A/N: If you're all like me, this time of global chaos is causing you to lean on simpler times, times when you knew everything would be all right in the end. During one of the darkest periods in my life, I leaned heavily on Harry Potter and on fanfiction, including this series. For years now, I have been working on this novel and not sharing it because I haven't even begun the novel that comes between And Then There Were Nine and this one and because I had begun rewrites of the first three books in this series which I still have not finished.
I can't pull that missing novel for you out of thin air, but maybe I can do some small thing by releasing what I have of this one out into the world.
What you should know:
This series I begun in the time between the publication of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, though I have gone back to retcon in some of the canon that we learned in the last three books. It includes Death Eaters Don't Cry, Tapestries Tear, and And Then There Were Nine. Those three cover the span of September 1995-the summer of 1996. This one begins in the summer of '97. In rereading some of those earlier novels… there are phrases that I regret using and some of the writing itself is just rough. For what I didn't know then, I apologize. The missing novel would have been—no, will be a rewrite of the sixth book from the perspective of my broken and rehabilitated Draco. It will be Draco building upon the friendships that he's begun with Harry, the Weasleys, Alana, and the rest of the Gryffindors. Because this Draco couldn't be the one to try to kill Dumbledore, I plan on shifting that burden onto Blaise Zabini.
I want to say too: I own nothing. The larger points of this novel are J. K. Rowling's. Please, fanfiction .net, let me do this for the community. Let me share this.
This novel isn't done either. I've a few later scenes that are as yet unconnected. I may continue to edit what I post. But I hope that it can be some distraction to you in these trying times, something new (though I don't promise an uplifting read; you all know what sort of school year this was at Hogwarts and for the wider wizarding world).
EVERYTHING BREAKS DOWN
CHAPTER ONE
Ginny, grinning, fell into a seat beside Draco, crumpling the gold taffeta of her gown. She had already lost several pins from her curls so that her hair now fell around her flushed face. "Some party, isn't it? Is that butterbeer?"
"You want some?"
Ginny smiled at him, grabbed his tankard, and took a long draught.
Draco stared then quickly looked away as his father's disapproving frown appeared in his mind and Draco had to try to suppress the mirror of his father's expression on his own face. He stammered instead, "Well, that wasn't exactly what I—"
"That's better," Ginny grinned, handing him the tankard, in which she'd left only a few swallows.
"Glad it helped," Draco said, pushing the tankard aside. "Who was that boy?"
"Oh, I came to you because I thought you wouldn't ask about dance partners."
Draco didn't relent.
"French cousin of Fleur's. He didn't speak much English. Good-looking though." Ginny looked thoughtfully across the swirl of skirts and dress robes to where the dark-haired French boy was now conferring with an olive-skinned girl.
"Probably he's getting the same treatment," Draco grinned.
Ginny grinned back. "Why aren't you dancing? I'd think some of Fleur's veela cousins would be pretty and graceful enough even for you. I've seen some of them eyeing you."
Draco looked at her flatly. "I don't want any part-veela cousin clinging to me, thank you."
"Ah, there's the pompous Draco I hated."
"I just meant—" he stammered. "Alana. I don't want them because Alana wouldn't like—"
"Oh so you do want them!" Ginny broke into squealing, girlish giggles.
Draco frowned at her, then looked at the nearest cluster of the blonde veela-like girls. One of them noticed him and nudged the girl whom Draco was assessing, the one of whom he had the clearest view. They all broke into giggles, and the girl tried to beckon him over with a crooked finger, but Draco turned back to Ginny, trying to smother a smirk. "No. I don't think I would, were I unattached, like a veela-girl. She looks too like my mother."
"High praise for your mother."
"And low praise for the girl."
"So dance with someone else, then. Someone plain-looking. You can't sit here all night."
"I think I can make a pretty good go at sitting here all night."
"Draco, that brooding arrogance is a great way to attract girls, but what good will it ever do you if you don't talk to any of them?"
"I'm happily attached. And I am talking. I'm just not dancing."
"You should dance." Ginny scanned the crowds again. "What about Luna? She's free."
Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw from Ginny's and Alana's year, had a corner of the dance floor to herself. Draco thought that her fluttering hands, raised above her head and just at eye-level for most of the adult wizards, had probably done more to frighten away the crowd from her than her loud, yellow sundress, but the sundress might have been enough; it almost burned his retinas, watching her twirl.
"With reason. Ginny, you tell me to go dance with a plain-looking girl and stick on Looney Lovegood?"
"Don't call her that," Ginny snapped. "She's really nice. I bet you'd like her."
"I don't know if my slow climb to the realm of social acceptability can sustain such a blow as dancing with Luna Lovegood, Ginny."
"You're dreadful. I don't know if your poor social status can sustain such a stain of cruelty either. Go dance with her, Draco Malfoy. It'll do you good."
"I don't see how."
"You'll be doing something nice for someone else—one of Alana's friends, mind you. Probably you'll make her night if you give her even one dance. And I bet you'll have fun doing it too. You like dancing, don't you? And I bet Luna'll make you laugh if you let her. Bet that's something your butterbeer didn't do."
"If someone hadn't finished it…. Or maybe if I had another—"
"I don't think so." Ginny stood up and tugged at Draco's arm till he got out of his chair. "You're going to dance." She shoved Draco towards Luna.
Draco glared at Ginny then took the last few steps alone, unassisted towards the spinning, garishly yellow-clad Luna Lovegood.
"Ah, Luna?" he said hesitantly.
Luna's eyes snapped open onto him, wide and oddly silver. "Oh, hello."
"Hello. Luna, would you like to dance?" Draco extended his hand toward her, bowing formally.
"Oh! Dance with you, you mean?"
"Yes."
Luna took his hand, and Draco's training stepped in, his body falling into rhythm and into frame as he had been taught so many years ago to do when his partners had been Pansy Parkinson and Natalie Macnair, girls his parents had been considering for his future wife. He and Luna maneuvered towards the crowd. Luna was surprisingly willing to follow his lead as they went into a waltz.
Ginny's giggle broke the spell of the music, and he looked away from Luna briefly to spare the redhead one last glare.
"Ginny is very nice," Luna said. "She asked you to dance with me. She must have noticed that no one else had asked me though there are many boys here."
Draco faltered, losing his footing for a moment, as he stared at Luna. She was smiling at him—or maybe past him. Her expression seemed oddly moony as she swayed in his arms, offbeat when his lead had failed. "A lot of them don't speak English. They—they wouldn't be able to ask you." But Ginny had just finished dancing with one of those French-speaking boys. "And you—you looked like you were having fun by yourself."
"I was. In a way. But it is nice to be asked. I've never danced like this. What kind of dance is it?"
"Waltz," Draco mumbled. "So you're in Ravenclaw?" he asked, trying to steer Luna into safer, less awkward waters.
"Yes. And you're in Slytherin. You don't sit with them very often though."
"No, well, my girlfriend's in Gryffindor."
"Alana. Yes. She's very nice, too."
"Yeah, she is." Talking about another girl on the dance floor. There were rules against this…. Perhaps he didn't remember quite as much from his lessons as he had thought….
"Though lately she spends much more time with you than with me—or anyone else actually."
"Oh…." This wasn't making him laugh. This was making his stomach flip with guilt. "Sorry."
"Ooh." Luna broke away from him to watch the progress of a flash of silver that cut through the weaving couples. As Draco watched, it reached the center of the floor and resolved into a lynx.
The Patronus opened its mouth and said in Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice, "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
The atmosphere of the party changed in outward ripples from where the lynx dissipated. Draco reached for his wand. "Luna," he said, turning on the spot, "you've got to get out of here." Where would they come from? Who would arrive first? "Find your father and—" For once, Ron Weasley did not stand out in a crowd—now, when Draco would have liked to have been able to find him. He probably, he realized, wouldn't recognize Harry. Hermione— He looked for a flash of lilac.
All around him people were fleeing, Disapparating. He grabbed Luna's hand.
"Protego!"
He looked around. The chorused voices had sounded like Tonk's and Lupin's, but he saw instead several cloaked, masked figures who had just Apparated into the midst of the crowd.
"Luna!"
Xenophilius Lovegood was trying to push his way around the back of the fleeing crowd, as jets of light began to fly, red and gold and white but not, as far as Draco could see, any lethal green. Xenophilius caught Luna's other hand, and Draco let her go as Xenophilius pulled them both away, spinning, and Disapparated on the spot.
Now the Weasleys. Draco tried to make his way across the crowd. A jet of red light made a small crater in the golden dance floor just behind his foot, but he kept running, pushing people out of the way, darting figures who fled or fought. He shot the occasional Shield Charm to his left or right, following the example of his cousin and his ex-Defense professor. He didn't know where they were either, whether they had gotten away. Tonks was pregnant. She had to get away.
People were being shuffled into tight little groups. Bright beams of white were roping them together. Anti-Disapparation Jinxes. What would become of those who couldn't escape?
Suddenly a hand shot out and caught Draco by the back of the shirt. He was pulled backward. Another Stunner narrowly avoided him, shooting over his head as he fell backward into George Weasely's arms. Fred was beside him. Both were crouched beside a table and were shooting Stunners and Shield Charms at the Death Eaters. Draco stared, and they returned the look solemnly.
"Where—" Draco began.
Then the three of them were caught in an Anti-Disapparation ring of their own. It pressed their arms against their sides. Draco looked around for the caster, only to see a masked Death Eater darting away.
"Coward!" he called. "Get back here!"
"Draco!" George chided.
"There!" Fred called.
Both George and Draco turned to look. Mrs. Weasley had been caught trying to help Great-Aunt Muriel get away. The old woman had not been quick enough, and she, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Ginny, and Elphias Doge had been caught by another spell.
Fred swore loudly, but over the continued scuffles, the pops of Disapparaters who only just made it, screams of people being caught, Draco could hardly hear it. His eyes were still searching the crowd, not quite daring to ask aloud the question that burned inside of him, the one that he was sure that the Death Eaters had been sent to ask.
"Ron?" he tried instead, hoping the twins would understand. "Hermione?"
"They were dancing together," George answered. "And..." George seemed reluctant to utter the name too.
"I don't know," Fred muttered, biting his lip. "You think that's why—"
"I do. Why else? They've no reason to ruin a wedding."
Draco's gaze followed the sound of a girl's petrified sobs, and he spotted Gabrielle Delacour together with her parents and Bill and Fleur. A Death Eater was bearing down upon them, and the girl was babbling in French.
"Fleur, Fleur, que se produit? Qui sont? Que veulent?"
Her mother shushed her, still dazzlingly beautiful despite the stress of their situation.
Draco looked around. Everyone who remained was now bound. There seemed to be no fewer than eight Death Eaters there. He returned his attention to the Delacours, Bill, and Fleur, as the Death Eater in front of them spoke. "Well, well," he said, and the familiarity of his voice made Draco shudder.
He ignored Fred and George's questions. They were answered the next second anyway as Draco's father pulled off his mask. "Draco, that's—" Fred began with a gasp, but he shut up as Lucius Malfoy spoke again.
"My congratulations," he sneered, looking into Bill's heavily scarred face.
Bill remained silent, glaring.
"Such a pretty young bride," Lucius continued, transferring his cold gaze to Fleur, who bristled. "I admit I was surprised to hear that she deigned to have you still, Weasley, after your, ah—accident with Fenrir Greyback."
" 'Ow dare you!" Fleur spat. " 'Ow dare you come to our wedding! 'Ow dare you—"
The spell that Lucius shot at her went off with a bang and sent her head careening sideways. Fred started angrily forward and very nearly unbalanced all three of them, before giving up the attempt as another Death Eater closed in on them, wand raised.
They just caught the end of Bill's low snarl, "—dare touch my wife, you—"
Draco's father spoke over him, turning around to address all the captives gathered beneath the now torn marquee. At the sight of his face, still composed, still haughty, still remorseless, fury lanced through Draco. His fists balled by his sides. The wand, still clamped in his hand, grew warm and sent sparks at his, Fred's, and George's feet. George and Fred let out short cries of alarm, as they danced away.
"We have reason to believe," Lucius Malfoy called, "that a known fugitive attended this party: Harry Potter."
"Harry's not a fugitive," Draco found himself shouting back.
His father's eyes found him and narrowed dangerously. "The Minister has just declared him so."
"The Dark Lord, you mean!"
His father's eyes widened with a flash of flame, and Draco was struck with the same spell that Lucius had earlier used on Fleur. He was held upright by the spell that bound him to Fred and George and quickly regained his footing; this spell was not new to him, and the use of it only acted as a billows to the fury that was already licking through his veins.
"Unless someone volunteers his whereabouts now, you will each be interviewed individually, until we have the information we need."
"Listen here, young man," came Aunt Muriel's creaking voice. "I'm an old woman, and I won't stand here forever. I'm one hundred seven years old, you know. So take this information and get away from my great-nephew's party: Harry Potter was not here. I was looking forward to seeing him myself, but—"
"Wasn't—"
Draco smirked to see the flicker of doubt pass over his father's marble face and, for the first time since he had met her, liked Muriel.
"No," his father shouted, recovering. "Harry Potter was here. And if he was not, then surely someone here knows where he is hidden." His icy stare traveled around the huddles of bound captives.
Draco followed his gaze, jumping when he spotted familiar faces, Order members. Lupin and Tonks had been caught with several Weasley relatives and an old man with a tuft of white hair on his dark, heavily lined face. Perkins he might have been called. Mrs. Diggory was standing stony-faced beside her husband, who seemed to be quaking, sweat shining on his bald pate. Draco frowned. After what they had gone through, losing their son, they shouldn't have to endure this. He smiled to see, though, that Hagrid was absent, and Draco guessed him responsible for the two unconscious Death Eaters, one of whom had a broken arm. A third was looking after them. More uplifting still, he didn't see Ron, Hermione, or Harry. They had gotten away, gone off to do... whatever they planned to do.
"No one?" his father called over the crowd. Draco just heard his hissed, "Fine. You!" Lucius pointed to a Ministry official, and another. "You too. Get up to the house. Search it. Search every room, every—" he smirked "—cupboard. And feel in the corners. He might be in that damned invisibility cloak." The two officials nodded and hurried off down the hill.
"They won't find anything," Draco just heard Mr. Weasley say to his wife before—
"Travers!" Lucius barked.
Travers came forward eagerly, still masked.
"We'll take the girl first," Lucius said, his eyes fixed on the still-sobbing Gabrielle.
"She doesn't speak English," Draco volunteered.
His father turned on the spot, glaring at him a moment before rounding on Gabrielle. "Is it true? Tu parles anglais?"
"Je ne parle pas. Je ne comprend pas. S'il vous plaît, Monsieur."
"Où est Harry Potter?" Lucius snarled at her, sneering.
"Je ne sais pas. Pas ici. S'il vous plaît, libére-nous. Je n'ai pas vu 'Arry."
Lucius growled and turned away. "Bad job," he muttered to Travers. "She says she doesn't know," he added.
"Think we should refresh her memory?" Travers asked, twirling his wand.
Lucius frowned. "I only remember so much of my French, and I doubt Potter knows any. She won't know anything." He looked around. "But there are others." His gaze, Draco saw with a flash of horror, landed on Ginny, who glared back at him, her chin raised and eyes burning. "I know you," Lucius smiled. "Weasley's girl. We've met."
"Like hell we have!"
Mrs. Weasley didn't even chide her, though her face paled noticeably.
It was Aunt Muriel who screeched, "Ginevra! Such a mouth! Why I should have thought—"
Ginny cut over her, still glaring. "Have another of You-Know-Who's schoolbooks to give me?"
Draco's eyes flew to his father. "The Dark Lord's schoolbooks? What does Ginny—"
Fred shushed him.
"Take her," Lucius said to Travers. "We'll see if we can't loosen that stiff lip of hers."
The Anti-Disapparation jinx wavered as Travers reached through. Mrs. Weasley tried to dart forward as Travers' hands closed on Ginny's arm, but as soon as he had tugged Ginny through the spell, the rope solidified again, and Mrs. Weasley was trapped with her family and Doge.
"Don't—don't hurt her!"
"We've got to do—" Fred muttered, staring. "They can't take—"
Draco shushed him. "We've got no chance. You know that."
"Then talk, Weasley," Lucius sneered, pausing beside Mrs. Weasley as Travers marched Ginny away toward the Burrow. "Tell us where Potter is."
Mrs. Weasley looked at her husband, who stared back, stony-faced. "I—I—don't know," Mrs. Weasley confessed. "They wouldn't say. He wouldn't tell us where—"
"Fine. We'll see if you remember later."
He swept after Travers and Ginny.
"Father!" The shout broke from Draco before he could stopper it. He knew the plea would do nothing.
Lucius' eyes swung round to find him and narrowed. "You'll get your turn too, boy," he promised.
"The Burrow," Draco muttered, watching him cross the lawn. "They—they can't possibly—" He looked to Fred and George. "Aren't there spells? Anything to protect the family inside the house?"
Neither twin knew.
Ginny's screams perhaps a minute later answered. Mrs. Weasley tried to run toward her, but a bang stopped her, and her husband caught her, holding her upright. Muriel was grumbling about being tossed about, and her beady eyes seemed to be sweeping the crowd for someone to complain to.
"She'll be all right," George was muttering, mostly to himself, his eyes wide, staring down the hill. "She's tough—Ginny."
Draco said nothing but bit his lip, looking toward the crooked tower of the house as well. Would they really have to endure this for every guest? He knew with Ginny it might be hardest, but...
Draco saw the movement by the house first. He tried to move closer to see, and Fred and George noticed too.
"Where is she?" George wanted to know. "Can you see her?"
"There!" Draco said, though he couldn't point. "She's between them."
"Conscious?"
Draco stared, narrowing his eyes to try to see clearer. "I don't know..."
Ginny half walked, was half dragged back onto the shattered dance floor. She was tossed on the floor in the center, and two wizards—one unmasked and from the Ministry, Draco guessed, maybe even an Auror—came forward immediately to guard her with wands. "Did she—" the masked Death Eater muttered to Travers, who shook his head stiffly, his eyes scanning the crowd, perhaps for a weak link.
Ginny bent forward but sat rather than lay on the floor. Her eyelids drooped. Blood oozed from a new wound on her head, tangling in her red hair. "Someone should look to her," Draco muttered.
Ginny looked up then. She saw Draco and her brothers and smiled just a little.
"Start questioning the others," Lucius called to one of the waiting Death Eaters, who nodded and started toward the wizard that Draco thought was called Perkins.
"Good girl," Fred murmured.
Draco tried to smile back at Ginny, but—
"There!"
Travers reached out at Lucius' command and snatched Arthur Weasley next. Mrs. Weasley let out a wail that Lucius answered with a sneer.
"Bastard!" Draco spat as Arthur was dragged down the hill, the two Death Eaters on either side of him. To Fred's and George's glances, he answered, "He's trying to soften up your mother. She'll be the last he questions."
"Oh Mum," George breathed.
"He knows," Fred said beneath his breath. "He knows who might know if anyone does."
"Hush!" Draco snarled. Ginny's guards were not far from them.
The screams were longer in coming this time but were all the more horrible because of that. What had the Death Eaters said to him beforehand? What had provoked them to use curses at last?
Arthur was thrown down beside his daughter and wasted no time in wrapping her in a tight hug and looking back toward his wife. But Lucius and Travers took Bill next, Fleur screaming her protests and abuse.
When Bill came back, he told his father and Ginny, in a loud voice so all would hear, "They found Ron. But he's all right. Apart from the Spattergroit, of course."
If Draco breathed one sigh of relief, it quickly died. Draco's chest tightened to watch Madame Delacour, whom they took next, being led down the hill, straight-backed, cool, and confident. The Delacours knew that Harry had been at the Burrow, knew that he had been at the wedding, but they did not know him—not really—and owed him no real loyalty. They were not Order members. The Death Eaters probably didn't realize it, but Draco was sure that if anyone there would tell them about Harry... But Madame Delacour came back, and she was followed by her husband, who looked deflated in his fear and took his wife's hand upon arriving beside her with a bump, and then Lucius and Travers rounded on George. The Delacours had not told.
Draco tried to raise his wand as the Anti-Disapparation Jinx wavered, as Travers reached in to take George's arm, but he was not fast enough. His father caught his eyes, flinty and hard and cruel.
Draco stared back, furious. "This is completely pointless," he told him. "No one here will talk. Why don't you just go back to him and—"
"We have our orders. Unlike you, we follow them, and for that we might see the end of this war."
Draco had not seen his father up close in a long time, not since he had been sent to Azkaban, not since he had been released. He stared. His skin was grayer, almost waxen. His hair did not shine as it once had, though he had trimmed it to look almost as kempt as it once had been. He could do nothing for the tightness of his thin lips, nothing for the deepened hollows around his eyes, the gray shadows into which they sank. He could not hide that lingering fear. The overall impression was of a weakened man, fighting to regain what could not be found. Draco had to fight the twist of pity by reminding himself of what his father was doing even now to try to find himself again—or was it horror that tightened Draco's chest?
"He won't kill me," Draco called, as Travers jerked George in front of him, and the three of them started off. "You know that as well as I do." But Draco was forced to stand there, waiting, bound to Fred, who became the next victim as George was added to the growing pile of questioned guests, his hat askew to reveal the rim of the crater in his head.
This time, as Travers reached forward, Lucius struck Draco with a quick curse that kept him from reacting, that kept him rigid and dumb as Fred was taken too. He could not even turn around to watch until they were halfway down the hill.
"Draco?" George, ashen, prompted when Fred's screams left another echoing silence.
"I can't see him yet. No. Wait. There." Draco had to bite back a grin. "He's all right. He's still fighting them. Oh. No. That was an Impediment Curse, I'm almost sure."
Draco expected to be next, but with a glare, the Death Eaters bypassed him to steal Fleur from her sister. She did not seem quite as composed as her mother. Less veela blood, Draco thought, as he watched her being led away. Her screams were not as unearthly as her mother's had been but still pierced the heart deeply, terribly. Bill had to be cursed twice to keep him on the ground, within the widening ring of guards. Draco wanted to move to help, but she was soon back. The Death Eaters seemed unable to bear her screams long either, though her wedding dress bore a new tear at its hem.
Draco looked around. The knots of wizards and witches all around had dwindled. Only Tonks and Lupin remained of their knot, the others having been let go—the Death Eaters were apparently only holding the Weasleys and those staying with them after they were questioned. Draco was glad. No one should have to endure this—all this.
Fleur was replaced by Lupin, who slunk quietly away as Tonks howled. She's pregnant, Draco thought suddenly. She might not show yet, but— He looked around, wondering if any of the Death Eaters, of the Ministry members could be persuaded to let her go.
Lupin looked, when he returned, Draco thought, as he had looked when he returned to class after the full moon—wan and worn, exhausted, with cuts across his face. He was not, though, tossed into the center with the Weasleys.
"Get out of here, wolf," Draco heard Travers spit.
"You still have my wife," Lupin pointed out with a coolness that Draco had to admire.
Travers' eyes darted to Tonks, who was straining to try and hear their conversation.
"You want us to take her next, then?" Travers said with false civility.
"I'd rather you didn't," Lupin said, "but I really doubt I can stop you, can I?"
" 'Fraid not, wolf." Travers did not wait for Lucius' say-so as he moved towards Tonks.
Draco watched her nervously as she passed with her escorts. He had heard that a mother's protective instincts were beyond anything, had seen some proof of that in Mrs. Weasley, who, he saw as he looked across the dance floor at her, looked drained and white already, as exhausted as Lupin; his father's plan was working. He wondered what Tonks would do to protect her new child. Would she attack Travers? Or his father? To kill? Or would she tell everything that she knew?
She returned though, as did both Death Eaters. Lupin exchanged a look with Mr. Weasley, still inside the ring of Death Eaters and Ministry officials. Mr. Weasley nodded, looking grim, and Lupin took Tonks' arm and Disapparated with her.
It was only Mrs. Weasley and Draco now, and Draco tensed, sure he would be next. But Travers and his father passed him.
"What? You're—you're taking Mrs. Weasley?"
His father paused and turned eyes cold and gray as a winter storm upon him. "Our orders are to interview everyone. Did you think that that meant everyone but her?"
"I—I thought she'd be last," Draco breathed. The Anti-Disapparation Jinx was really very tight about him, pressing his hands into his sides, containing his hammering heart.
His father's lip curled in a sneer. "You won't speak to me, boy. I'll not get anything but abuse from your tongue, will I? So, when we're done with Weasley, if she doesn't tell, I'm going to call someone who can make you talk. So," he sneered, shoving Mrs. Weasley forward, "last chance, Weasley, to keep this between us. Do you remember yet?"
He left Draco hanging in the jinx. "Not—" he breathed, but nobody but George heard, and he only looked baffled and worried. Fred nudged him, they conferred a moment in whispers, then both looked toward Draco, who could only return their confusion, the flickers of fear with his own.
Draco strained his gaze toward the Burrow, watching, waiting, and every minute that passed, breathing seemed more difficult. He felt as if he were drowning, darkness closing in over his head and overwhelming him internally as well. He felt as if he looked up to see the sun slipping away as he sank deeper. His struggles had only tired him, and now he could barely stir feeble, waterlogged limbs. The surface, the light would be unreachable soon.
Mrs. Weasley's hair was mussed. There was a gash on her arm. Her face and lips were white. She returned with Travers alone, who threw Mrs. Weasley to her family, and as they pressed around her, turned to look at Draco. "I'm to take you to him," he said.
Fred and George and Ginny all turned to glance at Draco too, and he felt the weight of their stares as he tried to steady his legs beneath himself so that when the jinx was lifted—
Travers reached through the ring and caught his arm. He jerked him through, and the jinx collapsed on itself, tightening its circle, but finding nothing to hold. Draco was too tired to think of running, to even make more than the most feeble attempts to throw Travers' hand from his arm. His whole body felt numb, and his fingers trembled, his legs shook. He looked, as he was led away, back at the Weasleys, at the Delacours, at the guards that stood around them. All of them stared back.
The walk to the Burrow seemed far longer than usual—longer even than when he had had to limp from the orchard on a broken ankle with only George's broomstick for support. His father was waiting at the backdoor, looking horridly out of place. He was sneering as he watched Draco and Travers approach.
"He is waiting."
His father pushed open the door and, taking Draco's arm, pulled him across the dark kitchen and into the living room; Travers followed behind them.
The Dark Lord was there, sitting in Mr. Weasley's chair by the hearth. He had set a low-burning fire in the grate that lit his skull-like face from beneath. He had drawn the curtains on the wide window.
His father tossed Draco, trembling, at the Dark Lord's feet, and both Death Eaters sank into bows with murmurs of, "My lord."
The Dark Lord's red eyes swept over his servants. "Leave us. Go back to your prisoners," he said.
Draco was staring up into his face—could not help himself. Fear pounded through his veins, forced by a heart that didn't want to stay in his chest. From his fear, from the adrenaline, came a tensile strength. Enough, he thought—or hoped, to get him through this interview. He heard the Death Eaters retreat but did not watch them as the Dark Lord did. Then the backdoor swung shut behind them, and Draco was alone with him.
For several long minutes there were no sounds but the thudding of Draco's heart and the crackle of the fire.
Then the Dark Lord said quietly, smoothly, "Let there be no pretending between us, Draco. You will tell me everything I want to know."
"I will n—"
"I am Minister now," the Dark Lord said so quietly that Draco would have thought that he had been musing to himself except that his glare seared the skin of Draco's face like acid and made him shiver. "I shall run Hogwarts within a week. There will not be much fight now in the professors with their hero dead. It is you, Draco, against the might of four of the most powerful institutions in the wizarding world: the Ministry, Hogwarts, my Death Eaters," he grinned, his red eyes gleaming, "and me.
"You should know too," the Dark Lord continued, "that I already have a lead on Potter's whereabouts. This is merely a chance for you all to repent of your past defiance—to save yourselves."
"What—" Draco swallowed and began again, "What do you mean you have a lead?"
"I have a lead. He is being followed. When you and I are through, I will return to Rowle and Dolohov, and they will have Potter—and will have killed anyone with him."
"No."
"Yes," the Dark Lord smiled, "I think so."
"Call it off," Draco said. "Tell them to bring them alive at least."
"Now is not the time for leniency, Draco. The wizarding world must see what happens to those who defy Lord Voldemort."
Draco flinched.
"You admit, then," the Dark Lord wondered, "that there are some with him."
Draco dropped his gaze. "I—I don't know. I didn't see him go."
The Dark Lord bent down, and his long finger touched Draco's chin. With the lightest push, he lifted his face so that their eyes met.
"He was here at the wedding," Draco sighed, knowing that the Dark Lord could steal the answers from his mind if he didn't give them, fearing that the Dark Lord would read too much in his thoughts, fearing the pain of the mental invasion. "But in disguise. Few knew. He left, I think, when your Death Eaters started coming. We all knew what was happening. We'd been waiting for this."
"You expected my Death Eaters to show up at the party?" A smile twisted the Dark Lord's long face. "It would have been so much simpler to send an invitation, Draco."
"No. We've been waiting for you to try and take the Ministry. Dumbledore thought you would try."
"And tonight I have succeeded."
"And tonight you have succeeded," Draco agreed.
"And as a congratulatory gift, you are being more pliant than usual," the Dark Lord guessed.
"I know I can't beg for Potter's life," Draco muttered. "But the others—the Weasleys. They've been a family to me. More of a family than I've ever had."
"You have me."
"You weren't there." The spat, frustrated accusation surprised Draco himself, but he couldn't stopper it. "For fifteen years, you weren't there. How can you even ask me—"
"Because I made you, Draco. I made all your potential. You can be no one else's."
Draco shook his head. "The world is filled with stories of monsters defying their makers."
"I suppose so," the Dark Lord agreed. "I always assumed those makers were just weak, weaker than what they had made. The strong should rebel against the weak. But you, Draco, are not stronger than me."
"I'm not," Draco agreed.
"Where is Potter now? Where will he have gone?
"I don't know," Draco pled. "He wouldn't say where he was going or what he was going to do, only that he had to go, that there was something he had to do."
"Guess."
"I'd guess whatever it is it has to do with fighting you."
"A futile and lethal fight. We are coming towards the inevitable end, and it is his end. What can one boy do against me and all my strength after all?" He smiled at Draco, including him in the object of his question, sharing with him the absurdity of any answer except silence, except "nothing." "So you will do what I ask." It was not a question. "The time has come now, Draco, for you to take your place."
Draco bit his lip. He hesitated. "Spare them," Draco said, meeting the red eyes, willing him to comply. "Spare my family—my friends."
"I cannot make promises, Draco. You've fallen in with a group of wizards who have always defied me in the past. If they do so again... I cannot have them in my way."
"Just—just don't kill them, that's all I ask—all I can ask, I know."
"You would allow me to imprison them? To hurt them?"
Draco bit his lip.
The Dark Lord smiled slowly. He began issuing his orders, lazily, too used to his position of power. "I need you, Draco, at Hogwarts. All wizards will be required to attend—all pureblood wizards. I shall weed out the others, the Mudbloods, those unworthy to study magic. You will be my Head Boy. The wizarding world should grow used to following your orders, to your authority."
"But I don't want—"
"You will learn to shoulder your responsibility and power, Draco. You will learn to use your authority. Consider it a trial run for your future position. Schooling," he smiled at the pun, "for you and for them, somewhere where I can better guard you, monitor your progress."
"And correct me."
"Mold you, yes."
"Punish me."
"Only if you make it necessary. You know what I require. Do as I ask, and there'll be no need for punishment."
"So," Draco said, taking slow breaths through his teeth, trying to steady his still nervous heart, "you want me to enforce all your rules, all the changes you make at Hogwarts."
The Dark Lord smiled.
"Even if I disagree with them?"
"Even if you disagree with them."
"And if I refuse?"
The Dark Lord smiled again, raised his white hands in a light shrug. "You could. But it wouldn't help you. Nor would it help your friends. There would be little you could do for them, Draco, while chained to a cell in Azkaban, feeding the dementors your thoughts of them. I could take you there now if you chose." The Dark Lord flashed a grin like a scimitar.
Draco shivered thinking of Stygian cold, the damp air, the darkness, and the screams of prisoners driven half-mad by their own worst thoughts. "What—what do I have to say to get out of this?"
"There's nothing you can say, Draco. There's no question of your compliance. You will do as I say or suffer. You will do as I say or I know whom to make suffer to win your compliance. You've made yourself too plain. You've made yourself weak. And if I cannot prevent that weakness from manifesting in you then my only option is to make that weakness work, to learn to navigate around your imperfections or throw out the whole—and I know you don't want me to do that."
"I've courted death before," he reminded, but he didn't want to now. He looked away, trying to hide his fear, his sorrow at the idea now of his life cut short. He wanted only the bravado of his words to show.
But there was no hiding. Not from him. "Say it, Draco. Say you consent to be my envoy. Tell me you are mine."
"My—my lord, I—"
"Say it."
"Yes." His stomach twisted. He was nearly sick from the taste of the word.
The Dark Lord hissed in satisfaction.
The real contract, Draco knew, was already burnt into his flesh, indelible. He could fight it for a time, but he had never once been free. All he did now was accept his fate.
"Then, can—can I go?"
"Yes, I think so," the Dark Lord agreed.
Draco levered himself onto his feet, though his legs still quaked. His breathing was shallow, ragged.
"You can go," the Dark Lord continued. "And so can my Death Eaters." He reached out with his finger to brush Draco's chin again, smiling. "You have told me all I need to know."
Draco looked away. What were the Weasleys going to say? And where was Harry? What had happened to him? Had Rowle and Dolohov really found him? What of Ron and Hermione?
"You will order them off the premises, Draco. I will not give the order. Go to them, and tell them that I have given you your authority and that they are to leave. From now on, you answer to me, and my Death Eaters answer to you. If they refuse to obey, send them to me. And when you bring the Weasleys to their home, enter first yourself."
"What— Will I— Will you take me with you?"
The Dark Lord considered him. "Do you wish me to?"
"No, I want to stay here."
"Then, stay here. But you will hear from me shortly. I will have a badge for you."
Draco looked down at his feet in their battered, secondhand trainers.
"Go, Draco. Do as I ask, and take your place."
Draco bobbed a nod that he hoped would pass as a bow, turned, and tried not to appear as if he were hurrying from the room. He didn't know if he succeeded. The sun on his face, the cool breeze were too welcome, though the brightness of the day made him blink after the dimness of the living room.
He had expected the climb to the orchard to be short, alone as he was, but he looked up at a cluster of robed figures that seemed always farther away than he thought that they should be. He felt lightheaded, colder than he ought to be. He closed his arms around himself as he tried to gather his thoughts, tried to compose some speech that the Death Eaters might hear, some apology that the Weasleys might accept.
It was almost a relief to see his father walking towards him, his grey eyes narrowed and calculating. He was a distraction as Draco's heart jumped toward his throat. Draco had to swallow it down, looking up into his father's frowning face, as they stopped, facing one another.
"Well?"
The words would choke him, Draco was sure. He couldn't possibly do this—didn't really want to do this. "He sent me." The words sounded distant to him, as if he were hearing his own recorded voice over a wireless. "You can leave."
His father bit back a scoff. "We can leave?" he repeated, managing to look merely skeptical rather than incredulous.
Draco clenched his fists by his sides. His nails bit into the skin, sent jolts of tension through his arms, straightening his back, lifting his head. "Leave," he said again. "Leave the Weasleys alone. Go."
His father only laughed again, and the paper mask of authority that Draco had tried on fell off his face, fluttered to the neatly trimmed grass. His gaze followed it down, till he saw the shining toes of his father's black dress shoes. He bit his lip as his stomach lurched, remembering his own reflection in the toes of those shoes, the fire and aches of a recently lifted Cruciatus.
"Where's the Dark Lord? Lucius, what—"
Travers had come forward. Draco lifted his eyes, peeked from behind his fringe to see him standing at his father's shoulder, peering curiously back at Draco.
"Leave," Draco said, forcing his neck back, his head feeling too heavy as he stared at Travers. "He says to leave."
Travers' eyes narrowed. For a moment Draco thought that he would refuse, but then he turned and stalked away, shouting orders that Draco didn't hear through the relief that sounded in his ears like the sough of the sea along the narrow tidal beach below Malfoy Manor.
"If you're lying to us, boy—"
"You gave me to him," Draco reminded, the words tasting bitter in his mouth. "You gave me to him, and you knew this is what would happen—I'm almost sure you did. You knew he'd use me—that he'd send me as his messenger—ambassador—that he'd make me—"
"Enough."
Draco looked up. His father had rarely looked so sour.
"You never wanted me." The words escaped Draco on a soft breath, hardly spoken, hardly admitted.
The answer that he received was solid and cold. "I didn't. I wanted only a ladder to climb, not a son. You are neither to me."
His father dropped into a mock bow as Draco stood, mouth hanging open, fingers unfurled as every muscle surrendered to shock and horror. "My young lord," his father mumbled, and then he too turned and followed Travers, disappearing, as Travers and the others had, into thin air with an almost inaudible pop.
Draco shut his eyes as his knees gave out, as he bent over, his head heavy, the world spinning wildly beneath and around him, so that he could hardly tell for a moment earth from sky.
"Draco."
The voice wavered, quiet, by his ear, and a warm weight pressed on his bent back, holding him to the ground, steadying him. He was not surprised when he looked up and saw Mrs. Weasley kneeling in front of him on the grass in her new robes.
He opened his mouth, but all that escaped was a small moan, and he buried his face in his hands.
"What happened?"
Draco removed his hands, looked up into her dark eyes, eyes not too dissimilar from Alana's. "He's still inside. He's waiting for me. Are they gone?"
"The Death Eaters are gone," Mr. Weasley confirmed, standing behind his wife. "All of them."
Draco nodded. Mrs. Weasley was stroking his hair. Behind her, the others gathered around: Ginny, Fred, George, Bill, Fleur, even Mr. and Mrs. Delacour, and Gabrielle.
"Zey left when you told zem to," Madame Delacour said in her throaty voice.
Draco didn't want to tell them, didn't want to admit—not in front of all of these people. But he had to—had to— "Harry," he rasped. "Harry—Ron—Hermione—"
"Shhh..." Mrs. Weasley cooed. "Don't—"
"No. They— I don't know if they're all right—"
"None of us are all right," Mr. Weasley pointed out.
"But—"
"Draco—"
"I told him," he bawled. "There was nothing I could do. Legilimency." The word left him like vomit. "He would have used Legilimency if I didn't, and I didn't want— I couldn't let him. It hurts so— And I thought maybe if I told him, I could hide more from him than if he just— And he said he already had a lead. I don't know if it's true or if he said it just to— But if he does—if it's true—"
Mrs. Weasley dragged him toward her, pressed him against her chest, muffling his babble till he stopped. "It's all right," she was saying above him. "It's all right."
"I didn't know much, but I told him what I knew, and I agreed to work for him," Draco moaned, truly hoping that no one but Mrs. Weasley would hear that last. "He's going for Hogwarts next. He's going to make me Head Boy."
"He won't get Hogwarts from McGonagall." Fred, Draco thought. "The professors'll fight."
"He thinks he can. He's sure he can."
"Well," George said, "he's been wrong before, hasn't he?"
Draco gave a hiccough of assent.
"I hope they don't fight," Mr. Weasley muttered to Bill. "If we lose Minerva too, and Filius, Pomona..."
Ginny knelt down beside Draco. Her hand closed on his. She felt so like Alana, though her perfume was wrong, sweeter, too strong. He let his hand close over hers. "What will he do," Ginny asked, "when you go back to him? What happens now?"
"Nothing. Nothing yet. He's letting me stay."
The breezes suddenly passed through the nearby tree branches or the crowd around him all let out a breath.
"Come on, then," Mrs. Weasley said, taking his other hand and, with Ginny's help, pulling him to his feet, though his legs still seemed like jelly beneath him and shook. "A nice cup of tea is what you need. It's what we all need."
"Well," Fred reasoned, "it's something we could do with that's actually accessible, anyway."
But they all started to move down the hill, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley on either side of Draco and the others around him like a guard. In that moment, he couldn't have told them what it meant that they were around him, that they had not abandoned him as they had every right to do, that they were leading him home.
xxx
"Wait here."
"Draco, I don't think—"
"He told me to go in alone first. I'll come back. I'll come for you."
He darted through the backdoor before Mrs. Weasley could protest any further. He hurried across the kitchen so that his eyes had only just adjusted to the dimness of the Burrow when he reached the living room. He blinked and saw the Dark Lord, standing now, his red eyes already upon Draco.
"Did they do as you asked?"
Draco nodded.
The lipless mouth turned up in the effigy of a smile. He glided forward and caught Draco beneath the chin, lifting his head. "Well done, my son."
Draco said nothing, fought the frown that wanted to bend his straight mouth.
For several minutes, the Dark Lord said nothing either but looked down at Draco, a fly caught in his web, considering. "I will send you your badge soon," he said after some length of time, his fingers slipping out from beneath Draco's chin, letting him go slowly.
Go, Draco thought. Please. You promised. You said you'd leave.
"I am proud of you."
The words caught Draco in the chest, in the stomach, a painful tightening that momentarily cut off his breath in a gasp, but before he could say a word, before he could do anything more, the Dark Lord was gone, as silently, as gracefully as a ghost through the floor.
Draco stood staring at the spot where he had been for some time, the darkness around him warm, almost comforting after the brilliance of the sunlight. Did the Dark Lord know what it meant to Draco to hear those words spoken—by him—by anyone? He tried to remember whether he had ever heard them before. Certainly not from his father—not even from his mother. He didn't think it had ever been a spoken sentiment either from Dumbledore, from the Weasleys—
The Weasleys.
Still reeling, his head light, his consciousness floating somewhere nearby, he turned and crossed the living room, crossed the kitchen. He pulled open the rickety backdoor.
Mrs. Weasley fell upon him immediately, throwing her arms around him again. Draco's arms came up around her out of habit, it seemed.
"Is he—"
"Yes," Draco said to Fred's question.
"Good," George said.
"Come on." Ginny grabbed her mother's arm and slowly prised her off Draco, leading her across the threshold and into one of the chairs at the scrubbed kitchen table. Bill had the kettle on before she was settled. George had lit several candles.
Everyone slowly began to find seats around the table, and Draco was left standing by the door.
Mr. Weasley was by the living room, looking out over it with an expression that suggested that the furniture had grown moldy.
"Well—" Fred looked toward Bill, who had his arm around his new wife, still in her bridal gown, and the Delacours around them. "It's not how I would have ended a wedding."