Chapter Five: The Owls are Not What They Seem
In which the readers will at last discover what Draco Malfoy's 'project' is, and discover what happens in the aftermath of the goblin's confrontation in Diagon Alley. They will also learn how Mrs. Black occupies her time, and considering what she puts up with, will hopefully be amused.
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmlingly sweet you sing!
Oh! Let us be married;
to long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They Sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a piggy-wig stood,
With a ring on the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring on the end of his nose.
- Edward Lear: The Owl and the Pussy Cat
***
Had Draco Malfoy been given even the slightest suggestion as to what he would Apparate into the middle of that evening, he would surely have simply refused to leave the house, and probably charmed the doors shut for good measure. As it was, he was putting on the final touches to his wardrobe for that evening, utterly ignorant to the fact that the evening would be infinitely more exciting and even entertaining than he had expected it to be.
Draco completed buttoning up his dark grey dress robes over his white shirt and tunic, and checked to make sure that every single hair was still in place, then walked over to the door to the bathroom and knocked rather briskly.
"Peliah! Do get a move on or we shall miss the opening!"
"Oh rubbish," came the muffled cry through the bathroom door. "Tell me exactly to the minute the last time the Mysteries of Bernard players ever started a performance on time!"
Draco smiled at the door and shook his head, even as he put his hands on his hips to stop himself crossing his arms and wrinkling his robes.
"My dear, I do believe you are well aware that I have never attended a performance of this 'artistic troupe' as you insist I address them, so I have no means of responding to your challenge."
The door opened a bit and a grinning face surrounded by masses of soaking wet black curls peeked out.
"I know, Cherie. And tonight you shall see what delights you have been missing! And once more I remind you that you are quite the brave little dragon for letting me talk you into this!"
Draco fought to keep as haughty and disapproving a look on his face as he could muster, but wasn't sure he was getting anywhere.
"Peliah," he said in a low voice, "your hair is still wet."
She rolled her eyes at him and slammed the door shut. Draco heard her saying a drying spell loudly, then laughing again, and then telling him to bugger off and let her finish, she would be ready when she was ready, as she was still arguing with several rather stubborn stains about her person.
"Well I believe I did suggest this morning that staining the plaster may not have been the best activity to take on this day," he growled quietly. But not quiet enough; on the opposite side of the door Peliah launched into another of her architectural lectures, this one seeming to focus on the need to adhere stain in the plaster before it had set properly, and that her entire schedule would be set back if this wasn't done, and no she was not going to magic the plaster in place because that simply wasn't proper….
Draco walked without a sound across the carpet to exit the bedroom and wander downstairs to engage in busywork until Peliah decided she was ready to leave for Diagon Alley. He descended the main stairs and crossed the entryway to his study, giving the pots of stain still lying about a wide berth and avoiding walking through the fine dust of dried plaster that had settled on the drop cloths by the wall.
As Draco opened the door and crossed the threshold to his study, he repeated the same exercise he had done every single time he had entered this room since his return to the Manor after the end of term. Draco swung the door closed behind him, and then stood there silently with his hands on his hips, vaguely shaking his head as he took in the look of the room. The transformation was simply astonishing, and honestly beyond what he had imagined. He experienced a slight panic attack once more knowing that the reason for this was that Peliah knew him so well. But he did manage a smile as he considered the next time anyone asked him for advice in selecting an artisan he would suggest that choosing one you would fall in love with seemed to work wonders on their output.
Of course, this had hardly been his intent. Despite his mother's increasingly pressing inquiries as to if he truly intended to remain a bachelor all his life and locked up in 'that damn school', Draco had simply kept his focus on those things which seemed of importance to him at any given moment. After several years focused on perfecting his DADA curriculum, his focus had turned to renovating Malfoy Manor, as it was in desperate need and Draco, frankly, did not find Lady Malfoy's thinly veiled hints at her desire for a grandson as important. He had set about finding a team of artisans who would be worthy of the task, and was increasingly angered that this was not as simple as he had originally assumed. After the most promising candidate had failed in a truly spectacular manner (and which left Draco in despair that the dining hall would ever recover), he had literally screamed about it to Malcolm Lupin one evening as they sat over dinner in the manor's kitchens, as Draco could not bear to look at the remains of the once grand frescos in the dining hall.
This had been two years ago. Shortly after that, Malcolm had sent Draco a letter saying that he had found the perfect artist to tackle the monumental task of restoring the manor house and redesigning some of the darker aspects Draco found extraordinarily distasteful and overbearing. Draco had at first assumed it was the set up to another of the young man's rather deliciously complex practical jokes. It wasn't until a few weeks after, when Roarke had asked him before she left that afternoon's DADA class what Draco had thought of the artisan Malcolm was so excited about, that he even considered this might be legitimate. Roarke was the most solemn and straightforward of Remus and Katie's children, and she never participated in others' pranks. What few she engaged in were entirely solo affairs, no matter how close she and Malcolm were.
Draco had arranged to return to the Manor the next weekend, and sent an owl to the woman in question asking her to be there to meet with him Saturday morning at 9:30 am, and telling her not to appear a moment before as he himself would not be present until then. He opted to leave out the information that should she appear on the doorstep and only Lady Malfoy was at home to receive her that she would most likely have a distinctly unpleasant day. Draco's mother was decidedly against his altering anything in the house, and had already managed to terrify three other artists who had replied to Draco's inquiry for assistance. The last one had actually lodged a complaint against both of them for 'maliciousness'. Harry Potter had been kind enough to get that complaint shunted off to another office in the Ministry before Parkinson had had the opportunity to get her hands on it, as complaints against accused former Death Eaters always went through the Department of Mysteries first.
Draco had to smile again as he gazed at his transformed study and recalled the first moment Peliah Mercier had burst into his life. He had arrived home on the Saturday in question at 9:25, and stayed outside on the front steps waiting for the arrival of the artisan. All Malcolm had told him was that she was very talented and had quite a following. She was accomplished at both restoration and design, so she could in fact handle all of the work Draco wanted done. Malcolm had forwarded the glowing recommendations he had collected on her work from her previous engagements. Draco had already learned that his own inquiries did not always garnish very open or even polite responses.
At 9:30 on the nose, Draco heard the unmistakable sound of a Muggle car engine. Surprised, he glided down off the steps and walked around the front of the house to look across the drive leading to the gates. There was absolutely no possibility of any Muggle crossing the wards surrounding the estate. True, Malfoy Manor was no longer unplottable (part of his 'polite agreement' with the Ministry made all of those years ago when his 'complicity in certain unsavoury actions' was 'excused') but the place was still deeply enchanted and protected. This could only be a magical person, and one who had been granted access at that.
A red Muggle automobile of some sort was coming up the drive at a rather alarming speed. It skidded to a halt in front of him, sliding on the gravel somewhat, and the door was flung open as the driver seemed to propel herself with great force from the inside. The young-looking woman leaned on the top of the car, and smiled broadly at him.
"Draco Malfoy, I presume?"
"Miss Mercier, I sincerely hope for your sake."
The young woman absolutely roared with laughter and slammed her door shut, and trotted around the automobile, reaching to shake Draco's hand, her smile remaining.
"Miss Peliah Mercier, indeed. Don't remember me? I doubt you would. Can't imagine the Head Boy and the top Slytherin paying any attention to a Hufflepuff underclassman. Not that we minded being ignored by you lot, of course. But I do have some very nice sketches of you in your last year playing Quidditch. I should dig those out...I think I could find them…we'll find a lovely place them in here somewhere I'm sure. Good lord, are those rather gruesome rain ducts magicked up there properly? When were those installed, then? During the days of Uric the Oddball? They have the look of some of his ideas….hmmm. So who is odder, the oddball or the oddball who follows him? Yes, those will go quickly; they are completely breaking the line of the roof. Mon dieu, Regency windows? Blech."
"The windows are not original," said Draco, automatically, trying to figure out what this odd woman was doing as she ran up and down the front of the house, her head craned to look up at the architecture of the stories and the wings, her long wavy black hair shaking out of the loose tie she had on it as she moved about quickly. "There was …damage… done to the front rooms of the third story. Those are the replacements."
"Damage as in a dark spell got away from someone or damage as in someone was trying to blast one of your ancestors to kingdom come?"
Draco gave her a cool look. "Rather a combination of both, to my understanding. Not that that is any concern of yours."
Peliah Mercier gave him another huge smile and winked at him.
"Too right, my Lord Malfoy. What matters is that I'm going to set them right for you. About time someone tackled this place. Lovely marble on the steps here at least."
Peliah had not even been formally hired, to Draco's recollection. She simply arrived and started work. Narcissa Malfoy had been furious to arrive downstairs after breakfast to stumble across a seeming madwoman in the Blue Room with a paintbrush sweeping broad and dripping swaths of paint across the antique wallpaper as she was deciding what colour would replace the 'sphinx dung' currently on the walls. She was even angrier to find her son simply reclining on a sofa with a cup of tea watching the woman with an odd smile. Draco had sent her back out that time, but the resulting battle of wills that ensued during the course of the summer had been interesting to say the least. Peliah, for her part, showed a brazen passion in defending her choices in the changes to the décor. Narcissa went back and forth between trying to hex her and dressing down Draco. Draco, quite used to such family dramas, had simply removed the various hexes without a sound and continually told his mother to deal with it. The day Lady Malfoy had discovered Peliah was a Hufflepuff was particularly gruesome. However, Draco had been completely taken aback by the force Peliah finally put up to Narcissa, no less amazing by the fact that Narcissa called a truce of sorts after that moment and actually started offering helpful ideas. Draco had only been vaguely concerned for Miss Mercier's life when he left to return to Hogwarts that fall.
Draco actually chuckled to himself as he walked across his new deep green carpet to his rosewood desk and started rummaging through that day's mail. A courtship had, much like Peliah herself, simply arrived and settled in, based primarily at first on arguments over hues of green appropriate for the dining room and long, long letters back and forth between the Manor and Hogwarts about the importance of knowing how much your exterior surroundings reflected your true self. Draco had about fainted when he saw his new bedroom in rich dark reds, but had truly grown to love it as much as Peliah did.
As he glowered at yet one more dithering letter from Gringotts over the status of his seniority, the artist herself appeared. She had dressed herself in a Muggle gown, but one that still passed Wizard sensibilities. The deep amber gold of the material set off her dusky skin very nicely, and her black eyes shone from her sparsely made up face. She had an odd and almost off-putting appearance, her eyes a little too big, and her mouth a little too full, but had Draco actually been allowed to have a say in the decoration she was working on, he would have included several portraits of her. He smiled to himself as he stood up and walked over to take her hand and kiss it lightly, knowing that she could not refuse the request for at least one portrait once they were married. Tradition after all, and had she not agreed that tradition was a noble thing?
"Very lovely, my dear. Shall we?"
"We shall. Did the roses get delivered today? I want to start on the conservatory soon."
"I've honestly no idea, Peliah. I have not heard any word of anything, so I would assume they are still in transit."
"Oh bloody hell!"
Draco gave her a smile and shook his head.
"That's what you get for ordering them off season."
"No, that's what I get for letting you choose such an odd style. Mr. Lincolns indeed!"
"Come, we shall be late."
***
As the cloud of blue smoke released by the traitorous rebel goblins cleared, the dynamics of the resulting stand-off between the goblins and the Enforcement wizards became discernible. Black robed witches and wizards, wands held at the ready, circled a large ring of goblins dressed in brilliant red Gringotts livery. The goblins faced the wizards, and had their own hands raised and ready in front of them. Griffin, Roarke and Billy Stockwell stood in the middle of these concentric rings. There was a noticeable silence as everyone regarded each other and considered their next move. The silence was broken after several moments by the sound of 'pops' ringing out, as the Aurors began to arrive and assess the situation.
Diagon Alley is not a large space. Located in one of the older sections of London, the widest part is at most 25 yards, but the amounts of things pouring onto the sidewalk from the stores has the effect of shrinking that space. Needless to say, once the Alley had become crowded with goblins, Enforcement Wizards and civilians, things became a little tight. The dramatic arrival of the Aurors only caused the crowd to push a little closer, trying to see what was happening.
Griffin recognised the scared and scowling face of Morrighan Gwynen, one of the chief Aurors, as she pushed through the crowd to the edge of the ring of Enforcement wizards and took in the situation. She gave Kentvicks a rather exasperated look, even as the goblin looked back with a distinct sneer on his rage-reddened face.
"Kentvicks, what is this?"
"THIS is something I have been warning you would happen for months. THIS is no longer your concern. We'll deal with it."
Gwynen shook her head firmly.
"Come on now; we'll take care of this together…."
Kentvicks growled. "I think not," he sneered. "Gringotts is now closed, until we have brought this issue to a proper conclusion. This is no longer a matter for you or your Ministry."
Gwynen again shook her head and indicated the three humans standing near Kentvicks. "Gringotts is under your supervision of course, and we'll get back to that, but right now it looks to me like you have two of our citizens and some Muggle held against their consent. That is my business."
Kentvicks turned to give a small glance over his shoulder at Griffin and the others. Griffin took a moment to follow the goblin's gaze and look at Billy. The man rather gave the impression he was basically moments from simply passing out from shock. His mouth hung open slightly and he had gone beyond pale right to an odd sort of blue colour. Considering the day he was having, Griffin couldn't really blame him. He was not very happy himself with the idea of being at the mercy of the goblins, if one could even use that phrase. But he simply remained very still and told himself this would be over soon. Provided, of course, the goblins were not provoked into simply being spiteful.
"This one," said Kentvicks, pointing with vehemence, and jabbing his finger in her direction at the end of each work to drive his point home, "was last seen in the company of a fellow we now know to be a traitor. He had arranged to meet with her secretly, she kept that meeting, and I am claiming the right to hold her, per OUR laws, until we are satisfied that she has given us all of the information we need. We have that right; your government gave it to us. Shall I quote the mandate for you?" he added with a malicious and condescending air.
Griffin understood enough of goblin law to know that this was not a good development at all. Still, Roarke had a perfectly reasonable excuse; he was sure, as Roarke always had a reasonable excuse. At least, he couldn't really place a finger on any time when she hadn't at least pulled a reasonable excuse out of thin air, if necessary.
Griffin caught Roarke's eye quietly and gave the slightest raised eyebrow in her direction. Roarke nodded very slightly back at him, and Griffin was satisfied that there was an excuse somewhere that would get them out of this. Provided nobody did anything stupid. Griffin had no doubt that neither he nor Roarke would be doing that, and he doubted if Billy would be able to remember his own name for the next few days, so that was alright. But this moment of confidence that this was just going to be an interesting coda to his planned evening of seeing the Mysteries of Bernard Players with his two best friends was irretrievably lost as a small figure pushed its way through the crowd and came to stand next to Gwynen.
Griffin prayed to whoever might be listening for his mummy. Not that he was having some sort of immature panic attack, but that Elizabeth Black, PhD, was such a better option in this situation than what he was now faced with. To deal with the crisis they had called in the head of his mother's office, the Dreaded Buherger.
Sirius Black had made great progress in controlling his temper and learning to maintain an even emotional keel over the years after his acquittal. But there were still those things which would send him into fits under the right circumstances, and the dreaded Buherger was at the very top of the list. It didn't help that Buherger had been Sirius' divination instructor at Hogwarts for two years (before he had retired due to nerves: dealing with the children was more than he could manage) and the fact that Sirius had true latent seer abilities that Buherger ignored put them at odds with each other to start with.
Then Liz had announced at dinner as she was describing her first day on the job working with the Magical Crisis Management team who her supervisor was. Sirius practically choked on his dinner and put a dent in the table when he slammed his fork down in shock. Unhappy with Liz taking a dangerous job in the first place, finding out that she was working with that particular man seemed to enrage him further. Liz told him to stop being silly, she was sure the man would be fine. Sirius glowered at her over Griffin's head, and said, "Mrs. Black, I do not like to accuse you of making a mistake as I know you to be a decidedly intelligent and careful person when necessary. But you will eat those words on this one, I promise you that."
True to Sirius' prediction, over the ensuing years since that moment, Buherger seemed to cause more crises than he managed. Particularly at the Black home. He spent much time serving as an expert witness for the Ministry in court, generally against a defendant Sirius was representing. Buherger and Sirius had almost come to blows more than once. Well, Sirius had; Buherger tended to just go pale and blanch whenever Sirius so much as sneezed in his direction.
Griffin saw now that Roarke had noticed the Dreaded Buherger as well, and she now actually looked slightly concerned. Griffin prayed again, this time that Buherger just dealt with this in a straightforward fashion, and did not try to 'understand the motivation and the anger of the situation'.
The thin little wizard gave a weak smile at Kentvicks and cleared his throat to get the goblin's attention. Kentvicks gave him an exasperated look, and even rolled his eyes.
"Hello, hello, Kentvicks. So, um, what seems to be at issue here?"
Kentvicks simply suggested Buherger do something rude to himself, then turned to whisper something to the taller goblin standing on his left. Buherger gave a small cough, even as Griffin saw Gwynen roll her eyes behind the wizard's back herself. Gwynen stepped forward again, half blocking Buherger.
"Come on Kentvicks, there's no need for this. I can't imagine for a moment that Miss Lupin there has caused any Malicious Mischief for you by aiding and abetting Slipnod and those working with him."
Kentvicks gave Gwynen a dark look through narrowed eyes.
"We are not so convinced. Miss Lupin comes from rather…extraordinary… circumstances, does she not?"
Griffin felt himself go red at that, and saw Gwynen get an equally dangerous glint in her eye.
"Kentvicks, be reasonable; you have no basis for making such statements, and are not helping the situation by…."
"I've no intent of HELPING you at all, you (expletive uttered in Goblin and beyond the writers language skills). Exactly how are your types going to track a goblin? A goblin intent on destruction, and on TAKING OVER?!?!"
Buherger seemed, for some inexplicable reason, to find both voice and courage at that point, and leaned around the Auror to get a better look at the goblins.
"I sense that there is a lot of anger right here. You have been betrayed: I can understand how that would be troubling. Tell me, how do you really feel about this? How are you letting your feelings cloud your judgement? I know if we can just talk about them, and find out what's really speaking out of you, that we can find a resolution that will please you!"
Billy Stockwell came to life at this, and looked horrified. At least it was an emotion.
"We're going to be rescued with psycho-babble?" he shrieked. Griffin gave him a decidedly nasty scowl and motioned for silence. But Kentvicks slowly turned and fixed his attention on the three humans still standing behind him. Griffin recognised his nasty and villainous smile from the photo in the Prophet, and knew that something unpleasant was about to happen.
"We're wasting time," growled the little old goblin.
Before any of the witches or wizards trying to contain the situation and keep some peace could react, Kentvicks muttered something in goblin (which is a rather horrible sounding thing). Six of his followers sprang forward, each grabbing hold of one of the arms of Roarke, Billy and Griffin. They gave a small hop and a skip, and then actually jumped over the heads of the Aurors and the Enforcement wizards. Buherger threw his arms over his head and ducked as he cried out 'now really!' just as the goblins let out a high pitched shriek, shattering the glass in the windows of the store behind the crowd. As the glass exploded into a fine dust, Griffin instinctively closed his eyes and coughed as they moved with unbelievable speed. It was only the metallic crashing, the bedlamite chorus of hoots and screeches, and the immediate sneezing fit Griffin launched into as a cloud of down feathers were released by the simultaneous beating of hundreds of wings that allowed Griffin to identify the fact that the goblins just seemed to have trashed the Eeylops Owl Emporium in the blink of an eye.
One of the goblins holding Griffin seemed to give a chuckle, and mumbled "too soft! Too soft!" Griffin managed to open his eyes and look up just as it seemed they were going to crash into a door. But he didn't even have time to cry out as the door evaporated just as the window had, and the goblins raced through the doorway without slowing a beat. What Griffin did not know (and in fact, very, very few people did) was that the back porch of the Emporium opened out onto an alley in Muggle London. This was so the owls could be moved easily and surreptitiously without aggravating the birds with Portkeys and the like. Owls were notoriously sensitive to being shifted with such spells. At best, they sulked and refused to deliver mail for weeks. At worst, some owls seemed to be permanently mentally discombobulated, and per Wizard law were no longer fit for sale. Of course they were sold quietly on the cheap with extensive warnings that they should only be kept as pets and not trusted with deliveries beyond the end of the road. The Department for Misinformation had several full-time staffers focused entirely on the issue of confused owls popping up in Muggle breakfast nooks with their mail bundles.
But as discrete as the back alley may have been under normal circumstances, there was every possibility that a parliament of owls exiting the alleyway in a great rush over the heads of the Muggles out enjoying the early evening on the main street was going to attract attention. Griffin didn't have time to notice. As they raced up the alley, he saw what appeared to be a hole open up on the ground. Without slowing, the goblins and their human captives soared into the hole. Griffin felt a spell wrap around him and he went completely numb, and everything fell silent and black.