, "And Potter? How did he live?"
Lucius looked at his wife, and there was emotion on his fathers face as his eyes ran along the tight neck and searching eyes of Narcissa.
So, Draco told them everything he knew.
~oOo~
The containment facilities for the Inferi were manned, which meant reintroduction of categorized thieves of magic largely included plans of debilitation before servile assignments.
Squibs were already considered debilitated, and their faces were covered so their identities were hidden. When Draco swept in with his Mother, she had a sneer affixed on her face and Draco was likewise far away.
"Lord Malfoy, we've been ordered not to bin the ones with defects?"
Draco said, "Yes. If I detect a question in your voice again, I will have you binned in the Lestrange ward til you come out…" Draco lilted his voice, pausing for effect, "-just… like… the thieves."
Draco could not make the smile that his father was able to, as if it was good business. The hooded guard bowed and backed away.
Narcissa and Draco went in.
The rooms were filled with people. Missing appendages. Missing pedigree. But- not missing their magic yet. And they would not be.
~oOo~
Narcissa was shaking and Draco was sweating, but Lucius was outside waiting to meet them.
Lucius nodded. "I've paid for the exchange inspection."
Narcissa nodded and Draco passed Narcissa to his father.
Draco in the midst of slipping away, disillusioned and silenced, stilled as three hooded figures and a silver masked individual approached. He stood on a stairwell over looking the cold hallway, a corner away from the exit door.
"Lord Malfoy, there is an irregularity we have detected. We will need to arrest your wife." Crowley Jr. was under the mask. Smarmy bugger.
Lucius twitched. 'Go.'
Draco pressed himself on the stair landing. But he'd need time, the door would need to be dealarmed, dehexed and opened silently.
Lucius said, "Admirable dedication, yet I find it preposterous that your dedication would delude so far into besmirching my wife's honor."
Smarmy Crowley jr. drew his wand, "Heh. Look at her- it's obvious the fucking mudbloods got a taste of something that we can't let them have. Traitor as we all knew it. And once we're finished with her, we're coming for you."
Lucius smiled. He moved Narcissa forward. He used her body to shield his wand draw.
Then as if in a dance, they acted in unison.
Lucius jutted out with an entrail expelling curse. Narcissa held up a 'protego.' Narcissa twisted with Lucius' hand on her waist. He blasted a hex response away. Narcissa held his shoulder as he pivoted, and with everything she had, kept her shield. Lucius shot through it again. Two were dead and one staggered to his feet.
Draco opened the security door, and slipped inside to drop the release for all inside the containment.
~oOo~
Draco came over the intercom speaker at the Ministry of Magic.
"Good Morning Magic is Might Ministry! Apologies for interrupting morning tea, but you will need to shortly depart, as we have received notice of a threat that-unfortunately- cannot be mitigated. As your lives are approximately as disposable as your ability to survive- I would suggest evacuation."
Draco peered out from the very top box of the Minister's private glass office. No one moved for the exits. People slowed, then conversed. As if they hadn't been truly listening, but something struck them as odd. He used too many words. Pansy told him always to stop using so many damn words, and Theo had told Draco to stop trying to entertain himself.
Draco leaned in and clipped, "The Ministry will be on fire." Draco watched as this sank in and some started to cast around or grab others by the shoulders. He added, "By the second movement," then watched as people stilled again and rolled his eyes and nearly shouted in his best received pronunciation, "That's a music term, you plebeians."
Draco left the Minister's wand, and limp hand, on the speaker. Draco flicked his wand and the specially selected music began in brave forte.
He exited the office, shot out an ignatius and then whipped out a broom from his cloak and mounted it. The windows were all sealed underground, but not this emergency escape. The veneer of vanishing shattered behind him and the wet London morning hit his face.
He had a very thin margin on time, so he leaned on the broom. Sirens from the muggle fire department were already on their way.
Draco found that a smile was on his face.
After he skimmed to the next roof he minimized the broom. He dug around for a cellyphone in his pocket. He slid it open and pressed a few buttons.
The sound of stone and cavernous fire thundered behind him. Orange and blue light fire worked in the explosion. The catchall for magic blowback fell in the fire after the first wave.
He finally pressed the call button and held it up to his ear, "Yes, hello. Are the kamera's working? You've missed it? But you're filiming now. Yes. Perfect. No, you're safe. Truly."
Draco slipped into the roof door, headed down the stairs with a sweep to his step that hadn't been there for many years.
~oOo~
He popped on the outside of the Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and met his parents. They were dressed for a walk and brunch in front of their burning Manor. The flames shifted from purple to blue and the smoke took on grotesque, fiendish shapes.
Lucius was looking pained and angry, but Narcissa was calmly saying, "They set the fire and the wards will keep it contained. We've left our wands with them."
Lucius said, "For now it will be contained. And I can't believe my blood is scattered on the bloody peacocks."
Draco said, "Do I detect a japing wordplay? Thought you hated those- always scolded me for it."
Lucius's lips turned white as his face twisted. It was quite a horrible thing to do but such was the lengths one had to go through with a nearly omnipotent force of will that was the Flying Deathman. Gods, sweet Circe, the more Draco thought of it the more he found it funny.
"The bloody peacocks will be fine, father. If you'll follow me to the pub."
"Pub? Not in Wiltshire." Lucius sounded certain.
"Muggle, and not in Wiltshire, father. Let's crack on."
Lucius gritted his teeth, though whether at Draco's cavalier treatment of language or about the reminder of their safe location, Draco did not care. It had to be done, and had to be done now or Voldemort would be tipped off and they would have next to no chance. Just getting to this point was insane.
Narcissa absently touched the one thing she allowed herself, her wedding band and the engagement necklace Lucius had given her, "Is there a dress code?"
Draco said, "I'll take care of it," and held out a port key.
~oOo~
Lucius was carefully using plastic ware to make fish and chips of the pub into small bite sized pieces. He did keep the paper between the fish and the dubious plate the bartender had dug up for him. Narcissa was on her third glass of wine.
They were in Pembrokeshire. The town was accepting of their presence because Lucius had been handy with a sword, which Draco had not known, and Draco had some healing potions that were amplified by his mothers knowledge of paganistic practices, which Draco had ensured she had known before abandoning her wand.
The bartender was still watching them with suspicious glances as he slid a drink to a reedy man with white hair and a long white beard. The reedy old man had been staring at them rather than the TV and exchanged a few words with the bartender.
They were lucky. The town had been receptive to magical folk after the farmers had run out of ammo, and many of the locals had been a part of the druid circles and had known some of the friendlier wizarding faces in the restaurant businesses.
Draco had tried to keep his surveillance of the man to a minimum. Easy to do with the television blaring. Most of the town was huddled in the reinforced pub. Staring at the evening news.
The woman was wearing black and looked a little strained even under expert lighting.
'The president of the United States has just made an official announcement that the War on Terror will include any country which has been harbouring the sect using hallucinagenic bio-weapons. However, the stance of the Prime Minister remains the same:
The cut of the Minister inside of a safe house room in an undisclosed location:
'As stated, it is of utmost importance that England remain united for all its citizens. Isolationist policies will only serve to further this unrest during a pandemic.'
They had already shown this clip, and they cut back to the woman who had been conversing with someone to the side of the screen furtively covering her mic. She turned back and resumed promptly, 'It remains to be seen whether the government will be officially acknowledging the reality in the streets- please brace yourselves.'
Draco watched as live feed from different parts of the world rolled on the BBC and the other televisions and computers and phones from the individuals in the pub watched.
Muggle hunters encountering magical beasts. Shaun of the Dead clips were playing side by side with Inferi sightings. Hand phone cameras were capturing images far less funny but still people were making light.
Wizards in Japan were forming lines in neon streets to put up wards. Castelbruxo was smoking, shadowed in crosses as the translation of religious leaders condemned the school. Illvermony seemed to have several groups converge around its walls on the verge of civil war.
There were counsel announcements. One from a Queen Minister Isaro that Draco had never heard of. Many empires and corporations were crumbling and rebuilding. Heartfelt, tear stained reunions from muggleborns families who had their children returned by those who had previously been held in the detainment facility.
The old man left the pub.
Draco tilted his head, "Excuse me."
Lucius said, "If things go wrong…"
Narcissa poured more wine into her glass.
Draco exited the pub after the man. The town was ghostly empty. The river that went through the town glittered with the light of will' o wisps keening for lost spirits. The moonlight illuminated the inbetweens of shadow and dark.
Draco took a breath and learned nothing. The reedy old man at the bar stood about four meters from him. Hood up.
The man took a breath similarly and said, "Lovely night for a collapse. You did well."
Every hair on Draco's neck raised.
The man turned, taking down his hood. His face was unlined under a wild beard. He had sharp, hawk-like eyes. "I've heard about you- but not in the way you think."
Draco prepared for Legilimency. But met nothing but thickets of vines, bark and moss. It was disorienting. Draco tensed.
The man held up his hand, "It'll happen tonight, then I'm going back to my nap. You'll be expecting The Once and Future King after your current Lord falls."
Draco paused. Bewildered.
The man crossed his arms and looked disappointed. Then turned up to the moon. "Due to continuity for hope, I won't be able to join."
Draco blinked and adjusted his cuffs, but he had no cufflinks. "You know. I heard a rumor a year ago…"
The man winced a wink. "Right. Was just waking up then."
Draco scoffed, "Merlin."
The man rolled his wrist and hands across his chest in a very stinted bow. "The one and same. Can't believe he never told me that people take my name in vain- insufferable."
Draco blinked. Yes the world was on fire and insane but this- he scowled, "Bloody barmy. Who are you?"
Merlin smiled, "Do you like it?" He gestured to the tree line. A massive shape started to rise up. The man who claimed to be Merlin warned, "Ah- no panicking. And you're welcome."
Draco spat, "For what!?"
The man moved toward the creature that stretched wings that looked like veined stained glass in the moonlight.
"Tonight. As Ostara falls to imbalance in the moon." He started to wave his hand and the dragon rose from the line over the hill completely, the air touching Draco's face. "See you on the other side."
~oOo~
Draco and Lucius were up, the phantom pains of their mark were draining as Voldemort continued the summons.
At around three, the hour of magic and curses, the world shattered and Draco had to hold on.
~oOo~
Draco was staring at the dock with Blaise. It was the exact moment he left the country to go and find Hermione Granger at 8:00am on Ostara. Voldemort literally lifted time back a year ago.
He had ran from floo to portals between here Pembrokeshire to get here on time- to try and not use his wand, no magic registration.
The lad who was asleep in the room Draco and his family had been in wasn't as confused as Draco thought he would be, but Draco had run out before the man was fully awake.
Blaise finished his cigarette, irritated with the lack of signal on Draco's part. Draco checked his pocket watch. The sign that things were not all set and to return.
Blaise went around the corner and Apparated away.
Draco breathed in. He could smell everything. The sun started to grate on him.
He fumbled for a flask he kept in his waistcoat and took a draft. There was nothing in his flask.
"First things first," Draco reminded himself. He needed to see if some changes held.
He needed to send a message to Hogwarts and check the vaults, then hopefully he would be summoned as soon as Voldemort got enough energy so Draco could martyr himself.
~oOo~
Draco was too nervous to wait at the Manor, and besides, his memories were being viewed by his father and mother. Lucius would likely formulate the same plan that he had made before Voldemort broke and went back to earlier in the year.
Astoria curtsied but eyed him narrowly at the door of the Greengrass estate. She was wearing antique dress robes from the 1900's that Daphne had embroidered. "Lord Malfoy, it's an honor to receive you." She stared at him balefully, hands together. She had likely been told to wear the cream and pink number by her parents when his presence was announced. She had left her decolletage unbuttoned rebelliously, though she tied her collar together with a sash bow which covered her immodesty hatefully. He hated bows- and had told her so when he was nine and she was seven.
He was holding an umbrella, and the pommel was becoming sweaty. It was especially awkward, considering there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Draco held out his arm, "Would you join me to the edge of your estate as I depart? It will be fairly short. I promise, and you won't have to leave your grounds."
"To the edge, is it?"
Draco nodded.
Astoria placed her hand on Draco's arm. He levitated the umbrella. Draco covered her hand with his own and they began to walk.
Draco started, avoiding looking at her, "I want to apologise for how I treated you in the past. I can't lie that our arranged courtship chafed."
She scoffed.
He smiled and glanced at her, "No you're right, in other circumstances I would not have pursued you. Yet, if it were…just us and circumstances were different, I would have recognized your-"
Astoria held up a hand, "Are you joking? You're having a lark building up to some "
Draco shook his head, "No. This is something quite simple. Something I can apologize for if you'd accept it."
Astoria's posture and shifting tension told Draco that she immediately understood and was more scared now than her passing flight of upset. It was partially performative, her dramatists' urge to construct their relationship.
Draco reached out and she willingly took his hands. "Everything is going to be okay, and if it's not, please go to the Sigil."
"Draco- what is going on-?"
He didn't know how to comfort her, but he knew he didn't cherish her as he should have. And wouldn't be able to any longer. If he succeeded, if he failed.
He wanted to let her know how much he understood her, to give her the love that he felt the lack of like a sound of dread.
"I think it's brilliant that everytime you host for your parents, you choose the charmed set which forces everyone to either ask or be reminded that a muggle painted it." Her hazel brows twitched. It was considered too priceless to destroy but to use was another matter and Draco delighted in her careful underhandedness. "I notice the way that your e and y's in your handwriting change when you're being playful."
She swallowed, because they hadn't gotten there yet. But he wanted her to know, that he saw her so he moved to more painful topics before he risked more.
"I know why you can only look in the mirror after you've put on your makeup. I know how heavy love is for you. I know why at night you have tea sent to your room at two and . It's the same reason I can't sleep. And I'm going to confront the reason for that- but…" he reached out to smooth her hair away from her paling face, and ran a finger under her watering eyes.
He kissed her gently, her mouth opening in shock. He slid his lips over hers and said, "I wanted to comfort you, before I'm gone."
She gripped him and held him away, and close. "You looked inside my head- how dare you!"
Draco insisted, "No! No, I sw-"
Astoria stepped on his foot, "Does Pansy know?"
"No!"
"Why not!"
"The plan isn't …" Did Pansy know he was planning on shortly ending, no. Would she? Yes, she was a part of the plan, but he would appear to be wrecking years worth of work. Did Pansy need to be seen just as much- perhaps. But she likely had Theo. He was beginning to suspect that Theo loved Pansy and understood her in his way. Perhaps he had more in common with Blaise and Pansy than Theo.
Astoria loosened her fingers, "I thought we were helping with the plan."
Draco held her hands, "You were- you are- the plan needed to change."
"Not without us."
"You've always been there for the important parts, I won't exclude you now- we have only a few hours."
~oOo~
"Why are we waiting here?" Pansy asked, eying the drawn curtains.
The drawing room had five people within and were waiting for three more to arrive. Astoria and Narcissa were in the kitchen under the guise of preparing snacks, but certainly having A Conversation. Blaise, Pansy, Theo, Draco, Lucius remained.
Draco flicked his eyes at Pansy. "I will be called upon. As he knows that whatever issue was centered on what Blaise and I had done out of the country." He procured a sachet of wine gummies and proffered it to her as he took a swig from his flask.
She scrunched her nose at him.
Theo choked back a small cough. Pansy swiped them out of Draco's hands, plucked one immediately out and sat next to Theo, passing the bag.
Draco opened the drink cabinet near the flutes. Blaise was the first to raise his hand for one.
Lucius tsked, borderline hissing. Overbearing, authoritative, cold. Livid out of his mind that what he perceived as recklessness had cornered him.
"I'll get you one as well, father."
"Assumptions do not become you."
Blaise said, "I won't drink you under the table. It's rather high anyway," Blaise knocked on the pianoforte.
Lucius flicked his eyes at Blaise.
Draco said, "I'd give you notes on appropriate audience, Blaise but they would be tabled." He grinned. His father's eye twitched. Blaise looked far more amused by Lucius' reaction than Draco's clever wordplay. Pity.
Draco did feel that he was… less wounded with this version of his father. He had known at one point his father would have locked him up, kept him petrified or flayed him so well in words that he would not have had the confidence to lift his wand.
Draco didn't want to let either of his parents go and would not. His father had seen the memories and would be participating in the plan. Likely whirring his own plans.
Blaise said, "So you say. I seemed to remember wasting my time at the Docks."
"Not now." Draco waved his hand. "I thought you'd have all this figured out."
Blaise sighed. "I have this mad feeling- that I'm not going to like how you are the only one to remember this." He tilted his eyebrow up and puckered his full mouth in disgust.
Theo started in a snide response, "Not unusual, considering."
Draco spoke over them with a flourish, "As you know, the Inferi are unstable, as are the Dementors. International eyes are upon our little island but have made increasingly dull appeals and are losing interest in policing what happens here- blind to how well infiltration is occurring in their countries as the Society becomes more legitimate."
"I'd like to say- 'obviously.' yet I am very much unaware of how you've gotten most of this information." Theo prodded.
Lucius insisted, "The plan- to be introduced before we are interred, Draco."
The wards tingled and both Draco and Lucius turned to the fireplace. Lucius shot a narrow eyed glare and gripped his cane.
"No wands," Draco warned before Erikur, Brew and Thalia floo'd into the music room parlor.
Erikur folded his considerable height out of the fireplace and moved aside. He no longer wore his club leathers, all illusion gone.
Brew hopped a bit from the fireplace and landed in front of Draco, quiver at his hip and a bow slung on his back. "Is your head killing you too?" Brew tried to pluck the flask Draco kept in his pocket out.
"If you could perhaps ask?" Draco tried slapping at his hand.
Brew was too strong, too fast and after getting a hand on the flask, tossed it to his other hand and grinned.
Thalia lightly flicked her hair, "Teaching him manners is a bit out of our purview."
Brew winked at Blaise. Blaise cheersed him.
Erikur held up a hand, "Each of the items are accounted for." He held out a head sized box of rough hewn wood.
"I hope that this… delay you speak of was worth the risk."
Draco said, "It will have to be. There is one issue- I have no contact at Hogwarts that will be able to respond."
Brew shook his head and tapped his chest then straightened his stance staring with bright eyes at the group, "Of mîn blôtan. Yfel ræfn−anverb unlifiende hilman, diegan oðcwelan."
It was spoken as a vow.
"Well, I won't have to fight a bloody giant reptile this time round."
Before the formal introductions could be made and the plan completed, the marks on Draco and Lucius Arm burned, and a message filled the room.
'Alban Eilir for my Death Eaters, friends, will be held at Malfoy Manor in two hours. Let us dance and feel the wild magic of spring.' Voldemort's voice reverberated and Draco and Lucius were left nauseated and with a cold sweat.
Draco said, "Glad we didn't waste time on that plan." Narcissa and Astoria came into the room, bearing trays of snacks and refreshments. They paused, looking at the three whom they had been acquainted with in the future.
Draco said brightly, "Mother, I do apologize, but it appears we're expecting guests in two hours. I apologize in advance for the state of your home."
~oOo~
There hadn't been a celebration for Ostara in quite some time, but they were to refer to it as Alban Eilir. Hogwarts had the same celebration, but Draco was only informed of this by Pansy, who along with Narcissa, assisted with decorations.
He watched his mother who had, with her extraordinary skills, poured magic and lifted mental barriers on the crippled and raw, and provided them with protection and information. She seemed at peace, if not pale and a little drawn.
His mother's conjuration magic always looked like water before becoming solid. When people said, 'beautiful magic,' he knew they did not mean what came of the spell, but how it was drawn forth.
No seed of light dripped from her wand, and the ribbons and crystals sheeted and danced before solidifying. As if she were still shaping their appearance organically as it came into being.
She also had not needed a litany of incantations, finding it intuitive. She was a powerful witch, smart- and he had not seen her in this way before. Now that he had, he was finding it difficult to accept that he would be saying to goodbye to her. To a person he hadn't really known fully with the utmost of her skills, and perhaps had not gotten a chance to see in a light not dominated by being his mother in dark times.
She turned and gestured with her wand. "Is it aligned with the sunset, Draco?"
Yes, remarkably calm.
Draco took the astrolabe and flicked it to its day setting. He peered over his sunglasses to be sure. He nodded. "I don't see why you needed me to check."
She came to stand where he stood under the loggia of the conservatory. She ran a thumb along his cheek gently. "A reminder that you are brilliant, my son."
She walked away from her creation. The dinner table in their garden preceded an altar under the suns path and the stars. Sheet's of goldenrod, snowdrops and helebore with their wisteria trees hung from the gabled pergola.
Draco said to the air, "Wisp."
Wisp did not appear in front of him but Draco confessed the garden, "I do not know what has stopped you, what might ally you to me. You couldn't do it all for just a glass of milk?"
There was no answer.
As the company arrived, the clean evocation of Spring withered with the spirit of most in attendance. They were grim false whites and diminished floral patterns.
Pansy wore a sheer dress robe that looked like pansy petals in vibrant yellow, black and pink, escorted by Theo in a solid maroon silk. Pansy gripped his arm and he held her hand securely.
Theo said, "Such a fine day to die."
Pansy scrunched her nose, and then looked at Draco, "I blame you, I do. He was never like this before."
Theo smoothed down his suit. His reedy body had been well plated by the robes.
Draco said, "He's…bloomed."
Theo forced a descending laugh, "You've found the line- and I've got the sand. You just keep drawing in it. I mean- well, you know what I mean." Theo reached out and took Draco's elbow, much in the way they had first angrily encountered each other near Pembrokeshire.
Draco nodded. Theo had the final item. Theo finished, thick eyebrows pinched, "I don't know how you managed it, but there's almost nothing in those readings from you."
Draco heard a Rosier and a Carrow arrive, angry at each other. "Good news, take it innocently Theo."
Pansy leaned in to kiss his cheek and guided Theo away. Draco started towards the altercation but found Blaise had already intervened.
Draco nodded in thanks. Blaise simply looked at him.
Astoria slid into view, her hand peeking out of her pale pink sleeve that mimicked an astoria blossom bunch. He kissed it and she curtsied. He drew her close to him and lingered for as long as they dared.
She said, "I do so hate the fashion of floral daughters, but at least we can look however much a flower as we like."
Draco smirked, a little laugh under his breath, "And still be called trite."
"A lady's place." Astoria returned the smile with a heavy blink to her nude eyes. A somberness overtook her and Draco could see her flow of thoughts. She said under her breath, "I would rather die a hundred times than be in Thalia's place."
The threadbare joy they had stood by each other with was gone. He assured her, "Thalia is the most likely to survive if we cannot stop a switch in his mood in time. And he should not know her."
Astoria turned to him, and he ran a thumb down her cheek.
A cool, damp wind rustled the murmuring of the party.
The Dark Lord coalesced. The wards would not have kept him out. If he had found wards that did, they would have been obliterated along with the caster.
The first star in the sky appeared. The party bowed and fell silent. Voldemort was dressed in white billowing robes which cast deep shadow. The contrast was dramatic as the sentience of his robes ethereal.
Voldemort smiled and moved towards Narcissa and Lucius. They bowed, arms intertwined.
Tom Riddle touched their heads as a holy man would. He twisted his head towards the group as the sun sank, red in the sky and the chill of evening fell over the table.
"What a lovely feast. Welcome my friends, my children to Alban Eilir. Lovely Narcissa," he drew a finger under her chin and Lucius' hand turned white. Her eyelids were heavy but did not meet his eyes. "Lucius, my treasured confidant. And Draco Malfoy, thank you and your parents for hosting. What a time to seek new growth."
He gestured to the bottles of champagne and wine and glasses were filled as champagne drew itself from the bottles. It was forceful, clipped magic. Those in attendance caught their flutes.
Draco lifted his flute and tried to spot a silver gleam on the roof. Brew, thankfully, was good enough to not be spotted. Erikur was somewhere in the house, and Thalia was disguised as a maid of spring sacrifice near the altar. There would be a feast, a hunt and normally she would be taken by the victor as revelry occurred on the grounds.
The rest of the party were either incurably insane, too powerful to be broken of their vileness or kept in line by the threat of the Malfoy wand. Those that did not delight in thinking themselves beyond being a wizard or witch, would eventually be sympathetic to the Cause of the Rebellion or Dextrosinestral group. There was no time to secure Assurances, or vows of assistance.
Voldemort said, "Let us toast, to new growth. New…changes…new cullings." Voldemort locked eyes with Draco and pressed the glass to an oily smile.
Draco felt the champagne like acid down his throat.
Dinner was served as the group took their seats.
Voldemort at the center as Draco and his family lined the sides. Crowley's, Milton Shubridge, a VonKepp and a Harriel, others that Draco would not care to name or count but whom he had to face.
The altar still had Thalia upon it. Voldemort commented, "I do enjoy the beautiful sacrifices. Though I am always so torn between flaying and experimental endeavors. Some take hours more than others."
Draco was partially Occluded and so felt the plummet of knowing that Voldemort was planning on not letting any of them live. The Horcruxes were powerful, Voldemort still had somewhat of a precognitive ability according to Time and Fate. His loss of the power of Death apparently had no bearing on his ability to sense or lay down runes for the presence of life on an altar.
Voldemort turned to Draco and put the fork of egg cake up to his lips. "Then again, it is Alban Eilir, and who knows what might be conceived this day to be born midwinter."
Draco would be first to go. He needed to signal the others. Nagini would have to be spotted. The horcrux's destruction could not wait.
Voldemort turned to Narcissa, "I do believe that I have not been able to properly assess your skills. Your husband does tend to keep you in the traditional role, Narcissa. What a shame. And only one son."
Narcissa met Draco's eyes and he tried, with everything he had, to project a warning.
Voldemort continued, "Do you have it in you to advise me on the proper allocation of the criminals that rot our magic? I understand that these matters must be attended to but there are other… matters in my scope of attention."
Narcissa turned to look at Voldemort. Lucius set his utensils down and turned his head.
His mother said, "I have a great capacity within me for more, my lord."
"Whatever I require?" He purred.
Narcissa was cold, "According to my capabilities, yes."
The snake Nagini moved under the table. Draco resisted yanking his foot back. He tried to send a paper napkin, charmed from the side table, to the roof where Brew hopefully was. Where Resistance members staged to be a part of the hunt would be laying in wait.
"And if I were to ask you for your son?" Voldemort pointed, still gazing at Narcissa, at the charmed napkin and incinerated it. He smiled, an empty threat to the inner circle but on Alban Eilir it would carry a different implication.
Narcissa turned to the altar, "Is there something wrong with the sacrifice?"
Voldemort twisted his head to the altar, "It is unfortunate that you had spelled her to sleep. But I do believe that there is something the possession of the first son, the only son, which I have been denied to have."
Clever word games and drawn out tests.
Narcissa upturned her chin, and discarded careful games. "Then, I shall pay you back in ruin." Her wand sliced through the table, severing the arm of Crowley across from her. Lucius covered Narcissa before Crowley shrieked.
Draco immediately rammed a curse of Talon Holding on Nagini. His elocution was accurate sotto, but the spell was complex enough that it needed to be cast. So Draco focused, and did not think about how he told his mother of the story of Lily Evans.
Chaos broke out in spells being cast. Dementors descended and several patronus cut through them. Pansy was running towards Thalia, silver streaking from her wand.
Voldemort reached out a hand to Thalia. Thalia's chest ripped open. The sound was horrifying. Wet. Cracks hard as her ribcage was pried apart. No one had unspelled her in time- and she was vulnerable.
The warning was lost on his mother who dismissed all the conjured items into a crashing wave to drown or encapsulate Voldemort. Lucius was busy disarming and sniping concussive stunners at too slow problem mages. Something with black eyes and sharp teeth made several witches and wizards coming to Voldemorts aid simply vanish.
Nagini's heavy body thrashed and Draco dug the holding spell sharper, imagining the width of the talons like stalactites that the dragons he had seen possessed. The shadow of a dragons claw solidified. His arm and shoulder straining from the power of a curse holding a curse for little more than seven seconds.
Brew appeared, wielding the sword of Gryffindor.
Roots whipped out. Snake fanged vines honed onto everyone as Voldemort broke free of Narcissa's bindings. His face was that of inhuman rage, a blurred wax features melting. Draco released the talon hold reflexively, slashing out with his want to avoid what was surely poison- the ability to stop Nagini's execution so that the Horcruxes would be destroyed all together.
Blaise should have coordinated it and ensured that the foul objects were drenched in basilisk venom.
Freed, all of Nagini's powerful body darted out. Brew slashed from the side. Blood sprayed.
Avada Kedavra strobed from Voldemort for Brew and Draco.
Draco sent spells to cut free his friends and debilitate the dwindling enemies, some with arrows in their head. But he spotted Astoria, pointing, face in open horror. He turned to see his mother flung herself in front of him. Uselessly trying to block Avada Kedavra. The only spell that would not kill Draco out right.
Draco did not have time to scream.
Lucius' magic flared. Draco lost awareness of what he was resting to- ripping at Voldemort and trying to save his friends.
Erikur stood in front of the bone ripping curses that Voldemort flung out and crushed them with a staff. Blaise's head was caught in the crossfire. The air smelled like blood and magic.
Voldemort started to wrench back. The air turned viscous, the sky immediately blackened as if all the light in the world went out except for a light made of threads around a wheel in Voldemort's chest. It beat in time to a thudding heart.
Static churned the ripe magic in the air. Draco's hair stood on end, as all the air was drawn into Voldemort.
Draco, panicking and nearly blind, looked for Theo. He fixated on Theo's hand, limp, a stretching distance that he'd never made. The glass ball with the white sand swirled. Draco was too far. The magic Voldemort was using to push everyone back in time was too heavy and his heartbreak and shock was hanging him.
Astoria crawled to grasped Pansy's hand, and Pansy reached forward and with fierce determination pointed her wand at the time sand within.
The sand exploded by Pansy's wand, helped along by Astoria pouring her strength into Pansy. A spindly hand took them away- and they vanished.
Those remaining staggered to their knees.
Out of a rip in space, someone leapt through. A blade of fire lit. It swung, attached to a gleaming arm. Something held him to unnatural stillness and the garden sighed. Voldemort's head rolled. The viscosity of the air and all the gravity of the world wrenched itself together again.
Draco was heaving.
His mother laid dead, Lucius staggered, confused and horrified. His gaze on his wife's empty face.
Blaise's head was half missing. Theo wasn't moving. Pansy was cast across Theo's lap her hand and Astoria's shared.
There were some who were still alive but Draco's gaze was transfixed on Voldemort. Tom Riddle was bleeding, he was still bleeding and he wouldn't be for long.
A black haired man, wearing armor stood looking over at the body.
"Bloody Potter." Draco said.
Harry turned. Older, with a beard, a strange expression on his face. Harry pointed at the headless body of Voldemort, "Something we need, right?"
Draco, wanting to fucking die, in shocky steps kneeled at the body and bared his teeth. Like a knife in Draco's stomach, atop the ragged pain raking through him.
Brew knelt near him. "It's just blood. You're taking its strength, but you'll need it from the heart."
Draco summoned the heart of Voldemort with a vicious, "Accio heart of Tom Riddle," bit into it, fangs already bare.
It was meat, not as hot as he had known blood to be. It tasted like how velvet made him feel, and the way discordant violins sang in his head. Under it all, a heady nectar of rightness, of Fate. And the cloying bittersweet of poison and corruption. An eating so intense that it took him forcibly away from his mind and saturated him inside a body foreign to him.
Somewhere beyond the drugged intoxication, coursing under Draco's skin like a lovers fingernail, there were voices and movement.
Brew asked, "Oi, where's the soggy druid?"
Harry tilted his head, "Thumb?"
Brew jerked the heel of his palm up.
Draco ripped the meat from his mouth and spat. He was having a hard time breathing and dealing with literally the culmination of years of pain, horror and now the shock of the aftermath as it all flooded back into him.
Draco slammed his fists on the ground and let out a howling scream.
Harry's hand came to hover over Draco's back. "Let's never let this happen."
Draco, delirious, crawled over to his mother's body, where his father was blank, unaware of his rocking.
"You're leaving again." Thumb said. "We had to suffer through some large time loops. Still feel like my brain is dripping."
Harry was quiet, "It'll mean all the pain will have never happened."
Draco's mouth formed the words, "It wasn't all pain."
Lucius looked at him. Draco took his mother's hand in his. "I- I'll go and it will be over. I'll go and it will be gone."
Lucius eyes, so unlike his own connected one last time to Draco and a flood of everything his father kept guarded was gifted, "It will never be gone."
Harry drew Draco up and took his shoulders, "The door's closing. We're almost there."
Draco was swallowed up. The grip Harry had on his hand was crushed away as they met Oblivion. He felt a hook, then the sensation of stars melting, falling, dancing.
~oOo~
When Draco woke, he was alone. In the distance, he saw the Black Lake. Hogwarts. It was night. He sat, unfeeling in the cold, wearing bloodstained white in front of stone pillars.
It was strange, how all simple thought seemed profound. Coherence was beyond him for hours.
He stayed that way until the sun heated the sky to lilac. And then, survival drove him to the castle. Where he supposed he would wait.
AN: This chapter did not go how I expected it to go. Voldemort really just ruined plans.
If you're reading this, and have been, I see you as a number on my screen. As an alert and follow in my inbox. I know there's a person behind that number- and to those people: Sorry Four Corners has not been finished. This past year I had to caretake my family, and move out to somewhere horrible, and then obtain the life achievement of getting The Illness of our time. (Hopefully we won't have another plague.) I lost a family member who was dear to me.
I hope that even in the darkest of times, though there is not a good deal of energy, you remember that there is always light to be found in others. In our love for each other.
Thank you for reading.
Old English approximation: I vow death. Dead already in living shield. Sacrifice.