Chapter 13: Curses and the Not-Quite

As Draco roused in the morning, he became aware of two different noises around him in the room. There was snoring on one side, and a murmur on the other.

"You awake, Malfoy?" Nott whispered.

Draco stretched. "Sort of."

He might have drifted back off for a little while. He wasn't sure. Crabbe and Goyle were still asleep when Draco crawled out of his blanket cocoon to use the toilet. Nott and Blaise laid on top of all their bedding. The fireplace put off too much heat for any sort of covering, now.

The night had brought more snow, which covered the chamber skylight. Natural light filtered in through the bathroom and bedroom doors. Mostly the fireplace put an orange hue on them.

"Sleep all right?" Draco asked, keeping his voice down for Crabbe and Goyle.

"Really well, actually," Blaise replied while Nott nodded. "Your mum magicks up a good bed. I thought I wouldn't sleep well anyway, you know, being somewhere I never have before."

"Being right knackered helps."

The three of them snickered, trying to stay quiet, but nothing seemed like it would interrupt the snoring coming from Crabbe and Goyle.

A knock came at the chamber door. Draco got up to answer it. It was his mum, looking tired but in high spirits.

"Good morning," she greeted him. "Brunch is on the table, if you all want to start thinking about coming downstairs. Everyone's parents are here too."

"All right."

The manor house was so incredibly quiet in wake of the gala. Draco's footsteps echoed against the marble, along with the other boys'. Voices became audible from the formal dining room when they all descended the grand staircase.

Their parents had already ate, and settled at one end of the table with several pots of tea. Draco sat at the end opposite his father, listening idly to the adults since the boys weren't much for conversation while inhaling their kedgeree. He was curious about Blaise's mum and stepfather. All the others, he'd known his entire life.

Draco received a kick under the table. He frowned at Nott, jerking away. "Ow, what was that for?"

"You're staring at Blaise's mum," Nott whispered back.

Draco gave him a baleful look. "You are not starting that again. I wasn't staring, anyway. I was only listening. Why would I stare?"

Well, she was really pretty, Draco supposed. He looked at Blaise to get an actual read on his feelings. His brow was slightly furrowed, and his jaw heavy in his hand as he leaned his elbow on the table. There was some hesitant defensiveness in his eye when he met Draco's gaze.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I only met them yesterday. If they're my parents' friends now, I'll be getting to know them too."

"Don't get too attached," Blaise mumbled, poking heavily at his rice.

"What?"

Blaise just shook his head, expression lengthening. Crabbe and Goyle stopped eating. They looked as confused as Draco felt.

He lowered his voice, not that any of the parents would be able to hear them anyway over how exuberantly Mr Domatazzi talked. "Is someone ill?"

Blaise shook his head again, rougher this time. "My mum's cursed, but I don't want to talk about it. Just. . .don't get attached to Gianmarco."

"You can't just. . ."

He trailed off with another sharp look from Nott. Draco did his best to convey the point he wanted to make in pantomime back to him. Blaise couldn't just say something like that and expect it to be forgotten. All of a sudden, Draco had even more questions about Blaise and his family. If his mum was cursed in some way regarding the men she married, then how did Blaise get here? Where was his father—rather, what had happened to him? Draco never even considered the possibility he might be dead. He'd just assumed he lived in Milano.

They carried on with brunch a little awkwardly after that, but were distracted shortly after. Everyone moved to the drawing room, and Father brought Vega downstairs. Draco remembered what Blaise said when time came to see all their company off. He was about fit to burst by the time everyone Disapparated from the portico.

"Do you know anything about Mrs Zabini being cursed?" he blurted into the fresh silence that fell over the manor house.

His father stopped watching Vega explore the Atrium floor. Mum looked taken aback.

"Cursed?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Blaise said she's cursed," Draco said. "And he said we shouldn't get attached to Mr Domatazzi."

"She hasn't said anything to me. . ." Mum looked to Father, who shook his head too. "What exactly did Blaise say?"

"Just that."

Mum hummed while placing her hands on Draco's shoulders. "Well, that's not something for you to worry about. All right? Leave it for the grown-ups."

After stewing about it for a little while, Draco wrote a quick note and headed for the owlery to send it off to Nott. Stix returned shortly before dinner, tapping his beak against Draco's bedroom window: That's the first I ever heard of it too. I don't know, I'll ask Blaise if I see him. He's leaving tomorrow for Italy and I think he's not back til after new year.

Draco sent back: I asked my parents and they didn't know anything about it either. My mum said to leave it to the grown-ups. Think we should or?

Nott replied: Maybe. I mean, what would WE do about it? My mum might know something about it if it's similar to her maladiction.

Draco hoped not, for Blaise's sake. There wasn't much to do about something like that. Mrs Nott's was manageable for the time being, but Mrs Zabini's didn't sound the same way. Then again. . .

It doesn't make HER ill, though. Blaise said don't get attached to Mr Domatazzi, not her.

Draco was just about to crawl into bed for the night when Nott's last reply arrived: Yeah, good point. I talked to mum and dad about it anyway, and I told them that your parents know. They'll probably all talk about it.

That satisfied Draco. He didn't like how upset the whole idea of it had made Blaise, for it rang too closely to whenever Nott's mum went through a period of decline. It was awful to wonder if this time would do it, and to have to wait and see. A few times, Mum had sat Draco down to prepare him for the possibility, only for Mrs Nott to recover.

Every time it happened, it made Draco think a lot about what he would do without his mum or father. His chest ached as he tried to fall asleep. It was such an awful thought. He never wanted his parents to die. He only had one grandparent left now, and then what happened?

Draco had some confusing dreams after having those sorts of thoughts while drifting off. He felt better in the morning because Grandfather Black was downstairs having tea with Mum and Father in the drawing room. His eyes crinkled when he spotted Draco.

"Ah, there's the lad," Grandfather greeted him. "We were just talking about how well you're doing in school."

"Yes." Draco joined him on his sofa, feeling underdressed in his dressing-gown, pyjamas, and slippers.

"Although, I suppose that depends just how far Hogwarts has slid down the toilet in recent years." Grandfather scoffed before sipping his tea. "I cannot believe Dumbledore put the old Muggle Studies professor in charge of Defence Against the Dark Arts. He doesn't teach you any of that rubbish, does he, Draco?"

"No," Draco replied. "He doesn't teach us much of anything, really. If he manages to stutter out one word during the lesson, it's a good day for him."

Draco felt proud at how all the adults snickered at that.

"That—Quirrell, is it?—was at Hogwarts with Regulus," Grandfather said when they'd quieted back down. "I remember Regulus talking about him. You'd think he would have become less pathetic with age. . .alas, how people surprise. . ."

Draco had a feeling that having a less-than-stellar Defence Against the Dark Arts professor influenced what Christmas gifts he received come Wednesday morning. Maybe when Draco was younger, he would have been miffed to receive so many books among the broomstick servicing kit, practice Snitch and Bludger, sweets, and bag of assorted joke items from Gambol and Japes.

He stacked all the new titles on the tea table in his chamber. Grandfather had given him Curses and Counter-Curses, Jinxes for the Jinxed, and Magick Moste Evile, the last of which Mum very deliberately took out of Draco's hands after he'd unwrapped it.

"Father," she said to him in a stern tone. "Draco is far too young for something like this. I don't even think he would understand it."

"That doesn't mean he wouldn't appreciate the read," ended up not a good enough argument for Mum. Grandfather turned sulky with it sitting next to him, to be taken back home with him when he left.

Draco was definitely curious about what it contained, but the other handful of books he received that were full of curses proved enough to sate that. He dug out his practice wand as the allergy he'd developed to anything school-related cleared up. The incantations he whispered along with the wand movements he copied out of the books were broken up by bouts of Draco releasing his practice Snitch and then trying to catch it.

It kept darting up into the ceiling rafters. Draco would return to reading then, keeping one eye on it. He gasped in surprise at himself when, having glimpsed a golden glimmer out the corner of his eye, he ended up with it enclosed in his fist. Draco hadn't even been trying that time.

With his chest puffed out, he put the Snitch away and headed downstairs to find one of his parents to tell. He couldn't find Mum, but Father would be in the manor office. With the end of the month (and the end of the year) approaching, not even Christmas could get Father time off from his work.

Draco headed through the lobby to the office's anteroom. He froze halfway across it, for a voice he really did not think he should have ever heard again came from within.

"I'm absolutely disgusted with the lack of respect you've shown the wishes of me, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and who knows how far back," came the annoyed voice of Grandfather Malfoy. "Just look at that thing. What exactly does it do, other than befoul this office with droppings?"

"It gives you something other than me to criticize, for one."

As if he agreed with that, Vega whistled.

"Ugh," Grandfather spoke again. "Disgusting."

Draco poked his head tentatively into the office. The theory he'd quickly developed of a portrait turned out correct. Father looked over at the door when Draco knocked. Vega strutted along on the open floor, poking his beak at the rug.

"Hullo," Draco said. "I didn't know you hung Grandfather's portrait."

"Oh—yes." Father glanced up at it. Grandfather's face had pinched, and his disapproving gaze followed Vega. "Right where he wanted it, so that he could maintain a running commentary on the manor's affairs."

"Oh yeah."

"Did you want something?"

Draco didn't bother Father for long, since he was busy. Father was impressed with the story of Draco's Snitch capture, which motivated Draco to return upstairs and carry on with it.

By the weekend, Draco's actual homework nagged enough at him to open his school trunk. While digging to the bottom of it for Magical Drafts and Potions, his fingers grazed the leather cover of Tom Riddle's diary.

Draco hesitated. He hadn't written in it other than the one time. When he wasn't too busy and had a spare moment to think about it, the diary sort of creeped him out. It occurred to him that he packed around something sort of like a brain, considering how eerily life-like the dead boy inside seemed. He wasn't a ghost, like the Bloody Baron. Tom didn't have that sort of agency. Any sort of contact he could have with the real world was completely in Draco's hands.

He put it back at the bottom of his trunk while working on the questions Snape had set. It took longer than usual, since Draco's mind lingered on Tom.

Should he ought to put him back where he found him? If Draco thought about the diary the same way his father did Vega, like a pet, he didn't have the time or responsibility to care for it. Draco didn't even know what something like that would entail. Was there really anything to do? Tom's diary had sat in Grandfather's desk for at least twenty years. Tom had said it was a very long time since somebody had written in it. That meant that even Grandfather, who had taken Tom into his bed when they were young, hadn't bothered. Why were people so determined to ignore him—or just forget him?

Draco was on the verge of drifting off that night in bed when a sudden thought occurred to him. There was someone he could ask that wouldn't be curious about where he'd heard such an obscure name. Draco slipped out of bed and into his dressing-gown. He crept downstairs, staying clear of the master suite just in case his parents heard him about.

The manor office wasn't locked. Draco let himself in, and the lamps lit themselves. Grandfather was asleep in his portrait, his chin resting on his chest as he lightly snored.

"Grandfather?" Draco said.

"Hm?" With a deep breath, Grandfather's eyes opened. He blinked down at Draco. "What are you doing out of bed so late?"

"I wanted to come talk to you." Draco rested his bum against the side of the desk. "I miss you, you know."

"Well, at least somebody does."

"Father does too, even if he doesn't say so."

Grandfather grunted. "Did you want to talk to me about anything in particular? I'm afraid that I won't have much to say outside of the manor affairs, or how your father is handling them."

Draco's stomach sunk in preemptive disappointment. "Is that all you talked to your portrait about after it was painted?"

"Yes, pretty much." Grandfather straightened in his seat.

"I don't suppose you ever talked to yourself about your old school friends?"

"Eh?" Grandfather asked. "No, I don't think so."

"Not even Mr Nott?"

"That chap who's come by to say hello a few times? Well, all I reckon I'll know about him is what he's told me. Is it true he's younger than he looks?"

Draco laughed, holding a hand in front of his mouth to keep his volume down. "He's the same age you were."

"I wondered. And I don't suppose he's a world-famous duellist either, is he?"

"No."

"Is he the one you were curious about?"

Draco hesitated. If Grandfather hadn't even told his portrait about Mr Nott, then why would he have mentioned Tom Riddle? Even if he had, would Grandfather's portrait know about the diary and then tell Father that Draco had taken it? Draco started to feel as though maybe he hadn't thought all of this properly through.

"Did you ever talk to your portrait about me?" Draco asked instead.

"Oh, yes." Grandfather's expression softened. "My pride and joy. Your father tells me you were sorted to Slytherin—that the hat hardly had to touch your head to know where to put you. Is that so?"

Quite unsolicited, Draco's eyes blurred. He wished he could go upstairs into his grandfather's chamber and talk to him there instead. "Yes."

"That's a good lad."

It occurred to Draco not too many days later that maybe nobody talked about Tom Riddle because he had betrayed the family somehow.

They had been in with the Dark Lord, after all, and Tom Riddle had been killed by him. Was something like Tom's sixteen-year-old self capable of lying like that? Or did his memories even know they were lying?

Draco had held onto Tom's diary for this long because it was something to remember Grandfather by. He'd gotten it the same day he last saw Grandfather, so he associated it with him. His portrait hanging in the manor office didn't make for a very convenient place for Draco to visit.

He went back and forth on returning it to the drawer in his grandfather's desk, but he just couldn't. Even though Tom wasn't fully real and not alive, it bothered Draco to think about him sitting alone in such a place. Now that Grandfather was gone, did anyone else even know about the diary? Tom could end up spending eternity alone. And who knew? Tom had been interesting to talk to. If Draco could think of anything worth saying to him now, he wouldn't hesitate to open it up again. Tom didn't have a sense of time. It didn't matter if he sat in Grandfather's desk or in Draco's school trunk.

It was that line of reasoning that had Draco packing Tom's diary again for the new term. As excited Draco was to get back into his lessons and see his friends on a more regular basis—and to regain the independence he'd grown accustomed to—he was still a little bummed to hug his mum goodbye on the train platform. Draco gave one to Father too before sweeping off with Crabbe to find everyone else.

Goyle had already boarded with Daphne, and they had found Nott, Blaise, Sophie, and Tracey. Stories about everyone's holidays filled in a lot of the blank space between London and Hogsmeade. A lot overlapped since most of them had crossed paths or had been in contact. Outside of that, Blaise talked about Italy and about his aunts, cousins, grandmother, and great-grandmother, who apparently made the best tiramisu in the world. Tracey's holiday was quiet, spent mostly outside on ice skates, making a fort out of snow, and riding something called a snowmobile. She didn't have any pictures of it, which made it really hard for Draco to visualize such a thing. Sophie's parents had taken her skiing in Switzerland. That, Draco understood.

One thing Draco noticed was that when Blaise wasn't talking, he went quieter than usual—which for him was saying something. Draco caught him looking at him a couple times. Draco kept his gaze on Blaise when Blaise looked away, then raised his eyebrows when Blaise looked at him again. Blaise just shook his head as if they had something to talk about, but they would do so later.

Draco's curiosity gradually increased through the train ride, the feast, and then the slow migration down to the Slytherin common room. Draco headed for the dorm while everyone else settled in to test out the new chess sets they'd received for Christmas. Just as Draco expected, Blaise came in behind him.

"All right?" Draco asked.

Blaise toyed with his hands in front of his stomach and looked to the side. Draco had no idea if that was supposed to mean a yes, no, or what.

"I overheard my mum and Gianmarco talking last night," Blaise said as he came over to Draco's bed. "You told your parents what I said."

For a split second, Draco considered denying it because he couldn't really tell what Blaise thought about that. He hadn't seen Blaise angry yet, so it very possibly might look something like this.

"I asked my mum if yours had said anything to her about being cursed," Draco admitted. "You never said anything about it being a secret, just that you didn't want to talk about it. I was curious."

"It's my life, you know," Blaise said coolly. "It must be nice to be able to just be curious about it. You don't have to live it."

"I didn't mean it like that." Defensiveness rose in Draco's chest, encasing the guilt that similarly manifested. "We're friends, aren't we? I didn't like how sad it made you look. Sorry for caring, I suppose."

"That's not what I meant," Blaise said. "I heard my mum say that your father knows some Unspeakables. He's going to put them into contact, to see about maybe figuring out what exactly is wrong with my mum."

Draco studied Blaise again. "That's good then, isn't it?"

"If they can help, yeah." There was a slight tremble in Blaise's voice before he fell quieter. He looked back at the dorm door. "My mum tried to get help back in Italy, but. . .it just looks bad, how things go around her. It's usually Magical Enforcement that look into it. It was Aurors, last time."

That made Draco's stomach flip uncomfortably. "What happens?"

"Men my mum loves die," Blaise nearly whispered. "All of them. And not just who she marries, even. My uncles, my grandpa and great-grandpa. . .my dad. He's the one it all started with. He died the day I was born."

Draco swallowed, unsure what to say about that.

"Most of them, they can't blame on my mum. I think that's why she's never been properly accused. They could never prove it. And she wasn't always there. Some were accidents."

"So. . ." Draco furrowed his brow. "Your mum doesn't love your stepfather?"

"No, and he's all right with that. She's trying something different this time, and so far it seems to be working." Blaise pulled his bottom lip back between his teeth. "It's been easier for me this time too, since I'll be at school now most of the year. It's not great, you know, not having someone like. . .well, I see what it's like for everyone else and their fathers. It's really, really hard not to be jealous, you know?"

"Yeah." Draco could understand that.

"I want to like Gianmarco. I want it to be safe to." Blaise's eyes shone, which made his gaze wander a bit more thanks to his discomfort. "So I guess I just wanted to say thanks, you know, if your father's able to help do something about it by getting Mamma talking to the right people."

"Well, of course," Draco said. "What's the point of having connections if you don't use them?"

Blaise laughed, a thicker sound than usual. He had to follow it up with a sniffle. His gaze dropped again with sheepishness, then he seemed to steel his resolve. Blaise rushed forward, and Draco's breath was temporarily restricted from how tightly he was squeezed. He pat Blaise on the shoulder, otherwise stunned, before he was released.

"Sorry," Blaise mumbled. "It means a lot, is all."

"We're friends. Aren't we?"

"I reckon so, yeah."

Realizing Blaise wasn't cornering him to confront him had eased Draco into relaxation. To hear him say that pushed Draco toward genuine satisfaction. He liked Blaise, and was relieved that all the fights he'd had with Nott didn't mar Draco in his opinion.

"Brilliant." Draco pinched his cheeks to keep his smile from turning into too big of a grin. "Hey, do you have your chess set?"

"Why, fancy losing a match to me?"