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Chapter Twenty-Seven—The Breaking

"What is it?" Harry muttered as the house-elf dragged him out of sleep. He sat up and stared at an elf he'd never seen before, and his hand was immediately on his wand.

"Oh, pardon me, Master Harry," the elf gushed, bobbing his head and bowing in a way that reminded Harry painfully of Dobby. "Tizzy is sorry, is sorry! But I is Malfoy elf, and I be warning you that Master and Mistress Malfoy be waiting outside the wards."

Harry firmed his lips. He had supposed they were probably due for some sort of other confrontation with the Malfoys, but he hadn't thought they would find the Potter house. He wondered if they had forced Abraxas to confess somehow.

He rolled over to wake up Tom, only to find his eyes open. Then again, Harry supposed, Tizzy hadn't tried to be quiet. "The Malfoys are here," Harry said. "Do you have any an idea of the best way to handle them?"

Tom lay still for a moment, then nodded. "Although I am more concerned with who betrayed our location," he said, as he stood and began to pull on his shirt. Harry watched in regret for a second as his chest was covered up, then shook his head and stood up to get dressed himself.

"I don't like it, either," he said. "But maybe they forced Abraxas to tell."

"It does make sense that it came from him somehow," Tom agreed in a neutral tone as he snatched up his wand and turned towards the bedroom door. The darkness was brilliant with the blue light from the gem on Harry's forehead, as usual. "I find it hard to believe that most of the others would have told the Malfoys, of all people."

Harry caught up with him and made sure that he had his own wand tightly in hand as they paced to the outer edge of the wards. "Tell me that you're not planning to punish Abraxas for being abused."

"We don't know that. And his own weakness could have betrayed much more than simply the location of this Potter House."

Harry nodded. "But if he was forced, and he's still loyal to us, then I want you to punish him with words."

"Not avoid punishment at all?"

"He worships you," Harry muttered, remembering the look on Abraxas's face as he'd knelt at Tom's feet last evening. "He wouldn't want to avoid punishment completely, because that would make him feel like he would never be trusted again." He scowled. "And I hate that I know that, and I hate that it's true and this is all so weird."

Tom laughed at him and leaned forwards to kiss him on the mouth for a second. "You understand me and you're willing to come with me along the path, Harry. That's all I can ask for."

"You understand why I hate knowing that, though?"

"I understand, but I think it's misguided," Tom murmured, and let the backs of his knuckles brush against Harry's shirt for a second before he turned towards the front door.

Harry sighed and followed.

Martina and Claudius Malfoy hadn't changed much since the last time Tom had seen them, when they were ordering him out of their house. And they certainly hadn't changed their attitude. "I wanted you to leave my son's life," Martina hissed, the moment Tom stepped beyond the wards.

Harry's silent presence behind him comforted Tom in a way that made him answer calmly. Otherwise, this woman was so like his own mother that he didn't think he could have. "I wanted to leave your life, not your son's."

"We have rights to him that you do not." Claudius planted himself with his fists on his hips and his frown so prominent that Tom thought for a second it would spread around his face and slice the top of his head off. "You will stop corrupting him, filth."

"No," Tom said pleasantly.

It seemed that, even though they'd wanted the chance to yell at him personally, the Malfoys really had thought that he would stop "corrupting" Abraxas, and gaped at him in silence. Martina was the first one who recovered. "You are to do as you are told!"

"You aren't my parents." And Tom intended to offer Abraxas a place in the Potter house if he wanted it. He had never realized before how hard the elder Malfoys must be to live with, mostly because he had only visited the house when they weren't there.

"How did you make Abraxas tell you about Tom and that we were here?" Harry interrupted, his voice quiet. Tom glanced at him but could tell little from his face. The jewel on the diadem was throbbing regularly, however.

"He bragged to us about his connection to this filth," Claudius snapped. Tom was beginning to wonder if he knew any other insult. "And it was simple enough to reach into his mind and rip the filth's location out while he was thinking that."

"You used offensive Legilimency on him?" Tom stared at the man. "You don't realize that you could have damaged his mind?"

"The good of the family comes before the good of any individual member," recited Martina, in a saying that Tom had heard before from pure-blood families. Never the Gaunts, of course. They would have placed the purity of their blood before anything, but they didn't have a concept of the common good. "If you were a pure-blood instead of the filth you are, you would know that."

"You could still have cracked his mind." Tom could feel his magic boiling up underneath the surface of his skin in a way he had felt only once before, when someone had beaten a Muggleborn Knight almost to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One consequence of their vows was that he was connected back to his Knights, as well, and if they got into trouble outside of battle or a risk they had chosen to take, he would be compelled to fight for them.

Harry shot him a warning glance, but Tom utterly ignored him. He could not put this aside, and he was unsure that Harry would have wanted him to even if he could.

"We can always have another child," Claudius Malfoy said, with a sneer. "That's another thing filth like you doesn't understand—"

Tom lunged forwards at the same moment as Harry stopped him. He didn't do it with his body. Instead, the diadem flared and projected a wall of blue light in front of them. Tom crashed against it, feeling no pain as the light bent around him instead of bursting, but unable to break through.

"It seems that your husband has a bit of proper pride, then," Claudius said with a sneer, flicking one hand as if he wanted to dismiss Tom completely, and turning to Harry. "It's good to see that a proper Potter could…"

His voice trailed off. As Tom finally woke from his haze of rage to turn back to Harry, he found himself staring. Harry's eyes were furiously bright, and the air around him sparked with blue fire coming from the diadem.

"I don't think my husband should have to waste his time touching fools like you," Harry said, an edge of Parseltongue to his words. "But that doesn't mean I think any better of you. Fools. Diseased, inbred freaks."

Martina and Claudius stared. As far as Tom knew, they would never have been insulted like that. They probably couldn't think of any response, Tom thought, and something hot and delighted pounded in him, making him sneer at the Malfoys and draw back from the wall.

Harry glanced at him, and the wall disappeared. Then he nodded and faced the Malfoys again. "You ought to know that you'll never be able to touch my husband or me. And we're going to remove Abraxas from your control. Good luck on your efforts to have a child one half as intelligent or loyal."

"You cannot remove Abraxas from our control." Distantly, Tom wasn't surprised that Martina had recovered before her husband did. She sneered at Harry and flipped her hair behind her shoulders. "If you did, he would cease to be a Malfoy. He would lose all right to inherit the money and properties when we die—"

"Even if he challenged his father and you to a duel and won?"

There was a long silence. Tom was aware that some of his Knights had appeared behind them and fanned out to surround them in a silent half-circle, but he didn't really worry about it. His attention was on Harry, and the steps he had advanced towards the Malfoys, ones that a stalking leopard couldn't have bettered. Harry continued to stand in the middle of that shining corona of power from the diadem and stare down the Malfoys with utter indifference.

"How did you know about that?" Martina whispered. "No one outside the family knows about that."

Tom glanced at Harry and saw that he wore a nasty smile that probably meant he had acquired the knowledge in another world. "It doesn't matter how I know. I just know. When he wins a duel against you—a duel held in front of witnesses and with that chosen prize—then he will assume control of the Malfoy vaults and properties."

"We would have to agree to such a thing," Claudius blustered.

Harry laughed. "No, you don't. Abraxas is the one who has to agree, and then all of you are bound by the rules."

Martina and Claudius stared at him, but neither said a word to contradict him. Tom smiled slowly. However Harry had learned that in the other worlds he'd lived in, it was apparently something the Malfoys did know, but had hoped that no one else would.

"And I insist that this take place tomorrow, on the grounds of this house," said a ringing voice from behind Claudius. Abraxas limped into view, his eyes clear and blazing. Tom let out a slow breath at the evidence that he hadn't been damaged by his father's careless Legilimency.

"Son," Martina began, turning towards him.

"No." Abraxas's hand was shaking as he lifted it, but the finger he pointed at his parents was steady. "You can't fool me with that nonsense about how you value me as the heir to the family anymore. Any illusion I had that you cherished me just got ripped apart. Almost along with my mind."

Claudius swallowed. "If you'd let me in and not resisted me, then this wouldn't have happened," he muttered, but he sounded unsure.

"Resisting is what you taught me to do whenever someone tried to read my thoughts, Father." Abraxas tucked his arms against himself, his eyes still wildly alive. "And I am no longer going to give in when you threaten me, just because you threaten me. I'll take the duel option that Harry was talking about."

"You're on a first-name basis with this filth?"

"Oh, shut up, Mother," Abraxas snapped, barely looking at her. "And find a different insult. That one's getting repetitive."

Martina's face was white. Tom wondered idly if she'd thought that Abraxas would never resent them for what they'd done, or if they had counted on the training they'd given him to keep him quiet and obedient.

"Surely you shouldn't be doing this right now," she said, turning away from Tom and Harry as if she couldn't bear to look at them. "Since you have some other large enemy to fight—or something of the kind."

Abraxas laughed nastily. "You don't even pay enough attention to me to know that, Mother. Don't let me keep you. We'll meet here tomorrow at noon." He leaned forwards. "I claim the right of the Malfoy family to challenge both you and Father."

The air around him swirled a brilliant white, and there was a clanging noise as if someone had drawn a sword. Tom smiled. Martina and Claudius both staggered back and put their hands on either side of their heads.

"Son," whispered Claudius.

"No," Abraxas said, shaking his head. "Frankly, you don't have the right to call me anything at this point, and I'm disgusted that you keep trying to do so." He turned and left without another word, Apparating when he reached the edge of the wards around Harry's property.

Tom glanced at the Malfoys and watched in interest as their mouths and shoulders sagged. "Maybe you shouldn't have done that," he told them, mostly uninterested, and then turned and tugged Harry towards the house.

"He can't be loyal to you if you don't exist!" shouted Martina. "Reducto!"

Another shield was in between them long before the curse could hit. Tom was able to turn around, subduing his natural reaction to hearing an offensive spell cast at him, and shake his head as he watched it shatter on the wall of blue light Harry had raised. "You would try a solution like that? Instead of honorably waiting for the duel? Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Martina stared at him, probably more upset about the words than about her curse failing, Tom thought. "You are filth."

"Your son told you to get a new insult, and I think that's an excellent idea," Tom said, making sure that his voice was utterly bored. "Harry, shall we go inside and think about our efforts to combat our other enemies until tomorrow?"

Harry smiled and glanced at Martina and Claudius, who had paled at the implication that they were only two of several enemies. "Of course. I hope that we'll see you surrender before Abraxas breaks you." He nodded to the two Malfoys and then walked over and held the door open for Tom.

Tom sauntered after him, not looking back at the Malfoys even though he really wanted to. Some exits were better without that kind of thing.

Harry opened his eyes in seconds, and sighed to himself. He was getting tired of being woken out of a sound sleep by Malfoys at their wards. But he supposed Abraxas might have come back to seek some kind of reassurance; it was only six hours before his duel with his parents at noon.

Then he realized that the blue light from the diadem had formed a shape in front of him, and that it had a dark cloak but not the pale hair of the Malfoys. And a second later, he recognized it.

"What is she doing here?"

Harry glanced at Tom. "You didn't really think that fire in the Black library would have killed my great-aunt, did you?"

"Your great-aunt only in the strictest sense of the word. And I didn't think. I hoped. An unforgivable luxury, I'm sure you agree."

Tom's tone was acidic enough it could have etched steel. Harry turned his head and kissed him gently. "We still have to go there and find out what she wants."

"And find out who betrayed our secret this time."

Harry shook his head. "I don't know that anyone did. Given the way that Potter heritage apparently transfers between worlds, the wards here could have responded to her marriage the way they did to my blood." He stood up and drew his shirt over his head. The light from the diadem remained steady, which Harry took some comfort in. He had to believe that it might have flared and danced had Dorea meant them harm.

Not that he would say that, for certain, since Tom would probably react irrationally. Harry waited for Tom to finish dressing, and left the room.

Shara caught up with them in the corridor, yawning but with her wand in hand. "Some other intruder we have to fight?"

"I don't know about fighting. It's my Great-Aunt Dorea."

Shara bit her lip and nodded, and then fell into step behind them as Harry led them to the door. He opened it, and Tom crowded up next to his shoulder and looked as if he might reach out. Harry shook his head sharply. Dorea was still beyond the wards, and until she made some overly hostile movement, Harry didn't see the sense in attacking her.

Of course, until she made some overtly friendly movement, beyond the wards was also where she would stay.

When the door opened, Dorea turned to face them. Her cheeks were pale, but she stood straight and threw her shoulders back when she saw them.

"Harry, I'm glad that you're safe," she said. "And my kinswoman as well." She completely ignored Tom. Harry decided to ignore that.

"What happened in the library, Great-Aunt Dorea?"

Dorea sighed. "I managed to save some of the books, but not all of them. And Dumbledore tried to question me."

"What did he learn from you?" Tom's voice was as sharp a hiss as it could get without Parseltongue.

"I said he tried to question me," Dorea said sharply. "Not that he succeeded." She focused solely on Harry now. "I am a Black by heritage, no matter what the world, and we were in the middle of a Black house. He could not break into my mind."

Harry rubbed his forehead, although he had to take his hand down again when the diadem's jewel irritated his fingers. "So what do you want now, Great-Aunt Dorea?"

"I can tell you something important about the plans that Dumbledore is formulating to take you down." Dorea folded her arms. "Or are you going to insist on keeping me outside the wards for ridiculous reasons?"