So, craziness, I started this story almost a year ago on a whim due to lack of sleep, and now it's one of my favorites. Funny how things turn out, anyway, enjoy!
Dancia glanced out the window at the passing countryside while reflecting on the fact that this first ride back to London on the Hogwarts Express for the winter hols was much different from Draco's time. Primarily because her eclectic collection of friends and family behaved nothing like Draco's former peers, who were always posturing and politicking all while attempting to suck up to the Malfoy heir.
Also, Pansy, that simpering twit who just, ugh... Dany didn't shudder at the thought of the vapid witch being in close proximity to her but it was a close thing really.
Regardless, this go around had Mia, Padma and Su muttering about some tome the trio were hovering over as they sat cross legged on the floor, Harry and Neville were playing cards while making wild childish boasts between turns, while Susan and Hannah played some crime scene analysis game that Dany was unfamiliar with.
It was chaotic and improper, just the way Dany liked it; not that she would ever admit to such, she did have a perfectly poised pretentious pure-blood princess persona to perpetuate after all.
That act of internal alliteration very nearly made her break out laughing but thankfully she was able to reel it in for the time being, upon further introspection behaving in such a...juvenile manner was almost liberating.
Something to discuss with Dora later.
When the train came to a stop, the group of friends broke up and soon she, Susan and Harry were dragged off by their favorite Head Girl to take the floo home to Malfoy Manor where their parents all awaited them. Upon arrival she and Harry were crushed in hugs and laughter from the Black clan and after many hours of stories and cheerful bantering they finally were released to get some well deserved rest.
Dany would readily admit that while having such an exuberant family was a tad... shall we say, overwhelming? She would take it over the alternative any day of the week.
Waking up on Christmas morning Dancia could not help mulling over how weirdly the magical world handled the holiday they knew as Yule. On one hand, magicals did not appreciate the Christian standpoint of killing all witches for simply existing, because fuck you we have magic while you have no proof your asshole god even exists. Plus you just hijacked Yule and put a new label on it, so well done.
On the other hand, most modern muggles treated the bible like an end user lease agreement, everyone clicks accept, no one actually reads all of the terms of service. So in the end the holiday became a weird nearly incoherent mishmash of traditions that just hurt ones head to try and decipher.
Not that Dancia cared one way or another, she had met Death before and He seemed to like her well enough so what did she have to prove to anyone regardless?
Shrugging that off she hopped off her bed grinning as she went to go wake up Harry, who had managed to convince the Tonks family to let him stay over the night before. Deep introspective thoughts on ones spirituality could wait for another time, now, now was the time for presents.
Harry ended up being in full agreement, and after being gently awoken grabbed her hand was soon sprinting down the stairs, both children cheerfully giggling on their way down.
As it turned out in the end the entire extended family, the Black/Bones, Longbottoms, Tonks, and Malfoys had gathered together for the gift exchange. An exchange which Lord Black enforced that they sing 'O Tannenbaum' to, in proper German by a prank charm no less, before it could begin. As Black pranks went it was a mild one so they all let it slide, and thankfully the moonstone necklaces Dany had gifted the girls, and the rings to the boys were well received.
All in all, it had been a hectic, mind bogglingly erratic gathering, but in the end Dany felt content and at peace, that is, until New Years Eve approached.
Dancia was mindlessly brushing her hair while listening to a French pop station on the radio when her bedroom door opened, glancing over to see Dora she nodded once while the older witch closed said door.
"Cousin, what can I help you with?" Dora glanced around the room a few moments before casting several security charms then leaned against the door frame while she stared at Dany for a few moments.
"You do know you can call me Tonks right? Everyone else at school does," Dany shrugged at that.
"Is that really important at the moment?" Dora huffed at the blase response before shaking her head in resignation.
"No... Look... You said Riddle had done something absolutely idiotic to prolong his life and we really couldn't do anything about it at Hogwarts for now. We're not at Hogwarts and we are soon to be unsupervised as the 'rents are all going to be at the Ministry Ball. So... What can we do?"
Dany stared at her cousin a few moments before nodding slowly, "Ok... I have a plan but... Well... It could get messy, I don't know..."
"All ears little one," Dora stated while Dany stared off into space, eventually she met her gaze while giving her a chagrined smile.
"How would you like to learn how an ICW Operative breaks into a blood bound safe?"
Dora's eyes widened at that, "You were an Operative?"
Dancia grinned at that while nodding slowly, "Oh yes, thirty years in the field before Draco took a goddess damned cursed arrow to the knee. After that he was forced behind a desk and made the Director of Operations for a few years before he retired out of boredom."
She would deny it till her dying day, but Dora was mentally hopping up and down in excitement at this revelation, what future Auror wouldn't at finding out they had access to the magical equivalent of James Bond?
Visibly she just smiled at the white haired witch before her, "Neat, mind throwing me a few pointers?"
Dany shrugged, "Sure, I'll write up a pamphlet later, till then though lets plan out our strategy..."
As the new year approached the adults all went off to do their thing to prepare for the Ministry Ball, Dora agreed to watch over the kids, who didn't really need any watching over, and thus gave the conspiring duo their opening.
After the manic departure of the Lords and Ladies Malfoy, Black, and Longbottom, along with the Tonks who just enjoyed a good party with free drinks, Dora stared down at her collected little cousins.
"Ok, you know the drill, do what you want, don't get caught, and if you do it was Sirius' idea thus his fault, now shove off."
Neville, Harry, Susan, and their gathered friends exchanged glances, grinned, then ran off enmasse.
Dora glanced to Dany who just shrugged lightly in turn.
"Kids, anyway are you ready for this? And...how did you get Harry to run off like that he usually sticks to you like glue?"
Dany shrugged yet again, "Told him we were doing girl stuff, lost all interest and just waved it off. Probably already hooking the Genesis or Nintendo up with Neville at this point."
Dora snorted at that while rolling her eyes, "Boys,"
"Right? Anyway we need to make this quick we've got about a half hour where no one will ask questions on where we've been so lets go."
Nodding she pulled her pixie like cousin to her and they soon apparated to the back patio of Malfoy Manor.
"Goddess I hate that form of travel," Dany muttered as she released a misty breath into the frozen winter winds, Dora just shrugged in reply.
"Better than being tracked by the Ministry, so where are we heading?"
Dancia conceded the point and opened the sliding glass doors leading into her ancestral home, "Daddy's study."
It took them only a couple of minutes to reach the second floor room and Dany couldn't help feeling some...extreme, unrelenting hatred for her grandfather as she stared at a blank spot on the far wall.
Dora was getting a bit uncomfortable at the silence until her cousin finally spoke, "Do you know anything about Abraxas Malfoy?"
"Nope," was Dora's quick response, which Dancia had to huff at.
"Yeah, bastard was good at covering his tracks. Look...daddy he's... He is a flawed man. But...But he loves mum and I. He tries, and credit where it is due yeah? Anyway his dad, grandfather Abraxas, he was a true believer in Riddles movement... Which I had not known at the time. Draco...I fucked up hard... I hadn't realized how vile the man was when I set his portrait up in our manor with the rest of our ancestors.
"Lucius unfortunately hid that bit of our history too well, not that I blame him really. It isn't like he had known that Abraxas was aware that Voldemort had entrusted him with his first Horcrux...that his portrait would eventually warp my poor son's mind with idiotic vitriol over the years... That I would not notice the subtle changes until it was too late to fix things..."
She kept staring at the wall and Dora had to shift to the side to glance down at the now crying little girl, "Oh Scorpius...what would your mother have thought...I'm...so sorry son..."
Shaking her head and ignoring the tears running down her face Dany pulled a vial of her blood from her pocket that she had been collecting over the past week and broke the lid open to stick her finger into the still warm sanguine fluid.
"Time to make sure that never happens again..."
Dora watched her smear symbols across the whitewashed walls, crimson blood shifting to pink as it soaked into the plaster, and eventually Dany pointed at it, muttered "Open," and a segment popped out swinging on a hidden hinge.
Dany grinned as this happened, "Funny fact about blood bound wards, if you have a close enough genetic connection and know the right ritual, they're essentially useless."
Dora could only blink at that, "Then why use them?"
Dany met her cousins gaze evenly while shrugging, "Because most magicals are too fucking stupid to just hit a muggle bank in Chicago to open up an account to store a safety deposit box?"
Reaching inside the revealed opening she grabbed the Diary containing half of Tom Riddles soul and threw it on the ground, grinning manically Dancia Alya Malfoy aimed her wand at it and turned her gaze to her cousin.
"You know why Horcruxes went out of vogue, why no one talked about them, why they were such taboo magic aside from the fact that it meant perverting ones own soul?"
Dora could only shake her head at that question, which Dany had expected.
"Because after getting tired of dealing with Herpo the Foul's bullshit an Italian wizard created a curse designed specifically to disconnect a soul from their body...or an object. Bye bye Tommy, sweet dreams, Avada Kedavra!"
Dany stared at the inert book, soundlessly poking her wand forward, all while becoming incredibly frustrated nothing was happening. Staring at her wand with an exasperated expression she did not quite know how to handle this.
"Oh COME ON! What the hell gives? Why isn't it working?! I've got plenty of hate to call on! The concentration camps! The rapists! The breeding chambers! I have hate for fucking everything so why the hell isn't the killing curse working!?"
Nymphadora Tonks stared at her frustrated little cousin a few moments before approaching her and placing a caring hand on her shoulder, "Dany...you have a lot of hateful memories right? Human depravity, mass murders, cults, all at their worst right?"
The little witch met her gaze evenly as she nodded once, her glacial blue gaze burning with grief as she crossed her arms in defiance, "Yes. I...I remember all the...all the things Draco saw..." A moment later her posture relaxed as she lost focus and muttered, "All of those poor people...I tried..."
Dora pulled her into a hug while lowering her face to the crown of Dany's head, "Sweety...what did you tell me before about Draco's memories?"
She was silent for a time before it finally clicked, "I have no emotional attachment to them anymore..."
Dora nodded at that, "The killing curse, it takes hate, real hate, to pull it off. Draco Malfoy had plenty to call on, but can the little slip of a witch in my arms say she has that kind of hate in her right now?"
Dancia did not like this, she did not like it at all.
This...feeling of powerlessness. This knowledge she couldn't do something because she didn't have the emotional investment in it. It was...disconcerting.
"Fuck."
Dora snorted, "Yeah...lucky you there is someone here who has that kind of hate."
Releasing her little cousin Tonks stared at the Diary and released her Occulamancy barriers, letting her emotions wash over her like a bitter wave.
"Dora, what?"
She turned her now violet gaze to her worried cousin and couldn't help but smile at the small angel staring up at her in concern, "It comes with the territory kiddo. I'm a metamorphmagus, every boy who has ever shown interest in me, who has ever told me they loved me, who wanted to get closer with me, only wanted me because..."
She sniffled a little here as she twirled her wand between her fingers, "Because they wanted me to change myself to their idea of a perfect woman... And you know what little cousin?"
Dany had sidled up to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist as she muttered, "What?"
Dora smirked as her eyes began to glow, "That supplies you with an ample amount of Hatred. Avada Kedavra."
The pulse of emerald light left her wand, struck the book, and exploded a moment later with an unholy scream as a billowing cloud of black smoke faded from the now inert diary. The two witches stared at it a few moments before Dany picked it up threw it back into the safe, and slammed it shut. A few seconds later the blood symbols faded and she grabbed Tonks by the hand dragging her out of the room and back outside, eventually when they passed the wardline Dany apparated them back to the Tonks home where their cousins were blithely playing.
Dragging the near unresponsive older witch to her room Dany pushed her onto her bed, put Dirty Dancing in the VCR, and cuddled up to the woman who had just banished half of Tom Riddles soul to Hell.
"I love you Dora...I don't care what you look like, or what others see, you're a good person, and I'll always see that. Thank you..."
Her cousin didn't respond, other than to wrap an arm around the slight witch to pull her closer. It took well over a half hour for her to eventually say anything, subdued by the light and sound of the television playing before them.
"I didn't like that at all...it felt...so...good...and...and that worries me..."
Dany nodded as she burrowed closer into her side while muttering, "That's because you're a good person Dora... If you weren't worried, you'd be lost..."
At that she finally relaxed a bit, and remained silent for a time before muttering, "I love this movie."
"Me too," Dany replied, and nothing else was ever said about how they had destroyed the Dark Lord's first Horcrux.
Hope you enjoyed, Lily helped me write the first half, the second was insomnia fuel, please review!