One Young Heart
Chapter 28: Narcissa
"A broken jaw." Ron was disbelieving. "A broken jaw and that git gets to go home for two weeks? If I broke my jaw, I'd get a note from mum warning me to keep up with my studies."
"I don't think is was the broken jaw so much as George accusing him of being a murderous Death Eater, Ron" was Hermione's patient reply. "He was emotionally hurt."
"You don't think that Draco may have noticed his father is a heartless git sometime during his life?" "I think he probably gets very mixed messages, and if he takes his father's side, it's because he was raised to take his father's side. Really, Ron, he may be awful, but growing up as a Malfoy can't have been pleasant. Try to see his side of the thing." Ron flopped unhappily down on the window-seat of Gryffindor common room, and stared moodily out into the rain. Hermione glanced up, rolled her eyes, and refocused on her book. "Draco's been gone all week, Ron. Why don't you just enjoy his absence?"
"And there's something going on, too, have you noticed?" He asked, clinging stubbornly to his bad mood. "Half the teachers are gone. McGonalgall, Dumbledore, even Snape." "Well, we all know where they are. And no one's gone out of their way to enlighten us this year." Harry was facing the opposite direction, in a leather chair close to the fire. He continued to draw into himself, continues to be frustrated by Dumbledore's silence on the subject of Voldermort. For one always treated as an exception to the rule, being normal rankled. "He's back to treating us like kids."
"Good." Hermione spoke briskly, making a last ditch attempt to cheer one of the two up. "Then maybe we won't have a near death experience this week." She rose. "Now, who wants to play chess? I warn you, I've been practising. No more easy victories." She neglected to mention that she had been practicing with Snape.
---
Outside Grimwauld Place, the rain had decreased to a sullen drizzle, oozing water onto the vegetation. Inside, a large group of conspirators huddled around a table, Snape disdainfully leaning against a table, with Dumbledore also standing clear of the crushed table, and the intense questioning of George Weasley.
In the kitchen, his mother tried to ease her anxiety by cooking, surrounding herself in a whirlwind of pots and pans. Through the sizzle of bacon and clang of utinsels, she heard Mr. Weasly trying to reason with George, who would provide no information other than a steady, ceaseless desire to kill Lucius Malfoy.
"Now, George, you have to understand that Mr. Malfoy is a very powerful man, and we simply can't arrest him. Even if you could prove this, he would be able to keep us mired in bureaucracy for years, and we'd be forced to hold him in Azkaban. And we both know that wouldn't do any good. You need to accept that he is a villain, he will get his comeuppance, and above all, you need to rest."
Snape watched George getting increasingly frustrated with Mr. Weasly's patronizing tone, then observed. "You'll never catch him. He's charmed his mark to be invisible. They all have now. The identification of a Death Eater will soon be well nigh impossible."
---
Pureblood inheritance laws are impossibly complex at best, and incomprehensible at their worst. The ending of a great pureblood family is such a momentous event that it can take years for an estate to find the next proper owner. By disinheriting families with muggle-born members, those who favour equality among wizards, those who quarrelled with the family, those who married an enemy family or, heaven forbid, an American pureblood, the wills of great wizarding families contain thousands of clauses. In the end though, this particular estate passed up blood-traitors and Voldermort supporters alike to come within a year to the desk of Narcissa Malfoy.
Narcissa Malfoy was paper-thin, straight, and proud. She had done well for herself, and might have done still better. A great beauty in her day, she had been courted as the most eligible bride for the two greatest pureblooded families, and might have married as high a personage as Severus Snape if she had wished it.
But Narcissa was proud of her looks, and, as she told her father, "Severus is so unsociable. I don't want a husband who will be locked away with his cauldrons all day. I want to go to parties, and plays."
So it was Lucius Malfoy who won Narcissa to be his trophy, and she would soon regret it. Locked away in the most beautiful and modern of the pureblood estates, surrounded by jewels and silk, she realized that Snape, while he might have been indifferent to her and her friends, would have let her go and do what she liked. He knew better than to beat his prizes. Narcissa had not seen the sky since Draco left for school, the only indulgence Lucius had ever granted her; to send her son to a school nearby, and to let her see him off on the train.
So it was that when she received the rich cream paper of the deed, and the letter requesting that she examine the estate and verify her possession of it, she sent her son, home ill, to run an errand for his mother, mistress and captive of the most beautiful prison in the world.
Draco was glad enough to go; he enjoyed vacations because his father let him go abroad and stay with his friends whenever possible, and had even endured Crabbe and Goyle for a time last year, not for the chance to stay alone in his cold marble home, where his father was too busy and his mother too afraid to talk to him. A conversation with Lucius inevitably turned into a discussion of his faults anyway, so when his mother handed him the deed he set out, and was soon standing outside what promised to be a typical wizard property; hidden, ill-maintained on the outside, but promising stodgy elegance inside.
He entered his mother's new property, and pushing through the dark hallway, shoved open the first door he came to.
One blond head stared in at a warm dining room, full of talking people. In the corner was Severus Snape. In the centre was the Order of the Phoenix.
Chapter 28: Narcissa
"A broken jaw." Ron was disbelieving. "A broken jaw and that git gets to go home for two weeks? If I broke my jaw, I'd get a note from mum warning me to keep up with my studies."
"I don't think is was the broken jaw so much as George accusing him of being a murderous Death Eater, Ron" was Hermione's patient reply. "He was emotionally hurt."
"You don't think that Draco may have noticed his father is a heartless git sometime during his life?" "I think he probably gets very mixed messages, and if he takes his father's side, it's because he was raised to take his father's side. Really, Ron, he may be awful, but growing up as a Malfoy can't have been pleasant. Try to see his side of the thing." Ron flopped unhappily down on the window-seat of Gryffindor common room, and stared moodily out into the rain. Hermione glanced up, rolled her eyes, and refocused on her book. "Draco's been gone all week, Ron. Why don't you just enjoy his absence?"
"And there's something going on, too, have you noticed?" He asked, clinging stubbornly to his bad mood. "Half the teachers are gone. McGonalgall, Dumbledore, even Snape." "Well, we all know where they are. And no one's gone out of their way to enlighten us this year." Harry was facing the opposite direction, in a leather chair close to the fire. He continued to draw into himself, continues to be frustrated by Dumbledore's silence on the subject of Voldermort. For one always treated as an exception to the rule, being normal rankled. "He's back to treating us like kids."
"Good." Hermione spoke briskly, making a last ditch attempt to cheer one of the two up. "Then maybe we won't have a near death experience this week." She rose. "Now, who wants to play chess? I warn you, I've been practising. No more easy victories." She neglected to mention that she had been practicing with Snape.
---
Outside Grimwauld Place, the rain had decreased to a sullen drizzle, oozing water onto the vegetation. Inside, a large group of conspirators huddled around a table, Snape disdainfully leaning against a table, with Dumbledore also standing clear of the crushed table, and the intense questioning of George Weasley.
In the kitchen, his mother tried to ease her anxiety by cooking, surrounding herself in a whirlwind of pots and pans. Through the sizzle of bacon and clang of utinsels, she heard Mr. Weasly trying to reason with George, who would provide no information other than a steady, ceaseless desire to kill Lucius Malfoy.
"Now, George, you have to understand that Mr. Malfoy is a very powerful man, and we simply can't arrest him. Even if you could prove this, he would be able to keep us mired in bureaucracy for years, and we'd be forced to hold him in Azkaban. And we both know that wouldn't do any good. You need to accept that he is a villain, he will get his comeuppance, and above all, you need to rest."
Snape watched George getting increasingly frustrated with Mr. Weasly's patronizing tone, then observed. "You'll never catch him. He's charmed his mark to be invisible. They all have now. The identification of a Death Eater will soon be well nigh impossible."
---
Pureblood inheritance laws are impossibly complex at best, and incomprehensible at their worst. The ending of a great pureblood family is such a momentous event that it can take years for an estate to find the next proper owner. By disinheriting families with muggle-born members, those who favour equality among wizards, those who quarrelled with the family, those who married an enemy family or, heaven forbid, an American pureblood, the wills of great wizarding families contain thousands of clauses. In the end though, this particular estate passed up blood-traitors and Voldermort supporters alike to come within a year to the desk of Narcissa Malfoy.
Narcissa Malfoy was paper-thin, straight, and proud. She had done well for herself, and might have done still better. A great beauty in her day, she had been courted as the most eligible bride for the two greatest pureblooded families, and might have married as high a personage as Severus Snape if she had wished it.
But Narcissa was proud of her looks, and, as she told her father, "Severus is so unsociable. I don't want a husband who will be locked away with his cauldrons all day. I want to go to parties, and plays."
So it was Lucius Malfoy who won Narcissa to be his trophy, and she would soon regret it. Locked away in the most beautiful and modern of the pureblood estates, surrounded by jewels and silk, she realized that Snape, while he might have been indifferent to her and her friends, would have let her go and do what she liked. He knew better than to beat his prizes. Narcissa had not seen the sky since Draco left for school, the only indulgence Lucius had ever granted her; to send her son to a school nearby, and to let her see him off on the train.
So it was that when she received the rich cream paper of the deed, and the letter requesting that she examine the estate and verify her possession of it, she sent her son, home ill, to run an errand for his mother, mistress and captive of the most beautiful prison in the world.
Draco was glad enough to go; he enjoyed vacations because his father let him go abroad and stay with his friends whenever possible, and had even endured Crabbe and Goyle for a time last year, not for the chance to stay alone in his cold marble home, where his father was too busy and his mother too afraid to talk to him. A conversation with Lucius inevitably turned into a discussion of his faults anyway, so when his mother handed him the deed he set out, and was soon standing outside what promised to be a typical wizard property; hidden, ill-maintained on the outside, but promising stodgy elegance inside.
He entered his mother's new property, and pushing through the dark hallway, shoved open the first door he came to.
One blond head stared in at a warm dining room, full of talking people. In the corner was Severus Snape. In the centre was the Order of the Phoenix.