A/N - For poor Draco’s sake, and for mine, those who have read Unforgiven should note that upsetting the Malfoy Covenant will not, in this story at least, unleash an ancient enemy on the wizarding world, and nor will it kill Draco. It will, however, destroy the balance of the Land Beyond the Veil, and be a very dire loss of face.
Disclaimer – I don’t own Draco Malfoy. Don’t sue me.
Chapter 20
They came at noon, when the sun was at its highest, when Darkness and Evil should still, by all rights, be cowering in what little shadow was left. But then Nott had always had a keen sense of irony. Under the watchful eyes of their Lord, spurred on by the hatred and the quivering eagerness of His right hand, who had been dreaming of this day for decades and more, the Death Eaters stepped over the House Elf’s stiffening corpse and into a land of legend and myth that lay, slumbering complacently, peacefully, beneath the midday sun.
**********************
Narcissa Beaufort Malfoy Nott stood at the windows of her husband’s townhouse in the centre of wizarding London – a gothic monstrosity of a house, complete with ancient plumbing and drafty corridors – and wondered whether she had gone too far. She had known, from the start, that it would be a very delicate balance between using Nott and actually supporting him, between her own advancement and actual committal to her new husband’s plans. But here she was, no better off than she had been before, married to a man who was very, very close to losing it all, just as Lucius had done…
At the moment of what could be his greatest victory, Nott was the closest he had ever been to absolute defeat. This plan of his balanced on such a delicate, fine edge – the edge between his reason and his hate, between cool analytical ambition and absolute megalomania – that she had very little confidence he could keep his head. She knew Nott, knew him as only the woman who endured his bed could, knew that he coveted everything the Malfoy had, hungered to own, to control, and in the flush of his hatred, to break.
Men were such children.
Well, unless Nott could overcome his own nature, he would bring the full force of a vengeful Malfoy down on his head, and she would not be standing faithfully beside him if he did. All of her life she had been defined by her male relatives – she had been Philippe Beaufort’s daughter, Lucius Malfoy’s wife, Draco’s mother, and now Alexander Nott’s wife. She was sick of it, and eager to be a force in her own right, to play the Game as the Lords played it, and not in the bedroom or the drawing room as had always been her lot.
Not, of course, that there were no female Clan leaders, but as long as Philippe Beaufort ruled his family, there would be no such feminist nonsense in his household. He had had one of Narcisssa’s professors at Beauxbatons – a mudblood – dismissed because Narcissa had admired her and her ideals, and had made the mistake of showing it. After that, she had learned her lesson…
Oh, she had learned it very well.
But now it was time to put other, darker lessons into play.
*************************************
The Castle was burning.
Eldritch green flames licked at the ancient grey stone, tainting the flawless blue sky, sending columns of black smoke high into the atmosphere, so that it could be seen for miles around on all sides, and even from Outside. The Veil had fallen, and the lands that had once sheltered beyond it lay open, vulnerable, and part of mainstream Britain once more…
Black robed figures could be seen everywhere, spreading destruction and fear as they went, but no death yet – not yet. For some strange reason, no death yet…
Nott – for it was he, Draco knew it – stood in the centre of the shaded, tangled confines of the ancient circle of Oaks that was the centre, the very wellspring of Malfoy power, and, arms upraised, black robes eating the light, chanted ancient, horrifying words, malevolent and twisted, that seemed to blot out the very light of the sun itself…
And then the pain began, the…the separation…
His vision wavered as the chant came to a climax, and as Nott finished with a shout, he was…repelled…and something deep within him snapped, and then it all went black.
Draco screamed.
*********************************************
The cell door opened. Standing in the shadows, in the corner of the room, Lucius saw the visitor peer cautiously into the darkness, not risking a lantern or an illuminated wand, and slowly, furtively slip further in. The figure, cloaked and muffled all in smoky grey garments, padded silently – extremely skilfully, actually, Lucius noted with reluctant admiration – towards the bed, where in the oldest trick in the world, Lucius had bunched and shaped the bedding into a reasonably human shape. In the darkness, it would only fool the assassin for a moment – but a moment was all that was needed.
In the barest moment of hesitation, of reassessment and animal adrenaline as he realised he had been tricked, the assassin was off balance for the slightest second, and Lucius struck. He had no wand, and after months of incarceration with no exposure to sunlight or fresh air or exercise of any kind, his reflexes were slow and his strength drained, but he had been planning this for a very long time, with icy determination to drive him and an endless well of hatred to sustain him…
And, unlike the killer, he knew this cell, had paced out every single inch of it, had burned every detail of it onto his mind’s eye, and was intimately familiar with it, even in the darkness. But even so, he was rusty, and something alerted the assassin; his hand and the vicious, sharpened pin it wielded were blocked, held away by an iron grip and he didn’t have the strength to force it.
He twisted, turning, trying to gain a better grip, and the assassin – young, strong, at the peak of his abilities – went with him, kicking his legs out from beneath him, bearing him down to the ground, forcing him down, forcing his wrist down, pinning him to the floor with a forearm across his throat, blocking off his air supply.
Lucius had always prided himself on his self-control, his ability to override his instincts and the urge to panic, the mindless drive to thrash, struggle, scrabble and scratch, to do anything to gain another breath of air. But he was a man, and his mind was stronger than his body, his intellect stronger than his instincts. He held himself still, and they stared at each other, he and the assassin, in a surreal moment of calm. Their lips were drawn back in feral, animal snarls, muscles straining, hearts beating frantically, but Lucius noticed that his eyes were dark, velvet brown, streaked with gold – surprisingly beautiful eyes – and that they were entirely clear, no clouding or dilation to indicate hypnotism, potions or any kind of chemical aides.
A sober, coldblooded killer.
What the assassin saw in Lucius’ eyes, as they began to dim and cloud from lack of air, from the gathering darkness, no one would ever know. For as the darkness gathered at the edges of his consciousness, as the seductive peace began to pull him under, he heard Draco’s distant scream, felt the heavy phantom tread of malevolence on his soul, felt the link that he still shared with the land for which he had shed so much blood…snap.
Closed his eyes as he felt the last, final, desperate surge of strength fill him, infuse his mind and his muscles, and focusing all his concentration he held back, waited, imposed his will on his increasingly insistent body, and went limp. The arm across his throat relaxed fractionally – only fractionally – but it was enough. Maximum tension could only be sustained, even supported by the whole weight of the body, in the forearm for so long before the build up of lactic acid caused cramps and quivering; once it was relaxed the assassin – perhaps the first unwise thing he had done – took a moment to work his arm, and took his mind off his erstwhile victim.
It proved fatal.
Weak, half-strangled, bruised and battered and beaten, Lucius was nonetheless driven to something approaching fanaticism by the increasing peril he felt, by the driving imperative to save his son and his land, and moving within his last surge of strength he came up off the ground with all of the grace and agility he had once had at eighteen. Not expecting any further movement from behind him, the assassin nevertheless almost – almost – turned around in time to avoid Lucius’ blow to his kidneys, then the relentless flurry of other, precisely placed blows and kicks that saw him sink to the ground, whimpering and all but crippled.
No doubt devotees of Queensbury would not have approved, but Lucius had long known that sober, coldblooded killers could not be taken down nicely.
Not wishing to repeat the other man’s mistakes, and in too much pain to play games, he planted his knee on the assassin’s neck, wrested the hat pin from his spasmodic, slackening grip, and stabbed him straight through the heart, twisting the pin, bearing down until he was absolutely sure the other was dead.
Then, aching in countless places, he forced himself back to his feet, stretched painfully, and froze when he felt a wand touch lightly, delicately, against the nape of his neck.
*******************************************
“Poor, poor Lucius,” she purred dulcetly. “You must be getting old.”
Lucius could only laugh, his throat hoarse and scratchy from where it had almost been crushed. “Why am I not surprised, Narcissa?”
The feather light, but potentially dangerous touch of her wand trailed around his neck, healing wherever it touched, down his collarbones and as she moved around in front of him, rested in the hollow of his throat, against the pulse that had yet to calm down to its normal pace. Her cool, beautiful blue eyes surveyed him, skimming over the bruises and the blood and the prison pallor, and down to the still bleeding corpse on the floor. “I see you have made good use of the opportunity I gave you, Lucius. But then you always did land on your feet.”
He didn’t bother feigning surprise, and he was too tired to speculate about her motivations. “What do you want?”
Her eyes were icy, sardonic, and held his with almost masculine directness. “Nott,” she said flatly. “I want him out of the way.”
“And yourself in his place? He, too, has a son.”
“Theodore?” She snorted, dismissed him out of hand. “He is nothing.”
Lucius watched her, mouth quirking wryly, eyes laughing at himself, and the woman he thought he had known for nearly twenty years. Truly, the boy had no chance…
Narcissa stepped aside to let him precede her out of the cell, handed him back his wand and a thick, lined invisibility cloak, and a portkey that would take him as close to Malfoy land as he dared. “Oh, and Lucius,” she said softly. He turned around, raised an eyebrow. “Tell him who sent you.”
He laughed, a little hoarse, even after her healing, and put hand over heart, bowing his head in a gesture of utmost respect. “As you, say,” he said. “Lady.”
****************************************
Arthur Weasley came running out into the corridor, drawn by the agonised scream, his mind racing with images of Death Eater attacks, assassinations, even muggle bombs, only to find Draco Malfoy doubled over, slumped half on the ground and half on his daughter.
So that’s who she was learning from…
Chaos and disorder reigned, but Harcourt’s smooth, modulated voice – not Moody’s – rose over it all, his cool logic calming them, reassuring them that there was no danger, they were not being attacked, there was no need to panic, they hadn’t been found out…
But Snape, usually the most controlled, most imperturbable of them all, was sheet white, his hands shaking and oddly helpless as he watched his protégé gasping for breath, his silver eyes horrified. And Ginny had eyes only for Malfoy – it was as if Harry, pale and gasping as Dumbledore held his hand, didn’t even exist. Arthur wondered whether that was a good thing or not.
“What happened? What did you see, Potter?” Harcourt demanded, because Malfoy was obviously incapable of coherent speech.
The dark haired boy, green eyes haunted, spoke clearly despite his chattering teeth. But then, he’d had a lot of practice at this sort of thing. “There was…there was a castle,” he said, “and it was burning, and there were Death Eaters all around it, waiting…”
“Waiting for what?” Moody asked.
Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. But there were others – in a circle of trees, dark and tangled and creepy…”
Snape and Harcourt exchanged glances – Harcourt grim, Snape pale. Arthur assumed they knew what Harry was talking about.
“And…there was a Death Eater inside the circle, chanting –“
“Which Death Eater?” Snape grated out. “What was he chanting?”
Harry’s lips set mutinously, not appreciating the interjection. “I don’t know,” he said, a little sarcastically. “I’m not on first name basis with the Death Eaters.” Snape’s face blanked, and Harcourt’s eyes narrowed. Moody laughed delightedly.
“What did he look like, Mr Potter? And what was he chanting?” Harcourt’s voice was terrifyingly neutral.
Harry’s eyes widened, hearing that tone from an Auror, and he quickly reconsidered his position. “He was…dark haired, and stocky, and probably around forty or so, and he was chanting some kind of Latin spell. I don’t know the words, but it was very, very dark – it called shadows, and they seemed to…to choke the trees, somehow, and then something…snapped.”
“A shadow that choked the trees.” Moody repeated flatly. “And something snapped.”
Harry nodded, but the old man’s gaze shifted to Harcourt, who was, in his turn, watching Malfoy, who seemed to be regaining some of his strength – enough, at least, to lift his head and focus on them properly. “Yes,” he said softly. “Something snapped.” He forced himself to stand up, dusted himself off, and – almost as an afterthought – held out his hand to Ginny, pulled her back onto her feet, as if he had done it many times before.
Harry didn’t like it.
“Nott,” Draco said casually, as casually as he had stolen the scene and the momentum of the conversation. “He has invaded my land, burned my castle down, and desecrated my Grove.”
“Your land?” Harry asked incredulously.
Draco ignored him, ignored them all really, and turned and walked down the corridor towards the Great Hall. Ginny blinked, then leaped to follow him. Once again, Snape and Harcourt looked at each other, seemed to speak without need of words as all Slytherins – High Clan especially – did at their most irritating and secretive, and then followed after him as well. Exasperated, the rest of them followed suit, trailing after the fair-haired boy – no, not a boy, not anymore – to see what they could see.
Down in the Great Hall, voices were raised and words were clear, blunt and less than genteel; to Arthur’s amused eyes, it was an altercation most unbecoming of such highly ranked Slytherin aristocrats. Draco was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, the skirts of his robe flapping agitatedly; Snape and Harcourt were united in their disapproval, expressions equally grim and grave. Ginny was sitting on the sidelines and watching everything with great interest – but when she looked up and met Arthur’s eyes, her own were grim and troubled. There was nothing truly amusing in this at all – it was deadly serious.
“If you go,” Snape said direly, “it will be the ruin of everything we have worked so hard to achieve. You cannot risk yourself in this manner – you know what he is planning. It will destroy everything.”
Draco snarled. “And if I don’t go, it will be the ruin of everything I am, everything I ever will be. You know I have to go – he’s threatening my land, my people. I can’t stay away.”
“As you said, he’s threatening. He won’t destroy it or them; he wants to trap you, draw you out into the open and eliminate you, not make an implacable enemy of you by prematurely destroying the land beyond the Veil.”
“But there is no Veil any more,” Draco said violently. “He has destroyed it, brought down our last defence, made us vulnerable to everything and everyone.”
Arthur frowned. That was the first absolutely irrational, irrelevant thing he had ever heard Malfoy say.
“Draco,” Harcourt said insistently. “You cannot allow yourself to be drawn in this way. You know it’s a trap. You know it’s dangerous. You know he won’t destroy the land. Then why are you so insistent on rushing in recklessly, dangerously, and making such a fool of yourself?”
Snape concurred. “It’s an entirely Gryffindoric impulse, and you know it. Stay here. Wait him out. Don’t be foolish.”
But Draco wouldn’t listen, and no amount of cool, Slytherin logic, emotional persuasion, or ground out threats and orders could sway him from his completely uncharacteristic streak of stubborn recklessness. “No!” He shouted it – Merlin, he actually shouted it – at the two men who had been such reliable mentors, who had steadied his course when he had been so uncertain after Lucius’ conviction. “I can’t wait here while he has even one godsdamned foot on my land! I will not watch my people die while I am still alive to prevent it!” And then he stormed off, dragging an old battered ring brooch, worn smooth by the touch of many, many hands over the centuries – a portkey? – out of his pockets.
Snape and Harcourt both looked considerably shocked; Snape was swearing angrily, Harcourt merely looked furious, no doubt at the potential loss of all that suppressed energy and passion for the Order. Arthur thought he heard Snape mutter something about “bloody emotional Malfoy…” under his breath as they both, once again, followed after their leader, who was in no state to even think of looking after himself.
But no one, not Arthur, or Draco, or his two more sober mentors – or anyone else, for that matter – saw that Ginny, too, slipped away after them…
***************************************
Lucius, too, was outraged by the invasion of his lands. Older, wiser, with more cunning and ruthlessness than his son, his reaction had been no different; there were some things in this life that could not be compromised, and this was one of them. But even so, being older, wiser and more cunning than his son, he was not going to rush impetuously into action: not against such overwhelming odds.
One man, slow and sore, against approximately twenty highly trained, ruthless killers. He could raise local support, but for some reason the Death Eaters seemed reluctant to kill, and he didn’t want to incite them to it; if the villagers kept their heads down and stayed out of sight in the lands they knew far better than the invaders, there would be little need for violence. Nott seemed to have no desire to start a vicious guerrilla war, at least not until it became absolutely necessary.
Lucius thought he knew what the man was waiting for, and it made his blood run cold. He hadn’t thought Nott would have the patience, or the cold blooded nerve to pull such a thing off; still didn’t think it, and that was a frightening thought, because it led to disaster no matter which way Nott chose. He hoped that Draco had the good sense to utilise at least some caution, when he came rushing to the rescue.
Because that would make his own task so much easier…
**************************************
Disclaimer – I don’t own Draco Malfoy. Don’t sue me.
Chapter 20
They came at noon, when the sun was at its highest, when Darkness and Evil should still, by all rights, be cowering in what little shadow was left. But then Nott had always had a keen sense of irony. Under the watchful eyes of their Lord, spurred on by the hatred and the quivering eagerness of His right hand, who had been dreaming of this day for decades and more, the Death Eaters stepped over the House Elf’s stiffening corpse and into a land of legend and myth that lay, slumbering complacently, peacefully, beneath the midday sun.
**********************
Narcissa Beaufort Malfoy Nott stood at the windows of her husband’s townhouse in the centre of wizarding London – a gothic monstrosity of a house, complete with ancient plumbing and drafty corridors – and wondered whether she had gone too far. She had known, from the start, that it would be a very delicate balance between using Nott and actually supporting him, between her own advancement and actual committal to her new husband’s plans. But here she was, no better off than she had been before, married to a man who was very, very close to losing it all, just as Lucius had done…
At the moment of what could be his greatest victory, Nott was the closest he had ever been to absolute defeat. This plan of his balanced on such a delicate, fine edge – the edge between his reason and his hate, between cool analytical ambition and absolute megalomania – that she had very little confidence he could keep his head. She knew Nott, knew him as only the woman who endured his bed could, knew that he coveted everything the Malfoy had, hungered to own, to control, and in the flush of his hatred, to break.
Men were such children.
Well, unless Nott could overcome his own nature, he would bring the full force of a vengeful Malfoy down on his head, and she would not be standing faithfully beside him if he did. All of her life she had been defined by her male relatives – she had been Philippe Beaufort’s daughter, Lucius Malfoy’s wife, Draco’s mother, and now Alexander Nott’s wife. She was sick of it, and eager to be a force in her own right, to play the Game as the Lords played it, and not in the bedroom or the drawing room as had always been her lot.
Not, of course, that there were no female Clan leaders, but as long as Philippe Beaufort ruled his family, there would be no such feminist nonsense in his household. He had had one of Narcisssa’s professors at Beauxbatons – a mudblood – dismissed because Narcissa had admired her and her ideals, and had made the mistake of showing it. After that, she had learned her lesson…
Oh, she had learned it very well.
But now it was time to put other, darker lessons into play.
*************************************
The Castle was burning.
Eldritch green flames licked at the ancient grey stone, tainting the flawless blue sky, sending columns of black smoke high into the atmosphere, so that it could be seen for miles around on all sides, and even from Outside. The Veil had fallen, and the lands that had once sheltered beyond it lay open, vulnerable, and part of mainstream Britain once more…
Black robed figures could be seen everywhere, spreading destruction and fear as they went, but no death yet – not yet. For some strange reason, no death yet…
Nott – for it was he, Draco knew it – stood in the centre of the shaded, tangled confines of the ancient circle of Oaks that was the centre, the very wellspring of Malfoy power, and, arms upraised, black robes eating the light, chanted ancient, horrifying words, malevolent and twisted, that seemed to blot out the very light of the sun itself…
And then the pain began, the…the separation…
His vision wavered as the chant came to a climax, and as Nott finished with a shout, he was…repelled…and something deep within him snapped, and then it all went black.
Draco screamed.
*********************************************
The cell door opened. Standing in the shadows, in the corner of the room, Lucius saw the visitor peer cautiously into the darkness, not risking a lantern or an illuminated wand, and slowly, furtively slip further in. The figure, cloaked and muffled all in smoky grey garments, padded silently – extremely skilfully, actually, Lucius noted with reluctant admiration – towards the bed, where in the oldest trick in the world, Lucius had bunched and shaped the bedding into a reasonably human shape. In the darkness, it would only fool the assassin for a moment – but a moment was all that was needed.
In the barest moment of hesitation, of reassessment and animal adrenaline as he realised he had been tricked, the assassin was off balance for the slightest second, and Lucius struck. He had no wand, and after months of incarceration with no exposure to sunlight or fresh air or exercise of any kind, his reflexes were slow and his strength drained, but he had been planning this for a very long time, with icy determination to drive him and an endless well of hatred to sustain him…
And, unlike the killer, he knew this cell, had paced out every single inch of it, had burned every detail of it onto his mind’s eye, and was intimately familiar with it, even in the darkness. But even so, he was rusty, and something alerted the assassin; his hand and the vicious, sharpened pin it wielded were blocked, held away by an iron grip and he didn’t have the strength to force it.
He twisted, turning, trying to gain a better grip, and the assassin – young, strong, at the peak of his abilities – went with him, kicking his legs out from beneath him, bearing him down to the ground, forcing him down, forcing his wrist down, pinning him to the floor with a forearm across his throat, blocking off his air supply.
Lucius had always prided himself on his self-control, his ability to override his instincts and the urge to panic, the mindless drive to thrash, struggle, scrabble and scratch, to do anything to gain another breath of air. But he was a man, and his mind was stronger than his body, his intellect stronger than his instincts. He held himself still, and they stared at each other, he and the assassin, in a surreal moment of calm. Their lips were drawn back in feral, animal snarls, muscles straining, hearts beating frantically, but Lucius noticed that his eyes were dark, velvet brown, streaked with gold – surprisingly beautiful eyes – and that they were entirely clear, no clouding or dilation to indicate hypnotism, potions or any kind of chemical aides.
A sober, coldblooded killer.
What the assassin saw in Lucius’ eyes, as they began to dim and cloud from lack of air, from the gathering darkness, no one would ever know. For as the darkness gathered at the edges of his consciousness, as the seductive peace began to pull him under, he heard Draco’s distant scream, felt the heavy phantom tread of malevolence on his soul, felt the link that he still shared with the land for which he had shed so much blood…snap.
Closed his eyes as he felt the last, final, desperate surge of strength fill him, infuse his mind and his muscles, and focusing all his concentration he held back, waited, imposed his will on his increasingly insistent body, and went limp. The arm across his throat relaxed fractionally – only fractionally – but it was enough. Maximum tension could only be sustained, even supported by the whole weight of the body, in the forearm for so long before the build up of lactic acid caused cramps and quivering; once it was relaxed the assassin – perhaps the first unwise thing he had done – took a moment to work his arm, and took his mind off his erstwhile victim.
It proved fatal.
Weak, half-strangled, bruised and battered and beaten, Lucius was nonetheless driven to something approaching fanaticism by the increasing peril he felt, by the driving imperative to save his son and his land, and moving within his last surge of strength he came up off the ground with all of the grace and agility he had once had at eighteen. Not expecting any further movement from behind him, the assassin nevertheless almost – almost – turned around in time to avoid Lucius’ blow to his kidneys, then the relentless flurry of other, precisely placed blows and kicks that saw him sink to the ground, whimpering and all but crippled.
No doubt devotees of Queensbury would not have approved, but Lucius had long known that sober, coldblooded killers could not be taken down nicely.
Not wishing to repeat the other man’s mistakes, and in too much pain to play games, he planted his knee on the assassin’s neck, wrested the hat pin from his spasmodic, slackening grip, and stabbed him straight through the heart, twisting the pin, bearing down until he was absolutely sure the other was dead.
Then, aching in countless places, he forced himself back to his feet, stretched painfully, and froze when he felt a wand touch lightly, delicately, against the nape of his neck.
*******************************************
“Poor, poor Lucius,” she purred dulcetly. “You must be getting old.”
Lucius could only laugh, his throat hoarse and scratchy from where it had almost been crushed. “Why am I not surprised, Narcissa?”
The feather light, but potentially dangerous touch of her wand trailed around his neck, healing wherever it touched, down his collarbones and as she moved around in front of him, rested in the hollow of his throat, against the pulse that had yet to calm down to its normal pace. Her cool, beautiful blue eyes surveyed him, skimming over the bruises and the blood and the prison pallor, and down to the still bleeding corpse on the floor. “I see you have made good use of the opportunity I gave you, Lucius. But then you always did land on your feet.”
He didn’t bother feigning surprise, and he was too tired to speculate about her motivations. “What do you want?”
Her eyes were icy, sardonic, and held his with almost masculine directness. “Nott,” she said flatly. “I want him out of the way.”
“And yourself in his place? He, too, has a son.”
“Theodore?” She snorted, dismissed him out of hand. “He is nothing.”
Lucius watched her, mouth quirking wryly, eyes laughing at himself, and the woman he thought he had known for nearly twenty years. Truly, the boy had no chance…
Narcissa stepped aside to let him precede her out of the cell, handed him back his wand and a thick, lined invisibility cloak, and a portkey that would take him as close to Malfoy land as he dared. “Oh, and Lucius,” she said softly. He turned around, raised an eyebrow. “Tell him who sent you.”
He laughed, a little hoarse, even after her healing, and put hand over heart, bowing his head in a gesture of utmost respect. “As you, say,” he said. “Lady.”
****************************************
Arthur Weasley came running out into the corridor, drawn by the agonised scream, his mind racing with images of Death Eater attacks, assassinations, even muggle bombs, only to find Draco Malfoy doubled over, slumped half on the ground and half on his daughter.
So that’s who she was learning from…
Chaos and disorder reigned, but Harcourt’s smooth, modulated voice – not Moody’s – rose over it all, his cool logic calming them, reassuring them that there was no danger, they were not being attacked, there was no need to panic, they hadn’t been found out…
But Snape, usually the most controlled, most imperturbable of them all, was sheet white, his hands shaking and oddly helpless as he watched his protégé gasping for breath, his silver eyes horrified. And Ginny had eyes only for Malfoy – it was as if Harry, pale and gasping as Dumbledore held his hand, didn’t even exist. Arthur wondered whether that was a good thing or not.
“What happened? What did you see, Potter?” Harcourt demanded, because Malfoy was obviously incapable of coherent speech.
The dark haired boy, green eyes haunted, spoke clearly despite his chattering teeth. But then, he’d had a lot of practice at this sort of thing. “There was…there was a castle,” he said, “and it was burning, and there were Death Eaters all around it, waiting…”
“Waiting for what?” Moody asked.
Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. But there were others – in a circle of trees, dark and tangled and creepy…”
Snape and Harcourt exchanged glances – Harcourt grim, Snape pale. Arthur assumed they knew what Harry was talking about.
“And…there was a Death Eater inside the circle, chanting –“
“Which Death Eater?” Snape grated out. “What was he chanting?”
Harry’s lips set mutinously, not appreciating the interjection. “I don’t know,” he said, a little sarcastically. “I’m not on first name basis with the Death Eaters.” Snape’s face blanked, and Harcourt’s eyes narrowed. Moody laughed delightedly.
“What did he look like, Mr Potter? And what was he chanting?” Harcourt’s voice was terrifyingly neutral.
Harry’s eyes widened, hearing that tone from an Auror, and he quickly reconsidered his position. “He was…dark haired, and stocky, and probably around forty or so, and he was chanting some kind of Latin spell. I don’t know the words, but it was very, very dark – it called shadows, and they seemed to…to choke the trees, somehow, and then something…snapped.”
“A shadow that choked the trees.” Moody repeated flatly. “And something snapped.”
Harry nodded, but the old man’s gaze shifted to Harcourt, who was, in his turn, watching Malfoy, who seemed to be regaining some of his strength – enough, at least, to lift his head and focus on them properly. “Yes,” he said softly. “Something snapped.” He forced himself to stand up, dusted himself off, and – almost as an afterthought – held out his hand to Ginny, pulled her back onto her feet, as if he had done it many times before.
Harry didn’t like it.
“Nott,” Draco said casually, as casually as he had stolen the scene and the momentum of the conversation. “He has invaded my land, burned my castle down, and desecrated my Grove.”
“Your land?” Harry asked incredulously.
Draco ignored him, ignored them all really, and turned and walked down the corridor towards the Great Hall. Ginny blinked, then leaped to follow him. Once again, Snape and Harcourt looked at each other, seemed to speak without need of words as all Slytherins – High Clan especially – did at their most irritating and secretive, and then followed after him as well. Exasperated, the rest of them followed suit, trailing after the fair-haired boy – no, not a boy, not anymore – to see what they could see.
Down in the Great Hall, voices were raised and words were clear, blunt and less than genteel; to Arthur’s amused eyes, it was an altercation most unbecoming of such highly ranked Slytherin aristocrats. Draco was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, the skirts of his robe flapping agitatedly; Snape and Harcourt were united in their disapproval, expressions equally grim and grave. Ginny was sitting on the sidelines and watching everything with great interest – but when she looked up and met Arthur’s eyes, her own were grim and troubled. There was nothing truly amusing in this at all – it was deadly serious.
“If you go,” Snape said direly, “it will be the ruin of everything we have worked so hard to achieve. You cannot risk yourself in this manner – you know what he is planning. It will destroy everything.”
Draco snarled. “And if I don’t go, it will be the ruin of everything I am, everything I ever will be. You know I have to go – he’s threatening my land, my people. I can’t stay away.”
“As you said, he’s threatening. He won’t destroy it or them; he wants to trap you, draw you out into the open and eliminate you, not make an implacable enemy of you by prematurely destroying the land beyond the Veil.”
“But there is no Veil any more,” Draco said violently. “He has destroyed it, brought down our last defence, made us vulnerable to everything and everyone.”
Arthur frowned. That was the first absolutely irrational, irrelevant thing he had ever heard Malfoy say.
“Draco,” Harcourt said insistently. “You cannot allow yourself to be drawn in this way. You know it’s a trap. You know it’s dangerous. You know he won’t destroy the land. Then why are you so insistent on rushing in recklessly, dangerously, and making such a fool of yourself?”
Snape concurred. “It’s an entirely Gryffindoric impulse, and you know it. Stay here. Wait him out. Don’t be foolish.”
But Draco wouldn’t listen, and no amount of cool, Slytherin logic, emotional persuasion, or ground out threats and orders could sway him from his completely uncharacteristic streak of stubborn recklessness. “No!” He shouted it – Merlin, he actually shouted it – at the two men who had been such reliable mentors, who had steadied his course when he had been so uncertain after Lucius’ conviction. “I can’t wait here while he has even one godsdamned foot on my land! I will not watch my people die while I am still alive to prevent it!” And then he stormed off, dragging an old battered ring brooch, worn smooth by the touch of many, many hands over the centuries – a portkey? – out of his pockets.
Snape and Harcourt both looked considerably shocked; Snape was swearing angrily, Harcourt merely looked furious, no doubt at the potential loss of all that suppressed energy and passion for the Order. Arthur thought he heard Snape mutter something about “bloody emotional Malfoy…” under his breath as they both, once again, followed after their leader, who was in no state to even think of looking after himself.
But no one, not Arthur, or Draco, or his two more sober mentors – or anyone else, for that matter – saw that Ginny, too, slipped away after them…
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Lucius, too, was outraged by the invasion of his lands. Older, wiser, with more cunning and ruthlessness than his son, his reaction had been no different; there were some things in this life that could not be compromised, and this was one of them. But even so, being older, wiser and more cunning than his son, he was not going to rush impetuously into action: not against such overwhelming odds.
One man, slow and sore, against approximately twenty highly trained, ruthless killers. He could raise local support, but for some reason the Death Eaters seemed reluctant to kill, and he didn’t want to incite them to it; if the villagers kept their heads down and stayed out of sight in the lands they knew far better than the invaders, there would be little need for violence. Nott seemed to have no desire to start a vicious guerrilla war, at least not until it became absolutely necessary.
Lucius thought he knew what the man was waiting for, and it made his blood run cold. He hadn’t thought Nott would have the patience, or the cold blooded nerve to pull such a thing off; still didn’t think it, and that was a frightening thought, because it led to disaster no matter which way Nott chose. He hoped that Draco had the good sense to utilise at least some caution, when he came rushing to the rescue.
Because that would make his own task so much easier…
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