The Battle of Stridley Hall
"Ibis, redibis, non morieris in bello. – Thou shalt go, thou shalt return, never in battle shalt thou perish." (Oracle of the Sybil)
Lucius remembered stumbling down endless dark corridors, on and on, until he had almost forgotten that he had ever been anywhere else, that he had ever been anyone other than a nameless, faceless man in a maze. It was colder than he could imagine, lightless, and lonely, and he was so tired, so weary to the death with everything.
He dimly recalled some burning agony of pain and almost wished for it to return as a relief from the numbing chill that sank deeper and deeper into him. Yes, he would welcome pain. It would mean that he could still feel, that he was still alive.
He tired to recall the faces he'd seen, the voices shouting at him. There had been a dark, stern face with fury and disappointment in cold grey eyes.
'Octavian – father,…' he thought, desperately clinging to the sound of it, but the name was meaningless to him now.
Slowly the face faded, then the name. Cold seeped into his mind, froze his thoughts, his memories, until they became sluggish, insubstantial. He pushed on, unsure now why he was even still moving. It would be so easy to sit down, to just become a frozen part of this dark world. He paused. What was left of his will hung in the balance, paralyzing him.
And at that something deep inside him stirred.
'You have always been sure of your intent,' an inner voice whispered to him.
'My intent.'
His lips formed the words.
'My intent… my,… me,… Who am I?'
From a great distance he suddenly heard a voice calling. Very dim it sounded, and for a moment he wished in his weariness that the sound would stop. It was pointless trying to hold on to the faces, to the names, to the memories. To sleep, to let go would be so easy.
He slid down to the floor, rested his head on his drawn-up knees to conserve what little spark of warmth he had left to him.
'I am…' he whispered once more, almost feeling now that even the meaning of the words and letters slipped away from him.
'I am, Iam, Iam, Iam-iam-iam……'
It was just gibberish. And yet again he heard the voice echoing through the cold, empty spaces.
"Lucius!"
The name dropped into place like a keystone, like the missing piece of a puzzle. It jolted through his icicle bones, stuck in the sludge of his brain like a live-wire.
'I am! I am Lucius! I am Lucius Malfoy!' he shouted.
With a snarl of anger and self-loathing he pushed himself back up on his feet. How could a Malfoy be reduced to crouching on a floor like some worthless, scared, tired mudblood?
"Lucius!"
He saw a face now, moss-green eyes flecked with gold dust, copper hair the color of flame, skin like honey and cream. The riot of color and light and texture that ripped through his memory was almost painful in its intensity. His lips remembered the taste and sound of a name.
'Eleanor!' he called out to the voice searching for him.
"Lucius!"
The voice had become louder and clearer, was right next to him now, and a moment later he felt hands shaking him. His eyes flew open.
The face he had imagined stared down at him, dim in the quivering half light of some high vaulted hall. Noise erupted all around him, cries, shouts, bellowed commands, cracks and explosions. The very ground seemed to shake with it.
He heard a gasp and saw her hands fly up and cover her mouth. For a moment her green eyes closed. Then her hands were back on him.
"Lucius, do you know me? Do you know where you are?"
Her voice seemed breathless now, choked with something. There was wetness on her cheeks.
He remembered the use of his hands and stretched out his fingers to touch her.
"You are Eleanor. You are my wife," he said, wondering how he knew that, wondering that sounds and words made sense again.
A short, hash sob was her answer.
"Yes!"
He tried again. To speak, to be here with her – to hear, to see, to feel seemed so amazing.
"We are…" he paused, shaking his head in frustration. He should know this.
"Your son," she whispered. "Draco…"
And at that it seemed that the fog of cold and forgetfulness finally parted. The events of the last few hours, the last few days rushed back at him like a giant wave of sensations and emotions.
A tremor passed through him. His muscles hardened involuntarily, painfully. The cramps pulled at his hamstrings, contracted his hands and feet like claws.
'Cruciatus,' he thought angrily, trying to get his body under control.
He had no time for this, no time for weakness. Between them Voldemort and that damn Dementor had almost done him in. He fisted his hands, drove his nails into his palms, relished the reality of pain for a moment.
"Where's Draco?" he asked hurriedly. "What's going on?"
He only half listened to her explanations. Dumbledore had been true to his crazy promise and had come through for them. Now all around them aurors and Order members battled the Dark Lord and his servants.
He pushed himself up with a snarl of exasperation, grabbed Eleanor's coat for support.
"Why aren't you down there?" he demanded. "Where's the mirror? Why aren't you fighting?"
"Dumbledore said I couldn't…" she started.
"Damn the old fool," he hissed. "Are you going to listen to him now? Like that idiot Potter? As you can see, I'm fine. Go, declare the mirror and help them."
"I doubt that very much," said a rough voice behind him and as he turned he looked into the scarred face of auror Moody.
He was flanked by a green-robed witch and a green-robed wizard and all three had leveled their wands at him.
"Orders from Dumbledore: protect you against You-Know-Who and ensure you don't do anything rash. You are to stay quiet and out of sight up here and not touch the mirror until this is over."
Lucius had managed to push himself up to his knees.
"I'll…."
"Just don't!" growled the auror. "I believe you have both lost your wands. And I am not above putting you into a body bind."
Lucius felt another spasm shake him as he sank back with a groan.
Eleanor dipped her fingers into a deep silver bowl that held some medically enchanted water and wearily reached for another roll of bandages. She listened to the mediwizard's instructions, took the bundle of moist gauze he gave her and made her way over to the bed he'd indicated.
She recognized the pale-faced freckled man who lay in the fresh linens.
"Arthur Weasley," she said and nodded at his wife, who hovered nervously around his sickbed. "I've been told he'll be all right. They've analyzed the poison on the dagger he had in his shoulder and I have some wound dressing here with the antidote."
She sat down on the side of the bed.
"Mrs. Weasley, if you'd help me sit him up, we'll have him patched up in no time."
Between them the two witches dressed and bound a deep, ugly-looking gash in Mr. Weasley's shoulder.
Eleanor had to push herself to concentrate on the job at hand. All around them aurors, mediwizards and the Malfoy house-elves busied themselves taking care of the injured and organizing food and drink and places to sleep for everyone.
The Silver Hall that had seen a lavish handfasting feast only a few days ago had been transformed into a makeshift hospital. The fight with Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters had left many Order members and aurors injured, and as Lucius had recognized the Dark Lord's lair as Stridley Hall, not five miles away from Malfoy Manor, Dumbledore and the Unspeakable in charge of the Ministry employees had taken Eleanor up on her offer to host the reminder of the fighting force at the Manor for the night. Staff had flooed in from St. Mungo's to treat the wounded.
With Mr. Weasly taken care of, Eleanor felt exhaustion creep up on her. For several hours now she had been in charge, getting everything organized. It was time she checked on her family and perhaps found some food and a bed for herself.
She washed her hands once more, left instructions for Nibbs and the other elves and slowly made her way towards the staircase that led to the family's bedrooms in the upper part of the house.
"Eleanor!" called someone behind her, and as she looked around she saw Dumbledore and a man in the robes of an Unspeakable approach her.
"Do you have a moment?" asked the headmaster and she nodded wearily.
"If you can promise me it won't take much longer than that," she said.
The Ministry official looked at her.
"Desiderius Wermuth's Mirror of Battle," said the wizard. "It must be destroyed. I have authority from the Ministry of Magic to confiscate it and see to its disposal. I order you to hand it over to me."
Eleanor took a deep breath and drew herself up.
"No," she said firmly. "We fought for it. We almost died for it. I will not simply hand over a heirloom of this family."
The Unspeakable murmured something and immediately two aurors apparated to either side of him, one almost knocking Dumbledore out of his way.
"You resist a direct order from a Ministry official?" threatened the Unspeakable. "You will serve time in Azkaban for your defiance."
The aurors drew their wands and moved towards her. She shook her head.
"No, I do not resist the order from the Ministry, I merely resist your interpretation of it. The weapon is mine, not yours, and I will see to its destruction myself. I will not hand it to you. If you wish you may send witnesses tomorrow morning to see that it's done. But I will dispose of my property as I see fit. You can try and arrest me for that."
She did not wait for an answer, but turned on her heel and walked away from the men. Behind her she head Dumbledore talk quietly to the others. They did not follow her or stop her.
Softly she opened one side of the tall double doors and stepped inside. In the dim light of the candles that illuminated the room she saw an unlikely sight. Lucius had kicked off his shoes and sat on his son's bed, still wearing his muggle clothes. He had leaned his back against the carved headboard and put a pillow over his lap as a head rest for Draco. The boy was sleeping soundly. His now carefully bandaged left arm lay at an awkward angle across the bedspread. It had obviously still hurt when he'd gone to bed.
Even after knowing him for six years she would have never expected to see the proud lord of Malfoy Manor showing himself so caring, so human. He looked very pale and weak himself after his ordeal at Stridley Hall.
When he heard her, he looked up, his lips stretching in a small, faint smile. She tiptoed over to him.
"It's okay," he said quietly. "He won't wake. The mediwitch who took care of him gave him a rather powerful sleeping-draught."
She pulled up a high-backed chair that stood at the side of the bed and sat down next to him. Lucius had put one hand protectively around Draco's back, and now reached for her with the other.
"What else did she say?" asked the witch.
"He's been branded with the dark mark," explained Lucius with a sigh. "I had hoped to spare him this. It was the one thing about falling out of favor with the Dark Lord that I felt relieved about: that I would never have to do to Draco what my father did to me."
He squeezed her hand in his.
"But that's the only lasting damage. The after-effects of the cruciatus will wear off. And Draco is young and full of life; in time I hope he will be able to cast off the shadow that the Dementors put on him. Right now he is just very weak."
His smile intensified and he looked fondly at the sleeping boy, his free hand trailing over Draco's blond hair.
"He will like us spoiling him with chocolate though, when he wakes up."
She mirrored he husband's smile.
"What else is going on?" he asked.
Eleanor thought quickly. After confronting auror Moody they did not have to wait much longer in their hiding-place until the battle was over. Voldemort and his most powerful and trusted Death Eaters had soon seen themselves outnumbered and deprived of their chance to win without heavy losses. With their hostage gone and the mirror guarded they had disapparated, leaving their dead and injured behind.
Dumbledore himself had come to find them, handing them back their wands that had been recovered from Voldemort's discarded cloak by one of the aurors. He had told them that Severus had taken Draco away to Malfoy Manor as soon as the boy had been freed.
Eleanor had urged Lucius to follow them in the company of Marigold Brannock who had been among the number of aurors that had come to their aid. He was still unable to stand without help and he had not protested her decision. She suspected that he was eager to be reunited with Draco and to reassure himself that his son would be all right.
So she talked quietly and filled him in on the rest.
"Anyway, the whole south wing looks like a cross between the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes at the Ministry and the fourth floor at St. Mungo's. Oh, and I've run into an Unspeakable. We'll have to destroy the Mirror of Battle."
Lucius glared at her.
"You cannot be serious!" he hissed.
Wearily she shook her head. "They wanted to take it from me, but I wouldn't let them. If it needs to be broken, I will do it myself – on my own terms. But it will have to go. I won't have anyone go to Azkaban over this, including myself. It's the price we'll have to pay for getting the help we needed to get Draco back. And I'll gladly pay it for having you both with me alive."
"See," he said darkly, staring into the distance. "This is what I have fought against all my life. This is what it comes down to." He paused, collecting his thoughts. "Tell me what the mirror means to you, Eleanor?"
She groped for words to tell him about the powerful and frightening connection she had made with the Mirror of Battle when she had first seen it. Unsure if she'd managed she sought his eyes and read understanding.
"It is itself: raw potential, incredible force, pure magic," he nodded. "The Dark Lord once told me: 'There is no good and evil, Lucius, only power, and those too weak to seek it.' He was right. That's what the mirror is. And if it is broken there will never be the like again. Even Wermuth could not manage that. They are destroying something that can never be made again, like they have lost us so much else over the years.
And that is what they are reducing us to, with their laws and regulations and their Muggle Protection Acts and their Ministry nannying. – Mediocrity!
One day we will wake up and the last spark of magic will be gone from our lives and we will put on our drab grey clothes and get into our 'cars' and drive to work and never look up, like sheep, like house-elves, like… like – muggles! We will not be capable of what they call evil, because we will not be capable of anything any more. That's why my father joined the Dark Lord. That's why I've followed him."
He leaned back with a sigh.
"What is the next thing they will take from us?"
They fell silent for a while. Perhaps for the first time Eleanor managed to truly understand some of the motives that had drawn the man she loved to the Death Eaters, that had made him embrace the Dark Lord's philosophy. She watched the flames dancing in the fire-place. The darkness behind the tall arched windows had shifted and seemed to have grown pale. She saw white flecks dance outside the glass. It had started to snow.
"And how are you?" she asked quietly, changing the subject. "I almost thought I'd lost you to the Dementor's Kiss."
His grey eyes sought hers and she saw haunted shadows in their cool depths that had not been there before.
"For a moment there I lost myself," he said slowly. "I was not afraid, and it did not hurt, but I felt such cold and bitter hopelessness. Then I heard you call. You brought me back. I remembered you, your face, your name…"
He broke off.
"I will not speak of it again."
For a moment he looked at her, then tilted his head.
"There is still space on the other side of the bed. Will you sit and watch with me, Eleanor?"
She placed his hand back on the covers, got up and stepped around the bed. There would be time to cast off her stained clothes, to wash, to eat, to drink, to make love with him, to sleep.
There would be a time for everything.
Epilogue: Broken Glass
"We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical someone is the face we see in the mirror." (Richard Bach)
It had snowed. During the darkness thick dense flakes had swirled around the old walls, the tended gardens and the ancient trees of the park of Malfoy Manor. Now in the early light of morning a cold, glittering blanket of white covered the lawn behind the lichen-mottled walls of the house and made the boxwood hedges and rosebushes appear like shapeless petrified ghosts.
The sun had begun to cut through the opalescent morning mist and cast a pale silvery light on the still landscape as a group of heavily robed wizards and witches congregated outside the dark, forbidding walls of the stately home. All colors seemed reduced to the stark black and white of an old photograph.
Professors Dumbledore and Snape and several members of the Order of the Phoenix took their places off to the side at the edge of the snow-covered central gravel bed of the garden followed by a group of solemn-looking officials, who had flooed in from the Ministry.
Arthur Weasly blinked in the morning light. He still wore his arm in a sling and was supported by his wife Molly. Finally everyone had taken their places and looked expectantly at a narrow doorway in the north wing of the Manor.
After a few moments' wait two people exited wearing dark cloaks that trailed the ground. The sun finally broke through as they slowly made their way towards the stone sundial that accented the middle of the gravel bed.
Lucius Malfoy leaned heavily on his silver-tipped serpent cane as he walked and his steps seemed labored and tentative. Eleanor Malfoy-Sartorius carried what looked like an old, battered hat-box with a missing lid, and in it the Mirror of Battle. Its blackened glass seemed to suck the sparkle out of the very sunlight itself.
When they had reached the sundial Eleanor sat down her burden on top of it, and slipped off a pair of black gloves she had been wearing, then she picked up her grandfather's weapon for the first time with her bare hands. Lucius stepped aside and watched her, the expression on his pale face unreadable.
"Let all hear and witness!" she cried, and her voice filled the garden and echoed off the walls of the house. "I am the daughter of Greta Sartorius, daughter of Matilda Hohenfels and Desiderius Wermuth, who fashioned this mirror. It is my will that this work of his craft shall serve me and my house, the house of my husband and our heirs as a weapon of defense. Let our enemies hear that every spell they use against us will be cast back upon them a hundredfold. So shall it be!"
She held up the mirror to her face and looked at it.
"Lock for defense!" she commanded. An answering ripple of light passed through the magical weapon.
Several of the aurors and officials moved towards her with shouts of surprise and protest, but Dumbledore raised his hand and waved them back.
Eleanor resumed her declaration.
"As a descendent of the maker of this weapon I have been ordered to destroy this mirror and I will comply. But I have not been commanded how. Therefore I chose to follow the Ministry's instructions in the manner I see fit: hear me and bear witness!"
She suddenly raised the black glass high above her head.
"Frangas partes quintas!"
The Mirror of Battle began to vibrate in her hands with a sound as overwhelming as the harmony of the spheres itself. Most of the people around her stopped their ears and cowered down with the exception of the two Hogwarts professors and the Lord of Malfoy Manor who quietly regarded his wife.
A moment later a loud crack abruptly ended the sound and five shards of glass flew apart from the witch's hands and landed in the snow forming a perfect pentagram around the couple by the sundial. Eleanor regarded the Ministry wizards with upthrust chin, daring them to find fault with her solution. No one moved, and after a brief look at her husband she walked over and lifted the first sliver of the mirror out of the snow holding it up for all to see.
"This will protect Malfoy Manor for as long as its walls shall stand and shelter Malfoy or Sartorius blood," she declared loudly.
Lucius walked to the opposite side of the pentagram and picked up the next shard.
"This will protect my son Draco and his heirs for as long as they shall live!"
His voice carried as loudly and as defiantly as that of his wife and his eyes sought the window of the room where his son was recovering from his injuries.
Again it was Eleanor's turn to retrieve a piece of the mirror.
"This will protect my husband and his family for as long as he shall live and an heir of his breathes!"
Lucius gathered up the fourth shard.
"This is for my wife. May she be safe for all the days of her life and every Sartorius who follows behind her!"
Lucius and Eleanor finally met face to face before the last piece of the Mirror of Battle that lay in the snow between them. The blond wizard looked down at it, and then into the eyes of his wife.
"Why five pieces?" he asked her softly and saw a small smile curve her lips.
"Can't you guess?" she answered him gently.
She bent down and carefully picked up the black glass, but this time she did not make a statement to the watching wizards and witches. Instead she clasped Lucius' fingers, lifted his hand and lightly laid it against her stomach.
"We shall both declare this piece together when winter has passed and there are leaves on these trees," she said and paused, watching his brows rise in surprise as he felt the tiniest spark of raw magical energy under his palm and a smile slowly spread over his face at the realization what caused it.
"I would think July should be about right. They may try to take what they will, Lucius, but our magic will live on," she told him.
This concludes "Legacy of Sartorius".
I would like to thank everyone who took time to spend with Lucius and Eleanor, and especially all those who were kind enough to review. I loved reading your comments, suggestions and thoughtful insights into my stories.
You have definitely kept me motivated and interested in my writing and were a wonderful audience.
Currently I am not working on another story, and will probably take a little vacation from writing, clear my mind, get new ideas (after all, with a new book and a new movie in the works this year it shouldn't be to difficult). I will also take time out and get back into reading some of your stories - figuring that if you liked what I did I will probably enjoy what you wrote.
In the meantime I wish you happiness and inspiration.
Love, Elly
