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Sorry this is so long in coming. Hopefully updates will be more frequent from here on.

Slings and Arrows 4

Hours later, hours after the storm had died down and the rain that lashed the park had faded to a grey endless drizzle, he began to wake up. He was freezing, curled in a sodden huddle on one of the marble benches surrounding the ancient carp pond. Must've run all the way out here last night. Damn.

Draco sat up, shivering, and all the things he'd seen and understood in the Oak Room came flooding back to him. For a moment he could almost believe it had been a particularly awful nightmare, but the fresh wounds on his back were already itching with the beginning of the healing process, and he knew Narcissa had really been there in his room, and really told him all she had told him.

He felt lousy. Granted, he often felt lousy these days, but not generally like this: shivery and weak, with slow flushes of chill and heat dripping through him. The wet heaviness of his velvet dressing gown felt like frozen concrete. I should get inside. Warm up. He felt as if he'd never be really warm again.

Heaving himself to his feet and beginning to walk back to the house he had fled in the storm, Draco turned over the more salient points of the previous night in his head. One: Lucius is my uncle and not my father. Two: my father was murdered by Lucius. Three: my mother jumped out of Julius's bed and straight into his murderer's barely before the ink on the death certificate was dry. He shivered violently. God, Mother, how could you? How could you?

But she said he wasn't like this. Not really. Not back then.

The sick, spinning feeling of betrayal rose in him again, and for a moment he thought he might actually vomit. He had always vaguely loved his mother; she had been cold and distant, but she had never been cruel to him, not cruel as Lucius had always been. Now the word whore rose in his mind as he thought of her, and he shut his eyes for a long moment.

And how the hell am I supposed to keep this from Lucius? It's going to be harder than ever to look at him without cringing. When I thought he was my father, I could hate him in a different way; now I can only hate him and hide it. He would kill me and Mother in a heartbeat if he knew I knew his secret.

Why did I have to find any of this out? It would have been...better...if I'd never known.

He reached the house and hurried up the back stairs. No idea what time it was; he'd only have to hope he wasn't late for lessons, because another beating on top of last night's was something he didn't feel he could deal with. Back in his room, he hurriedly changed into dry clothes and toweled his hair to mere dampness, but couldn't stop shivering; the chills seemed to be getting worse. He was lucky on the time, though: he was not yet late for breakfast.

After combing the hair back in the public-school style Lucius favoured and making an effort to rub some colour into his cheeks, he made his way down to the dining room, paused before opening the door, and made himself go inside.

Lucius was sitting in his customary place at the head of the table, Daily Prophet raised. As Draco sat down and silently let the maid serve him tea, Lucius lowered the paper just enough to regard him over the edge, his silver eyes unreadable. Draco manufactured an expression of innocent unconcern. "Good morning, Father," he said.

Lucius didn't stop staring at him. "I trust last night's lesson proved instructive," he said coldly. "You must improve your manners, Draco. I was extremely disappointed in you."

"Yes, sir," said Draco, shivering. "I'm sorry, sir. I won't disappoint you again."

"See that you don't." The Daily Prophet rose again, cutting off the piercing silver gaze, and Draco let himself slump a little, shaking his head as the maid offered him scrambled eggs and sausages. He took a piece of dry toast and bit into it without hunger, wondering where Narcissa was, and if Lucius had done anything to her after exercising his whipping muscles on him the night before.

He still had no idea how he was going to survive the next month. It would be bad enough when he was back at Hogwarts, trying to pretend to everyone that nothing had happened, but a whole month of living under Lucius's roof—of speaking courteously to his father's murderer and obeying his every whim—seemed an utter impossibility. God only knew how many more Death Eater soirees he would have to survive...

And that was another thing, Draco thought, swallowing with a wince; Lucius the Bloody Uncle was grooming him to become a Death Eater, and he could think of absolutely no way, save jumping out of a fourth-floor window, that he could escape it. Before last night's revelations, the prospect of becoming a Death Eater had been repulsive; now it was unthinkable. Perhaps I could run away, he thought wildly, and a moment later dismissed the thought. It's not as if I'm difficult to recognize, and Voldemort's people would be more than happy to report my whereabouts to Lucius so that he could come and retrieve me...and then I very much doubt there would be anything other than Crucio and Imperius in my future. Perhaps Imperius would be an improvement; at least I'd know I didn't have any choice...

He shivered again, suddenly freezing despite the fire that crackled in the vast marble hearth, and put down the piece of toast. If only there were someone I could talk to, he thought. Not that they could give me any advice—I doubt anyone could give me any advice that would be useful—but at least I wouldn't have to bear it all alone.

At the head of the table, Lucius had apparently finished reading the Prophet, and set it aside, rising from his chair. He was wearing particularly complicated robes today, with slashes of velvet down the sleeves; they looked vaguely professorial. "Come, Draco. It is time to begin the day's lessons. I trust you have studied the spells I assigned?"

"Yes, sir," he said dully, getting up. He hadn't, but then again it wasn't particularly difficult magic; he'd always been quick on the uptake. Perhaps there was a chance he could get through the morning without making too many mistakes.

A small voice spoke up inside him as they went through into Lucius's vast library. Or perhaps there's a chance you could screw up so badly that he might end it for you, and none of this will matter any more...

He pushed away the thought and took out his wand, trying to concentrate on the words of the first spell Lucius was testing him on. It wasn't easy; he had to expend more energy than he expected on the simple task of staying upright without swaying, as the floor had apparently decided it didn't want to stay flat under his feet. Draco put this down to another of Lucius's little amusements, and was determined not to show that he had noticed it. "Ready, sir," he said.

He had no idea how much time had passed when at last Lucius told him to put his wand away and have a seat at the desk; he knew only that the swaying and dipping of the floor seemed to have grown more pronounced, and that his uncle must have done something funny to the temperature of the room—it kept flicking from being uncomfortably hot to being downright freezing. I won't show weakness, he thought. I won't, no matter how happy it would make him.

"You will study and memorize the third and fourth chapters of Spurhold's History of the Dark Arts," said Lucius. "I will expect you to be able to answer in-depth questions regarding the subject matter in essay form. You will have completed your work by one o'clock, at which time you will be expected in the dining room for luncheon. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," said Draco, reaching for the book and opening it to the third chapter. Lucius swept out of the library, and he bent over the text and took out a quill to make notes, but found that it was oddly hard to focus on the printed type; the letters seemed to be moving on the page as if they were made not of ink but of small restless insects, and it made him feel sick to watch them squirm and twitch. After a few moments he sat back in the chair and wiped sweat away from his face, shivering. Maybe he's put a hex on me or something—he's determined to have a reason to punish me.

The little voice spoke up again. Maybe you should let him. Maybe you should let him punish you, and let it be over. All of this.

This time he paid it a little more attention. His head was aching abominably with the effort to get the letters on the page to lie still. Maybe, said the voice, you should escape it on your own.

No, he told the voice. That's...well, it's just not on.

Why not? It would be over so quickly, and it wouldn't have to hurt. You know enough Potions now...the stuff Snape doesn't teach the others, because they might make mistakes with it. You know ways.

It's not done, Draco told the voice. One doesn't...take the easy way out.

Why not? it said again. What, after all, is stopping you? What have you got to lose?

He wondered. What indeed? What happened after the last syllables of the curse died away, after the cup was drained, after the knife was withdrawn? What happened next, and what if it was...worse?

Don't be stupid, said the voice. How could it possibly be worse?

He stared bleakly down at Spurhold's History of the Dark Arts. He'd read it before, desultorily, out of boredom; the little he could remember had held horrors that made even him swallow hard. It could be worse, he said. I just don't know. And I...find that I am not quite willing to take that chance.

Coward, said the voice. He shivered, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulder and wishing that Lucius had had the grace to take the damn temperature hex off the room. Coward. You don't have the guts to do it.

No, he thought, absently. You've got it backwards. Now shut up. I have work to do.

The voice shut up, but he couldn't quite dismiss what it had said. Even as he bent over the book again, trying to ignore the chills and the dizziness and the blinding headache, even as he began to make notes in his tiny neat hand about the flowering of the Dark Arts in the fourteenth century, he couldn't quite dismiss it out of hand. He did know enough ways to make sure it wouldn't hurt and that it would be quick; he could do it easily, and make sure nobody could undo it again. But what he had told the voice had been true. He didn't know what happened after death; no one really did. And it could be worse, in ways he didn't even know. It could be worse, and it could be impossible to escape.

The malachite clock on the mantel struck quarter to one, and Draco set down his quill, massaging his cramped fingers with his other hand. The headache had receded a little, and the swaying and dipping of the room around him had turned into a rather pleasant feeling of lightheadedness; however, he had begun to feel as if his robes were too tight around his chest, making it impossible to draw a deep breath. He was still shivering, and sweat had darkened his silver-blonde hair to a dull grey; he caught sight of himself in one of the antique mirrors, and was dimly amused at the clown-white face that stared back at him with brilliant eyes.

"That won't do," he said out loud, and was surprised how difficult it was to draw in a deep breath to speak. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at himself, muttering a brief glamorie; the face in the mirror was suddenly his ordinary face, the hectic flares of red on his cheekbones had faded, his eyes had lost their feverish glitter. He glowered at himself, and the face glowered back; it was good enough to be convincing.

Narcissa was there when he returned to the dining room, and he had to push away a sudden surge of disgust when he saw her. She didn't look particularly well herself; she hadn't bothered with concealer on the circles under her eyes, and her hair was scraped back in a simple knot instead of teased and plaited and pinned into some complicated sculptural arrangement. She was wearing high-collared robes. For a moment Draco thought again of what her back must look like, criscrossed with silvery scars like his own, and the thought woke the pain of his own healing wounds.

"Hello, Draco," she said.

He sketched a little half-bow. "Good afternoon, Mother," he said, and took the seat she indicated. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but just then Lucius swept into the room, his elfin face alight with pleasure and malice. Draco reflected dizzily that the one looked very much like the other, at least on that particular set of features.

Both Narcissa and Draco rose, as they had been taught, and he waved them back into their seats as he took his own at the head of the table.

"I've had good news," he said, snapping his fingers for the servants to bring in the food. "Delightful news, in fact."

Narcissa smiled. "I'm glad," she said. "What has happened?"

"The Dark Lord has founded a new stronghold in Romania. I have been summoned to assist him at once; I'm leaving immediately after luncheon."

Draco managed, by dint of considerable effort, to keep both the glamorie and the look of slightly awed disappointment on his face. Through the lightheadedness he could tell that Narcissa, too, was having some difficulty looking unhappy. "That's wonderful, my love," she was saying. "Such an opportunity. How...how long will we be missing you?"

"Oh, a few days only," said Lucius breezily. "How could I stay away from my family, when Draco is showing such potential?" He chuckled, a nasty mirthless noise, and Draco was sure he knew exactly how they both felt about the prospect of his absence. Lucius nodded to the footman to pour the wine.

"Of course the Dark Lord's will is paramount," murmured Narcissa, eyes downcast, "but I shall be sorry to have you leave us."

Lucius reached out and patted her hand. "There, there, my dear. It's only a few days. I'll bring you back something lovely from Hunedoara."

Narcissa gave him a misty smile. Draco began to feel sick again, and concentrated on keeping the glamorie intact; he didn't want to think about what Lucius would do to him if his actual condition were revealed. The tightness in his chest was beginning to worry him; it hurt to draw a deep breath now, hurt somewhere deep inside him. He was used to pain, of course; had been used to pain for years now, but this was a bit disconcerting. If only his head would stop spinning...

He realized Lucius had said something to him. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I was thinking about Dr. Spurhold's book."

A flicker of annoyance crossed Lucius's lovely features and was gone. "I'm glad to see you are so focused on your studies, Draco," he said, without inflection. "I was saying that I had left you a syllabus to work on in my absence. I expect you to be able to perform all the spells I listed as well as pass a written exam on the theory by the time I return."

"Of course, sir." Draco straightened up with an effort and manufactured an expression of studious interest. Lucius held his gaze a little longer, then nodded curtly, and raised his glass in a toast.

"To the Dark Lord, and his imminent victory," he said.

Narcissa and Draco raised their own glasses and repeated the toast in a chorus. For a moment Draco saw something of his father in Lucius; there was real pleasure there, for a moment, and it changed his face; his eyes lost their glacial mirrorlike quality, a smile curved his lips without the ever-present hint of mockery. He looked as Julius might have looked, for just that moment—a moment in which he was thinking of horrors that made Draco shiver.

Somehow he made it through the meal, although swallowing was hard when he had to concentrate on breathing, and he certainly had no appetite for the food. Oddly enough, the wine—this time a claret, one of the real jewels of Lucius's cellar—seemed to help a little; perhaps he was finally getting used to it. He finished the glass, anyway, and it did not make the dizziness worse.

Lucius rose, and they rose with him. "I must be on my way," he was saying. Draco felt the glamorie begin to fade, and willed more power into it. Just let it hold until he's gone. Just that long. Just let me get up to my room and go to sleep for a few hours, and I'll feel better...I have to feel better.

He watched Lucius take Narcissa in his arms, kiss her. His jaw tightened, but he managed not to lose his expression of vague regret. Lucius let her go and turned to him, and he was extraordinarily grateful that no fatherly embrace seemed forthcoming; he merely nodded to Draco, turned on his heel, and left.

Narcissa stood there as he had left her, head slightly bowed, until his footsteps had died away completely; then she turned to her son. Her violet-blue eyes widened.

"Draco—" she said, but he didn't hear the rest of the sentence; the room gave a sudden great heave and tipped him off his feet, and he seemed to take an age to fall, with her voice fading very far away and faint. The dizziness and the flaring heat and chill and the steel bands around his chest all faded away, and he went on falling into blackness, and it closed over his head.