Note: OMG, I can't believe I'm posting this chapter. Help!

WARNINGS for this chapter: Gore, implicit homophobia, mentions of incest, mentions of rape, suicide.

Chapter 39: Just a rat

Draco dropped out of the chimney at level minus three and one seventh of the Ministry of Magic. The grey concrete platform was deserted. He walked between sparsely strewn used Portkeys—scrap metal and decaying rat cadavers, which returning Azkaban visitors hadn't bothered to dispose of properly—until he finally stood in front of a rusty pram wheel. A piece of parchment with his name and departure time attached to it fluttered in the wind.

"Unbelievable."

Yes, the letter said that his watchwizard or watchwitch would be waiting for him at the destination. Personnel crisis, sure. But Draco had expected that his Portkey would be handed to him by someone who would at the very least check his identity. Anyone, literally anyone could have made off with the pram wheel before his arrival. Why was he so surprised though? His summons looked like it had swum in drain water all the way from the Ministry to Hogwarts. This Ministry was going to the dogs.

Draco felt at the small bulge inside his breast pocket, a vial containing months of hard work. Crooked ugly clouds rushed across the clear sky. Draco shifted the Portkey from one sweaty hand to the other. There was no chance Father would accept his offer, but at least, no one could reproach him for breaking his promise. It was not about acceptance any more, it was about— Draco swirled into the air as the Portkey activated, and a second later saw the Sticks growing fast below him.

What the—! Something was wrong. Before his feet hit the stone, Draco knew what it was. The Azkaban fortress, dark and creepy even in the rays of blazing sun, loomed before him, much closer than he had imagined. Why? How? It was supposed to be invisible from here. It could only mean that the outer shield was down.

The pram wheel banged and whizzed, rolling itself into stillness, as Draco crossed over in a wide stride to the hut. He flung the door open and a wall of sickening stench collapsed over him. His stomach imploded and the slimy fragments of his half-digested breakfast flew at the door he'd just slammed back shut. What the fucking fuck! Breathe. Breathe.

"Desentio," Draco articulated pointing his wand at his nose, and the salty breeze of the sea turned to a dull draught that could be coming from a ventilation shaft at Glasgow Airport. Draco opened the door again cautiously and stepped into a puddle of dark sticky blood.

A pair of unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling. Pale skin sagged from the upturned cheekbones. Ms Nicks' pointed hat lay a few feet away from the head that still bore a trace of wearing it across the forehead. Draco forced himself to touch it. The skin was still soft, but unquestionably dead. Was his smell-killing hex wearing off already, or was his brain supplying the missing sensory bits to round up the picture? Blood. Draco rushed out of the hut, and retched himself empty.

It took a few deep breaths until the world stopped spinning. Draco had seen enough dead bodies in the last couple of years to be disturbed by one he was even lucky not to have seen being killed. But killing curses did not make such a mess. This was plain brutal Muggle-style slaughter. He had to inform the Ministry.

"Accio Portkey!" The pram wheel stayed lying still on the dry stones. Draco reached it in three long leaps and grabbed it. Nothing happened. It wasn't a Portkey any longer.

Shit, shit, shit. "Cherritry!" Draco listened to the waves crashing against the stones, but no house-elf flopped out of the air.

"Cherritry!"

How many miles was it from here to the mainland? With some luck, a house-elf could apparate him back to the Ministry.

"Swingy!" Swingy was at Hogwarts. She was closer. She should be able to hear him. "Swingy!"

Nothing. A dry laugh escaped Draco's lungs. The house-elves were too far away. Everything was too far away. There was no point in trying to apparate. Something was telling Draco that it was a whole lot farther than across the Channel. If poor old Foggy had splinched himself twice on it, Draco stood no chance against half the North Sea. He stood back in front of the half-open door of the hut, cast another smell-killing hex, and entered, keeping his eyes level.

There were two owls, one perched sleepily above the mantelpiece, the other fluttering back and forth at the back of the room. Draco tore a page out of the open journal on the table, summoned a quill, dipped it into the bluer part of the puddle under his feet, surrounding the overturned inkpot, and scratched down what his brain was able to spout by way of the English language.

"Hurry up, girl!" Draco attached the message to the foot of the less sleepy one, and saw the owl's silhouette shrink to nothingness in the pale blue sky. How long would it take it to reach the Ministry? Hours? Days? Was he trapped now? What now? Wait?

Waves roared up forcefully against the rocks. The giant grey obelisk of the Azkaban fortress stuck out of the irritated water and took a large chunk of light out of the picture. Draco measured the distance with his eye. He wouldn't dare apparate hundreds of miles across the sea, but this much he could manage. There should be Aurors inside the fortress. There could be. At least that was something to hope for. And his father and mother were there too. If the outer shield was down, he could just apparate across. If not, he would probably drop out somewhere at the Ministry, as Jugson had last October. The end result would be the same as if he took a return Portkey.

Draco glanced up and down the outline of the fortress. A big bird was gliding along the perimeter of its upper sections. It was a very big bird. A tad too big, to be honest. Draco squinted and blood froze in his veins. It was no fucking bird! It was a Dementor! Draco pictured the wet dock illuminated by a swarm of lingering Patronuses. The next second, the crack of his apparition reverberated under the vaulted ceiling of the visitors' gate, and he struggled to stay upright on the slippery stones of the dock.

There was no crowd of Patronuses this time. A silvery cat emerged out of a solid wall, flashed across the dimly lit cavern, and disappeared on the other side as Draco strode towards the door. He was half-way through an inner monologue, trying to word his report of the disaster at the Sticks a tinge better than he had managed with the owl, when he pulled the door open. The reception was empty. No watchwizard was waiting for him at the destination. There was no one to report to.

The fireplace was flickering quietly. The fireplace! Draco lunged for the desk and started pulling drawer after drawer. He looked around the fireplace. But the pot of floo powder lay among the burning logs. Draco stood transfixed, watching the flame licking away at the empty jar.

A wand stuck out like a bookmark between the pages of a Quidditch magazine on the desk, as if the guard on duty had just left to fetch a banana from the larder.

"Hello!" Draco listened to the silence. He was supposed to be searched now, and to be made give up his wand, and they were supposed to inspect the vial he had brought for his father. But he was alone, completely alone. What the hell was going on? If he could choose, he would now prefer to be strip-searched.

Draco leaned on the desk and tried to put his thoughts in one row. Azkaban was under attack, that much was clear. But whether it was in order to set prisoners free or to get them killed, or both, and which group his parents belonged to—that was the question. And there was only one way to find out, before Dementors beat him to it.

He pushed a door that might have been the one Pucey had taken him and Potter through during their visit in November. Draco wished he had paid better attention. 'Hate you'—that looked good. He had seen that graffiti last time, definitely. Draco plunged into the trembling glow of the torchlit corridor.

'1981' with an angry splotch across the lower part of the '8'. 'Hell'. His flipped from behind his back, made a graceful turn around his feet and grew longer as another torch floated past his temple. 'No' with a huge 'o'. This was the way. 'Let me d—' There. A door stood ajar at the end of the hallway and Draco imagined that he heard a faint echo of his mother's voice. He didn't want them killed, Draco thought as he halted before reaching for the door. Did he want to set them free? Maybe, but he wasn't keen to let the Dementors dictate him the terms of that transaction.

"Draco! Finally!" his parents exclaimed as soon as Draco stepped through the door.

"Mother? Father?" Draco glanced warily at the Guilt Line that, ironically, ran between them. He could swear it wasn't nearly as bright golden as it had been during his last visit.

"Why did it take so long?" His parents seemed perfectly unaware of anything irregular. They were sitting, chained to their chairs, two helpless grins and four hollow eyes.

"I—" Draco glanced down at his shoes. No traces of blood were visible. "I had to wait for them to search me. They weren't in a hurry." That was technically true.

"You are alone?" Father peered at the door with distrust, obviously expecting a watchwizard.

"Yes." Draco shrugged. "A shortage of personnel, they said."

No one had tried to kill his parents so far, that was good. But apparently, no one had tried to free them either. What were the odds that someone wanted to? In any case, this was not how Draco had planned it. What would happen if they took the chance and ran? God knew what was happening out there. And what should you do when all your options were equally uncertain? Right. Nothing. Draco ran his eye around the bare walls. The limited space of the room they were in gave him an elusive feeling of being in control. He wished it would stay that way. The best he could do was to pretend that noting was happening.

"Look at you! You've grown some more!" Mother said, but Draco doubted it. Rather, she had shrunk. Her prisoner's robes were buttoned up to her throat, but her skin shone through a tear on her shoulder.

One of the torches flickered wildly before it went out with a puff. One empty chair stood on Draco's side of the Line.

"How's school?" Father had tried to shave, but his looks otherwise matched the environment in the degree of disrepair.

"Good." The chair gave a short squeak as Draco sat on it. "I've taken my Transfiguration N.E.W.T. last week. It went fine, I think."

The corners of Mother's lips twitched. Father didn't stir.

"How's your probation?"

"It's fine." His probation officer had softened up for him after Ewen told her that Draco had joined the Society for Love-driven Assessment of Slytherin Heritage. But this was not what Father wanted to hear. "I had to sell the House in Nice. We pay eleven thousand Galleons a month in reparations. The revenue from the shares isn't enough."

Father tensed and pressed his lips. There was an unasked question in his eyes.

"How are things at the Manor?" Mother asked.

"Fine." There was nothing news-worthy about it, except... Cherritry had written that they had definitely cleared it of any remaining rats but one. Now that they had stopped trying to kill it, it turned out to be a pretty tame rat, and Cherritry was asking if they were allowed to keep it as a pet in the attic. Now, that rat was definitely interesting. "Cherritry keeps me up-to-date."

In fact, he hadn't been to the Manor since August. He was not going to explain why.

"How are you?" Draco said. "You look better than last time." The Dementors were attacking the fortress right now. "No Dementor attacks since then?"

"There was a minor disturbance in January," Father said. "But we were joined by a certain stag." He gave Draco a curious look.

"Oh, that was Potter's."

"Hm." Father pierced him with his gaze. "You are on good terms with Potter then?" It seemed like the unasked question was growing inside him and going to explode soon.

"We're fine."

They sat in heavy silence. Draco tried to outstare his father, but too soon his gaze landed on the flagstones polished by countless shuffling feet.

"Draco, I understand that you're trying to fit in with the current ruling order. That's, surely, reasonable. But you should not forget that you have to balance a plethora of interests."

That was the kind of opening that always led to a humiliating denouement. Draco sensed a familiar churn in his stomach, but it was as if it came from somewhere far far away. The Dementors were attacking the prison right fucking now, and this conversation was nothing but a surreal act.

"Most other prisoners don't like us much, obviously, and you played a certain role in that many of them are here in the first place."

"But I— That's what Knox told me to do!" Draco had done as he was told, as always.

"I know and I'm glad you did it. So successfully. I just want to remind you that your success, your freedom that is, has a certain price, and your mother and I have to pay it."

"Do they abuse you? The other prisoners." Draco's gaze fell on his mother's torn shoulder.

"Never mind if they do." Father's chains clinked as his hands fisted. "But I'm sure you'll agree that there is nothing you'd appreciate more in a situation like ours than a good old friend who doesn't."

What friend?

"Rodolphus's Patronus has saved your mother's and my sanity more than once. Your uncle never held a grudge against you, even when you exposed his ex. But now that you got at his son—"

"I— What? I got at his son?!" Draco's first impulse was to say that it was Potter who got at Rodolphus's son. On second thought, it was Gibbon. Either way, he wasn't involved in it at all. But that didn't help unless he was going to tell Father that they had been swapped and that it was Potter that Father had revealed his Azkaban escape plan to during their last visit. That was out of the question. Draco had to own up to Potter's actions. "I was just defending other Slytherin kids from his friends' Cruciatuses. And Vaisey wasn't even expelled."

"You started the altercation."

"Who told you that nonsense?"

"You'll be surprised, but an occasional issue of the Daily Prophet makes it even inside these walls."

"You believe the Daily Prophet?"

"Not always. But when Miss Parkinson sings all over the front page about your heroic stand against the extremists, and then Rick Vaisey writes to his father what a despicable person you are, and it's the same story, then it's probably true." Father winked.

"All right then. I told him to shut up. So what?"

"Rodolphus's Patronus has stayed out of our way ever since."

"Why aren't you nice to Rick?" Mother said. "He's suffered no less than you. We're all in the same boat."

Nonsense. If Vaisey had suffered as much, he would have learned his lesson.

"What about Potter's Patronus?"

"It disappeared, too. Went back to his master to celebrate the victory day, I suppose."

Right. Potter had conjured a Patronus in the Room of Hidden Things when they swapped back. Was that when it had left Azkaban?

"If there is another attack we are defenceless. And I'm sure there will be another attack as long as we are sitting in their fortress." If Father knew how right he was.

Draco took a breath but let it escape without saying a word. If he told Father that he, their son, could cast a Patronus himself now, and then tried and failed, when the Dementors came crashing on them— never mind the Patronus. Better not make false promises.

"Or do you have some other solution?" Father's eyes burned through him.

Draco felt at his breast pocket. "In fact, I do."

"All right?"

Now, this was the moment. Draco had kept a few drops of Quetzalcoatl for this very occasion, for himself, for courage, but that had gone into the last batch of Ewen's Spectrogenium. And Potter wasn't here to do the job for him either. He had to finish it himself, for better or for worse.

"You remember what you asked me just before we were arrested?"

Father's face changed. His gaze darted nervously at Mother and back again. A spark of hungry interest burned in his eyes.

"You have a plan?"

"I do."

"Draco, don't do anything stupid. I forbid it," Mother said firmly.

"Nothing stupid. A very intelligent plan, this is, in fact." Draco met his father's eye. "There is a way to get you out in a perfectly legal way."

Father froze. Even his chains stopped clinking.

"I went through it with Knox a few times. It has to work."

Both his parents looked at him with their hollow eyes in perfect silence.

"It has been done before, in fact. Nothing groundbreaking here," Draco said. "No matter the crime, a convict will be released from confinement upon complete memory loss." He pulled the vial out of his pocket. "When I give this to the guards, they will check it, but they will find a plain run-of-the-mill Invigoration Draught." Draco lowered his voice. "What they will not find is a generous dose of strengthened Forgetfulness Potion, hyperconcentrated, and shrunk to a size that will fall through all the cracks. If you take the whole vial, you won't remember, well, much. But most importantly, you won't remember why you joined Voldemort."

Father winced.

"That's what the Wizengamot needs to pronounce you innocent."

Father frowned. "How much is 'not much'?"

"You won't remember Mother, or me, probably."

"Are you telling me that a Forgetfulness Potion will do that?"

"Not a normal Forgetfulness Potion. A very, very strong one."

"And then? How do you plan to recover the memories?"

"Well, that would be illegal, I suppose." Draco swallowed. "And probably impossible after the effects of this." He gestured with the vial in his hand. "There is no plan to recover your memories." Draco curled his toes inside his shoes. Why was the floor so cold suddenly? "What we could do, of course, Mother and I, is tell you the things you absolutely need t—"

"Wait, wait a second. You want to erase me? Permanently?"

"Not you. Only your memories. You'll still be..." His father would be the same conceited prat no matter what, Draco was sure of that, "well, you."

Father blinked. "Are you telling me— Are you telling me you want to turn me into— into— a stupid child that doesn't know his name?"

Draco shuddered. The expression in Father's eyes—it wasn't fury yet. Not even disappointment. It was sheer incomprehension. Maybe Draco could still take it back? And turn it into a joke? Maybe it was not too late?

"An in— an innocent child." Draco's lips moved, but out came a hoarse toneless stutter.

The torch that had flickered out was on Father's side. The other torches threw ugly trembling shadows over one half of his face. Orange sparkles burned in Father's eyes. He looked through Draco, as if he was transparent.

"How? How could we have missed this, Narcissa? When did our son become this?" Father's voice was calm.

"What exactly?" Mother said quietly.

"A blood traitor."

There was no point in grovelling. It was done.

"Draco's trying his best. That might indeed be the only legal way to get you out. I understand that you don't like it, but I see no treason in it either."

"Why didn't we"—Father sighed—"why didn't we try for a spare?"

Draco stopped breathing.

"We still could. It's not too late," Father said, turning to Mother. There was something in his voice Draco hadn't heard for a long time. Tenderness? "We could try, and who knows? It might buy you a few months out of Azkaban?"

Mother didn't stir. Something dark and heavy separated itself from the seething pain in Draco's chest and fell all the way down to his underbelly, like a weight designed to pull his heart into drowning. As his heart was sinking, his mind was overcome by sudden clarity. To be replaceable was insanely liberating.

"All right. Good luck."

"Your father doesn't mean that. All he—"

"Oh, I do mean that, Narcissa. I do!" Father said brightly. "It's not unlike a Malfoy, of course, to pull an unexpected card from up his sleeve. But all the politics, all the manoeuvring, all the treason, if you will, is, has always been, for the family, not against it. For the Malfoys! Our so-called son is not one of us."

Showing too much emotion wasn't safe. A warm tickle of suppressed laughter spread through Draco's chest. Last time, Father wanted to feed Mother's soul to the Dementors and use her body to sail out of Azkaban on the day of her release. 'You are not one of us.' By that logic, nothing stood in the way of treason. Or... or...

Or the whole logic by which the Malfoys— not the Malfoys. There was no such thing as the Malfoys. Some Malfoys. The whole logic by which his father decided who was a Malfoy and who was not was flawed at its root. 'You may call yourself Malfoy,' the words of Norma Loubert sounded in his mind again, 'but Herman is our son, and his children are our grandchildren, and you are our family.' That was a solid take on family. Father had no idea about the Malfoys.

"That's no deal then." Draco put the vial back into his pocket.

His mouth was dry, he was sweating and shivering, but he had done it. He had put forward his terms, and he had almost recoiled, but he hadn't. And now he was disowned. What was going to happen now? There was no way Father could reach Knox before Draco did. How much could his father really effect in his position? After all, he was the one staying for life in Azkaban. He was free to stay as far as Draco was concerned.

"This conversation is over," Lucius said. "Leave."

Draco lingered. He had urgent questions to ask to his mother, but her face was inscrutable. Was she going to try for a spare now, with Father? That was not one of the urgent questions, but now it stood between them, like an impenetrable wall.

"All right." Draco stood. "Take care."

He threw one last glance at his mother and pulled the door handle. He was about to step into the darkness, but the darkness stepped on him instead. The door sank in a black cloud and he was enveloped by chilling numbness. A toothless hole materialised in front of him. It was drawing breath with a rattling snore from under a ripped hood. A long streak of fog left Draco's mouth and pulled slowly towards it.

After two beats Draco found himself a long leap deeper inside the room, holding the chair like a shield in front of him. When the thought that furniture was not the go-to weapon against Dementors crossed his mind, the chair had already crashed into the shrunken chest and pushed the monster back against another one that had just appeared in the door opening.

The Patronus. He had to conjure the Patronus. Draco flipped out his wand. Wasn't he supposed to be overwhelmed by fear now? But inside him was only emptiness, the satisfied emptiness of an owl that had delivered its message.

The first Dementor glided over the smashed chair, gave Draco a wide berth and took course towards his mother. The second one pulled through the door and stretched to his full height.

"Expecto—" Fuck! Something happy.

The Dementor was advancing on him, as Draco retreated. One more step and he'd be hiding behind Father's back again. Father was thrashing wildly in his chair, the chains screeched and rang, but Mother was motionless like an ice statue, staring silently at the hood coming down.

Emptiness. Wasn't that a happy feeling? Sort of? There was nothing to take there. He was empty already. The Dementors couldn't do a thing to him.

"Expecto Patronum!"

A silvery fountain gushed out of the tip of Draco's wand, sprinkling all around him. He fled to Mother's side of the room and aimed it from there. The Dementors recoiled to the door and out of the range of the fountain.

'Come on, beast, come out now! I've just spoken up against my father. Without Potter's help, mind you, and without the help of any substances! Don't tell me it's not good enough. It's never good enough for my father. But I don't care. You hear me? I. Don't. Care. He's chained to the bloody chair, and I'm not. I have a wand, and he does not. I hereby declare that this is good enough!'

"Expecto Patronum!"

A stag charged at the black threesome, and all four disappeared behind the door.

"Colloportus!" The door pulled tightly into the frame with a content thud.

Draco awoke to a sonorous metallic clank. He should seal the other door too, just in case. But as he turned, his father was standing in the middle of the room. He drew his hand slowly in the air above the Guilt Line. The next second, he stepped over it. Nothing happened.

"Fascinating!" He looked at Draco with a new unfamiliar expression on his face. "Draco? This is amazing!" He danced over the line back and forth and laughed quietly. "It's out. Down. Off. And the chains, they haven't even been enchanted." He crouched behind Mother's chair, and started pulling at her chains. "Just a simple knot."

The chains thundered to the floor, and Mother stretched her arms and fingers with a shivering sigh.

"It's cold," she said.

Draco transformed her chair into a puffy armchair and conjured a blanket.

"Look, Draco," Father said, "it might have been harsh to call you a blood traitor, but you have to admit, when you pretend to be one so convincingly, one can be easily misled. Great acting!" Father walked up and down the room, stretching his limbs. "So you took down the Guilt Line? And what else? What do we owe the Dementors' visit to? Are the outer wards also down?"

Draco tried to cast a warming charm.

"And the Patronus!" Father said.

Draco remained silent.

"Excellent!"

Their eyes met. Had he just won Father back, after having forsaken him? He could lie, he could claim the fall of Azkaban for himself, and this look in Father's eyes would be his forever.

"So," Father swept the back of the broken chair with his foot out the way, "what's the plan?"

There was no plan.

"I must admit, I can't work out the reason for all this preamble with the Forgetfulness Potion. What were you getting at?"

It wasn't a preamble, or was it?

"We could apparate right out, couldn't we?"

To the Sticks, sure. Something must have betrayed that Draco thought that they could.

"Is there a boat waiting? Is our money waiting for us somewhere safe?"

No, and no.

"Where are we going?" He turned to Mother. "Narcissa, are you coming with us?"

"No," her voice was resolute. "I'm staying right where I am."

Father stopped and stretched out his hand to her.

"Won't you give me a farewell kiss at least? We might never see each other again."

"I'm sure we'll see each other again very soon. When the Aurors bring you back, wet and hungry."

"All right. I'll never forget the most reasonable woman in the world that I married." Father's eyes were back on Draco. "So what are we waiting for?"

Draco didn't know what to say, but for the first time he managed not to drop his gaze.

Father frowned. "Are you angry at me for what I said?" he came closer and opened his arms, but Draco backed away. "I wasn't at my best, and I'm sorry." His voice was soft and warm. "This is a dreadful place. Azkaban brings out the worst in you. But it will be better, I will be better, everything will be better once we're out of here." Why hadn't he spoken like this more often? "What can I do to make it well?"

Draco couldn't believe he had come this far on a sheer bluff. His father was not lecturing him, not reprimanding him. He was saying sorry, and by the looks of it, he'd just opened a negotiation.

Father looked at him for a long while. The softness in his face turned to puzzlement.

"I don't understand. You break into Azkaban just to give me a vial of Forgetfulness Potion?" He blinked. "What do you want?"

Maybe he could pull it off? No boat was waiting for them, but there was chance that a boat was waiting for whoever actually took down the wards. No guarantee that person would be eager to share the ride, but life was full of surprises. There was only one snag in it. He would have to flee with his father, and hide for who knows how long. And he would never see his mother again. Or Ewen.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I don't think it's prudent, Draco. When they find you here with a wand and me gone," Father glanced nervously at the wand, "you know what will happen."

Father peered into his eyes, as if a hidden treasure was swimming somewhere in his vitreous fluid. "What is it? A girl?"

Draco chuckled.

"Wait. All these stags..." Father squinted. "What is exactly the nature of your relationship with Potter?"

Not again. Not Potter!

"Did he brainwash you? Did he coerce into doing something dishonourable?"

Draco couldn't believe it. If there was a person who had coerced him into doing something dishonourable, it was certainly not Potter.

"Draco, I don't blame you. We are all in a bad place. And it might seem to you right now that it's the best you can get, but it isn't. When we get away, we'll make a fresh start. You're clever, and good-looking, and a powerful wizard." Father gestured at the fallen Guilt Line. "And we're still wealthy. You can, you absolutely can get a beautiful witch. Don't give up."

This was so ridiculous, Draco could barely hold a laugh. That was the thing with staying silent. The guesses about what he did not say were getting wilder and wilder. How far could he stretch it? His father was still waiting for a reply. He was still waiting.

"I don't understand," Father said finally. "You break into Azkaban, but not to escape? Why are you here? Just to flex your muscles? Because you can? What do you want for god's sake?"

Father was trying so hard. Draco couldn't resist it any more. There were a few things he wanted.

"First off, I'm the heir."

Father nodded.

"In fact, you might think of transferring the estate to my name some time soon." This one Draco made up on the spot. "It will facilitate the administration enormously."

"Aha." Father's jaw clenched and a tick shook his lower eyelid.

"Second, I will not 'get' a witch. I don't need to get a witch." Draco was flying. He'd crossed all the lines, and his father was still listening. "Third, if I feel so inclined at any point, I will marry a wizard, or a muggle, or a squib, or a Merman, or a Centaur," Draco would rather continue this list indefinitely, just to make absolutely sure that no loophole was left to constrain his freedom of choice, "but he will most certainly be male. And all the talk about making little Malfoys stops now!"

"Fifty–Fifty. We split it the day I get my hands on a quill, and you won't hear a word from me about marriage. You won't hear from me at all if you wish."

Draco kept marvelling.

"I swear." Father glanced at Mother. "I'll swear an Unbreakable Vow."

That was a splendid offer. A splendid offer indeed.

"And fourth," there was one more thing Draco wanted, though, "I'm on probation, so breaking the law is not really on right now, for me. I'm sorry, Dad."

Lucius stared at Draco for a good minute. The sparkle in his eye faded and a long hoarse sigh came out of the depths of his chest.

"All right." He walked to the door. "I don't have much to lose, do I? Stay. Don't be surprised if they blame you for my escape. But I have to try it, I can't miss this chance." Lucius held the door handle.

"There are Dementors out there, Lucius," Mother said.

"There are also Patronuses. What if I'm lucky? Take care."

Draco's locking charm must have worn off. Lucius pulled the handle and the door opened with a long squeak. He turned his back to Draco.

'On my terms!' Draco thought as he shouted "Stupefy!", and his father crashed to the floor.

Draco relocked the door before he realised what he'd done. He'd just stunned his father. Draco stood still, taking in the view. Father lay sprawled on the innocent side of the Guilt Line, his eyes closed, as if he was asleep.

Now Draco could do what he'd come here for. He knelt next to his father and ran his fingers over his prisoner robes. There. He slipped the vial of supershrunken Forgetfulness Potion into Father's pocket. 'On my terms!'

The silence was pounding in Draco's ears, and fatigue crept in on him, as if he'd just unloaded a millstone. He'd done his part. What his father would make of it was beyond Draco's control.

"The broken wards are not your handiwork, are they?" Mother was still sitting in the fake armchair wrapped in the fake blanket.

"No." Draco got back to his feet.

"Someone else is very eager to see you go down for it. I don't trust it."

"Do you think it's Uncle Rodolphus?"

"Possibly," Mother said. "But whoever it is, it's good that you didn't run into the trap."

"Are you sure you don't want to try? We could apparate to the Sticks and wait there. Here, it's only a matter of time until another horde of Dementors falls over us."

"Oh no, I'm not going anywhere. By the way, a nice blanket, smooth, silky. Thanks." She snuggled it up to her chin. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable? We might as well enjoy the time."

Draco flicked his wand and extended the armchair to a loveseat. As his arm wound around his mother's shoulders, childish relief gushed over his body like a warm shower. This was Mother. He needed a hug so much!

"Are you going to try for another child?"

"If we do that's none of your business. That's between me and Lucius."

Why hadn't his parents had more children anyway? It would have been fun to have a little brother or sister. But now, if they did, it would be a punishment.

"What about you?" Mother said softly. "What are these strange ideas about marrying a Merman?"

"He doesn't have to be a Merman."

"Lucius the first has always wanted to marry you off to a Muggle princess." Mother sighed. "Is this another one of his crazy ideas?"

Draco shrugged. Why didn't his parents ever entertain the possibility that he might also have ideas of his own?

"You shouldn't take him too seriously," Mother said. "He is just a portrait."

"He's a masterpiece of the Renaissance." There had been times Draco used to think, like his parents, that Lucius the first was a white crow among his ancestors. Now he knew better. "Did you know that the Malfoys in France were Muggles?"

Narcissa cocked an eyebrow.

"And did you know that Herman, Sir Herman, was actually a Loubert?"

"A Loubert? Like the jewellery Loubert?"

"Yes. And the weaponry Loubert, and the armoury Loubert."

"I have a Loubert necklace."

"Oh you do? You should absolutely show it to me one day."

Mother's cold hand gave him a light squeeze.

"Anyway, Herman had a big row with his father, and his mother, then took the name of his Muggle grandma and made off to England."

"Oh."

"And Henry was not his only son. He had two older sons. And one of them, Gerard, was out of the picture for a very long time, dead almost. But then, seven hundred years later, Hyperion, you know, Hyperion found him and brought him back to life, and you know what? Gerard could have claimed the estate and everything for himself by birth right, but he didn't. He decided to become a caretaker at Hogwarts instead."

"A caretaker? Maybe it is no coincidence that I've never heard about him."

"And Hyperion had two sisters, Flavia and Aurelia. And they were both in love with a Muggle-born. And when one of them was imprisoned in Azkaban, the other one took her place to get her out. They swapped bodies with the help of a— another Loubert piece."

"That's why I've never heard of them either."

"They are all Malfoys, Mother! All of them! Malfoys are a mixed lot."

"And you are planning to make it even more colourful." Mother gave him a long penetrating look. "Who is it then? A Merman, really?"

"He's a wizard." Draco wondered if he should tell the whole truth. But now that he was at it... "He might have Centaurs in his bloodline."

"'Might have'? That is to say, there are no obvious signs, like hooves?"

"Mother!"

She brushed his hand with hers, a scant peacemaking gesture. "Do we know him?"

"I don't think so. Although..." If they somehow got their hands on Daily Prophets here, could someone have smuggled in a wireless? "He was in the news a couple of weeks ago."

"In the news?" Mother looked alarmed. "For what?"

"For being a seer, I guess. The most powerful young seer in Britain, in fact."

"You should never marry a seer, Draco."

"Who's speaking of ma—?" On second thought... "Why not?"

"You can't keep a single secret from them."

"Aren't you supposed to have no secrets from your spouse?"

Mother's long sigh sounded like the crunch of an army of skeletons crammed into one small closet.

"Do you keep secrets from Father?" The sudden thought of a possible undercover step-dad was both scary and strangely exciting. But one look into Mother's eyes was enough to see that her secrets were of a completely different nature. "Mother?"

"Yes, darling."

"I need to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"Did you ask Snape to kill Dumbledore instead of— if I— if I chickened out?"

"We didn't put it that way, but yes, I did."

"What does that woman, the witness, really know about it?"

"She witnessed it, I suppose."

"She didn't transform into a comic book. She lied."

"She might have. How do you know?"

"I've been there. In Cokeworth. I've seen the comic book. It's just a normal book. It was not her."

Mother kept staring at the folds of her blanket with calm indifference.

"All right."

"All right?! How is this all right?! We could ask for a retrial! They would move you to a Ministry cell!"

"I don't think it's a good idea."

That was what Draco had feared. There was some damn bloody reason that no one would bother to explain to him.

"Why?"

"I'm sure she was there. If not as a book, then as something else."

"Let me guess. As a rat?"

"Ah?" Mother leaned back and looked at him, as if the three inches of extra distance gave her a better view. "You've figured that one out, too!"

"Why won't you let Knox debunk her?"

"Now, Draco, imagine what will happen if her rathood comes to light, hm?"

"They'll think she is an unregistered Animagus."

"Correct. Does she want that?"

"Probably not."

"Correct. You know how they deal with Animagi here? They chain them in such a way that they stay chained even if they transform. That usually involves pulling the links through inner organs."

Draco tried not to picture it.

"So," Narcissa continued, "she would be forced to tell the truth that she is not an Animagus, but—"

"An Inverse Animagus."

"You did some research! I'm impressed."

Yes. Granger had.

"And how is that a problem?"

Mother squeezed his hand firmly.

"The Wizengamot would want to know who maintained her in human form. It is not easy. You have to refresh the charms every other day and perform regular rituals. Otherwise she'd revert to a rat and die. Someone had to keep her human."

"And that was?"

"Me."

Draco gulped.

"It hadn't always been me. At first, Wormtail did it. But then the Dark Lord decided that Wormtail had outlived his usefulness and had to pass the torch to someone else." She tightened her grip on Draco's hand. It almost hurt. "There was no saying no to the Dark Lord, you know it."

"If she had told that to the Wizengamot, you'd get a longer sentence?"

"Yes. The lie with the comic book was the lesser evil."

"Why was the Dark Lord so set on keeping her around?"

"I don't know."

"And why did she expose you? Shouldn't she be grateful, a little bit? Why does she hate you so much?"

"When the Dark Lord fell, I had no reason to maintain her in human form any longer. I shouldn't have stopped. I underestimated her." Mother let go of his hand and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "Everyone hates us, Draco. She is just one of the few who can really hurt us."

Now that they fell silent, Draco could feel stifling weight coming down upon him. Between patches of remaining plaster, cracked and crumbling stones gaped dark and wide. They seemed to press all air back into his lungs. Was this what Azkaban felt like? How long would they have to wait like this? Hours? Days? And who would find them first, the Aurors or the Dementors?

The silence wore on. It took a while before Draco realised that a muffled scratching sound came from somewhere behind him. The scratching grew clearer, something cracked and fell, Draco jumped up from the sofa and turned around. A brown furry lump popped out of a crevice in the wall, and trudged across the room.

"Hominem revelio!" Draco's spell hit the long hairless tail. Next moment, a tiny crumpled woman was panting in front of him, grey hair sticking out in haphazard clumps. Her purple lips were moving, but instead of speech out came flat hoots.

"Ah!" Narcissa straightened her back, crossed her legs, and looked down at the puffing creature. "We've just been talking about you."

The woman kept drawing breath with long whistles.

"You're still here," she finally managed to rasp through a scowl. "I thought you'd run for it."

"What made you think so?"

"Never seen a jailbird who didn't want to escape. Last time," she kicked Lucius's limp arm, "your hubby skedaddled like a shot rabbit. Was the first one in the boat."

"What do you mean 'last time'?" Draco said.

"It's my third Azkaban breakout, love! Who did you think got the Dementors out of the way each time? You know what the Dark Lord used to call me? 'My ambassador extraordinaire'. You people can't deal with Dementors. Things like me can."

That explained a lot.

"Did you take down the wards?"

"We did! Good work, isn' it?" She swept her foot over the Guilt Line.

We?

"How many are you?"

"Enough to get the job done." She grinned. "You didn't miss your Auror baby-sitter, did you?"

"The letter said I would get a watchwizard here. Where is he?"

"The letter said." The woman cackled softly. "It's wild, that silly scribble on paper."

"You never had a chance to learn to appreciate written word, I suppose."

"Oh, I love written words. If they can fool you to come all the way here and not notice a thing."

"What do you mean?"

"A good friend might have changed a few written words."

"Oh?" Had he missed a fake? Draco went automatically for his breast pocket where the letter had been sitting, but thought better of it. It was wiser to hold on to his wand. "What happened to my watchwizard?"

The rat woman only sniffed in reply.

"And? Is there a boat waiting?"

"Don't listen to her, Draco. If she were doing this for us, you wouldn't have to ask. It's a trap."

"What do you want?" Draco had to give her credit for the perfect timing. "Implicate me in jailbreak?"

The woman's eyes darted left and right, she gave a short dry cackle and collapsed into a brown furry ball again. A second later she was back to human, but panting and rasping, as if she'd just swum to the Sticks and back.

"I want," her shrunken breast was rising and falling, pumping air hungrily, "your guts on a platter." She caught her breath. "Nothing personal. I just want your mummy to watch while I'm pulling them out of you."

"Erm, I object." Draco had a wand, and the woman in front of him was at the verge of a heart failure. She could lie stunned next to his father any moment.

"Did you hear that?" she said to his mother, "Your pup won't like it. And you will lick my paws and beg for me to stop. You should of had more young. After a hundred pups you don't notice if one croaks."

"Clearly," Narcissa said, "we don't have the same approach to motherhood."

"'Not the same' is right." The woman squinted at Draco and bared her grey teeth. "You know what the life of a rat is like?" She shuffled closer to him. "You walk alone, you'll be eaten. You stay home with family, you'll be fucked. Then the day you drop the litter, the males come and rape you again. The way not to get raped is to be up the duff. Or to be human. My father tried to keep me out of it."

"Your father got you into it in the first place." Draco looked down at the little head shining through the sparse hair. "If he hadn't raped rats, you wouldn't have been born."

"But here I am!" She scratched her back and hiccoughed. "And your mummy and I had a deal. I kill the rats in the cellar, and she keeps the charms on me so I can stay human."

"You and your father created the problem to begin with," Narcissa said.

"So what if we did?"

"Wait a second," Draco put two and two together, "you did it with your father?!" If he hadn't vomited himself empty on the Sticks, he would be doing it now.

"I did. With my father, and with my brothers, and with my sons. So what? We rats don't make a fuss about it. That was love, for once! And a marvy cellar. We were a happy family. And then I had to kill them all, because she promised me to do the charms. I kept my part of the deal, she didn't." The woman spat before Narcissa's feet. "Now look at me! I'm fourteen!" She pulled at her grey sunken cheeks.

Fourteen! Draco's guts gave a jerk. To be fair, he wouldn't wish this on his worst enemy. "Couldn't someone else— could I renew those charms?" he said.

"Draco, don't!"

The woman froze, blinked, and shrank into a rat again. The little body shivered and weak peeps sounded at Draco's feet. He could probably break its skull if he stepped on it. When she stood in front of him again, her laughter came mixed with a heavy cardiac cough. "Look! Your pup... has more brains... than the two of you together."

"He won't do it. It's forbidden by law."

"Oh, he won't. It's too late anyway. But he will pay."

Draco met the rat woman's eye seething with hatred. She had come spine-chillingly close to making him pay. But he wasn't running, and his mother wasn't either, and even his father wasn't, obviously, although it was hardly his own achievement. Draco hadn't taken down the wards, they could drug him with Veritaserum, he had a solid defence.

"The Dark Lord taught me things. Magic. I was a person." The woman collapsed to the floor and turned into an animal. She thrashed about, flashing a human hand or foot a few times, but failed to regain complete human shape.

Muffled voices sounded somewhere behind the door. Draco couldn't hear the words, but he recognized the rhythm pattern. Expecto Patronum.

"Expecto Patronum!" There was another voice, and the rumble of feet and falling bodies. The Aurors. Finally. They were fighting the Dementors. Draco refreshed the locking charm.

The rat sniffed the air, peeped softly, and ran past Draco to— Just as it passed under his wand hand, the brown furry lump exploded, the balding head hit Draco's elbow, and before he knew it, his wand slipped out of his hand. The woman dashed forward.

"After being a person, would you want to be a rat again?" She turned the wand the wrong way around.

"Give it back!" Draco charged at her.

"Avada kedavra!" The image fell flat in the green flash.

Draco couldn't stop. He was flying at the spot where the lightning bolt from the tip of his wand connected with the woman's stomach. A thud of skull against stone, and the small bony body was buried under his.

"Draco!" Mother's hands touched his back.

He was alive. He pushed himself up on his arms and looked under him. The corpse shrank, brown fur gushed out of the wrinkled skin, and the spine grew out into a long bald tail. A dead rat lay on the floor.

Aha. So you could avada-kedavra yourself. Draco picked up his wand.

"Thank heavens!" Mother was covering him with kisses. "Are you hurt?"

"No." At worst, he'd bruised his elbows.

"We're rid of her."

They were. This opened possibilities. Now they could file the appeal to reopen the investigation. He would be talking to Knox as soon as he could find a fireplace. Draco looked down at the rat's body, wondering whether he should be feeling something, but could see nothing but flat green light inside him.

"Expecto Patronum!" The voice came from just behind the door. Feet were padding past. Doors squeaked and thumped.

"We just sit it out, Draco, don't interfere." Mother had sensed his hesitation. She sat on the loveseat and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

"Cleared. Cleared. Expecto Patronum! Cleared." The echoes could be heard through the wooden door.

"This one's locked. Alohomora!" The outer door flew open. "Expelliarmus!" Draco's wand flew out of his hand. A good dozen people poured inside the room, stumbling over the remains of the broken chair. Bewildered looks darted between his father's stunned body and his mother's loveseat. "Incarcerous." An invisible wave pushed Draco onto the last remaining chair, his hands tied.

"What? What's this?" Draco tried to stand up, but the chains caught his elbows and fixed him. "I'm visiting!"

There were a couple of familiar faces in the crowd. Pucey, Southill, oh yeah, Potter! What Granger and the Weasleys were doing here was beyond Draco's comprehension.

"Mr Draco Malfoy," a witch in uniform came forward, "your wand has been signalled to cast an Unforgivable Curse."

Shit! The bloody trace!

"You've thereby broken condition one paragraph one of your probation. Your conditional release is terminated with immediate effect. You will stay—"

"Wait, wait a second!" It wasn't him, damn it! It was— How was he supposed to explain it without telling too much? "It was a rat!" He nodded at the brown lump in the middle of the room. "It was just a rat."

Puzzled faces turned to the dead rat.

"Hominem revelio!"

Granger!

The damn fucking Granger stuck her wand in it!

The rat's body grew, the fur vanished, revealing the dry wrinkles of his mother's prosecution witness. The flash of Southill's camera blinded him for a second and colourful stars swam across his retina.

"You will stay in custody at the fortress of Azkaban for the minimum of the remaining duration of your present sentence. The traced incident will be investigated, and appropriate legal action will be pursued."

Was he up for a life sentence now? No, this couldn't be true.

"I demand to speak to my defender now!"

"Contact with friends, family, and providers of legal help will be regulated in accordance with the general procedures for visits to the fortress."

Wham! The line on the floor went up in golden flames. Mother's loveseat turned back into a bare iron chair. That was it. A shot of frost ran down Draco's spine. That was it.

"Right! Great! Got me! Happy now?" Draco scanned the faces on the other side of the Line. "Feed us to the Dementors and take a day off!" Potter didn't look happy. "The press will hear about it!" Shacklebolt would not be any happier, Draco would make sure of it. "Everyone will hear about it!"

If the Dementors didn't get them first. Draco felt cold and darkness advance from behind. He would miss his N.E.W.T.s again. Ewen would be angry.