I see that there have been a few new followers to this story! Thanks so much for joining me through this tale I am writing! I hope you continue to enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!

In case I haven't mentioned the disclaimer before; all intellectual property and characters of the HP universe belong solely to JKR, and are in no way mine. The OCs are, as is this general plot, but that's it.

Warnings apply (slight misogyny again), but will not be a permanent fixture unless they're significant.

Chapter 37

Sunlight lit the interior of the study in which Lucius Malfoy found himself delicately perched upon his chair. Like he was a bird, poised lightly in preparation of flight. Before him, Tom leaned ominously upon the side of his desk in front of him, reading the letter from his Lady wife once again.

Tom's hazel eyes scanned across the words written in scripting so perfect it could be considered the bar in which to set instruction by. He read them over again once more and he felt his chest grow hot with annoyance and shifted at the sudden change in his temperature absentmindedly. Lucius before him similarly shifted, uncomfortable that his Fellow Lord had, upon being handed the letter, come to stand directly in front of him to read it, rather than seat himself at the desk.

The words, while somewhat explanatory, were completely uninformative and almost no information at all about any goings-on under the House of Gresham. Tom knew both Masters Black and Mora resided at House Gresham already, so why had the letter from Lucius' wife said anything different, he questioned quietly as his fingers found his chin, and massaged his jaw. And the phrasing, he mused, was affectionate and polite.

The Lord glanced downward at the blond seated in front of him, his hands seemingly poised in elegance and comfort atop his knees as he awaited Tom's verdict. Lucius gray eyes betraying none of the nervousness he felt, willing that Tom should somehow read more intelligence within the letter than what it actually contained rather that the banal droning's of the winter weather, and their sons' intellectual interests.

Tom pried his eyes from the letter, and looked silently at Lucius, placing the letter on the desk. For a moment, neither of them spoke until finally Tom broke the silence with a simple question.

"How do you find your wifes' affection, Lucius?" The blond Lord before him looked instantly puzzled, as though this were some manner of riddle.

"I –I beg your pardon?" He managed to stammer out, clearly misinterpreting the meaning and Tom rolled his eyes, giving a little impatient sigh.

"My meaning, Lucius, is how you find your wife's demeanor, not her willingness to inviting you into her chambers." Lucius righted himself and cleared his throat meaningfully as he nodded.

"Indeed, my Lord." At that Tom rolled his head along with his eyes as he looked to the sun shining through the window and mused that it had seemed a long while since he had noticed how warm the light could be. Lucius had continue to sputter a moment as he had collected himself. "I find my wife friendly to her Lord in my requests of her." He managed to explain, leaving out that for her part, she neither spoke nor moved in any way when he approached her, causing him to usually have to handle her a little more forcefully than might be strictly necessary. He cleared his throat again, very lightly and fixed an imaginary wrinkle on his coat.

Tom exhaled sharply and leaned forward just slightly. "Do you find that she enjoys your company, Lucius?" His fellow Lord blinked in surprise at that.

"Company? You mean to speak together?" The look of incredulity across Lucius face held fast and Tom cocked his head in curiosity.

"Of course I mean 'do you speak together'. Lucius, what is your relationship with your wife?" Tom pressed in annoyance, and Lucius seemed to be lost as to what to say.

"I –I" He stammered for a moment, only to be prompted by Tom's hardening inquisitive stare. "My wife is dutiful. She had provided me my heir without complication and sees to it that my House is in order while I conduct my affairs as Lord of my lands." He said in a final huff. Tom drank this all in and considered his words carefully.

"Was your match a love-match, then?" He asked of his fellow, and Lucius finally broke his nervous composure and scoffed.

"Certainly not, sir." He said with confidence. "My wife was a fine lady of a noble House. The great House of Black. As much she was very fortunate to have my suit accepted. As a Lady, her duty is to me and mine, and my Heir. What need has a woman to a love of her own, when she beholden to duty of her Lord and Husband?" He said simply, as though these were a simple and irrefutable fact. The information ingrained into his very being. Tom waved his hand briefly as he spoke.

"So thus, it is not uncommon for a woman to be wed without being in love with her Lord, is this correct?"

In nodding his affirmation, Tom continued and stepped away from the desk and out around to the window. His thoughts whirling with implications from both the present conversation, and many years past. "Do you then, feel any affection for your wife?"

Lucius looked curiously upon his fellow Lord, piqued by the line of questioning now. "I suppose it could be true, for my part. I have no complaints upon my wife; her organization is impeccable, her bloodline pristine. She is not unpleasant to look upon."

Lucius' dispassionate answer was all Tom needed to understand fully what it was that Lucius meant; His wife was merely part of his Houses prosperity, and not a companion joined with for love or joy. From the sound of it as well, it seemed one that he felt no passion for. Tom nodded his understanding, a sign that he had his answer.

"Surely, in time, your own Lady shall be as dutiful as mine has been." Lucius commented offhandedly, causing Tom to jerk his head back to Lucius at the liberty. Their eyes met, and Lucius smiled, waving his hand casually. "You are a noble Lord, sir. You will require and heir at some point." The look he was giving Tom was knowing, and subtly cheeky. Surprisingly, it made Tom's blood begin to boil behind his eyes, and he willed his hands to keep from balling up and smashing them against Lord Malfoy's smug façade of a face.

Instead he diplomatically attempted a grin. "Indeed you are right, Lord Malfoy." He agreed, adding as much congeniality into his tone as he could muster. "Let us hope that I am to find a wife as agreeable as your own."

With Lucius' agreement, Tom retrieved the letter once more from the desk top by summoning it to him. "Now, let us convene once more to decipher your Lady's message."

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It was further into the afternoon than Tom would have preferred when Lucius had finally left. At Tom's insistence, the letter his Lady wife had sent him had been left behind for further consideration.

Irritated still that, prudently, the letter itself contained no specifics about the Household activities outside the tutelage of her son (as well as a brief mention of the other pupils). What he needed was some indication when the blasted hatching of those Dragon worms would occur, and not some sermon of her spawns academic mediocrity.

Tom smoothed out the letter beneath his fingers on top of his desk, and read her words yet again. '….. Which, by my own observations has accomplished so many great feats in such a short time…..'

The Lord closed his eyes in frustration, ruminating over her meaning. Gods damn this infernal and ignorant woman, he admonished silently. Did she know nothing of espionage and subterfuge?!

At that, Tom realized something significant and opened his eyes once more, reading over the Lady's words once more. 'Though we are but guests here to the Gresham House, we find it most comfortable and inviting. The Lady Gresham is most gracious and kind to welcome us so warmly. I find her most agreeable, myself.' His nostrils flared with an unknown emotion as he read on. 'I am proud to report that your son and Heir has had a most rigorous education while warded within the House of Gresham. He has excelled magnificently under the tutelage of his Masters.'

There. Tom's eyes focused plainly on the plural indication. His eyes breezed over the letter once more to confirm that, at no prior point did the Lady flesh out that there was more than one Master in attendance to the students. Yet here, in plain ink, she had confessed to multiple teachers dwelling within the House.

The Lord Gaunt leaned back against his chair and considered the subtle omission. Why leave such a detail out at all? Why weave such a falsehood to her Lord? Surely his own son had written him letters as well that would indicate whom was attending to their tutelage?

The realization dawned on him immediately that Lord Malfoy probably didn't care all that well to pay attention to which Masters were in attendance to his son. Furthermore, he hadn't mentioned anything specific about them at any prior point. Though, why was this the case, and why did it feel to Tom that it bore more examination?

His mind still whirling with ideas and possibilities, he leaned further back into his chair to contemplate, pressing his fingertips together beneath his chin in a steeple, his reverie of though was interrupted with the an intrusive rumbling which shook the ground beneath his castle for a moment. The man signed and sat up straighter at the reminder that just outside his doorstep, a vast and agitated monster lay in wait of the plans he had been meticulously laying.

From his seated vantage point, he could only spy the tops of two red and leathery wings that opened, stretched and folded themselves once again into a new position, which was followed by a sudden and graveling growl.

The Red shifted itself again and produced a trumpeting but low noise, continuing to disturb Tom's contemplation. The Lord groaned as he leaned forward to get a better vantage of what the Dragon was grumbling about to see that it had begun pacing back and forth across the side of the House, its head turned unwaveringly towards the stately dwelling as it turned and paced, turned again and paced. IT chuffed and growled lowly as it did so.

It was clear the Dragon had something bothering it. Largely, the beast spent its days lounging and rumbling from time to time, with the occasion in which it would spread its wings and enjoy some of the sun, casting fire to warm the ground beneath its body. The cold of winter did not reach this far South as much as it did for other noble lands during the winter months, but it did brings frosts and rains often, though the beast seemed unaffected largely by anything around it.

Finally exiting the structure and coming down the long walk to face it, the beast continued its impatient strolling, never losing focus on the man who approached.

You take too long to act, fleshling. It hissed at him admonishingly as he drew nearer. Time is slipping too quickly now. We must ACT. It insisted, annoyance and the buddings of rage rolling from it in waves. Tom was surprised that he could sense the emotional state of the creature so acutely, for he felt his own temper begin to rise in response.

Quelling himself, Tom opened his hands to his sides serenely. "Imbolc has not yet come to pass, Great One. While we know only temperate climates here, the Morvan Roves are so high that air is both scarce and the weather a veritable tempest of ill temperament." The Dragon snarled a roar and rolled its head and shoulders.

LIES! Excuses! How can a worm such as you dare to command me? You are too cautious when you should be fierce and bold. It screamed at him. You play your little games with your meager fleshlings, all the while you yearn and pine for something that will never come to you. Tom flinched at the insult, his hackles raising immediately at what this beast implied about his purposes. Use your magic to lay forth an assault, and you will ride upon me to obliterate our enemies in fire and death! It hissed finally, panting with excitement as the ravages of bloodlust roiled within.

Tom could feel the magic rolling from the Dragon in great waves, tantalizing his senses as he envisioned himself astride in the air, the gale forces hard upon his body, but his magic singing within the fibers of his being as they enacted his glorious plans. It was an intoxicating notion, and the images that flashed behind his eyes were so vivid, that even he felt his mind recoil at the sheer savagery the Dragon wished to commit.

The mage took a steadying breath and brought his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Be but patient yet, Great One." He managed to get out to the vast creature. "Time is still yet on our side, and the hatching not direly imminent. We need the young to be brought to the valley before we act, in true, otherwise we are destined for folly. The chicks will be vulnerable then, as will the riders." The Dragon was not pacified, but continued its brutal stare-down of him as it snarled, and paced twice again as it had, pausing periodically to roll the mage's words around in its mind.

"Remember that it was my magic which freed you, Great One. I would not have released you without having a proper understanding on what to expect with this process." The Dragon stilled immediately at Tom's statement, and lowered its massive and sharply-spiked head downward toward him, narrowing the yellow eyes dangerously at the perceived slight.

Without being able to gauge truly his own vulnerability, Tom hastily continued. "-Without you, though, I will be unable to exact my plan to its fullest, and thus I beg of you your patience. You have waited through uncountable years to get this far and we should expect to act in a matter of moons."

Assuaged but a little in his explanation, the great Dragon turned back to a final lap of walking before it turned its back on the Lord completely, looking over its shoulder to him far down below on the ground.

You test my patience, magic-wielder. It growled finally. If you fail to produce, then make no mistake; I will strike out alone. No force you possess will be able to stop me.

The Lord nodded his understanding and with a final whipping of its great tail, the Red drew in a vast gulp of air to its chest before expelling a blighting burst of air so hot that the fire was nearly invisible. Scorching the ground in an arc it began a circling motion before it nestled down again to the ground.

Bearing witness to the ritual had become a common occurrence with this creature, Tom had found. The evidence of its enjoyment of a warmed place to nest had become evident in the landscape around his Keep in the form of dozens of dragon-sized ovals and circles of burnt ground. The once-green lawn had been burned down in so many places only patches of living foliage remained, like sparse hairs on a crone's chin.

Seeing the beast satisfied for the time, Tom took his leave back to his House to further prepare the spells he had been working out for the coming assault he still had to refine.

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She drew in a long, annoyed breath deep into her belly as she watched the fleshy mage walk away from her, leaving her to her thoughts and the earth she had warmed beneath her scaled and mighty body.

The tiny mage was proving himself to be a thorn in her side, and she grumbled her distaste for his patience and calm. The time to act was now! How could he not see? The sires were guarding their nest and the eggs ripe for plucking; it would be nothing at all to slice through the warm golden scaled bodies and use her own fires to stoke the rest of the incubations. She closed her eyes and let the heat within her rise until her scales glowed with sizzling heat. Her lipless jaw curved upward in glee as she beheld the warm and coppery-sweet scent of Dragon blood in her mind and she squeezed her claws together, their sharp edges scraping.

Her mage was a bit of a fool if he thought he could simply ride her into the mountains of which he spoke and command her power from the crest of her shoulders. She was no war steed, she was war itself. A God among Dragon-kind that would rain down fire from the skies, and burn to the ground any that stood in her path to capturing her prizes.

She rumbled contentedly again as she reached easily inside herself for the bonds that connected her to the mage's magic, and she played with them gently as though she were softly fingering the strings of a harp. Oh, how they would sing for her! She stilled herself carefully, acutely aware of how easily she could give away her secret should she continue to play with the bond that he had created when he broke her from the wards of her prison in the deadlands. It was lucky indeed that he did not understand what he had wrought upon himself when he freed her.

When it was time she would call upon these bonds masterfully, and take his magic for her own. She would rise victorious with her new power, and the light would fade slowly from his eyes as she consumed his power and his flesh. Her yellow eyes glowed hungrily at the thought of the tickling feeling of magic as it would roll over her tongue and into her fiery core.

Riszades raised her massive head, with her crown of spikes, as the queen she would become and took one last appraising look to where the mage had gone to hole up in his flimsy dwelling of pebbles and twigs and she seethed out one last rumble of pernicious and gleeful anticipation.

His blood would be ambrosia, she decided, as she lay her head back down and closed her eyes once again.

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Hope you all enjoyed this! Have you discovered my little secret about the Red yet? ;)