CHAPTER 1 – CARTE BLANCHE
September 28, 1997
Eight years and a month later, two hundred miles to the north, the Malfoys' only child, Draco, awoke from a dreamless night to the sound of water running. For a moment he wrote it off to just another leak in the sewage system that ran adjacent to the seventh years' dormitory; then, he heard Theodore Nott's slouchy voice slurring with sleep.
"Great. Another rainy day. What time is it?"
Draco's eyes darted over to his bedside analogue clock. Seven AM. He kept silent, raised his torso from the bed and sat up, smoothing his hair back with a nonchalant hand. On the inner side of his bare, white arm, the Dark Mark glowered in the gloom. He swiftly took his wand from under his pillow and waved it just an inch above his skin to speak the glamour charm.
"Signe evanesco".
Satisfied, he stretched out his now immaculate arm, flexed his fingers, and flung his legs onto the cold, carpeted floor. As he had predicted, the room was dormant save for Nott, who was delivering a first class fight with his trousers, the out of tune whistle of a lashing wind between the crumbling dungeon bricks and himself. Draco headed off for a splash of hot water in the shower, performed an anti frizz spell onto his hair, then returned to rouse his dorm mates.
"Gregory, Flavius, Vincent!"
Draco moved over to the other row of beds, smirking in a cordial morning greeting at Theodore who sat on the last bed.
"Blaise, Cody!"
He meanly pinched their raw cheeks, oblivious to the moans and groans it provoked. Five minutes would be enough. He dressed silently and in the dark, exchanging baggy silk trousers for a sharply starched white blouse and the familiar robes and tie. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, which eyed him critically and handed him the last few advices on the fit of his collar.
"How do I look?" he asked rhetorically.
"Splendid as ever, young Mr Malfoy" the mirror responded with her fat silver cheeks.
He nodded curtly, wheeled around and fully turned on the lights in the dorm, displaying various colours of ruffled hair beneath dark green blankets, several unshaven chins and an eye blinking unmercifully up at him.
"Get dressed, you lot. I'm positively dying for an early breakfast."
Within a minute, the dorm was full of sleep-reeking seventeen – and eighteen year old boys moving about lazily. Accio spells were heard in canon, several of them too grudgy to take a step to fetch their uniforms. The bathroom door opened and closed several times behind his back as Draco chose his shoes, lining them up to come to decision. He settled for a pair of sleek Italian moccasins, tied the laces, snatched his ring from his bedside and put it on; then got up, positioning himself with crossed arms and ankles against the door to the stairs. Cody Marshall, who often preferred to catch breakfast by himself, grabbed his gloves and slipped past him into the common room.
"Well?" Draco said around Vincent's huge shoulder as he helped the boy tie a double Windsor for what must have been the so manieth time since first year.
Vincent smiled a sheepish smile in thanks and Draco winked at him.
It was almost 7:30 as the six boys hooked up with the girls in the Slytherin common room below. They exchanged amicable remarks and chatted lightly about early morning trivialities, but Draco was more interested in Morag McDougal, who stood at a small distance from the group touching her arm every other second as if wanting to be convinced of something. Draco had been at her initiation the night before and through his mask he had felt sympathy for the girl as the Dark Lord sealed her trust in him with blood and burns. He saw Pansy glancing at her, too, as well as Blaise, Vincent, Theodore, Tracey and Greg. As they moved past her to the portrait hole and the maze of dungeon corridors, the six of them squeezed her hand lightly. The gestures were lost in the melée of lower year students who circled their elders as if fireflies around a flame.
They crawled through the portrait hole. Millicent Bulstrode, better known among the Slytherins as Bee for her unfortunate tendency to stick her nose into anybody's business as well as her rather elaborate body ("She's a garbage bag full of yogurt, that one is" Flavius had remarked in a high pitched voice on their very first night at Hogwarts. "I bet she's got epic tits, though" Theodore had chuckled into the crook of Draco's neck as their bodies lay in an entangled heap on Theodore's bed six days previous) snuck her arm around Draco's waist and asked:
"So Draco, when is the next upcoming party being thrown? Pansy?" she turned to the other Prefect.
Ever since Pansy's and Draco's ascent to Prefectship at the beginning of fifth year, the Slytherin dungeons provided the backdrop for get-togethers on on average monthly basis. Set up to distract many insecure Slytherins from the oblique war outside the castle walls, they had soon grown to a success, attracting a mushrooming crowd of students.
"Party?" two other female voices piped up. "You mean, again?" Daphne laughed.
"This Friday" the two Prefects said simultaneously.
Pansy's "No entrance for those of fourth year and below" was spoken simultaneously to Draco's "Slytherins and Ravenclaws only."
"Why?" said Morag.
"Why what?" someone asked.
"Nevermind, I wasn't listening" she replied.
They were steadily climbing out of the dungeons now, the lights around them getting as much brighter as the sound of harsh rain became persistent. The repeated drum of Bee's heavy bag against Draco's side increased as they skimmed over a broken step.
"Ethan's in fourth year, I know he'd love to come" Daphne said about her Ravenclaw brother.
The appreciation for Ravenclaw in the Slytherin camp had started when Draco had approached their Head Boy Terry Boot over help with an Arithmancy assignment in sixth year. Whereas mutual acknowledgment had been reserved initially for academic reasons only, it later extended to genuine comfort when Boot had been the one to step between Draco and Potter during fight X on day Y. Just as Potter was alarmingly close to punching Draco's lights out near Flitwick's office, Boot had torn him away from the Slytherin and deducted a grave amount of Gryffindor house points. Draco hadn't shown his thankfulness directly, merely dusting off his robes and casting Potter a death glare as he strolled on, but he had made the word spread quickly in their common room, filtering down through the seven Slytherin years until a state of acknowledgment had been established toward Boot and his Ravenclaws.
Naturally, this wasn't the only reason for Draco's sudden interest in the Head Boy. Ludo Palminti, the Malfoy's old Master of Assassins for three generations running, had explained it to him during the holidays the day after Draco got his Mark. He had taken the documents from the family vault after keeping Draco anxious about them all morning, spread them out on the table, and showed Draco what was to be expected of him, the Malfoy heir:
The Boots, stable representatives of the Light side for over twenty years, held the prime positions in the Oxoniensis company, owning the stronghold in quasi-fief under a classified contract with the Ministry of Magic to extract and control the so-called elixir of life - unicorn blood. Due to Draco's mother Narcissa, who as none other had the gift of diplomacy and independence, the Boots were now contemplating leaving to be replaced by Narcissa and her son –what was left of the Malfoy House.
Whereas on paper Lucius Malfoy still held the royalties and authority of the family in place, his incarceration in Azkaban, almost a year and a half ago, had drained away whatever was left of his status. Draco remembered the words of the Dark Lord upon a humble inquiry to the fate of his father:
"If they are stupid enough to get caught, they aren't worthy of redemption."
And therefore Narcissa had taken upon her the role of the public Malfoy family representative, opening the doors of the Manor to an ever increasing and impressive line of wizarding nobility Light and Dark, and playing the perfect hostess while siphoning an increasing amount of the family fortune out of Lucius' account and into hers and Draco's.
Her son often wondered about her untouchability, her apparent apathy toward her husband's debasement. She was a neutral, never having cared to follow Lucius' antics by taking the Mark. The Dark Lord did not expect her to. The offering of their son had sufficed, and Draco had obeyed as soon as he reached seventeen, as soon as he was allowed to Apparate, vote in the Ministry elections and be considered an adult. As for his mother, Draco had the gist her soon-to-be presidency of the unicorn blood company posed an apparent victory for the Dark Lord himself.
Draco would help his family as much as was required for the Oxoniensis transfer to take place. Besides, he liked the Ravenclaw Head Boy. He smiled to himself.
"What is it?" said Bee alertly as she looked into his face.
"I must say, I'm jealous of how well you and Ethan get along," conversation continued as Daphne talked to Morag.
"My brother would never want to hang out at my parties all night."
"He sounds nice" Draco offered.
Daphne made an offended sound and slapped Draco playfully.
"Make sure your brother finds a higher year date and I'll give him carte blanche." Pansy again.
"Parkinson! All this immorality coming from a Prefect" Draco scowled mockingly as he tried to get free of Bee's sweaty arm.
"Ouch Greg, that's my foot!" Pansy just answered. "You always do that! On purpose, I might add."
"I'll say" Daphne agreed.
"Stop living in the past, woman!" Greg bellowed.
A sigh was heard.
Draco rolled his eyes and pinched Bee's fleshy arm with his long nails as he clenched his teeth. She winced and gave him a hurt look, which Draco ignored. He smiled sweetly at her and she blushed.
"You're incompetent children, all of you" Pansy snorted. To continue with an enthusiastic "Daphne, what are you wearing to the party?"
Draco chuckled as the chatter went on around them.
"Did you know Princess Diana died? She was in some kind of bizarre car crash near the Mediterranean."
"Come again, who?"
In front of them loomed the large doors to the Great Hall with its muffled chatter. Even though he looked nowhere as impressive as Vincent and Gregory with their bulky bodies, Draco walked up front, trying to suppress the cacophony of the girls' excited voices as he held up his hand and his own giggles as well.
Just as he was about to push open the doors and greet a much-needed arsenal of food on the tables, Cody burst through them, clutching a fresh copy of the Daily Prophet in his hand.
"Draco!"
His voice was no more than a whisper, and his pleading brown eyes searched Draco's.
"I –I think you need to see – this."
The girls stopped their silliness at once and stared at the stack of parchment curiously. The silence between them was deafening. Behind the doors, the scraping sounds of chairs, goblets and cutlery and the mass incoherence of a few hundred voices continued without cessation.
Draco's eyebrow shot into his pale hairline as he took the Prophet from Cody's outstretched hand and smoothed it in his hands. He was fiddling with his ring, a nervous habit. He bit his lip.
Death Eater Malfoy Murdered In Cell
Family drama in Azkaban
The Daily Prophet's Anna Jack reports
Last night, the wizarding world shook upon its hinges as Azkaban prison chair Hestia Mann confessed high maintenance prisoner Lucius Malfoy (40), convicted Death Eater and long time follower of You-Know-Who, was found dead in a corridor of cell block A4 by guard Imogen Fern.
"I heard loud conversation erupting from Mr Malfoy's ward as I made my night round" she said in an exclusive interview to the Daily Prophet this very morning. "I distinctly remember hearing a female voice, but as we no longer have separated cell blocks for male and female prisoners I thought Mr Malfoy was having an argument with one of his neighbours. When I had finished my round and returned to check upon A4 Mr Malfoy lay in a dark corner outside his cell, unmoving. It was the Death Curse."
Since the Dementors' massive sway to You-Know-Who last year, has Azkaban prison become unsafe? Hestia Mann denies all claims. "Azkaban has gotten a more humane face, which actually adds to safety" she says to our reporter. The Ministry of Magic have sent two Aurors, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, to investigate Lucius Malfoy's case. No suspects have been pointed out yet. Says wizarding historian Rafe Tiersen: "There could be many reasons to kill Malfoy. He had enemies on the Light side as well as the Dark. He already defied You-Know-Who once and it may have finally taken its toll on him. Then, of course, there is the money issue. The Malfoys are one of the proudest standing Pureblood families in the UK. It wouldn't come as a surprise if someone had decided to wreak havoc upon them at their weakest moment." The Malfoy House, having presently only consisted of Lucius, Narcissa (38) and their only son and heir Draco (17), a Hogwarts Slytherin in his final year, are allegedly good for 12 million Galleons. With a son on the frail brink of adulthood and a strong decimation of Pureblood births each generation, is this a plausible reason for a hysterical murder in a strictly guarded prison?
Aurora Murray, Pureblood family expert, disagrees. "I think we will find the culprit tied much closer to the source than we think." In her unauthorised 1983 biography 'House Malfoy: Fortune Favours The Rich', Henson probed into the narrow niche of Pureblood ancestry. According to her, Malfoy's murder may be very well relatable to the Death Eater's bastard daughter and son, born in 1981. "It could be Narcissa for all we know" she tells the Daily Prophet. "I don't think she knew about the second and third Malfoy children; she would have never allowed it. This is, however, a speculative matter." Any information concerning Malfoy's illegitimate children has been vanquished in the fire that destroyed part of the Leaky Cauldron in 1989.
The Daily Prophet will further investigate the puzzling death of Lucius Malfoy.
Information on the Malfoy family lineage and finances, p. 6
'The Future of Narcissa Malfoy-Black', p. 7
'Whatever Happened to the Purebloods?' p. 8
'Intrigues of the Wizarding Camorra', p.11
With shaking hands, Draco lowered the newspaper and looked at Cody. For once, he was at a loss for words, and he opened his mouth repeatedly as not a sound came out. He felt the paper gently being tugged out of his hand by Greg and felt a sudden urge to throw up. Cody, who saw his pale housemate looking like his legs could give away any moment, put his hand on Draco's shoulder. Soft, horrified moans came from the girls as they had gathered themselves around Gregory. Draco didn't pay attention. His fingers straddled the ring on his other hand.
"Draco, I'm sorry" Cody whispered anxiously. "Do you want to sit down? Oh, oh Merlin."
"Don't panic" Draco said instead. His voice was raw but his thoughts were very, very clear. He slowly turned around and eyed his terrified housemates with the authority of a Prefect. Daphne looked like she could cry out any moment, Pansy was clutching at her. Morag merely looked up at him with silent eyes.
"I want you not to panic" Draco said in his metallic voice. "We are going to breakfast, I am hungry. We shall discuss this –" he awkwardly waved at the paper "-later. Not here."
"Draco, I think you shouldn't go to class today" Bee spoke up softly.
He whirled around in a flash of dark robes and walked up to her.
"I will do whatever the bloody fuck I like" he said very, very quietly, his restraint barely concealed.
Throwing the boys a look, he crossed the last few paces to the Great Hall. As he turned away from them, Blaise heard him mutter:
"I'm just so sick of the fact they put our whole life up on a shelf for every lunatic to see."
He watched his retreating back, the stark contrast of the shock of straight flaxen hair with his black robes, the familiar light swagger in his tread. To anyone else, Draco Malfoy looked placid and ambiguous as ever. But Blaise saw his long white hands fidgeting with the silver ring, a speck of turning metal in the light of the dusty corridor, and it broke his heart.
At the Gryffindor table, seventeen-year-old Harry Potter put down the Daily Prophet in front of him and took a rough bite from his honey bread. The father of his school nemesis was dead. The Death Eater he loathed beyond description was no more. Ron Weasley, whose flashy head of red hair leaned in to him, said:
"And so the Malfoys finally get what they deserve. Let's go and have a party, shall we?"
"Ron!" Hermione Granger, seated on Harry's other side and bending over the loaded table, a hand on the edges of the paper, reproached warningly.
"Oh, yeah, I should quit the euphemisms. You're right, Hermione, you are."
Hermione sighed deeply.
"Ron, haven't you been paying attention? This could have been an assassinator from You-Know-Who's side as much as our own. This is a different case. I bet the Death Eaters are up to something."
Her eyebrows knitted together in an almost solemn way, and she pushed her plate away. Harry said nothing. Ron shook his shoulders and shoved another round of cupcakes onto his plate.
"Hermione, if you're still fed up about last night –"
"Please, guys" Harry groaned softly, rather ignorant of the antics of his two best friends as a couple.
Ron took a large bite. Hermione huffed at him affectionately.
All around them, students were buzzing around the stack of freshly delivered Prophets like working bees. The demise of one more Death Eater wasn't their prime concern: over the last few years, reports like these had trickled in on almost monthly basis, and nearly every student in the school claimed they had personally known at least a few of the casualties, be it on the Light or the Dark side, close relatives or from nifty third hand stories. Nobody questioned these claims, of course. They came and went with the tides of the war, and all were respected for their personal beliefs and emotions. At least, this was the case in Gryffindor House.
Harry Potter, in this instance, was weighing his judgments. On the one hand, there was an infinite feeling of relaxation and peace. Lucius Malfoy had been one of the most influential and notorious Death Eaters. He had severely injured Hermione two years previously, in the showdown at the Department of Mysteries. He had borne a son who had been draining the blood from under Harry's nails for the seventh year running, and he had corrupted the Ministry and impeded its effectiveness with his foul, double-bladed power politics. There was nothing to be said about one more death of a fat loathsome cockroach like Lucius Malfoy any way he looked at it.
On the other hand, and this disturbed him more than he realised at that juncture, he felt the start of insecurity. For one, Lucius had been a close friend of the Head Master. Casting his gaze toward the oak table against the far wall, Harry tried to read the face of the implacable Severus Snape. Identical slits of dark eyes stared back at him icily, and Harry felt his cheeks redden. He would never grow accustomed to Snape as Head Master, and he found himself wondering how Malfoy's death would affect the head of Hogwarts.
As for Harry, there would always be a stale personal taste about –
The doors to the Hall opened widely as he yanked up his head to see the majority of the seventh year Slytherins enter. The indecipherable hullabaloo in the high chamber stuttered to a halt as hundreds of heads turned to Draco Malfoy, who strutted in front, flanked, on either side, by one of his minions. Vincent Crabbe. Gregory Goyle. Both of them, Harry knew, had only passed the minimum requirements for a continuation in NEWTs. Theodore Nott walked a step behind Malfoy, and then there were Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass, Flavius Henchman and Morag McDougal. They seemed to walk closer to him than usual, to surround him in an out of place allegory for guardian angels.
Animal psychology, Harry thought.
He skimmed over the younger Malfoy's form with his eyes, noticed the casual way the Slytherin held the cool, crisp parchment of the newspaper in his left hand with an air of indifference as he walked with determined steps of his long legs, grey laser beams shooting the usual spitfire from under high eyebrows.
Perhaps, Malfoy really is as paranoid as I am.
A brief, silent exchange was made between Malfoy and the former Potions master as Malfoy tipped up his chin further to search out Severus Snape. With a short nod, he approached the table of the Slytherins, at which Harry knew he had a fixed seat at its head.
Malfoy looked frail, small and pale between the hunches of Crabbe and Goyle as his wingbacks. He and Harry had both been late getting their growth, but over the last year Malfoy had suddenly turned from a sharp-featured, almost sickly-thin looking boy into a lanky youth who topped Harry's height by approximately two inches. Nobody ever got the chance to wipe the approximation from the equation, however, as it was universally acknowledged the two were as edgy among each other as a cat and a dog among a rose perk, both straining to wander as far from the other as possible.
However, Harry had noticed a diversity of significant little changes in their behaviour, on which he mused as the other young man self-consciously nestled himself on his self-assigned throne and filled the goblet before him with roasted espresso coffee.
For instance, he knew Malfoy knew of his old invisibility cloak, although Harry had never shared his secret indulgence with anyone outside of his closest circle of friends. In turn, Harry was as sure of the fact Malfoy was a Death Eater as he knew the sun rose in the east and Neville Longbottom's zipper was open on nearly every flawed occasion.
Malfoy knew Harry kept his firewhiskey stacked into the hollow of a weather-beaten tree at the far left entrance to the Forbidden Forest, which Harry knew as he often found polite yet simultaneously extremely offensive thank you notes in a familiar sloping hand script in places where carefully stocked bottles had been only the day before. Harry knew Malfoy always wore thin black socks and did the ties of most of the Slytherin boys in his year each morning as he recognised the unusual double Windsor knots on their collars from miles away. He sighed. They knew each other too well. Their rivalry was getting old.
And now Lucius Malfoy had been dead for six hours, and his son was carefully filing his nails under the Slytherin table. Harry shook his head, nicked a Granny Smith apple from Ron's plate as his friend looked the other way and took a jaded bite.
Theodore softly kicked Draco's shin as his friend finished his second espresso in small gulps.
"Draco, you really should be in bed."
"..."
Theodore raked his fingers through his brown hair and sighed.
"Why don't you pay a visit to Snape's office? Perhaps he knows more."
"I'm fine, thanks" Draco said under his breath, his eyes fixed on refilling his goblet.
"I don't like lies, Draco."
Draco licked a drop of coffee off the goblet in his hands on the expertise of his automatic pilot.
"Yeah, well I don't like your aftershave. So there."
Pansy, who sat opposite Nott and had overheard their conversation with a half ear, put a hand on Draco's lower arm. He neither yielded to the touch nor withdrew.
"Draco, as much as you resist it, this is our business as much as yours. Let's –" she paused. "What subject do you have next?"
"Muggle Studies" he said as he turned to her. The look in his eyes cleared up slightly.
Draco had taken up Muggle Studies in his fifth year, when the prospect of becoming a follower of the Dark Lord had crystallised and the first Death Eater reports had been owled to his quarters at the Manor. Know your enemy. The course wasn't as much comprehension as the absorption of clear, hard facts, something for which Draco had a distinct preference.
"Alright" said Pansy. "Let's meet after Muggle Studies."
"Pansy, if you'd excuse me, I have something to see to. Tonight, if you please" Draco urged as he raised his body from the table, automatically generating six sympathetic followers.
Pansy took his arm as the group left the Great Hall, and as the rest patted Draco softly on the shoulder and broke up in the directions of their respective classes she dragged him into a niche and searched his face with her minutely cross-eyed gaze.
"If you need anything, you call on me immediately" she stated matter-of-factly. "I'm calling for an emergency meeting in the common room tonight at eight sharp. Take care, pet."
The rain battered against the windows in her echo. She blinked reassuringly at him, turned on her heel and strolled up the stairs to the first floor. Draco, part of his body frame hidden in the cool shadows, watched her go. For a few minutes he stood there, unseen by the crowd of cheering students raging through the castle. He was glad he had them, all of them. Pansy, his support. Blaise, his confidante. Cody, his informant. Theodore, who warmed his bed for him every night. Draco smiled sadly.
When the mob had died down, he left the niche and instead of setting out for Muggle Studies, he climbed the spiralling stairs to the owlery; the Daily Prophet still clenched in his hand. He felt the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins waning and wondered for how long he could go on.
It wasn't that Draco craved petty distractions from his father's death. Lucius had always been too obvious, too headstrong, too proud to effectively avoid the dangers of his own lifestyle. Over the years Draco had learned to let him go, said his goodbyes bit by bit, until the territory that was both his father's and his had shrunken to the size of a stamp. Under pressure of his mother, he had started to withdraw from his father when he had been fourteen, fifteen years old. Lucius had been on his return, Draco was the future.
No, his father's death the previous night did not shock him.
"Finally, father" he spoke to no-one in particular as he made a detour through the castle to avoid large crowds.
"May flights of devils wing you to your rest."
The reason he felt an invisible hook tugging behind his navel, an emotion sickness that made him feel light-headed on adrenaline and horribly disoriented at the same time had a wholly different source. He scanned the article below the moving picture of his father's glittering smirk.
According to her, Malfoy's murder may be very well relatable to the Death Eater's bastard daughter and son, born in 1981.
Any information concerning Malfoy's illegitimate children has been vanquished in the fire that destroyed part of the Leaky Cauldron in 1989.
He tossed the paper onto the floor and threw up his breakfast. Steadying himself against the wall, his eyes tearing, he found himself clutching at the wrist of his ringed hand.
Because if he weren't hallucinating, he could see a fresh, blistering burn mark there.