A Matter of Diligent Research
"When all else fails, read the instructions." (Anonymous)
Eleanor woke to the dreary sound of rain drumming against the high arched windows of the bedroom. For a moment she stretched among the silky, sensuous softness of the sheets that covered her, and out of habit her hand reached out to touch Lucius' sleeping form beside her. Her fingers encountered only cold emptiness, and she opened her eyes.
She looked up into the black muslin folds of the canopy spanning the broad bed. Grey, foggy dawn light filled the vaulted room causing the heavy furniture and draperies to appear like silent motionless ghosts. She shuddered, pulling the blankets close over her naked skin. At moments like this she missed him more than she thought she could bear. She was facing another day alone at Malfoy Manor, little more than a mere ghost herself among the endless rooms and empty, cold, echoing corridors.
The anger and hatred she had confessed to Lucius only a few days ago had burned down to bitter ashes covering the mere embers of her former fire. She found that the heat of revenge was hard to sustain, but the chill of her resolve to make her enemy suffer stayed with her and seemed to freeze out any other emotion.
Autumn this year did not just shroud the ancient trees of Malfoy Park but had taken residence deep within herself. She curled up under the protective covers closing her eyes and bargaining with herself for a few more minutes of warmth before she got up and made herself face another day. Still, the oblivion of sleep was lost now as memories began to crowd in on her.
The antidote Dr. Septimus had given her lover had shown no immediate effect, but over the following hours the bleeding had begun to slow down. They continued to treat Lucius with leucographus elixir in small doses and more draughts of the antidote.
She had begged the mediwizards for clear answers, she had wheedled, she had threatened, but they still would not give her a definitive answer if Lucius would ultimately be able to beat the poison. So he continued his lonely battle against his enemies a virtual prisoner at St. Mungo's with three aurors guarding his room day and night against another attempt on his life.
She spent some hours every day with him, trying to shield him as best she could from her frustration and despair and would have taken permanent residence at the hospital, but he had urged her to continue pursuing their plans, and so she stayed at the Manor. Her first errant after her release had been to collect Draco from Hogwarts and to accompany him during a visit to the hospital.
She had encountered Severus at school when she had picked him up and had remained polite but aloof while her hatred had burned inside her at the potion master's feigned concern at Lucius' state of health. His hypocritical offer to advise Dr. Septimus on the antidote almost had her turn and yell at him in anger, to crucio him until he gave up the secret of the poison, but it was not the time to strike yet.
Part of her remained still rational enough to know that they had nothing against her former colleague but suspicions and conjectures.
Of course the poisoning attempt had made the front page of the Daily Prophet, but still Draco had been ill prepared for the actual sight of his father. It had been hard to see the young man almost come apart with guilt at having taken the unicorn ring and the bezoar with him instead of having the magical items protect the older Malfoy.
When she looked at his pale, set face as he regarded his father she found that the arrogant, spoilt boy she had met when she had first come into Lucius' life had grown up quite a lot during the last few months. The ancient Malfoy blood seemed strong in him after all, and adversity brought out a strength and resilience in him she had not expected.
Her next errand had proved to be perhaps the hardest of them all: she had visited Durmstrang and resigned as Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher. She felt she could not leave her future family at a time like this, and she certainly could not give her students her full attention in the way they deserved.
After over 5 years of calling the school in Iceland her home, of getting to know and to like her colleagues and students, letting go of her former life had been difficult. She remembered taking her last spell-books off the shelves in her office as her fingers trailed over the ancient dragon carvings that adorned the wood. She could smell the familiar pungent scent of peat-smoke from the fire-places and of sea-weed and surf from the nearby shore.
She held on to her last memories of the place with a feeling close to mourning. From now onwards the grey halls of ancient Malfoy Manor would be her home.
The rest of her chores proved to be a welcome diversion in comparison. Lucius had urged her to continue with the preparations for their handfasting. The stubborn hope with which he clung to that date at the end of October seemed oddly reassuring, and despite her own misgivings she was prepared to humor him, to pretend he would be by her side by then, his health and strength restored. The wedding seemed the one thing that pointed to their hope for a brighter future.
Most of the actual organization rested with Lewis Lark, Lucius' agent in London, Advocatus Tethering in his capacity as the family lawyer, and several select and rather expensive caterers. Eleanor enjoyed her cursory involvement in the design side of things. She pored over color schemes for fabrics and flowers, the menu selections, the choice of wines and liquors, the music, and the stationary for invites and place cards. A hideously pricey robe maker in Paris was working on her bespoke gown.
A soft scrabbling noise brought Eleanor back from her musings. She opened her eyes and watched Libby the house elf lay out some robes for her. She would have preferred to pick out her own wardrobe, but she found that it so offended and distressed the Malfoy elves that she eventually gave up.
The magical creature noticed her moving and immediately prostrated herself. "Libby is most aggrieved," she cried. "Libby did not mean to wake mistress!" Eleanor watched the elf grab a hold of one of the legs of the bed ready to hit her head against it in punishment and quickly leaned forward to snatch her by her dress roughly stitched together from two old fabric serviettes. "No Libby," she commanded, setting the elf down on the bed. She shook her head, too tired almost to even bother.
"Just don't," she added quietly. "Don't hurt yourself. People are already getting hurt too much. Just go and leave me be." Libby gave her a worried look out of huge greenish eyes, catching her mistress' strange mood, hopped off the bed and scampered off without another word.
Eleanor shook off the blankets, indulged herself by slipping into Lucius' dressing gown instead of her own and made her way over to the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and halted in front of a silver-framed floor-length mirror. Slowly she let the fabric slip off her shoulders and looked at herself in the cool morning light.
The first time she had seen herself in this mirror had been six years ago after a night of abandoned love-making with Lucius. She had looked younger then, decadently disheveled, and had reveled in tracing the marks his attentions had left on her with a mixture of giddiness and pleasurable guilt.
Now an older, sterner face stared back at her, still pale from the brief time she had shared the poison ordeal with her lover. Her green eyes seemed to her to be those of a stranger. There was a glint of hardness in them, of cruelty, of experience and determination, she did not recognize as her own. Lucius had undoubtedly seen it when she had declared her wish for revenge to him, and he had understood it, had urged her to embrace it, to make it her own.
For a moment she lowered her gaze; then she looked into her own alien eyes again and saw her mouth harden in resolve. "If this is who I am to be, so be it," she whispered. "I can do this if it saves us. I will not fight myself over it."
Her glance fell to the side to a pale gold crystal bottle on a shelf next to the mirror. As every morning for the past six years she picked it up and weighted it in her hand. The dishonor of a bastard birth had been something neither her nor Lucius had ever been prepared to face, and every day she had faithfully swallowed a mouthful of the potion that had kept her barren.
Now she looked from the vial to her reflection in the mirror and back. Slowly she pulled the stopper from the glass and swirled the contents of the vessel before her eyes. Her reflection broke and danced in the cut crystal facets.
The next second a vision seemed to rise from the golden depths of the bottle and almost overwhelmed her in its intensity.
It seemed she again saw the family tree in the Silver Hall, and it appeared alive as it had been when Lucius had joined her blood-line with it. Branches swayed, leaves and tendrils rustled and whipped away from a group of black-clad figures that now approached carrying flaming torches with which they set a fire into the living wood of the tree. Names flared up, shriveled and fell to the floor as small flakes of ash while the fire consumed whole branches.
She saw the names of her uncle and his family that had died under Voldemort's curses over twenty years ago erupt in flame and dissolve, she saw Lucius' name, her own, Draco's. She gasped, but could not break her spellbound gaze. Finally the figures turned, tossed their torches into the dead firewood that remained behind and vanished.
"No," she whispered, feeling tears on her cheeks when suddenly the burnt-out ashes stirred and she saw small green shoots appear in the midst of the destruction. They stretched along the wall unfurling delicate green leaves and branched out towards the light.
The vision dimmed and she found herself staring at the glass vial in her hand again. "No more," she whispered. "We will survive. Our houses will not die with us. Where there is life, there is hope."
She slowly walked over to the sink and poured out the contents of the golden glass. When the last drop fell from the mouth of the potions bottle she felt that she had made a promise, not just to herself, but to both the Malfoys and the Sartorius.
There was a strength in it that seemed to surpass the former fierceness of her hatred in its power. Death would never defeat death, and death was all that Voldemort would ever be. But perhaps life could defeat death.
For the first time in days, for the first time since she had seen the first bloody tear stain her lover's skin Eleanor felt like herself again. She put the empty vial back on the shelf and her movements as she washed and dressed herself seemed sure and calm.
A while later she found herself sat alone at the long table in the old wood-paneled dining room that appeared even gloomier than usual during this foggy, rainy September morning. The house elves had lit candles and served her an elaborate breakfast she hardly tasted as she eagerly scanned the Daily Prophet for any news about the Death Eaters.
Eventually she gave up and stretched in her high-backed seat. The portrait of Petronius Malfoy was regarding her intently from the opposite wall. "How's my great-grandson," he asked craning his neck.
Eleanor took a sip of tea. "You know, Petronius," she said with a small smile marveling at the self-assurance in her voice. "I think he will be fine. I think we will all be fine eventually. Hell, we Malfoys and Sartorius survived the Inquisition! This should be a walk in the park in comparison."
The old wizard in the portrait lifted an eyebrow in a manner that reminded her strongly of his descendant and nodded sagely. "Very good," he said. "It seems you are getting your spirits back. So will you be doing your weapons research today?"
Eleanor smiled. She had found the old Malfoy ancestor to be quite companionable during her lonely meals and had shared quite a few of her plans with him. The wizard possessed a sense of humor and a pragmatic mind that she found quite refreshing. He in turn seemed pleased that someone would take the time to actually talk to his portrait and involve him in their day-to-day life.
"Remember," he said now. "Half of what people write about magical mirrors is exaggerated, and what they should be mentioning instead they forget! I've seen wizards and witches tackle mirrors on book-knowledge alone, and the results have never been pretty." He adjusted his wig and begun filling a long white clay pipe.
After breakfast Eleanor concentrated on her plans for the day with new energy. She went to Lucius' study and settled down in front of his large oak desk. During her last visit to St. Mungo's he had told her where to look, and so she now gently laid her hand against one of the drawers and quietly mouthed the ward spells he had taught her.
With a soft creak the drawer opened and she lifted a sheaf of papers out, only to reveal a wood intaglio of a knotwork pentagram at the bottom. She pressed the tips of the five-pointed star in the sequence he had given her and saw the false panel swing back and disclose a secret compartment that contained a slim notebook and some scraps of paper.
She picked up Lucius' research regarding her grandfather's Mirror of Battle, carefully arranged everything as it had been before and restored the wards. Then she tucked the papers and book under her arm and made her way along the carpeted corridor to the library.
Despite the fact that Lucius had dedicated a room next to his to serve as her study and had taken quite some pains to have it decorated and furnished in a manner that pleased her, she still loved the library above all the other rooms in the Manor.
Lucius joked sometimes that you could get a witch out of school, but you couldn't get the schoolteacher out of the witch and teased her on occasion for being such a bookworm, but truth be told, she loved the library as much for its quiet and scholarly atmosphere as for the memories it held for her. She had first met Lucius at the Manor in his library. The old shelves had seen their first kiss.
Now she pulled a broad comfortable reading chair over to one of the arched gothic windows that faced the garden and park still dripping with the grey drizzle outside, arranged a side table next to it and then hunted for an hour among the shelves using Lucius' notes.
Finally she settled in with a huge pile of old folios, spell-books and parchment volumes teetering on the small reading table. She kicked off her grey, beaked silk slippers, tucked her bare feet under the folds of her velvet-lined grey house robes, fixed her coppery curls in a lose bun on her head with the help of her wand and began to read.
There were books of mirror-craft, Dark Magical attack and defense, biographical studies on Desiderius Wermuth, a folio of copies of top secret auror documents from the German and Swiss Ministries of Magic (Eleanor didn't wish to know how the Malfoys had managed to obtain those), hand-written notes by Wermuth himself and a medley of other materials.
Lucius had been thorough in his research for Voldemort and she had to smile at his usual professed arrogant disdain for scholarly pursuits. He would have done any researcher she knew – whether muggle or wizard – more than proud.
Soon a clearer picture emerged in her reading, and she realized that the Mirror of Battle was a magical object unlike any other. It possessed the most powerful spell bundling capabilities she had ever come across in a wizarding mirror. If the research was correct, it could punch through any ward, no matter how strong, no matter how skillfully constructed.
If the owner on the other hand decided to use the mirror for protection instead of attack, it proved to be equally potent, repelling any evil spell, reflecting it back at the caster magnified and more damaging and lethal than before.
Interestingly enough the mirror demanded a choice of its owner, through. Whenever it changed hands the new wizard or witch who claimed possession was compelled by the mirror do declare it as either a weapon of attack or defense. Upon touching the Mirror of Battle with their bare hands for the first time the user had to state their intention once and for all. The mirror then remained locked in that mode for as long as its legitimate owner lived.
It was early afternoon when Eleanor lowered yet another book and rubbed her temples. Her eyes were thoughtful as she looked through the lead-glass windows at the muted grays, and autumn yellows of the park. The food that the house-elves had brought her a while ago stood untouched. If she could recover the mirror, how would she declare her intention?
'I want revenge, Lucius. I want to kill these bastards. I want to get back at them for what they did. I want them to suffer!' she had told her lover only a few days ago. Would she use the Mirror of Battle to attack, to try and bring Voldemort and the Death Eaters to their knees? Lucius had known how much allure that scenario held; he had urged her to embrace it. His words had been more seductive than she dared to admit, even to herself.
Dumbledore had given her different advice once, many years ago: 'Do not let the thought of revenge influence your decision. The Dark Arts have a way of turning against you if your motives are compromised. Follow your own will. If you merely seek revenge, the object of your revenge will still influence your actions.'
Attack or defense, which would truly reflect her will? Which would afford her family better protection? She let the book she still held slip from her grip and leaned her head against the backrest of the chair. The dragonhide upholstery creaked softly as she relaxed, feeling suddenly pleasantly tired.
The soft noise of a door closing made her look up in surprise. She heard a firm footfall among the shelves, and as she lowered her feet to the floor to get up she saw him emerge out of the shadows. He wore the dark blue robes she had taken with her to the hospital for him a few days ago. His hair covered his shoulders in its customary cascading mane of pale, gleaming blond.
He now leaned casually against a bookcase, cocking an inviting eyebrow at her. His grey eyes sparkled with amusement and a smug smile curved his proud lips. She was on her feet in an instant. "Lucius!" she cried as she sped towards him. "What happened? You are back!"
He remained where he was, but opened his arms to her invitingly, and she threw herself against him, hugging him fiercely, drinking in his scent, the solid feel of his body against hers. Then she looked up.
"I did not expect you. You look well! How did they manage to cure you so fast all of a sudden?" She knew she was babbling, but her relief did not allow her to order her thoughts, she was so surprised.
"Never mind, sweet," he told her softly as he kissed her forehead and regarded her. "I am here. That's all that matters. You look like you have been busy," he added. He looked at her intently. "What have you been doing?"
She pointed at the books and began to excitedly describe her discoveries. As she talked, though, she became dimly aware that she was beginning to feel chilled, despite the fact that he still held her loosely in his embrace. She wriggled her bare feet on the floor and paused.
"And?" he urged her on, and she raised her eyes to him in surprise at the note of impatience in his voice. He sounded almost annoyed.
The next moment she recoiled with a stifled cry of dismay. The eyes that looked down at her in expectation did not show their customary silvery grey but shone with an eerie red light. For a moment she thought that the exsanguinium poison had caused him to bleed again, but the slitted pupils that regarded her seemed entirely inhuman now.
She pushed back against his chest with the palms of her hands, trying to break his embrace, but his arms now pinned her in a vise-grip. "Tell me everything!" he hissed. "Speak!"
The planes of his face shifted imperceptibly until his mouth appeared as a lipless, cruel slash. His nose receded until merely two flat slits remained. She could feel the tendrils of an alien mind probe at the boundaries of her consciousness. "No!" she screamed, fighting his inhuman strength. She felt panic rise bitter as bile at the back of her throat. Her mind threatened to shatter into a million pieces.
And then, for a brief moment of clarity her Defense training took over. She balled her fists. "Occlumens!" she shouted with all the conviction and assertion of will she was still capable of. The grip of her attacker broke and a moment later she found herself back in her reading chair shaking violently.
She struggled to breathe and buried her face in her hands. She had dozed off and somehow Voldemort had been able to invade her dream, to get into her mind. It could have been none other than the Dark Lord. He had used her joy and relief at seeing Lucius restored to her to circumvent her defenses. He had dared to use her love against her.
"Merlin's wand," she gasped. "He knows. He knows about the mirror now. Goddess!" Slowly she got up and walked over to the tall window. For a moment she rested her feverish forehead against the soothing chill of the glass.
"It will be attack not defense," she said softly, her breath fogging the window. Briefly she saw herself stand over the prone form of her adversary, radiating dark power, ready to strike and curse. She took a deep breath and turned away. "Albus, I am sorry, but I cannot follow your path."
