Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own the ardeur. I don't own dranath. I don't own the concept of tai-pan. Everything else is mine.

CHAPTER 10 - TENSION


The next morning, when neither Luc nor Snape showed up for the morning meal, Albus went in search of them, only mildly concerned, in case anything should have happened to them. There was no sign of Luc at all, although Filch did say that he'd gone out very, very early and hadn't yet come back. He found Snape in his own quarters, after making his way through the maze of warding spells on the door.

The room was a complete shambles, and for a moment he feared the worst - the Death Eaters had found out about his treachery, and they had attacked him in the very heart of Hogwarts - but he could see through an open door to a shrine, an alcove, an enclosure, where Snape knelt with his head down, arms outspread and robes falling in perfect folds around him, before an ancient, worn statue of the Lady.

The High Clan believed there were three faces to the Deity, and usually they were feminine - the Maiden, the Mother, and the Lady, who was both destruction and rebirth personified. She had many faces, many guises, but the most particularly sacred one to the High Clan was that of Rhiyana, the Lady of Ravens.

Not Rowena Ravenclaw, who had been a mortal woman, but the very Lady Herself - She was ambition and cunning and determination, loyalty and devotion and honour; Brandon Malfoy had taken Her as his patroness and his protector, and had been known as the Lord of the Ravens ever since. His Ravens, the warriors who had accompanied him through exile and into power in a new, unclaimed land, had also passed that reverence on, and She had become the Goddess of the High Clan.

Dark haired, dark eyed, with the body of a dancer, Her eyes burned with all that was High Clan, and Her smile was everything that a Clan Lord's should be. Enigmatic. Powerful. Compassionate and merciless all at once; above this world and beyond petty concerns.

Omnipotent and omniscient.

Making his way quickly to his Potions Master's side, he fancied that he could all but feel Her gaze - he was not High Clan, but he was old enough and had seen enough to show the correct respect, even if She was not his Lady. As he came closer, he could see that Severus was shivering, shaking quite badly, as if he were suffering the aftermath of a very intense bout of Cruciatus...

He put out a hand and touched his back, then jerked it back immediately, stunned, as Snape flinched wildly and all but threw himself away from the contact. The dark, dark eyes, normally so empty, were full of fear and pain and guilt and self-loathing and a terrible, terrible grief...so terrible that it wrung his heart.

He had not seen Snape like this since he had come back to Hogwarts, begging Albus to look at him, see what he had become, and kill him, please...just make the pain stop!

As he had longed to do back then, he came slowly forward, making no sudden moves, and laid his hand softly on Severus' cheek, sliding it around into his black, thick hair, and drew him into his embrace, resting the head on his shoulder. Snape's arms tightened fiercely around Albus, to the point of almost pain, but he welcomed it as a sign of Snape's trust and belief.

He did not make the mistake of actually saying anything, of acknowledging the weakness Snape showed in any way. To do so would cause Snape great loss of face, and severely damage the trust he held in his old mentor - enough that he would show his discomposure in this way, that he would accept comfort, if it were carefully and tactfully offered.

Even so, he would not reveal the source of his distress. Dumbledore was not High Clan.


Snape held on to what comfort he could, and clutched desperately at the bond - friendship and passion and love and suspicion and distrust and hatred - that was so strong that he had thought it could survive everything, and which could not, could not be completely destroyed, despite what he had said and done last night. Too much lay between them - too many years, too many secrets, too many memories.

No matter what Luc Malfoy thought, no matter what he had said, such a powerful bond could not be snapped, could not be freely returned, not now and not ever. Luc could not walk away from him...but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to.

Snape didn't care. Everything had a price. And the price for Luc's power, for his present status, for his happiness with his newfound family and his peace with his birth family, was entry to the Death Eaters and the lives Luc had taken in cold, ambitious blood. Had he not joined the Death Eaters, Snape knew Luc would not be nearly as powerful as he was today; he had known this, even at seventeen, when his father had first whispered the words and the plan in his ears.

The price of entry to the Death Eaters was grief, and the desire for revenge, and strong, white-hot hatred. Once inside, all doors were opened, all the opportunities in the world were laid at the bastard Malfoy's feet - and all for the price of one Mudblood's continued existence in England.

(And, yes, if he was honest, there had been other, far more personal and less worthy motives...but they were no one's business but his own).

To his mind, the potential rewards had been worth the price, and more. But it seems, twenty years later, that he had misjudged whether Luc would have found it worth the price. He had the sinking feeling that he wouldn't have; really, Malfoy could be so emotional. It was really quite disconcerting, at times.

Luc would come back. He had to believe that. Luc would come back.

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However, about an hour after leaving Hogwarts, Luc Malfoy had been beyond any sophisticated logical analysis - all he could think of was the overwhelming pain he had suffered twenty years ago, and all he could concentrate on was on drowning it out with the best and oldest cures of all.

Sex, drugs and alcohol.

An ancient bottle of Ogden's - old, smoky, deceptively smooth - and perhaps even a bout or three of very wild, uninhibited sex; he didn't care about his partner, so long as they asked no questions and didn't mind hurting or being hurt. He was in a savage mood, and just drunk enough to indulge it fully. He was even feeling vicious enough to contemplate dranath - it would guarantee him oblivion after mind-wrenching, viciously primitive sex - at the moment, he didn't care about the consequences. Sex, drugs and alcohol - everything he'd warned the children under his care not to indulge in all at once. Any one of them separately, to be sure, but not all three together. Not unless you had a real need to put yourself through hell.

To his thinking, this whole situation had called for it.

So when Dumbledore tracked him down the next morning, he'd been completely unconscious in a strange bed, marked with the physical reminders of his darker sexual nature, and his two partners (one male, one female) marked as well. The distinctive reek of alcohol, and the less well known but equally unmistakable cinnamon smell of dranath had also lain under the smell of spirits and sex, and even Dumbledore could see that he was beyond awakening, at least for the next six hours.

Frozen with dismay, disgust and disappointment, he'd left a message and had left immediately, going straight back to Hogwarts and the lighter, clearer world of the school, which, enlivened by rumour and gossip and teenage angst, bore no resemblance to the dark, sensual, dangerous world of High Clan politics.

At least he understood the school.

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The children eyed the two empty spots rather curiously at breakfast. Snape alone missing the meal was common enough. Professor Snape and Professor Malfoy both missing it gave rise to speculation and raised eyebrows.

Brandon refused the contemplate it, citing his conservative, upper class American mind as an excuse. Such things didn't happen in New England, or if they did, they were well hidden. Nick and Marc winced slightly at the thought, but said nothing - they knew Luc, and they knew enough not to question his actions or his decisions. Draco could imagine it all too easily - he'd actually seen them, once - his father, Luc and Snape...together, they were quite a surprisingly beautiful sight...and he knew Luc's desires and cravings, because he shared them, even if his were not quite so jaded, or so...dark.

But he didn't think that Luc and Snape had spent the night together last night - whatever he had seen in Brandon (and Draco had his suspicions) it had upset him quite badly. He'd felt him leave the castle last night, and he hadn't yet returned...not unusual behaviour, normally, but these were not normal times, not when a shadow guarded the footsteps of every member of the House, and it was not safe to venture beyond the grounds of Hogwarts.

He worried. Last night, he'd had a dream - it had had the unmistakable light of a true Dream, which had been a sign all on its own - that time was running out, that things were coming together and the final design was very, very unpleasant. In his dream, he'd stood before the Veil, the barrier that separated the Malfoy estate and lands from the rest of the world, and he'd put the palm of his hand against it to begin the spell that would part it, allow him entrance. But as soon as he'd touched the magical force, blood had started to seep out, as if squeezed from invisible pores...and he'd automatically brought the sacred wine to his lips for the smallest of curious tastes, and found it was a very well known taste...

It was his father's blood, and it was flowing out of the Veil so fast that it coated him, his hands, his arms and his face...and it tasted like the sweetest, most glorious wine he'd ever drunk...

He'd woken up almost screaming, breathing hard, to feel the slight burst of ardeur that meant his uncle had apparated away from Hogwarts, off to lick his own wounds in peace. Bringing his shaking hands up to his face, pushing the unruly hair back into its accustomed position, he hadn't noticed the liquid covering his hands, arms and face until it was too late, and he'd screamed...

He'd managed to calm himself down almost immediately, but the dream remained in his memories, lurking in the back of his mind and begging to be examined, explained, catalogued and decoded.

He'd pushed it back as far away as he could and ignored it. But it wouldn't leave him alone...

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Benjamin Greyson received his son's first owl of the year at the breakfast table, and with a smile on his face broke the seal to see what his son had to say.

...Dear Father (it read), I hope you and mother are well, and send my best regards to both of you. Hogwarts is an amazing place - it's just as mother described it, even down to the prejudice and the rivalry and the plotting...the Hat, in all its curious wisdom, saw fit to place me in Slytherin, ("What?" shouted Ben, at the top of his lungs. "Slytherin?!") but I have yet to see why. I have made a few friends, mainly Draco Malfoy and two sons of the House, (his father almost choked) and have settled in nicely, as you said I soon would.

By far the most interesting class is the Defence Against the Dark Arts; our teacher, a Professor Luc Malfoy (does mother know him? Draco says they went to school together), emphasizes thinking rather than doing, the mind over the wand. He is teaching us about the Death Eaters, (Ben started spluttering incoherently) which I find rather disturbing, but I believe he knows what he's doing. He does rather give the impression of omnipotence. He is a very dangerous man, who chafes at the necessity of hiding from the Dark Lord. There is indeed a temper and a well of passion beneath the cool mask, and I have the impression that something will happen very soon...

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"Dark hair, dark eyes, and the body of a dancer" - from Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave".

"Everything has a price" - from Anne Bishop's "Daughter of the Blood".