Posted: 12/31/15

A/N: Thank you to those who continue to support my story by leaving me reviews. Well, both of you: Alice Helena and Toorach. I hope both of you have an awesome New Year!

"Baddock is a complete imbecile who couldn't even matriculate into our ranks, Lucius," Severus impugned quietly. His own blithe stance and tone were perfectly calculated to make Lucius' unhinged rants and gestures seem all the more buffoonish. "I was his professor at Hogwarts. He was an idiot. A Hufflepuff idiot."

"Well, then perhaps it's because that…thing is too abnormal!" the gesticulator rejoined.

"These pathetic extenuations don't suit you, Malfoy" Severus told him with careful conviction. "Now I suggest you find your Sobriscendia, and work out what you're going to say to our master when he arrives. I also advise you to drop the self-righteous façade. At least for the time being."

Severus headed for the door and called back, "Narcissa, lend Draco your wand while he accompanies me to pay the attacker and his auntie a visit. And be quick about it."

Without waiting for a response Severus left the room.

A Side-trip to Reality

When Draco asked Mother for the wand, she told him, "Your father still has it."

Father reached into the pocket of his pajama bottoms for it and pulled out an empty hand. Then he dug around the other side and came up, again, with nothing. With a look that could only be described as sheepish, he confessed, "I must have left it in the sitting-room."

It was all Draco could do to keep from rolling his eyes as he turned for the door. "It must be on the credenza!" Father called after him.

And that's where Mother's wand was sitting - right next to the silver liquor tray, beside an empty glass of scotch. Draco noticed that Father hadn't remembered to re-stopper the decanter either, and he gingerly replaced the crystal cork before he headed for the cellar.

By this time Severus was probably almost to the first floor, but Draco didn't rush to catch him up. He wasn't in any hurry to get back to the sight of Bella torturing Baddock, no matter how badly the dumb cretin deserved it. Except for the Dark Lord, nobody executed the Cruciatus Curse with as much debilitating malice as Bellatrix. (Although Draco called her Aunt Bella when he addressed her aloud, lately he thought only of her as Bella or Bellatrix in the privacy of his mind.) Since he'd heard Bellatrix yelling at Mother that Father was a weak fool, and that she should just allow him to die, he'd pretty much lost what little respect for her he'd thus far managed to maintain, since she was family.

He'd drifted in and out of slumber that whole night, and he had murky recollections of Jane on the bed beside Father, washing his bare chest and also of her helping Mother cradle his head to tip healing potions down his throat. Draco had never spoken of it though. He knew that the last thing Father would want to know was that Jane had aided Mother in nursing him back to health. Draco had woken up the next morning in nothing but his pants and he couldn't help wondering whether Jane had washed him as well. It made his skin crawl if he thought about it too much, so mostly he just didn't. Draco was pretty good at not thinking about things that made him uncomfortable.

As he slowly headed down the staircases towards the cellar, he didn't even try to stop thinking about how Jane had looked naked. He didn't care that she was just a Muggle, just twelve years old, with no appealing curves and not even both breasts combined would make a handful. Blocking out the memory of her stump, Draco focused on the sanguine color of her sickle-sized nipples, her stretch of smooth stomach, even her belly-button (the picture of which he now found surprisingly tantalizing), and the threadbare carpet of black, curly pubic hair. The unpredictable Dark Lord was going to be implacably, lethally enraged when Professor Snape inevitably called him, and there were no guarantees about who would live through the night. He might die, and Draco was just happy that he had finally seen a naked female, and even though Jane was just a slip of a thing - and therefore barely even counted - Draco kept recalling the sight of her sweaty and undressed when she'd pretty much landed in his lap. Pity he might die a virgin. That's what Draco thought about constantly these days. He didn't want to die before he'd had the chance to experience sex.

Draco had a lot of fantasies about Agnes. His latest favorite was that he was in his lavatory wanking it, and she came in to clean. When Agnes saw what he was doing she either did one of two things. Sometimes she was sort of shy, shocked, and really apologetic.

"I'm sorry, master Draco," she'd say to him. Her eyes would be lowered in the most piquant manner, and her pale freckled face would go the sweetest shade of pink - not a deep mortified red, but a simple flush of pleasure mingled with a proper humility. In these instances Agnes knew her place, accepted it; she found herself delighted to be his servant.

"Lock the door, Agnes," he would say forcefully. "I don't want anyone else to disturb me while you're cleaning up in here. There's a bit of dirt that you missed yesterday, over by the sink."

And before she took her bucket of cleaning supplies over to the sink to do his bidding, Agnes would curtsy. Merlin, that little bow killed him. Every. Time.

Then he would proceed to give her more directions about what she should clean. Agnes would keep flitting sly glances at him while he pretended to ignore her. He was usually sitting on the lid of the toilet, but sometimes he was on the edge of the bath. Finally, she would clean her way over to wherever he was working on himself.

"Master is there anything else you'd like me to do?" she would coyly ask.

He would crack his eyes open a fraction and give her an appraising, not wholly unaffected, look. "Is everything clean?" he would inquire lightly.

"Yes master," she would tell him in a tremulous voice, being slightly intimidated by his masculine, superior presence, and also flustered by her sensual reaction to it.

"Then you may go, Agnes," he would tell her. But he would linger over her name as he said it, as if he were savoring a morsel of cake.

"Sure there ent nothing else you'd like 'elp with?" she would offer one last time. "Sir?"

And then sometimes he would say, "My wrist is starting to ache a bit, now you ask. If you'll be so kind as to help me out with this, I'll be sure Father throws in a nice little bonus for you, come Christmas." Because he was nothing, if not generous to his servant.

But sometimes instead of asking her he would just take her hand and guide it to his tumescent, aching sex. Either scenario ended with her knees on the cold tiles, and her lips encasing him.

Other times when she came into the lavatory and saw him pulling on his hard dick, she wasn't in the least bit demure. Unbidden, and with a lubricious look in her eyes, she would close and lock the door, put down her bucket, and proceed to remove her apron and robes. In these fantasies, Agnes was experienced, aggressive, and eager to tutor him in the art of love-making.

At these times, Draco's imagination seemed to have a raging life of its own. He would often throw in some of the tales he'd listened to in the Slytherin boys' dormitory; which ranged from lame, to credible, to wild, and then beyond - where they arrived at totally absurd. Draco had, like many of his housemates, lied at times and tried to sound more experienced than he actually was, but was careful not to go too far. It seemed like the harder the other young men tried to come off as lotharios, the more obvious it became that they were really just virgins. In his fifth year, Draco had once told a very nice lie about an attractive third cousin performing fellatio on him under a staircase at a Christmas ball. He was pretty sure that his mates had bought it. He had added a seminal spill on the hem of her gown that they had both been frantic to clean up, lest an adult see it and guess what it was – and he thought this little touch of fecklessness on his part had been what really sold it.

The sight of the cellar door and the timbre of voices from within heaved him back to reality.

Sighing a little, Draco tested the door, found that is was locked, and used his mother's wand to open it.

As he descended the stone steps he could hear Professor Snape's smooth resonations mixed with Bella's harsh ones.

"He disobeyed the Dark Lord's order that no harm be done to his new pet," Bella spat, her belligerent voice scraping through the stairwell like a death-rattle. "He has to be punished," she rasped.

The rich voice of Professor Snape was an unction in contrast. "The Dark Lord will be angry if Baddock is too damaged to make his pointless excuses and beg for his life. Baddock can barely stand at this point, Bellatrix. And I am positive that our master will wish to dispense the reprisals without your interference."

Once he gained the bottom of the steps, Draco saw Professor Snape and Bella facing each other with their wands pointed at one another and quietly walked to stand behind his former head of house. He dangled the wand loosely by his side, hoping to seem both supportive for Severus yet, when she trebucheted wild eyes at him, passive to Bella. As though he had just accidentally wandered down here, and happened to be holding Mother's wand.

Draco could clearly see the internal struggle Bella was having in her chocolaty eyes, as she tried to find another excuse for torturing the crumpled man on the rough-hewn floor behind her, and her desire to tell Severus to get bent, that she was a Pure-blood and who was he anyway? Just a half-blood, and it was not his place to interfere with her doings. He knew her Slytherin instincts were still in control when she asked, "Has Cissy completed her inspection of the mudblood? Is It to be hospitalized?"

"The extent of her injuries are not clear yet, Bellatrix," Snape calmly lied to her. "I need to go to the chemist and get her some medicine before we will know for certain. You need to give me Baddock's wand for now, and leave him in peace until everything is ready for our master's arrival." And (Draco had to admire his staunch bravery) Snape actually held out his wand-free hand, like he truly believed she would willingly hand over the new acquisition to him.

She then let loose a cackle that sounded eerily similar to the Dark Lord's. It was such a bleak, empty thing. Although it was meant to convey pleasure and mirth, there was an arresting hollowness to it that made Draco want to crawl under something solid and secure and never come out from beneath it.

"Why should you have his wand, you officious son-of-a-muggle? Winners keepers!" she exclaimed.

"By that line of reasoning it belongs to your sister, does it not?" he asked without hesitating.

Bella's triumphant smirk transmuted into a scowl.

"Baddock is dead anyway! He doesn't have to confess to anything, Severus, because we found him in flagrante delicto! Our master won't give a niffler's shit what condition he's in when He arrives!" She threw all this out quickly, as though extra decibels and speed could give her assiduous mendacities the quality of truth.

"You should not presume to know what the Dark Lord will or will not want, once he is apprised of this night's events, Bellatrix. I am your senior in the Dark Lord's ranks. Now do as I say or the blunt of his wrath will surely go to you," Severus told her in a lazy voice, which lacked conviction. Draco wondered what he was about.

Draco watched Bella's face turn puce and saw sparks spout from the tip of her wand. The sight of her sent him back an involuntary step and he clutched at Mother's wand unconsciously.

"Protego!" Draco and Severus cried simultaneously as Bella erupted.

"Vesuvio!" she spewed, and a great mass of red-hot magic burnt against the double shield spell and the two men were forced backward from her molten anger. Draco's knees had gone aspic as Bella's spell veritably singed his brows and lashes.

It was horrid enough that she was a lunatic, but why did she have to be so damned powerful and dangerous when wanded as well? Even Severus seemed to know that his effort to delimit her was pointless. He held up a conciliatory hand and said, "Enough! We are going now and will leave you to your own self-destructive devices, Bellatrix.

"Come, Draco," he panted at him. Draco looked at his professor and saw a strange flame of satisfaction in Snape's eye as he wiped a palsied hand over his glistening brow. "Your aunt is clearly intent on having her own way, in spite of my authority."

They made their way back up the cool stairwell together and heard her grumbling, "Authority my pure-blooded arse," followed by, "Crucio!" and then the deafening sound of Baddock's screams escorted them into the parlour.

Once they were clear of the mess below them, Draco turned to Severus and asked, "Was that wise?"

Severus pinioned him with a calculating look and asked, "What?"

He was so terrified of his master that he loathed even to speak of him. Draco felt the heat renew itself on his face, and he lowered his voice. "If the Dark Lord would not want Baddock half-dead, as you say, perhaps we should not leave her down there with him. Sir."

A smirk pulled at his professor's mouth and he replied, "You have your mother's wand. You're welcome to try and stop her if you're worried about it, Draco."

Draco was not amused, and his look must have revealed that to the older, wiser, more powerful wizard who stood before him, for he put a hand on Draco's shoulder and leaned up a little to quietly say, "Leave it to me. I left Baddock down there with her."

Draco knew he was right. As the one who sat at the Dark Lord's right side, Severus was in charge of the whole tableau since he had spun out of the fireplace; every aspect of this terrifying night, including his life and those of his parents', were currently cupped in Snape's – thus far - capable hands. Nevertheless, Draco just wanted to make it to the other side of the denouement still breathing. Then he might be able to relax. For now, all he could rely on was Professor Snape's perspicacity.

~x~}{~x~

Snape held firm to his imperturbable mien while he reassured Draco and then sent him back upstairs to help his mother. But he debated internally his next step. If he called the Dark Lord now, he would have to leave the Malfoys alone and detached from his protection while he popped over to London to find a chemist. If he waited to summon him, now he had warned and then abandoned Bella to her profligate playtime, there was a good chance the Dark Lord would hold him responsible for her degenerate behavior. Bygone might be the days when she was the master's favorite, but Severus had reservations about whether they were fully forgotten. The Dark Lord's memory was much longer than the proverbial day, and that went both ways.

In fact, of late, Severus had been getting hints from the master's unflaggingly bombastic confidences that he was missing his feminine facsimile. If Bella's witch-skills were not so redoubtable, Severus would have been amazed that she had ever trapezed her way to the top. The Dark Lord was not at all fond of women, and made no secret of it; after Lily's sacrificial stunt that antipathy had amplified. So while it was true that the Dark Lord had mostly collected his army with a system of blood purity, and a masculine one at that, rather than sheer power, still Bella had managed to catapult herself up with meritocratic agility. Severus believed that her outsize love for the Cruciatus Curse was what really held her back now. She was just an absolute loon. Nuttier than squirrel poo, and it was totally interfering with her usefulness.

The Dark Lord had nursed a soft spot for her in the past. Was fond of indulging her like a precocious child that was adroit at making him laugh - nobody was better at flattering him either. And her brand of flattery was nothing like anybody else's. For Bellatrix didn't simply use words to praise him – though there was plenty of that – but rather her whole life was like an elaborate encomium created just for him. It was obvious to everybody that he was her axis, her planet, her sun, her whole fucking universe. The Dark Lord was flattered by it. Who wouldn't be, come to that? Who wouldn't be pleased to know that there was a person who spent all their spare time planning out how to best serve them? Severus wouldn't be at all surprised to discover Bella even took the Dark Lord's convenience into account when deciding when and where she should go to the loo. Severus didn't see how it could possibly matter, but he could be sure that Bellatrix had analyzed it thoroughly.

Sometimes Severus felt a mad desire to tell Bellatrix that she was barking up the wrong tree. Not because he thought the Dark Lord was a homosexual. As far as Severus could tell, he was asexual - but, as with all obsessions, Bella was too irrepressibly embowered in desire to see that her Master had no interest in pursuits as earthy as copulation. Perhaps she did know this, though. It was hard to follow the quixotic train of her derailed thoughts.

A break in the screams from below him tugged Severus back to the pressing dilemma of when to call the Dark Lord.

He supposed he would go to the chemist first and then send for him. There was a good chance that he could get by unscathed, and even if the Dark Lord succumbed to his wrath with Severus in his sights, he was certain it wouldn't take the master long to refocus his anger at Bellatrix and Baddock – the far guiltier culprits of this morbid night.

Severus pulled out his wand and Apparated to London.