In the Company of Snakes
By: Cousin Mary
Part7
Draco was still tossing and turning in his bed trying to get comfortable again, still mumbling about inconsiderate sisters and rashes when the house-elf Pony shot into his room like a rocket.
"Li'l Meester Malfie! Li'l Meester gots to wake up!" The pink elf jumped onto the bed and started shaking her employer's son. With one webbed fingered hand on each side of his head she bounced around in a frenzy.
"Ack!" Darco sat up, trying to fling the offending creature away, "What is it now? Can't a man sleep in his own bed for more than-"
"It's your pappa Lil' Meester!" Pony's high-pitched wail so loud Draco's ears began to ring. "He's hurt real bad!"
"What?" Draco stilled and the house-elf slid off his head. "Father's hurt?"
"Yesser! Donkey's with him in Meester's room now but he's in no good shape!" Pony started hyperventilating and looked as if she might pass out any minute. "Donkey said get you so Pony did!"
Draco quickly rose from bed and began pulling on his pant, "Where's Mother?"
"Misses Malfie is gone," Pony told him anxiously, bouncing from one foot to the next, "Gotsta hurry sir, the Meester is no good, very bad!"
The boy nodded and swept out of his chamber and down the hall towards his parent's rooms. His pale brows were drawn together in a worried frown and he finally broke into a run when he reached the main part of the house. He'd never seen Pony so worked up, how could his father have injured himself? He practically flew up the final stairs and the door literally banged on the hinges as he threw it open.
What he saw nearly made him gag. His father, and he only knew it was him because the house elf had told him it was, lay across the Turkish carpet a near black mess. He'd obviously been burned, and very badly, but Donkey had put out the flames at least. Draco raced to his side, "Father!"
The wizard's pale eyes cracked open at his son's voice, a startling blue against the mottled red and black of his skin. "Draco," he croaked, "Thank Merlin."
"Father," Draco looked over him frantically, almost no part of his father's body had been left untouched by the flames, "We've got to get you to the hospital."
"No!" Lucius's hand shot out and captured his wrist, "No doctors, no one must know. You, you can help me."
"Father…" Draco's frown deepened, "This is more than I've ever-"
"No doctors!" And with that, Lucius fell unconscious yet again.
Draco stared down at his father, finally deciding he had to do something. Pulling his wand, he used Mobilicorpus to lift his father and float him into his parent's huge bathroom. He then laid him down in the deep sunken tub and used another spell to remove what was left of his clothes. He frowned, the skin beneath was almost worse for being trapped against the burning cloth.
"Donkey! Pony!" Draco called out, surprised at how eerily calm his own voice sounded. He was detaching himself from the situation he supposed, in order to do what he must to save his father.
"Yesser Li'l Meeser?" The house elves raced in, eyes huge and watering at their master's fate.
"I need you both to go to my room and fetch my caldron and the green chest from my closet." Draco pushed a hand through his hair and looked at the still waiting elves, "NOW!"
As the servants scurried away, falling over each other in their haste, he looked down again at his father. "I'll save you Father, I swear."
Maggie woke to the sound of a loud crash coming from Draco's room. Confused, and still half asleep, she stumbled down the hall and pushed open the door just in time to see the house elves pulling trunks, boxes and assorted other things from Draco's closet. "Hey," Maggie shuffled into the room, "What're you guys doing? Where's Draco?"
"Missy Malfie!" Pony stopped tugging on a large case long enough to look up, "Meester Malfie is hurt and the Li'l Meester is gonna help him, he needs his lotions though."
"Lotions?" Maggie blinked, then took a closer look at the trunk the elves were lugging. "Oh, potions!"
"Yes, lotions," Pony nodded just before she, Donkey and the trunk disappeared with a 'pop!'
Maggie stood there dumbly while her brain woke up the rest of the way. Her eyes widened, "Father?" She took off running down the hall in the direction she hoped led to her father's room. She found a kitchen, a huge dinning room and had just stepped into the grand ball room when Donkey appeared before her.
"Li'l Meester said to get you," The small peanut colored elf told her, grabbing her hand and yanking her away in another direction.
"I was trying to find it," Maggie explained, "I got lost though."
"Yesser Missy Malfie, easy to get lost here. Pony does all the time!" Donkey let out a loud braying laugh that shocked Maggie. Well, it was obvious why he had his name, he sounded just like a donkey!
"Uh, yeah," Maggie nodded, "What's wrong with my father? What happened?"
"Don't know," The elf frowned, "Donkey find him all hurt up, fetched Li'l Meester to help."
Maggie was led into the most sumptuous bedroom she'd ever seen. Even the honeymoon suites in Vegas she'd seen on TV had –nothing- on this room. All exotic tapestries and luxurious rugs, the room screamed privilege and lavish comfort. She shook her head, there'd be time to stare later. "Where's my father?"
"Maggie!" She heard Draco's voice call from the next room, "In here."
As soon as she walked into the bathroom Maggie's head began to swim. The air was thick with the steam from the caldron Draco was leaning over. Her brother's forehead was dotted with sweat as he carefully added ingredient after ingredient into the bubbling mass. "Where's-?" She stared to ask before she spotted the stub, then she almost screamed.
Lucius lay there, floating in a solution Draco was adding to as he went along. He looked horrible! His skin was a mass of burned welts and blue-black streaks of dead flesh. His hair had burned off completely, he almost didn't look human anymore.
"He's getting better," Draco mumbled as he leaned over to add a blue concoction to the already swirling mixture.
"This is better?" Maggie backed up against the wall, wring her hands. "Shouldn't we take him to the hospital?"
"Before he passed out Father made me promise not to," Draco frowned and continued working.
Maggie stood there, not knowing what to do. She'd never been particularly gifted in potions and didn't have a clue what she should do. "Should I open the window?" She asked as the air became so thick with steam she could hardly breath anymore.
"Just a crack," Draco instructed, not stopping in his work.
She opened the window and sat down in a corner away from both Draco and her father, she didn't want to mess anything up and possibly make things worse. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, feeling the skin still prickling uncomfortably beneath her finger tips. So this is what'd she'd felt earlier. Oh why hadn't she thought to check on her father as well?! "What happened?" Maggie asked finally.
"Incendio curse, I think," Draco frowned, "And Mother's missing."
"You think something happened to her too?" Maggie's eyes widened. "They were attacked? Right in their house?"
"Mother's things are gone as well," Draco told her quietly.
At first Maggie thought he meant someone had robbed them, but then she realized what exactly he was saying. His mother was gone, as in she'd left, for good. Maggie bit her lip, "Do you think she…"
"I don't know what to think," Draco's voice was almost cold as he began chopping something new for the brew.
She nodded, and took a deep, steadying breath before asking, "Will Father be all right?"
"I don't know," Draco's pale eyes finally met hers, but he quickly looked back to the cauldron, "I don't know if I'm good enough."
Maggie pulled her knees up to her chest, a childish response to trauma she'd never really outgrown. She'd spent her whole life wishing she had a father, and now that she finally did, she might lose him. "If- if we can't take him to a hospital, is there somebody we –could- call?"
Draco's head shot up, "Yeah, there is someone...."
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