My weekends were now filled with Flooing between Grimmauld place and the Headmasters office for various materials as well as permission for hairbrained schemes and enchantments myself and Sirius came up with. Some of the pre-existing shit around Grimmauld had to be tweaked, but the majority of it could be worked around, if not outright strengthened. Dumbles wanted everyone's amulet to be a Phoenix of some sort, but I pointed out that everyone being marked in the same way would link them together and make them targets, the same reasoning the DA had for not wearing 'friendship bracelets'.
A lot of my free time was now taken up by helping the order, and I had little time on my own for research. It was mostly the Doctor researching Horcruxes now, using Zoopy as his arms and legs in the corporeal world. I used a supply gathering mission as an excuse to snatch the ring horcrux, and Deathly Hallow. Zoopy was with me, and was the only reason I made it out alive. House Elf magic is not something to fuck with. I left a duplicate in it's place, much like the diadem, but left the protections marred, as if Voldemort's first 'death' had weakened them. It was the only thing I could think of to both fool Voldie and keep Dumbledore safe should he stumble upon it.
There were only three Horcruxes left. One was in a snake and impossible to access at the moment, another locked safely in Gringotts. The other one was inside a teenage boy, and the Doctor was close to finding a way to extract it into something else so it could be properly destroyed. In that vein of thinking, only the cup was theoretically within my reach, and I had a plan for that.
It was simple to approach Draco during one of the study sessions in the Chamber. Approaching the topic I needed to address, much more complicated. In the end, I decided that I didn't particularly feel like attempting to out Slytherin an actual Slytherin.
"So, how do you feel about helping me with the heist of the millenia?"
He almost failed the charm he was attempting, the gust of wind changing temperatures drastically before he wrangled it into submission and cut it off before turning to me, delicately raising a blonde eyebrow in a way that screamed 'high-society'.
"Are you planning on sneaking into Azkaban to murder Umbridge in her sleep? Because I don't want to be a part of anything involving that place."
I snorted, leaning back against the nearest stone pillar, absentmindedly rolling my wand between my fingers, "Nothing like that all, it won't even be anything illegal on your part if my assumptions are correct."
The eyebrow was joined by its brother. "And what assumptions are those, Professor?"
"That your mother still interacts with her sisters vaults to keep them healthy."
He paled immediately, eyes scanning the room around us to be sure no one was near. I'd placed wards before I started speaking, but of course he wasn't aware of it. He grabbed my elbow and pulled me into one of the side hallways, stopping once we could no longer hear the others practicing in the main chamber area. I put my wand away into the inside pocket of my robes as we went, summoning a small orb of light blue witchlight to hover above my hand as he pulled me to face him. His expression was terrified, nothing I had seen before in his face, even at the mention of betraying Voldemort himself.
"I'm going to assume you don't mean the sister that she no longer claims. But that only leaves the craziest witch in the world that you are apparently planning to steal from!" His voice went high and hysterical at the end, and I gently pried my elbow from his grasp, raising the witchlight hand high so he could see me as the other went to his shoulder.
"Draco, I promise you, nothing that you say to me, or help me with, will ever reach that woman."
He laughed, tone still holding hints of hysteria, "You can't guarantee that! She's powerful, and insane, and his favorite, and my aunt, and you're you're you're, what, a history professor?! How could you promise that?!"
I made sure to catch his eye before speaking, "I can promise that, because I have faced worse than your aunt. I have faced worse than the man who became a monster and named himself Voldemort." I ignored his flinching and continued, "I have faced kings, emperors, and self-proclaimed gods. I am the one still standing. There is one thing, and one thing only that I need from you, and even that I will do on my own should you not wish to participate. I will never force you to do something that scares you this much, Draco Malfoy. You are my student, and I have collapsed empires for less." There was the slightest timbre of magic to my voice, not quite a 'vow', but infused with magic and close enough to present the words as the truth they were, especially to a pureblood raised wizard such as himself. He stared me down, better than some of those aforementioned kings, and eventually untensed the tiniest bit, and nodded just slightly.
"I'll listen. I can't guarantee anything, but I trust you Professor."
I rode high on that trust for the rest of the night, even as I worked out a different time to go into the situation with him in full. I was still riding high on it when Severus cornered me after dinner the next night, effectively tanking all of the good feelings.
"I'm sure that you are aware of my…position within the headmaster's little organization?"
As far as subtlety went it wasn't the best I had ever encountered, but then again, I doubted he believed that I could understand anything more covert than that.
"Yeeees?"
"Then you are aware that certain appearances must be kept. The situation with the lycanthropy cure must be downplayed, I'm sure you understand why."
I nodded along, trying to catch his eye but failing as he continually scanned the hall for people.
"Of course, how do you wish to play this?"
"I have already informed the Dark Lord that the situation was caused by a life debt, that I had no choice but to help you or lose my life, and it was mostly your work anyway."
I hadn't thought of how the situation would affect his standing with the Dark Cuck, and I was regretting it now, analyzing him and noting the slight limp. He noticed me noticing and scowled, gathering his robes around him, "I trust that you won't contradict this. The story is that you accidentally saved me from a student's experimental potion gone wrong, please do stick to it."
With that he whirled away, leaving me with nothing to do but worry about the subject. I brought it up with the Doctor later, getting the pinched face I had been expecting.
"You know how I feel about his character, Mara."
I huffed, rolling my eyes. "Yes, but that was him as a character transcribed through the lens of a fallible human woman with no thought to the impact of anything on a wider world or lore at large beyond that of a children's story. This is a real person, a human being with dimension, thought, feelings, motivations. He's more complicated now than before."
"I'm still not a fan of all I've seen."
I sighed, slumping into my chair and eyeing the potion bubbling away on top of my desk. "I know, I know. He's not the best person…but he doesn't deserve to die because of my mistakes."
The Doctor had no retort for that, and I was left to stew in my thoughts as I watched the cauldron in front of me.
Not dead. Sorry it's shorter than usual, wanted to get something out there.
~TimeLordOfPie