A/N: An inconsistency exists in canon as to whether Alice Longbottom was an Auror or not. In this series, she was not.
Chapter 8: Pandora's Box
The green-bathed moor disappeared in lieu of the dimly-lit manor lobby. All Draco could hear was his own breathing. Sooky released his wrist.
Now Draco was home, the night's events felt entirely like a dream. He ought to be waking up any second now in the bunk beneath Nott. But, no. Draco was dirty and sweaty. The fear he'd experienced while cutting through the woods returned as a ball of anxiety in his gut.
Draco started toward the grand staircase. "Sooky."
Sooky walked in stride with him into the Atrium. "Yes, Master Draco?"
"Would you go back to the World Cup site and find Blaise?" Draco asked. "I want to know that he's all right, and could you tell him that I'm fine?"
"Yes, Master Draco."
She Disapparated, and Draco ran upstairs. He let himself into the master suite, then knocked at the bedroom door beyond. A quiet rustle sounded inside.
"Mum?" Draco called.
"Draco?" Mum's voice was croaky from sleep. "Is that you?"
Draco poked his head in just as the bedroom lamps lit up. Mum sat up in bed. Her hair was ruffled, and she picked sleep from the corner of her eye.
"It's four o'clock in the morning," she said. "Why are you home?"
"There were riots." Draco lingered in the doorframe. "Father had Sooky bring me home."
"Riots?" Mum woke up a little more at that. "Where's your father?"
"He's still there. I think he's helping or something," Draco replied. "Something happened that made everyone panic, and—I don't know, Father looked scared. He scared me."
Draco's mention of fear seemed to rush Mum toward full consciousness. She rose from the bed and threw a dressing-gown over her nightie. When she came over to Draco, her face fell.
"You're filthy," she said, holding Draco's shoulders and looking him over. "What happened? You didn't get caught up in the riots, did you?"
"Sort of." Draco hesitated, thinking how he ought to say this. "Father and I were separated for a while, but I wasn't alone. Everyone I've seen was all right—Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and their fathers. I've sent Sooky to find Blaise and check on him, if that's all right."
Mum nudged Draco out of the master suite and closed the door behind her. "Let's go to the drawing room. What were the riots about, exactly?"
"I'm not sure. They were everywhere," Draco said. "We watched some people nearly get arrested, and then they ran away from the Aurors. Some of Crabbe and Goyles' cousins took us into the woods to get away from it all."
"And you were separated from your father?"
"Yes, but I just saw him." Draco's stomach squirmed as he recalled the look on Father's face before he was sent home. "Everything was starting to calm down, and then there was this thing in the sky. A skull and snake—like the thing on Father's arm, now I think about it—"
Mum grabbed Draco's arm so suddenly and tightly that Draco winced. That the same fear he'd seen on Father's face was now on Mum's made Draco forget about the pain.
"The Dark Mark?" Mum asked. "In the sky?"
Draco nodded, to which Mum took a shaky inhale. The colour in her face had drained. She held her fingertips to her mouth.
"What's. . .?" Draco said. "What's it mean?"
"I don't know," Mum replied in a faraway voice. "We'll find out when your father's home."
All the cryptic talk and behaviour from his parents unsettled Draco. He was so, so exhausted from being awake all night, yet so wired. That seemed to cancel each other out when Draco and Mum sat in the drawing room. One second, Draco was aware of Mum summoning one of the kitchen elves to bring tea, and then Draco was suddenly horizontal and Mum was dashing out of the drawing room. Draco blinked and then realized Father was probably home. He scrambled up.
"Any luck?" he heard Mum say.
"No," came Father's reply. "It wasn't him."
"Then who?"
Maybe if Draco was more aware of himself and the situation, he would've hidden in order to eavesdrop. He cared more about seeing Father, though. Father had opened his mouth to answer Mum's question, but halted when he saw Draco—probably because Draco was running past Mum intent for a hug. Draco held Father tightly, heart pounding with relief that he was home and unharmed.
"You scared me," Draco told him.
Father returned Draco's squeeze. "I'm sorry."
Now Father said that—and maybe because he was home and safe—anger flickered in Draco's gut. Father had left him all alone (well, not all alone) and then scared him again once they had found each other in the riots. Draco let go of Father and put some distance between them.
"Did Sooky come back?" he asked. "I had her looking for Blaise."
"She found him," Mum said. "He's fine."
Draco headed for the grand staircase. "I'm going to bed, then."
After a shower and crawling into bed, Draco slept until the late afternoon. He figured he might have gone longer if there wasn't something tapping at his window. Draco threw his covers off when he saw it was Xanthus.
Blaise wrote: I saw Sooky and she said you were okay, but I wanted to hear it from you. Theo's tent was one of the ones that burned down. I saw him and he's okay too, if you're wondering. God what a mess.
Draco's hands took on a slight tremble. Had he and Nott slept through all the commotion. . .
He went to his desk to reply: Did Nott tell you our fathers left the camp? I don't know WHY my father did that. I want to see you before we're back to school, but there's a chance I might be grounded. It depends what sort of a fight I'm about to have with him.
Draco sent Xanthus off, then trudged out of his chamber. The office was empty. So was the drawing room. Draco poked his head into the master suite's corridor. Mum's boudoir door was open.
"Mum," he called, "is Father with you?"
"No," Mum replied.
Draco left then, thinking halfway down the stairs that Mum had sounded a little terse. As Draco passed through the owlery to see if Father was out with the peacocks, it occurred to him that Mum might have been angry. When Draco stepped outside and saw Father, he realized his hunch was likely right.
Father sat cross-legged and slouched in the grass. Vega's train flowed out from Father's lap, and Nova stood next to him looking to be pet. Nova squawked when he noticed Draco, and Father peered wide-eyed over his shoulder. He looked guilty as all hell as Draco walked around to the front of him.
Draco crossed his arms. "Mum's angry at you."
Father's brow twitched toward a furrow. "Did she tell you that?"
"No," Draco shortly replied. "I guessed."
Father resumed petting Vega. "I told her what happened."
"Everything?" Draco asked. "That you left me to go do—whatever?"
Father nodded.
"Why did you leave me?"
"I didn't think anything would happen. You were surrounded by trustworthy—"
"The tent burnt down!" Draco snapped.
"I know, and that disturbs me."
"Then why did you do it?" Draco asked, voice trembling with his rapidly welling fury. "Why did you leave me there? Why did you yell at me? Why did that Lovegood man put you in such a bad way?"
Father looked very tired. "It's a long story."
"Who's Luna's mother?" Draco demanded. "Who is it that she looks like? Why did that man think you would care?"
Father rubbed his eyes. "He was talking about my sister."
Draco frowned. He'd never heard Father talk about a sister before. He'd never heard Grandfather talk about a daughter. In all the family photographs and portraits and everything else, Draco had never seen anything to the contrary of his father being an only child. He thought they had that in common.
"What sister?" Draco asked. "You never told me—I've never met her."
"And you won't." Father's gaze dropped to where he ran his hand mindlessly over Vega. "She's dead."
Draco's mind managed to simultaneously race and grind to a halt. This had happened before, although with Mum. Draco had been surprised to learn that she had a second older sister, which wasn't so much a shock when Mum already had a sibling who Draco never saw or had met before.
"I don't understand," Draco bluntly stated. "How do you get from her to leaving me at the camp?"
"You should have been safe—"
"What did any of those Muggles have to do with her? Did they kill her?"
"No, I—no."
Draco had never seen his father look so small. Not only had Father shattered the illusion of always being Draco's protector, Draco realized that his parents had kept yet another bloody secret from him.
"Unbelievable," Draco found himself repeating under his breath as he stepped back off for the house.
He stomped up to the master suite and barged into Mum's boudoir. Mum sat beneath one of the windows on a chaise with a book in her lap. She glanced up from beneath her brow, expression pinched before rapidly righting itself. She blinked at Draco.
"I want you to tell me about Father's sister," Draco stated.
Mum blinked again.
"He told me he has one," Draco persisted.
"Had," Mum quietly said, then cleared her throat. "I don't know that it's really my place, darling—"
"Well, someone's going to!" Draco burst out, making Mum jump a little. "In case no one's noticed, it was me who had to deal with Father getting all pissed off! He left me at the camp! He yelled at me on the footpath! You and Father have kept secrets from me before, and you're doing it again! Father told me about Andromeda at Grandfather's funeral, so why can't you tell me about his sister?"
Mum pursed her lips, eyes narrowing. She still wasn't saying anything, and now Draco regretted saying what he had. It hadn't budged Mum, and now she probably had the ammunition and motivation for a second row with Father.
"The manner in which she left here was not a good one," Mum spoke in a careful, even tone. "Your father still, to this day, deals with the consequences of it. It's a very loaded topic. I don't want your father to think I told you anything out of spite for his behaviour last night."
"What's there to know?" Draco posed, then tried, "What was her name? Can you tell me that much?"
"I'll tell you the objective facts about her." Mum closed her book. "Her name was Pandora."
"Father said she died. When?"
"In 1990. August."
Draco stepped closer. "What was she like? Did you know her?"
"Not really." Mum rested her head against the chaise back. "She was older than your father, and not in Slytherin house with us."
"No?" That intrigued Draco.
"She was in Ravenclaw."
All right, so that perhaps explained why Draco had never seen a hint of her at Hogwarts. She hadn't been in Slytherin, she'd died before Draco even went to school, and maybe the professors knew better than to whisper in Draco's ear that that girl everyone called Loony Lovegood was half-Malfoy.
God. Loony Lovegood was half-Malfoy.
"Do you have any photos of Pandora?" Draco asked.
Mum set her book aside. "Some. Your father saved a few things, and we discovered a box hidden away after we took the master suite. Your grandmother had kept it."
Draco watched Mum go to one of the bookcases. "Did Grandmother miss her?"
"Hoped she would return, I think." Mum stood on the tips of her toes to reach for a black box at the very top. "I think both your grandparents did, although your grandfather became very bitter after Pandora married. I don't know that I ever heard him mention Pandora again once her daughter was born."
"No coming back, at that point?" Draco asked, then grimaced.
Mum didn't reply beyond their gazes meeting. That was pretty much enough to say yes, in Draco's opinion. Mum sat back down on the chaise with the box in her lap. "Come sit."
Draco did so as Mum eased the lid off. The contents were in pristine condition. Draco's stomach dropped at the first photo Mum brought out. Father (eleven years old, or so) stood with Pandora on what looked like the garden terrace. A teenaged Pandora was behind Father, her chin rested on top of his head and her arms wrapped loosely around Father's shoulders. Pandora's long blonde hair moved in the breeze. Both of them looked genuinely happy.
So that he could take a closer look, Draco took the photo from Mum. Pandora looked a lot like Grandmother. Her hair was a darker blonde, and wavy like hers too. Very eerily, Draco could see Luna in her—in all but spirit, perhaps. Pandora here was still very much a Malfoy. She dressed properly and looked proud despite the relaxed demeanour. The two rings she wore were family heirlooms. The Malfoy crest was on one.
"This was the summer before your father and I started at Hogwarts," Mum said, smiling wistfully. "It astonishes me every time I see a photo of your father around this age just how alike the two of you look."
Except the eyes, Draco had always been told. Other than the colour of them, Draco had taken more after Mum in that regard. Since some people in the Black family had grey eyes too, it was actually up in the air as to which side of the family Draco inherited his from.
"How much older than Father was Pandora?" Draco asked.
"Two and a half years, or so. She was three years ahead of us at school."
So she would have been about to start her fourth year at Hogwarts in this photo. That made Draco's stomach feel all weird again, since they were the same age. "She was disowned then? Because she wanted to marry Mr Lovegood?"
"Not exactly." Mum chuckled mirthlessly. "Her being in a school house other than Slytherin eventually took its toll. Your grandfather was concerned what she would do once in charge of the estate. He demanded too much to keep her in line, and it pushed her away."
Draco thought of the stern way Grandfather used to always speak to Father—the way his portrait still did—and pressed his lips. "What did Grandfather demand?"
"He moderated who she was friends with. Things like that," Mum said. "He would ask your father about what went on at school with her, which destroyed their relationship."
"Father and Pandora's?"
Mum nodded. "Pandora learned not to trust him. She stayed away from him."
Draco looked at the photo again. Pandora looked like she had no idea that her little brother would soon become her shadow. Draco remembered being eleven years old well enough to know that if he had an older sibling in another house and Mum and Father told him to keep an eye on them, he wouldn't have questioned it. Now, at fourteen, if Draco had a younger sibling about to join him at Hogwarts, he would absolutely feel the need for caution.
A thought struck Draco. "Is this why I don't have any siblings?"
Mum rested a hand on Draco's back. "It's Malfoy tradition to have at least as many children as it takes to produce a male heir. Your father and I could have had more since we had you right off the bat, but your father was very anxious about it. There was so much else going on at the time too. We decided we were perfectly happy with just one child."
As Mum took that photo of Father and Pandora back so that she could show Draco the next one, Draco began to regret asking about this. He appreciated a hole he'd never seen in the manor being filled, but this was all very sad. Draco was used to being an only child. His friends felt like siblings. It would hurt enough if one of them departed his life, so how horrible was it when a sibling by blood was suddenly gone?
The older Pandora was in the photos, the more she forced her smiles. Especially in photos with her and Father, she looked very guarded. There weren't any from when Father was older than fourteen or fifteen.
Draco had a suspicion about that. "Did Pandora leave when she finished at Hogwarts?"
"Mhm," Mum confirmed.
"So what happened after?" Draco asked. "For Father? Grandfather always talked to him like. . .not mean, I suppose, but like Father didn't know what he was doing with the estate and all that."
"That's the sort of thing I don't want to speak for your father on," Mum said. "It affected him—that much, I'll say. He and I knew each other, of course, the same way you've always known Pansy, Daphne, and Millicent. We became close friends after Pandora left, and then it was me the summer following dealing with a disowned sister."
Draco's head snapped up with instant intrigue, since he so very rarely heard Mum talk about her sisters. "Andromeda?"
Mum nodded.
Draco almost hesitated to ask: "Did you ever talk to her again after Grandfather's funeral?"
Mum cleared her throat. "She is not interested."
The echo of Mum slapping Andromeda at the funeral for saying rude things about him had never left Draco's memory. When Draco thought about it, he still heard it as clearly as he had back then. He also experienced a twinge of guilt to think about the offer Ernie Macmillan had made him before the end of the school year. Knowing everything Draco knew now, he couldn't imagine how absolutely gutted his parents would be if he just disappeared in lieu of a note—if he chose the unknown, and for what? To date boys who grew cross with him when he didn't like their favourite film, and who were scared of anyone outside of school knowing they were dating? Even at school, Draco was mostly a secret!
"Are Andromeda and Bellatrix your only sisters?" Draco asked. "Is there anyone else?"
Mum shook her head. "There's the three of us."
"And Pandora was Father's only sibling?"
"Yes." Mum managed a strained smile. "No more surprises."
Draco started feeling bold, and Mum seemed in a giving mood today. "Is Bellatrix ever getting out of Azkaban?"
That smile flickered. "No."
"What did she do?" Draco asked as Mum took the latest photo she showed him to put away.
"She was a Death Eater—a very devoted one," Mum said, then paused to think with her bottom lip between her teeth. "The entire story is another long one, but the short of it is that she tortured her Auror partner and his wife into insanity."
Draco must have gone numb to all the horrible things he was hearing, for he hardly found it in himself to react. "That's what Father meant, isn't it, when he said that thing about her after the Weasley twins got me—that them torturing me hit close to home."
Mum nodded.
"But. . ." Draco frowned. "I didn't know she was an Auror."
"Disgraced. Very disgraced." Mum made a sound like a laugh, but it was completely dry and mirthless. "It was a fact quickly buried after the war. The Aurors aren't supposed to be like that. The Ministry didn't want to lose public trust, so they distanced themselves from her. They believed—and public opinion followed suit—that so long as the bad apples were thrown out, the Aurors remained a moral institution. Nobody wanted to talk about how easily corruptible they were, with all that power and authority. They still don't want to."
"Are they corruptible?" This started to sound to Draco a lot like what Father had said the other day about Azkaban.
"Anyone is, really." Mum crossed her legs and turned more toward Draco. "The problem with the Aurors is that they're held so much less accountable than other Enforcement agents. It's very easy for them to do whatever they want to. Some probably use that freedom for good things, but. . .the cost is that people like Bellatrix and your uncle Rodolphus' brother Rabastan also take advantage of that."
"Oh, he was one too?"
"Mhm."
"Was he involved with what Aunt Bellatrix did?"
"And a few others. I still remember the Daily Prophet headline. 'The Dinner Party from Hell'."
She shivered, and Draco decided he was very much done talking about this. He held the most recent photo back to Mum.
"I think I'm going to—I had a note from Blaise I was going to reply to," Draco lied.
"All right, darling." Mum took Draco's hand when he'd stood, to squeeze it. "That reminds me, I was going to ask Luzia for tea. Why don't you arrange to see Blaise?"
"I think I will," Draco said, because he felt like he needed to talk to somebody about all this. He had a lot of feelings to sort out in the meantime, a lot of which related to Father.
Considering him with a twinge of compassion, Draco stopped in the doorway of Mum's boudoir. Mum was in the process of closing the box back up.
"How long are you going to stay angry with Father?" Draco asked.
"Until I'm not anymore," Mum replied. "He made a lot of very bad decisions last night."
"I'm all right, though," Draco said. "Father's right, he couldn't have known what was going to happen. And when something did happen, there were people there who took care of me. If Father hadn't left the campsite, the riots might have gone on longer."
Mum had stood with the box in hand. She grimaced as she studied Draco, growing progressively more tired-looking. She sighed. "Ask your father next time you see him why dangling Muggles from the air is a bad idea."
"Nobody even cared until someone put that skull and snake up."
"Yes, well." Mum put her back to Draco to set the box back up on the shelf. "We'll see what comes of it, I suppose."
Draco's stomach lurched. "Like that he might get into trouble?"
"The Ministry will want to deflect away from the fact that they couldn't stop the riots themselves," Mum said. "The Dark Mark will put the Death Eaters into everyone's minds, and that's terrible optics that a group associated with them were the ones to draw order."
"It's not optics, though," Draco replied. "It's the truth."
"Except that your father isn't a Death Eater anymore." Mum approached Draco. "The Death Eaters were disbanded after the Dark Lord fell."
"Right," Draco said, "but what does it matter what anything looks like if what happened was what everyone wanted? Nobody wanted the riots. Everyone was scared."
"Do you think those Muggles up in the air were scared?"
"No more than anyone else." Draco shrugged. "That was probably the safest place to be. They weren't hurt, either. I saw them run off after Father and the other dads put them down."
Mum ran her hands down her face, sighing before ultimately giving Draco a gentle nudge out of the room. She looked more tired than ever. "Why don't you go write to Blaise, darling?"
