TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter: gore.
Chapter 10: Mutiny at the Manor
Lucius the first was still away. Harry walked along the row of portraits, reading the names on the frames. Abraxas Malfoy, Eleanor Selwyn Malfoy, Svetlana Dolohova Malfoy, Cassius Malfoy... Like most of them, Cassius's frame was empty. A sign 'no relation' hung lopsided on the back of his vacant chair. A complacent magpie walked confidently along its top.
But the next two portraits in the row presented an unexpected contrast. Geoffrey Malfoy and Philippa Malfoy were sitting quietly in their pictures, their expressionless faces turned to Harry.
"Cassius's parents. My great-great-grandparents," Draco said.
They sat so still, it was disturbing. But Harry quickly realised why.
"They are just paintings!" Indeed, the two portraits were nothing beyond oil on canvas and could be hanging in any Muggle museum. "Why?"
"Something went wrong when they tried to enliven them," replied Draco.
"What?" Now Harry was really curious. "How does this portrait enlivening thing work anyway?"
"I don't know. I didn't take Divination. Did you?"
Harry had, but it had been a perfect waste of time. They hadn't even mentioned portraits.
"I always thought it was the painter's job. The painter would enchant it in the process."
"That's how they do it nowadays, in the absence of decent seers, I suppose." Draco shrugged and looked at the empty frame on the right-hand side of the mantelpiece. "That's not how they made our dear Lucius, and honestly, the way he turned out is much more impressive."
Speak of the devil, Lucius the first finally emerged on Sir Herman's side with the carafe, now filled with wine, and two glasses which looked like they had been painted in the twentieth century. He fetched his armchair from his own painting and another one from Abraxas Malfoy's. Apparently, Herman could not properly bend his limbs, and the way Lucius perched him on one of the chairs looked anything but comfortable. Herman was still clutching at his sword and Lucius was going to great lengths to convince him to let go of it.
When they checked on them a couple of hours later, the sword was lying on the ground, and Herman could finally hold a glass. The wine was doing its job. The two Malfoys were engaged in a steady conversation.
Around eight they emptied the carafe, and Lucius left with it. Harry thought he was about to reappear in his painting on the other side of the mantelpiece with the long awaited report, but Lucius was gone a while. Upon Harry's next visit, Lucius was back with a refill, clinking glasses with Herman. It was just past midnight. The night was young.
When Harry woke up, it was dark. Was he dreaming? He was lying naked on a huge bed in the middle of the Quidditch pitch. Viktor Krum was chasing the snitch. Lee Jordan's voice thundered above the roar of the crowds: "Harry, come on, wake up! Show the old Durmstrang crow the Hogwartsian spirit!" Harry's old Firebolt was lying on the bed next to him. Was it the jolt of emotion that he felt seeing his broomstick raised from the dead or the sheer horror of being urged to play Quidditch in the nude that woke him up? Either way, he was indeed lying naked on a huge bed in a room that was so big it gave him a distinct feeling of a Quidditch pitch. The barely discernible figure of Viktor Krum was looming in the dark from the poster on the wall.
The clock said "four twenty three" in a tender whisper. Harry pulled the blankets back over himself and rolled over. The weather outside was going berserk. The wind was howling and heavy rain was battering against the windows. Falling back asleep was a lost cause.
Harry got up, dressed, and grabbed his Invisibility Cloak, wondering what secrets Malfoy Manor would reveal at this hour. He walked to the gallery overhanging the entrance hall, and was about to cross to the north wing to see if he could get to the downstairs part of it, which Draco did not show him, when he suddenly heard distant laughter. The sound of a vaguely familiar voice came from the side of the kitchens.
Change of plan. Harry swung the Invisibility Cloak over himself. In a few jumps, skipping two steps at a time, he got downstairs and charmed the still life next to the south staircase to let him into the elves' part of the Manor. He heard the buzz of many voices, and soon found the whole lot of them gathering at the kitchen table to share a meal of bread and beans. They were not quite as many as they had seemed in the dark of the attic, but enough to trample him down if he got in their way.
There was just enough space for Harry to squeeze in behind the rubbish bins. From here his eye fell straight on Thorny, who stepped distractedly over the bench and took a seat on the other side of the table.
Next to Thorny, but leaving a gap in between for her origami skirt, Swingy placed Foggy, supporting him under his armpits. Cherritry went to sit on his other side. A skinny elf with thick black eyebrows joined the row and shifted carefully beside Cherritry. The rest of them, male and female, young and old, bald and hairy, dropped into their places around the table next to their bowls filled with steaming food.
"Swingy, have you packed Master Draco's trunk for Hogwarts?" Cherritry asked.
"Sure, Mum."
Spoons were scraping against bowls and mouths were munching. A twig torn from a tree slashed against the glass of a large window.
"After the storm we'll need a thorough clean up on the premises," said Cherritry. "Ribby and Grabby, you will do it." So, Cherritry was the one giving the orders here.
"Yes, yes," replied a squeaky voice. That was one of the elves sitting with their backs to Harry's hiding place. He was so scrawny, Harry would have taken him for a skeleton in worse lighting conditions.
Cherritry stared at the elf sitting next to him, who, by comparison, looked very well-fed.
"Grabby?"
"Okay, okay." Grabby shifted on his seat and looked left and right at his neighbours at the table. "Although I don't think cleaning up is the first thing we should worry about right now."
"What else should we worry about?" Cherritry's question could only be rhetorical.
"Master Draco! That's what we should worry about!" Grabby said with a bit more courage in his voice. "He's acting weird. Very weird!"
"Oh, yeah!" Swingy said cheerfully. "He says 'please', and he says 'thank you', and he didn't— Did you hear what he said? No elf will be executed! If that's weird, he may stay weird as much as he pleases, as far as I'm concerned. Right, grandpa?" She looked at Foggy, who just stared silently into his beans and kept eating.
"You don't talk like that of Young Master!" hissed an elderly female elf who sat across the corner of the table.
"Did I say something wrong?" Swingy looked at Cherritry, and not at the one complaining.
"You talk too much! And you giggle too much! And what you wear is a disgrace for a house-elf!" continued the elderly female elf. "You should be happy Young Master hasn't given you clothes yet! Just to cover up that paper abomination!"
"That's not an abomination! And,"—The hair on Swingy's shoulders stood up and she looked bigger.—"I don't see why we cannot wear clothes and stay true to our families!"
The whole table gave her shocked looks. Even Thorny glanced at her with bewilderment.
"Swingy!" said Foggy in a subdued half-whisper, and it sounded like a warning.
"I don't want to hear any of this argument anymore," demanded Cherritry. "Swingy will wear anything she deems suitable as long as this is necessary." Cherritry looked at Swingy and her face lit up. "You will no longer need it very soon, though. You're taking after me."
The fur covering Swingy's arms and shoulders was not yet as thick as her mothers, but it did not seem like Swingy was looking forward to growing a natural cover. She clenched her jaw, and the paper rustled, as she went on straightening her skirt.
"Ah, girls. Always just talk about what to wear," Grabby grumbled and put down his spoon. "We have a problem with Young Master. This is what we should be talking about!"
"What's the problem? He says 'please', and he says 'thank you', I don't see a problem there," said Cherritry.
"Yes, and why is he doing that?" Grabby said with a challenge and looked around the table again. Some spoons stopped scratching the bowls. "It's Potter! It's because of Potter!"
Only Swingy's uninterested munching broke the silence.
"If that's because of Master Potter, then he's a good influence, I would say," Cherritry said.
"Good influence!" Grabby jumped in his seat. "Did you see how Master Draco looks at him? Can't say a full sentence without looking at Potter for permission. He lags like he's Imperiused!"
"Potter has Imperiused Young Master?!" exclaimed the elderly female elf with horror.
"Nah, I don't think so," squeaked the elf who looked like a skeleton. "Doesn't look like Imperius to me. It's just—" he hesitated a little. "Even Muggles can do it!"
"Do what?"
"They take hostages, the hostages get used to it after a while and become all sweet and obedient. They call it, er, the Stockholm syndrome." He giggled in a pitch so high it made Harry's ears hurt.
"You read too much of that filthy Muggle rubbish that Swingy makes her skirts of!" the elderly female elf said.
"But Ribby's right!" Grabby took the floor again. "This way or that way, Potter has taken Master Draco hostage! And he's using him to sniff out the secrets of our house. And it is our duty to free Young Master!"
Cherritry rolled her eyes. The elf with the thick black eyebrows sitting next to her glanced at her cautiously.
"I actually thought—" he glanced cautiously at Cherritry again, "I thought they just got a bit... friendly, if you know what I mean."
"Huh? Friendly?"
"Yeah..." The elf with the furry eyebrows shrugged. "The old nutter of Grimmauld Place dropped by the other day, beaming like he'd had a shower of Amortentia, and wanted to know all about it: What's Master Draco's favourite dish? And what's his favourite soap? And—"
"And did you tell him?"
"Of course I did!"
"You're an idiot, Tweezer! He works for Potter!"
"I know! So what?" Tweezer raised his eyebrows. "He sounded like Master Draco was their guest of honour! Told me he was staying with his Master, kept babbling of how delighted he was to see our Masters put aside their past differences, and left with a recipe for the Jersey-style Dragon of the Sea. Now, who will make Jersey-style Dragon of the Sea for a hostage?"
"That was a trap, Tweezer! You're a total idiot!"
"He's using him! He's using him!" Ribby yelped.
Tweezer buried his face in his hands with a hoarse sigh.
"You traitor, Tweezer!" barked the elderly female elf with a no-nonsense threat in her voice. "You're no Malfoy elf! You Black elves scheming behind the Malfoy back!" And she swayed menacingly with her spoon.
"Master Draco is my Mistress's son!" Tweezer raised his head and straightened his back. "His safety is my first concern!"
"Very good, Tweezer. Now all of you who are concerned about Master Draco's safety, listen to me. I don't trust Potter!"
To Harry's dismay, Grabby's announcement was met with a wave of appreciative nods and a couple of cheers. Tweezer didn't nod, but kept glancing over to Cherritry. The only one who dared to speak up was Swingy.
"Master Draco trusts him. And I trust Master Draco's judgement!"
"What do you say, Thorny?" Grabby asked. "Do you trust Potter?"
Thorny had been silent throughout the argument. He didn't nod, or cheer, or boo, unlike the others at the table. But his eyes sparkled coldly.
"Dobby trusted Potter, and Potter threw him away!"
Harry almost groaned in pain. He wanted to pull off his Invisibility Cloak and set the matter straight. Only, how stupid would that be in his present condition?!
How he hated it! He hated not saying what he wanted to say. Because things that remained unsaid had this treacherous ability to infest his mind with doubts. All those who died because they trusted in him. Perhaps Thorny was right, he had thrown them all away.
"He didn't throw him away," Swingy said softly. "They say—"
"I know what they say!" Thorny cut off. "It doesn't matter! If he hadn't gone with Potter, he would be with us here today."
No one said anything. Even Tweezer stopped fidgeting and looked sadly into his bowl. Cherritry gave Thorny a long earnest look.
"Should I ask Master Draco if you could come along to work at Hogwarts this year?" she said. "You'll meet other elves. That'll do you good."
Swingy shifted nervously on the bench rustling with her origami.
"I'm not ill," replied Thorny. "I can take care of myself."
The bowls were empty, and the elderly female elf was wiping the last remains of the beans out of her bowl with a piece of bread.
"Good for you, Thorny," said Grabby. "But Young Master cannot take care of himself, as far as I can see, and we must take responsibility, before Potter takes him away from us the way he took away Dobby!"
"Master Draco is of age, Grabby!" Cherritry drawled. She snapped with her fingers and the bowls and the spoons vanished. Grabby's objection that Master Draco was only eighteen sank in the hearty clank coming from one of the adjacent rooms. That must have been where the dishes had just landed.
"You two," Cherritry pointed at a pair of small round-headed elves who had just been nodding fervently to all Grabby was saying, "you do the dishes and clean the kitchen. Swingy, you'll bring father upstairs and then come back to me. We need to take Master Draco's trunk to London. Tweezer, are the peacocks inside?"
"Safe inside, of course!"
"You take care of the birds, then marinate the mutton for the evening. When we're back, you come to me, we'll fix the rest of the menu." Cherritry went on giving out tasks until she got everyone's 'yes'. Some disapparated to attend to their duties. Ribby and Grabby were lingering and Cherritry gave them a long disapproving look.
"What? It is still storming! No use cleaning up now!" said Grabby.
"You leave Master Draco and his guest alone! Is that clear?"
"Clear as day." But as soon as Cherritry disapparated, Grabby hushed all the remaining elves together.
"We have to take Potter out somehow. If Young Master is under his Imperius, chances are he'll be back to his senses when Potter is properly stunned."
"Didn't know you can stun," Thorny said on his way to the door.
"Wait!" Grabby caught his arm. "I can't, but Ganny and Mossy can. They should be back from a job any minute."
"We can't use that magic without Master's permission!" peeped Ribby.
"I'm sure Master Lucius would wish for nothing else than us using that magic if it's about taking Potter off his son. And let him cut off my ears if that is not so!"
"It's Ganny's and Mossy's ears we're talking here. Good luck!" Thorny said and turned to go.
"Leave them to me. What we should do now is get Potter to the dungeons. Should not be too difficult as long as he's sleeping." Grabby's whisper became even softer. Harry could barely figure out what he was saying.
"And what then?" Thorny stopped and turned back to Grabby. "The Ministry will find out and send Master Draco to Azkaban. Mistress Narcissa will bake you alive for that when she's back!"
"As soon as Master Draco is himself again, he can obliviate Potter no problem. He's good at it! Do you remember how he was arrested?"
"Huh?"
"Exactly. That's why." Grabby looked pleased with himself. "But before he obliviates him, you, Thorny, can have a nice chat with him about your brother."
A wide shape of a muscular elf appeared in the door and blocked Thorny's way. For elf standards she could have even been described as bulky. Her chest and arms were covered with scars and one ear was cut down to a half. She clapped dust off her shoulders and licked blood off her hand.
"Ha, Mossy!" Grabby greeted her enthusiastically. "We—"
"Not before I've had my beans!" She raised the lid of the huge pot on the stove and let out a gust of warm steam. "Ganny is on his way."
Harry was stuck behind the rubbish bins with no chance to get out of the kitchen unnoticed. Seeing blood dripping from Mossy's hand, he wondered in the back of his mind exactly what errand she had just returned from. But his most urgent question was how to get to Draco before the elves would. On a whim, he cast a Muffliato to cover up the inevitable plop and apparated straight to the second floor.
He knocked perfunctorily on the door of the guest chamber, but barged in without waiting for a response. Draco was fast asleep.
"Hey, Malfoy! Wake up." He shook Draco energetically. "Malfoy! Draco!"
"Potter?!"
"You must wake up now! We have a problem!"
"I know. Sod off."
"Not that problem. We have a new one." Harry directed a jet of water out of the tip of his wand straight into Draco's face.
"What the—!" Draco sat at once and searched the space in front of him for something he had expected to see but didn't. "Potter?"
Harry pulled down the cap of his Invisibility Cloak and let Draco see his head floating in the air.
"Your house-elves want to stick me, that is, you, into the dungeon, and then stun you to check if I'm under your Imperius."
"I told you not to say 'thank you' too often." Draco jumped out of the bed.
"We need to get you out of here."
Draco was already putting on his underwear.
"Can we just apparate out?"
"We can apparate within the building, but not out of it. Only the elves can." Draco said, pulling on Harry's jeans.
"Then we need to get outside and apparate you to Grimmauld Place. Or—"
"Or?"
"Cherritry and Swingy are on our side. Maybe they could—"
"Then what are we waiting for?" Draco was now fully dressed and searching for his shoes.
"Cherritry!" Harry called, but nothing happened. "Swingy!" Harry and Draco listened to the silence.
Then Harry remembered. "Oh no, she said something. They were going to bring your stuff to London. They must be in London now. Damn it."
"Okay, then it's plan B." Draco did not find his shoes and put on a pair of slippers. "But I'm not apparating anywhere with a full bladder." He walked out of the room and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall.
"Hey, wait. I'd better come with you."
"No way!" And Draco closed the door behind him.
Harry stared at the stripe of light underneath the door and blamed himself for not letting Draco keep his wand after yesterday's Patronus practice. Now it was stuffed under his pillow in his bedroom. Should he fetch it now? Apparating there and back would take just a few seconds, but he did not trust leaving the bathroom door out of sight.
Harry listened to the storm outside muffled by the walls of the dark manor. A queasy feeling started to grow in his stomach. Why was Malfoy taking so long? How full could that bladder possibly be?
Bang! The bathroom door flew out of its frame and landed in a triangular beam of light on the floor. Inside Harry could see the washbasin smashed to pieces. Water spurted like a fountain out of what used to be a tap. Draco was nowhere to be seen, only his slippers floating in the pool of water that spread rapidly over the floor and started to drip down the staircase.
Harry swore and put the cap of the Invisibility Cloak back on. The only way to the dungeons he knew of from his own experience as prisoner was through a back door in the downstairs drawing room. Plop. Bedroom. Pillow. Wand. Crack. He apparated to the drawing room and immediately regretted his foolishness. Grabby and Ribby came bursting in through the back door the next second, and Harry thought they must have heard the crack of his apparition, but the two were so deeply preoccupied with an argument, Harry congratulated himself on his luck.
"It's your fault, Ribby."
"He just wriggled out. I could do nothing at all."
"'Nothing at all!'" Grabby mimicked Ribby's whining. "Where did we lose him? We'd better fix this before it's too late."
They had lost him. That was good news, but now Harry saw what it was Grabby wanted to fix. He was holding a severed hand, his hand, blood dripping from the open cut to the ornate floor. Bloody hell!
Harry stood there transfixed, not knowing whether to go for the hand, or for the rest his body first, but the house-elves took the decision away from him. They disapparated, Harry had no idea where they would have gone, but he had an inkling of where Draco could be hiding.
Presently, Harry was back in the first floor hallway of the south wing and stood in front of the door to Draco's potions brewery. Vast stains of blood on the floor, that started to float away in the flood coming from the second floor bathroom, suggested that he had been right. He vanished the blood to cover Draco's tracks and called softly, almost touching the brewery door with his lips:
"Malfoy! Are you there?"
A hand protruded through the closed door and pulled him inside.
Harry took off his Invisibility Cloak but Draco couldn't care less. He was on his knees, all soaked with blood, gulping in an effort not to scream. He grabbed his splinched wrist with his other hand, and held it above his head, as if appealing to a deity.
"Do something!" he wheezed through his teeth.
Awoken from his shock, Harry scanned frantically through six years of Flitwick for a spell that would stop the scarlet fountain, which Draco's tight grip could only slow down, but—
"Episkey!"
A gut-churning subdued wail sounded from deep inside Draco's chest.
"Shit! Shit! Sorry!" The spell was too weak for this. The bleeding slowed, but only barely.
Water from the upstairs bathroom started to seep through under the door, mixing with the blood already spilled and taking more big drops from Draco's wound. Water and blood...
Water and blood awoke another vision in Harry's mind. Draco sprawled on the floor of the boys' bathroom slashed open by his Sectumsempra, and Snape kneeling over him. Right! What was it Snape was saying? Harry could hardly believe it, but he remembered.
"Vulnera sanentur," Harry sang softly, circling the tip of his wand around Draco's bleeding stump. He had no idea what he was doing. But he had also had no idea what he was doing when he had cast that Sectumsempra and it had worked nevertheless. Why couldn't he be lucky just one more time? Please! In the name of the Half-Blood Prince!
The bleeding eased, and stopped.
"Vul—" Harry started, but Draco moved out of reach, and pushed a bottle of transparent potion that stood on the floor next to him to Harry with his knee.
"Anaesthetic. Open it— Can't— with one hand," he panted.
Harry pulled the cork out, blobbed a handful onto Draco's outstretched arm and spread it over and around his wound. After a minute, Draco's breath steadied and his gaze cleared. He got slowly back to his feet.
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"The two idiots apparated in, when I was—" Draco moved with an unsteady gait to the shelves filled with bottles, jars, boxes and sacks, and was searching for something, "grabbed me and apparated again." He shifted the bottles clumsily with one hand. "I managed to shake one of them off, and the other one— Well, you can see." He swung his mutilated limb. "Ah, here." Draco grabbed another potion, and they went through the same ritual.
"Anyway, I dropped out on this floor, but they went somewhere else."
"The dungeons. Just saw them get out of there with— with a hand."
"We'd better get me back in one piece as soon as possible."
The room they were in was only a little smaller than their potions classroom at Hogwarts and looked very similar. There was a table in the middle with a couple of burners, and a silver cauldron, a small octagonal fountain to replace the gargoyle, and walls covered with shelves from floor to ceiling.
"Are you safe here?" asked Harry. "Can the elves get in?"
"Some of them can."
"Who?"
"Thorny. Tweezer. Cherritry."
"I wouldn't trust the first two," Harry said, weighing the options. "We'd better try and get you out first, and then I'll go back and collect the hand."
"Cherritry!" Draco called, but no one showed up. "Where's she stuck, for god's sake?"
"Cherritry!" Harry called, and regretted it immediately. Cherritry didn't appear, but they could distinctly hear gentle rhythmic splashes behind the closed door. The elves knew they were here.
"Here. Take my cloak," Harry whispered. "I'll go first and try to distract them, and you slip past, get out of the grounds and disapparate." Harry went for his pocket. "Here. You can have the wand, too."
"Forget the wand. I have no wand hand."
"Damn it!"
They stared at each other while Draco was putting on the Invisibility Cloak until his face vanished together with the rest.
"We'll have to go together, but I'll keep at a distance. Meet at the gate?" said the empty space where Draco had just been standing.
"Okay."
Harry walked out of the brewery and straight into a skeleton.
"Young Master up so early!" said Ribby with a sheepish smile.
"How could I sleep with bathrooms exploding over my head?" Attack was the best defence right now. "What the hell is going on here? Two floors are flooded and no one cares? You go clear that mess now, before I—"
"Yes, Master." And Ribby disapparated, luckily, before Harry could think of a convincing threat.
Harry walked down the hallway, but as soon as he set foot on the south staircase, another elfish voice spoke behind his back.
"Young Master up so early!" said the elderly female elf who was so opposed to origami.
"Ribby is dealing with major water damage upstairs. I think he needs your help," Harry tried the same tactics, but obviously missed the right tone.
"Where is Young Master going?" asked the elf, ignoring his order.
"That's none of your business! Go help Ribby!" Harry walked down to the entrance hall and turned towards the exit.
"It's storming outside. Young Master should not go out." The menacing shape of Mossy hanging at the front door moved to block his way. Were they patrolling all around the Manor? Harry turned around and saw another elf with scars and muscles. That must have been Mossy's buddy who knew how to stun.
"It's raining! Young Master may catch a cold," continued the elderly female elf.
"It's raining upstairs from the second floor bathroom! I said you go there and help Ribby fix it! What was so unclear about it?"
But at that moment, a cannonade of plops rolled around the hall and Harry was surrounded by a circle of distrustful house-elves.
"The wind is too hard. Young Master might be hit by a loose roof tile," pointed out Thorny, of all people.
From the corner of his eye Harry noticed drops of blood on the staircase. That was good news. Not that Draco was bleeding again, but that he was on his way out.
"And how come do we have loose roof tiles?" Harry tried to keep everyone's attention on himself. "Isn't it your responsibility to make sure that no roof tiles are loose in this house? Now you," Harry pointed at Mossy who was still blocking the front door, "and you," he pointed at the elderly female elf who was examining the blood stains on the staircase with suspicion, "you go and fix all the roof tiles, now!" The elderly female elf stopped scrutinising the stairs and looked up at Harry. Mossy didn't budge.
Harry pulled his wand, but honestly, he hadn't the slightest chance against a dozen house-elves that were not on his side. He could, at best, take out one of them, or two, only to feel the others' boundless concern for his safety on his back the next second. At the very least, he had to remember not to use Expelliarmus, as they were wandless anyway. Wet footprints of two bare feet were glistening not an arm length from where Mossy was guarding the door.
"What's this? A mutiny? My father will hear about it—" Harry tried his best at doing Draco. The door opened slowly behind Mossy's back, but she must have heard it creak. Harry cast a silent Confundus when she jerked towards it, but she was not the only one who noticed it. Harry heard fingers snap behind his back and a heavy thud at the door. Mossy, who had quickly recovered from her Confundus, pulled the Invisibility Cloak off Draco's body, which now lay in the doorway face down, obstructing the door and letting gusts of wet wind break into the entrance hall.
"Now, what is this?!" Now Harry was getting really angry.
"Potter was trying to escape. Ganny stopped him," said the scary elf at the back of the hall.
"Yes, and why," Harry looked menacingly into his face, and then into each face around the circle, "why in the name of Merlin's gastric ulcers," Harry saw Draco's handless arm again and fury finally took over, "would my guest want to escape?"
Harry walked up slowly to Draco's motionless body.
"How is it possible that my guest feels anything but happy, comfortable, and willing to stay as long as I want to have him?" Harry dug his foot under Draco's arm and pushed the bloody stump a couple of inches up into the air. A few elves gasped and Grabby went bluish grey.
"Grabby!" Harry walked up to Grabby and pointed his wand at his chest. "How many hands too many do you have?"
Grabby delivered Draco's severed hand, trembling.
"Really? Only one?" Harry let his gaze slide to Grabby's own hands. He might have been overdoing it a little, but Hermione was not watching, and it worked! Grabby shut his eyes and stretched out his hands shaking like a leaf.
"Tweezer will fix it. Tweezer has done it so many times! Master Potter's hand will be like new," Tweezer jabbered zooming past Harry. Harry barely felt Draco's loose hand slip out of his, and was just in time to stop himself saying 'please'. As a sign of his great mercy, he gave Grabby the best of a Malfoy contemptuous sneer he could produce, and looked around the circle of frozen faces.
"What do you shiftless bunch of halfwits think you're doing?"
Draco, who had been pulled back inside and unstunned in the meantime, let out a weak groan.
"If anyone's anyone's hostage here, then he is mine!" Harry pulled his own holly wand out of his pocket, and demonstrated it alongside Draco's. "And my hostages will be kept in good health as long as necessary! And anyone whose underdeveloped brain thinks otherwise may splinch themselves to goulash!"
"This sounds more like Master Draco," muttered the elderly female elf in the back row.
Harry glanced over to Draco. Tweezer had managed to reattach his hand, but the connection looked like a coarsely welded joint and Draco did not seem to be able to move his fingers.
"What are you goggling at?" Harry turned back to the house-elves. "The only one doing anything useful here is Tweezer. Half the Manor stinks of Potter blood, the other half is drowning, not to mention the roof tiles!" His words were interspersed with plops of elves disapparating to attend to items on this to-do list and Cherritry and Swingy returning from London.
"And where have you two been? Gone for a stroll in Diagon Alley? You," he pointed at Swingy, "take Potter to his home as soon as Tweezer is finished mending him. And you," he addressed Cherritry, "see that you get these brain-dead good-for-nothings under control!" He looked around the circle of those still waiting for orders. "This concerns all of you! Disobey her, and I'll have Madam Malkin make you clothes of your own ears!"
"More like Mistress Narcissa," remarked Tweezer in a smug undertone.
It was a relief to be finally able to delegate his wrath to Cherritry, thought Harry, as he was running out of colourful insults.
Swingy joined Tweezer helping Draco, Tweezer disappeared for half a minute and returned with bottles of assorted potions. Harry collected his Invisibility Cloak and was just in time to catch Thorny before Cherritry sent him to search for Master Potter's shoes.
"You. I want you to come along to Hogwarts this year."
"Yes, sir," Thorny was not the only one surprised. Cherritry and Swingy exchanged puzzled glances.
"But you," Harry pointed at Swingy, "will go with him."
"Yes, Master!" Swingy flashed with excitement.
"And to you," Harry spoke to Thorny again, "she will be like Cherritry to the rest of them. Do anything she disapproves of, and I—" but Harry's capacity in the domain of threats was terminally exhausted. "Be nice to Potter."
"Yes, Master."
When Swingy left with Draco on her arm, Harry trudged to the drawing room and fell exhausted into an armchair in front of Lucius the first's portrait. Lucius sat on his throne asleep, the carafe with the remainder of yesterday's wine stood on the floor beside him, an empty glass lying next to it. In the canvas on the left hand side of the mantelpiece, Sir Herman lay sprawled on his back, knocked out.
Harry closed his eyes and must have dozed off, because when he opened them, breakfast was waiting on the coffee table in front of him. Lucius was yawning, rubbing his bloodshot eyes and squinting at Harry's ham and eggs with badly concealed jealousy. Then he reached for the carafe and the glass and helped himself to some hair of the dog.
"From Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana," he said, raising his glass. "Inferior wine, but infinite supply."
Harry cheered back with his tea.
"Did you have a good time with Sir Herman last night, Sir?" he asked, trying not to sound too impatient.
"Oh yes, it was a most astounding night. The wine worked wonders. In four hundred years, Sir Herman had not said a single word. Yet wine had loosed his tongue, and so I heard the story of the Conquest, and his rise with William, and his knighthood, and this land. Who could have hoped to hear all that firsthand?"
But the wakeful night Harry had passed made him utterly unfit for a lecture on the Norman Conquest of England.
"Did you manage to find out anything about the locket, Sir?"
"Not much, I fear, as much as I came nigh. My poor old Herman! When I mentioned that, he almost grabbed his sword and struck me flat. Heavens be blessed, his joints are not as spry as mine.
"And when he failed to intimate his feelings in his normal violent fashion, his eyes grew leaden and his face turned ashen, and then his sorrow nothing could abate. He wept and wailed, and through his grievous wailing, just senseless bits and broken words came trailing, from which I barely managed to extract that he had stolen (sic!) that artefact from his own parents."
Who were his parents? Where had they got it from? Had he ever used it? Had they? Did any of them know how? Harry showered questions upon Lucius the first, but Lucius kept shaking his head and shrugging. The harvest was scarce.
"All right," Harry said finally, without trying to conceal his disappointment. "Thank you, Sir. I suppose."
"I hope that helps." Lucius the first sighed.
"I hope so, too. I don't know. We'll see. I should be leaving then. The Muggle princesses are waiting." Harry stood up to leave.
"Good luck, my boy. A Malfoy always will pass through a needle's eye. Play at thy game, and let the Muggles learn the Malfoy name. And every curse will break for thee. Fear not to charm, to play, to bargain, and to plot."
"Only," Harry said, "I'm not Malfoy," and he headed towards the door, "among the Muggles." He stopped with the door knob in his hand and gave Lucius one last cheeky grin. "The Muggles know me as Malcolm Drake."
"Oh no. Not Drake, Draco." Lucius groaned, as Harry was closing the door behind him. "Not Drake!"
END OF PART 1
Note: To all the readers who have made it this far, you are great! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy. Now that we've reached the end of the first part and the first quarter of the fic, I'd love to hear what you think so far and what you expect from future chapters. Please feel free to leave a review in your first language, or whatever language you're most comfortable with, I'll find a way to translate it into one I can understand. Thanks!