Chapter 20: The Manor

Draco

He rattles the door uselessly. A great swell of anger builds in his chest and then dies in his throat. How could she do this to him? He shouldn't be surprised, given everything that Mother had said in the tea shop before it exploded into chaos. But he is surprised. Even when he was practicing hexes at the inn, he didn't think anything like this would happen. His mother, both his parents, would do anything to protect him. They love him and they'd never risk his safety. He knows this like he knows his own name, like he knows the names of the Malfoy ancestors that came before him. To be wrong about something so innate throws Draco's mind into disarray.

Draco paces back and forth across the room, then rushes back to the door and bangs against it, his fists pounding on the unrelenting oak. He's about to start shouting when the door opens, and Draco takes two sudden steps back, nearly falling over his own feet in his haste.

Lucius Malfoy walks through the door and closes it softly behind him. This is the first time Draco has seen his father since he was sentenced to Azkaban for the events that transpired at the Department of Mysteries. Draco was at the trial, at the Ministry, and he watched his father led away in chains with his chin held high, while his mother's fingers dug into his shoulder.

He looks like a different man, a much older man. Draco recoils, shocked enough to be distracted from his own concerns. Lucius Malfoy has grown thin, his once perfectly-tailored robes hanging loose, his body stooped and angular beneath them. He leans on his walking stick for the first time as if he needs its support. His hair, bound behind his back, has more streaks of silver than blond. His pale eyes are wet, shot with spidery red lines. An old man, weary and weighed down.

"Draco," he says, and his voice has not changed. It remains calm and authoritative. "Your mother tells me you did not want to come home. I told her that cannot possibly be the case."

He looks at his father and he cannot find the words to tell him otherwise.

"Loply!" Lucius snaps, and an old house elf appears at his side.

Her face is weathered, her large ears bobbing as she catches sight of him and breaks into a smile. "Welcome home, Master Draco," she says, and in spite of himself Draco feels something warm and painfully nostalgic at the sight of his familiar elf, here in his own bedroom.

"Dinner," Lucius tells her. "We shall dine here." He looks at Draco. "Get dressed, and then we'll speak at length. There is much to discuss."

"Dinner?" He turns again towards the windows, and can now see the thick streaks of sunlight splayed low across the clouds. The light seeping into his bedroom is thick, deep yellow, on the precipice of darkness. "How long was I asleep? What happened to me?"

"We gave you a sleeping draught Draco, to calm your nerves. You were quite agitated when you first arrived and I didn't want your foolish bellows to fall on the wrong ears."

Draco opens his mouth, but his father holds up one hand to cut him off. "Get dressed. We will speak at length over dinner."

He feels scolded, but he doesn't argue. He goes into his bathroom and splashes water on his face. He looks at his reflection, the same reflection he's seen countless times in this same, gilded mirror. His toothbrush and toiletries are laid out on the counter. His towels are hung next to the deep clawfoot tub. He takes a shaky breath and braces himself on the sink, letting his head fall. What is going to do? What is he going to tell his father? He wonders where Ginny is, and a tingling panic settles in his stomach. He saw her storm into the tea house moments before he was Apparated away. Her wand was drawn. Did she get to safety? Did she alert the Order? Did she know that he was taken against his will, or did she think him a traitor?

He walks out of the bathroom. His father is gone, but a tray of food has already been set out next to ornate window. The rich smell of roast beef permeates the room. He walks up to his own wardrobe, and pulls out a set of robes. It's such a familiar action; his clothing is neatly pressed and arranged in the wardrobe, as it always has been.

He's dressed when his father returns. They sit on antique chairs around the tray of food. Lucius rips off a piece of crusty bread and picks up his fork. He eats in silence. Draco watches him for a long moment, and then he also begins to eat. He chews his food mechanically, swallows without tasting. Finally, he cannot stand the silence. "Father," he says, "Tell me what's been happening. Is the Dark Lord here? At the Manor?"

"No. The Dark Lord has left Britain. He will return, but we do not know when. He comes and goes, Draco. We are, however, not alone."

"There are Death Eaters here? Still?"

Lucius frowns. Something about the way Draco says Death Eaters has made him wary. "Your aunt has been staying with us. Rodolphus is at Lestrange Manor, but she prefers to be here when the Dark Lord comes back. She is a very faithful servant," he adds, eyeing Draco meaningfully.

"Who else? Wormtail?"

"Wormtail is with Severus at Spinner's End. He shall return here when Severus leaves for Hogwarts. He is to be the new Headmaster."

"So Professor Snape is not hiding? Does he not fear repercussions for what he has done?"

Lucius laughs, startling Draco. He pours himself and Draco some of the deep red wine laid out on the tray, and then he sips it slowly, leaning back in the armchair. "It is a new world, son. It may seem dark and perhaps even terrifying now, but we are so close. Can you not see it?"

Draco shakes his head numbly, the wine ignored, his dinner growing cold on the fine dinnerware.

"The Ministry is already under our Lord's control behind the scenes, and it is only a matter of weeks until Scrimgeour is eliminated. Thicknesse is set to replace him as the Minister for Magic. We are already weeding out the blood traitors and the Mudbloods at the Ministry, but once Thicknesse has full authority, we will be able to do so more openly, more effectively."

Draco can feel his face spasm into a frown. "Father, I need to speak plainly," he says, and his voice sounds strange, too thick. "Things have changed for me since we last spoke, since you were sentenced to Azkaban last summer. I...I mean to say I've...I am not a Death Eater any longer."

Lucius' expression does not change. He regards Draco calmly, his voice soft. "You are. You bear the mark, Draco. You are one of us, and you'd do best not to forget it. Not only for own sake, but for the sake of your family."

"I've been living with the Order of the Phoenix. I've changed my mind about the Dark Lord. He is a madman, father."

"Draco-"

"I had many weeks to think it over while I was fixing the vanishing cabinet. I wasn't just afraid, Father. I know what Snape told you, but it wasn't fear that held me back that night. I didn't want to kill Dumbledore. I don't want to kill anyone. I knowingly made my choice, and the Order took me in. I think they would protect you, too. They could hide us, all three of us. We could be safe."

"Enough!" Lucius slams his glass down, and wine sloshes over the rim to speckle the ornate doily that lines the tray. "That is enough," he repeats, quieter now. "Do you believe your father to be a fool?"

"No, I..."

"You have been brainwashed by those damn blood traitors. Did you think we would not recognize Arthur Weasley's owl? That bird has been a laughing stock at the Ministry for years."

Draco sets down his fork. His hand is shaking. "The Weasleys..." he begins, but he can't say the rest. He tries to say Ginny's name, but he's too afraid. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he is genuinely afraid of his father. "I've not been brainwashed," he says instead, and his voice sounds plaintive and weak.

"Listen to me carefully, Draco." Lucius continues as if he had not spoken. "You had been with the Order for nearly a month before you were able to escape right under their noses and meet your mother in that disgusting Muggle establishment. Do you understand?"

Draco doesn't say anything. He doesn't move. His face feels stiff, his expression locked into place. His gaze has fallen somewhere below his father's chin, on his right lapel, unable to meet his eyes. Out of the corner of one eye, he can see the wine continuing to drip down the rim of the glass, the bloodred stain slowly expanding.

"You will grovel before the Dark Lord and you will present him with some useful intelligence that you have gathered during your stay with the blood traitors."

Draco shakes his head. "I didn't...I mean...I don't know anything..."

"Think, Draco! Can you not understand that we are in a very precarious position? If you have something of tangible value to the Dark Lord, he will forgive you. You can come home, Draco!"

"This is what I'm talking about!" Draco stands up, his voice finally rising from the depths of his tight throat. The tray rattles as his knees bang against it. "He is a madman! He might torture me, or kill me. He might kill us all at the drop of a wand, father. I do not understand how you can serve such a man. He is not even fully human...he is..." Draco grimaces, gulps.

Lucius is pale, his eyes dead calm save those spidery red lines. "This is not up for discussion Draco. You will put yourself at the Dark Lord's mercy, and I am confident that he will accept your sincere remorse. In addition to the intelligence which you will provide," he holds up one pale hand to stave off any objections, "We having captured something that may help our case. It may be used to lure the Potter boy here, and if we can give Potter to the Dark Lord, then all will be forgiven."

"What is it? Even Potter won't be stupid enough to endanger himself unless it is truly something of value. The Order wouldn't allow it."

"That is none of your concern for the moment, Draco." He picks up his glass, and takes another sip, looking away from Draco towards the twilit view out of the ornate window. Evening has settled over the Manor's extensive grounds. He sets his fork back on the tray. "I am leaving you here, in the comfort of your bedroom, to think over what I have told you. You are not permitted to leave."

Draco feels the helpless rage again, building like a pressure-cooker in his chest. "You can't lock me in here! This is my home!"

"Perhaps some time in confinement will bring you to your senses!" he hisses. Abruptly he stands. Then, he vanishes with a crack. The door, Draco quickly realizes, is still locked.


Ginny

Ginny is pacing. She has explored every corner of her cell. Wherever she is, it is an old estate, and probably quite large in order to house a dungeon of this size. Malfoy Manor, her mind whispers. No, she tells herself. It could be anywhere. Most Death Eaters are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, old pureblood lines with old money, lots of sprawling estates among them. But none so large as Malfoy Manor.

Ginny runs her hands along the stone, feeling the cool grooves under the pads of her fingers as she paces the perimeter of the cell. There are four sets of shackles inset into the stone wall at regular intervals, rusted-over and disused. There is a toilet in one corner – more of a horrid hole. The ground, the walls, are all made of the same roughly-hewn stone, and there is an iron cell door, locked.

Ginny squints beyond the iron bars, and thinks she sees a narrow staircase leading up to an exit, but in the gloom she can't be certain. She remembers learning about oubliettes History of Magic, deep-dug prisons in the basements of castles or old estates, with only a small trapdoor to escape by. A sense of claustrophobia washes over her, and Ginny clenches her fists, trying not to cry.

Everything is made of shadows, dim outlines. It's impossible to know how long she's been here. She sits back down against the wall, pressing the heel of her hands into her eyes. She feels grimy and hungry. Surely they will send food? They wouldn't leave her here to starve, would they? Wouldn't they?

She's on her feet again, unable to sit still, not until exhaustion fully takes over. She paces back and forth in the thin light, wracking her brain, trying to stay calm. Eventually, by morning, Hermione will realize she has not returned to the Burrow, and she will sound the alarm. The Order will come for her, and then she'll make them find Draco as well. If there's one thing she's sure of, is that he's as much as prisoner as she is.

...

Draco

The tray of food has vanished. His room still reeks of beef and gravy, and it makes his stomach turn. He tries the door again in vain. He walks to the window and rattles the shutters, but they have also been charmed shut. He takes three quick breaths in succession to calm his racing heart, to quell the anger pressing on his chest. Then, he closes his eyes and tries to Apparate. But of course the wards have been adjusted.

"Fuck," he whispers. What is he going to do now? The silent room offers no solutions. He tries the door again, rattles it with all his strength, and then collapses onto his bed and stares up at the green canopy. He lies completely still and watches the room grow dark, the vestiges of twilight seeping away until he can barely see his own hand held in front of eyes.

He hates that he can so easily be contained. A naughty child locked in his room. It's not the first time Father has punished him in this way. The last time, he'd been thirteen, and he'd returned at Christmastime with mediocre grades ("Still trailing the Mudblood, I see..."). Lucius had locked him in his room for two days, telling him to study. He'd had plenty of food, of course, and his toys, his creature comforts, his Quidditch cards. It wasn't a prison cell, but it was utterly humiliating even at thirteen.

After the turmoil of the last school year, after everything it had taken to defy the Dark Lord, to break away from his father's unyielding grip, he's right back where he started. Reduced to a child, powerless.

Draco springs up from his bed, his face set. No. He won't accept this. He had begun to make his own choices, and he isn't about to be pushed backwards.

He runs at the door again and begins to pound on the heavy oak, his hands clenched into white-knuckle fists."Let me out!" he roars. He bangs against the door until his knuckles are red and raw, and his voice is hoarse. He steps away, breathing heavily, brushing the sweaty fringe from his brow, savouring the tingling pain in his hand and the burn in his chest. After a beat of silence, Draco rushes to his armchair where he'd sat with his father a moment ago, and lifts it above his head, running at the window and hurling it forward. It hits the glass with a great bang, but the window does not break.

He picks up the armchair again. He hurls it forward and watches it crash against the glass. Again. It does not break, but he likes the great resounding crash it makes. Someone's bound to hear him, and Father wouldn't want MacNair or the Carrows questioning his sons loyalties. It would interfere with the story he's so carefully crafting for the Dark Lord.

Draco lifts the chair again, high above his head, the wiry muscles in arms protesting, when a house elf appears with a crack. It's Loply, her saucer-eyes even wider than usual. "You mustn't! Master Draco, stop this at once!"

He lowers the armchair, his chest rising and falling. He regards the elf seriously, meets her frantic gaze head-on. "I need to get out of here, Loply. My father has locked me inside, and I need to get out right away."

The elf shakes her head, back and forth so fast its a wonder she doesn't make herself dizzy. "Please, Master Draco. It is nighttime now. You go back to bed. In the morning, Loply will bring breakfast and everything will be just fine."

"Loply," says Draco, a thought occurring to him. He's been trying to figure out what his father has procured, this treasured object that would draw Potter to Malfoy Manor against all reason. There is nothing Potter cares for enough to risk his life, but what if Lucius is not referring to an object. "Loply, am I the only one in the Manor who is locked away like this?"

"What does Master Draco mean?" she asks, her voice growing at once suspicious.

"I mean, am I the only one who was brought to the Manor this afternoon? Did I come alone, or was there somebody else?"

He stares at Loply, and she stares back at him uncertainly. He can see her thoughts racing behind those tennis-sized eyeballs. "I mustn't say," she whispers at last. "Master Lucius would not want me to say."

"But did he forbid you to say? Did he Loply? I am your Master too, you know. Soon, I will be the Master of Malfoy Manor. You must tell me what you know." He tries to stay calm, to avoid shouting or scaring the elf. But it's no good. She gapes at him a moment longer, her great eyes bulging, and then she grabs a bronze replica of a Chudley Cannons beater, and she begins to smash herself over the head with it.

"Shite," Draco groans. He hates house elves sometimes, he really does. "Stop it!" He hisses.

"No," Loply wails, hitting herself in the forehead, and yelping wildly with each thwack. "I must not betray Master Lucius! I must not disobey Master Draco! What is Loply to do!"

He wrestles the bronze statue away, finding the elf surprisingly strong, her little claws refusing to let go. When he's finally flung it across the room, he tries again. "Loply," he says, trying to keep his voice calm. "Someone I care deeply about may be in danger. It's a girl, isn't it? Around my age? With red hair?" The elf pauses long enough for him to kneel down, to grip her bony shoulders, his knuckles still stinging from the pummeling he'd given the door. "Please, Loply. I am trying to do the right thing. You know how bad it's been here lately. You've felt the dark magic in these walls."

Loply nods despite herself, her lip trembling.

Draco tries to channel his inner-Granger. He'd always been taught that houseleves were a weak subspecies, just barely intelligent, unable to do much more than serve their Wizard masters. But Granger had seemed to think these elves were capable of autonomy.

"I need you to help me," he says. "I am asking you to help me. Please."

She stares at him.


Ginny

She's leaning against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chin.

Waiting.

For what?

She feels she might die from the strain of not knowing, from the panic-lined boredom that makes time stand still. When she hears the rusty creak of a door, she's on her feet in seconds. Her eyes have adjusted to the shadows, and the light that frames the figure at the top of the stairwell is near-blinding.

The silhouetted figure clumps down the stairs, light pouring down through the open door behind him. It's MacNair. He walks slowly, and it takes her a moment to recognize that he is injured. He walks with a limp, and he has a gruesome black eye. He's holding a jug of water. "Brought you this, little bint," he says hoarsely as he approaches her cage. "Don't want you dropping dead. At least not before you've worn out your usefulness."

He approaches her cell, and she recoils from the door. He presses his face against the bars. His wand is drawn. "Come here, little girl," he hisses. She feels a slither of magic, and she is jerked forward against the bars. He grabs a handful of her hair with his hand, the other still clutching the water jug. "Such pretty freckles," he says, breathing acrid breath into her face. "And red hair. You must be a firecracker. These redheads, you know they just need a strong hand to keep them in line."

"Stop it," Ginny whispers, hating the sound of her voice. He jerks her against the bars. Her heart pounding in her ears, she feels his tongue move wetly across her face. He runs his tongue from her chin to her cheek, licking the shell of her ear. Panic floods her brain. She tries to jerk away, to flail back, and cries out as he yanks harder on her hair. Pain spikes through her sore scalp.

There's a crack, and an old house-elf appears next to the cell door, startling MacNair. He drops the jug of water and it crashes loudly against the stone.

He releases his hold on Ginny's hair, and she stumbles backwards, barely catching herself. "Clean this up, you stupid creature!" He bellows at the elf.

"You are not my Master. You are not to hurt the prisoner until Harry Potter arrives!" the elf shrieks.

"I ain't supposed to kill her. Nobody said 'nothing about knockin' her around a bit. See what she did to me?" He points to his bruised eye.

The elf is about to retort, when the harsh spill of light from above is blocked again, and another silhouette begins to descend the narrow staircase. Three pairs of eyes look up to see who it is.

MacNair is first to recognize the tall figure, his robes billowing out behind him to block the light as he descends. "Snape," he grunts. "Didn't know you were coming today. Does Malfoy know you're here?"

"Of course he knows," Snape drawls, and Ginny releases a sharp breath at the familiar voice of the Potions Master. "This is still his home. The girl is under his watch, MacNair. We wouldn't want you doing anything rash to jeopardize Lucius' trump card."

The bald man's lip curls back. "I already told the elf. I'll leave the girl in one piece. There'll be plenty left for Potter."

"The Dark Lord may be returning at any moment," Snape says calmly, his lank hair covering his face. Ginny can't see his eyes, and he doesn't spare a glance at her direction. In spite of everything that's happened, the Astronomy Tower and the death of the Headmaster, she can't help the small, instinctive feeling of relief at having him here.

MacNair shifts his weight off his injured leg. "I'm not worried about the Dark Lord, Snape. I've always been a faithful servant."

"You mustn't hurt the prisoner!" Loply screeches from the corner, startling both men who'd forgotten her presence entirely. "Master Draco forbids it! Master Draco cares deeply for the prisoner!"

MacNair begins to laugh, and Snape says something else that Ginny doesn't hear because a strange sound catches her attention. The door to her cell is creaking on its hinges, swaying lightly from side to side. It's open. Ginny pushes it gently aside. She slips through it.

Then, she runs.