Draco Takes a Mark

Chapter 4

Ron clapped Harry on the back. "Nice try."

She was taking her leave of them, heading up to the girl's dormitory, the way she always did when the subject of Malfoy was raised, however obliquely.

"Don't fret too much. I'm doing my best to break it all up," Ron said.

Harry raised both of his eyebrows. "How's that?"

Ron shrugged. "You'll be able to tell once it actually starts to work."

"Well, don't try too hard. It's sickening and everything, but it is a kind of insurance. I mean, Malfoy's not about to get very far with Death Eater schemes if he's spending his afternoons rolling around in the grass with Hermione, is he?"

Ron tore the map out of Harry's hands and boxed each of his ears with it. "Shut up, will you."

The sun was slanting low, about to set when Hermione reached her room. Crookshanks was stretching on her bed, and she lay down beside him to rub her face in his coat while he purred a greeting. She reached into her collar to find her birthday present.

"Look at our gift, Crookshanks," she said, holding her amber pendant in the light. "Look, it's so pretty. That's because it's you. Crookshanks -- look, over here, no, open your eyes -- look at it. Oh, you wicked old thing."

-------------------------

It was early Sunday morning, the sky dull grey, no movement from the students at all, just Filch leading a visitor to the dungeon office still occupied but Professor Snape. The visitor was someone with every right to be inside the castle, a parent, an elegant woman dressed in lavish brocade robes with a hat and veil pinned to her gleaming blond hair.

"Severus," she greeted him. "I've come alone."

"Managed to escape your sister is more like it. Come in, Narcissa." He flung open the door to admit her. "What -- is it? Surely you don't dare to ask any more of me. Already, I have held back -- nothing."

She cleared her throat. "To be sure. However, what I intend to say -- it is in our best interests that you hear it, and that you hear it within the safety and privacy of these walls. It pertains to all three of us."

"Very well. Proceed."

She took the seat in front of his desk. "I fear that the Dark Lord," she began. "He grows impatient with Draco's progress."

"Are you quite sure?" Snape asked. "Death Eaters are made, not born and your boy has borne his Mark for only -- "

"For nearly two months, yes it's still early."

"And the Dark Lord knows this, of course. Calm your nerves, Narcissa. And do not accuse yourself. Trust in the Dark Lord."

"Excuse me, Severus, it's not like that," she said. "The emotional connection the Dark Lord enjoys with all those who bear his Mark -- he has warned me that when he reaches out to Draco, what he sense leaves him disturbed. Draco's thoughts and feelings -- they are heavily veiled, and what he does reveal is too light and boyish, too fresh for someone who has taken on such a serious role. And that," she stopped and forced a cough, "that lightness should be giving way to more adult ambitions by now."

Snape pinched his hair into place. "Do not forget that the boy is a gifted natural occulmens. Unforeseen, but not unheard of in one so -- young. I have tested him and I cannot always read him myself." Snape glared at Narcissa with the resentment of someone excluded from a secret that the person he is talking with clearly knows. "Draco must be protecting -- much."

Narcissa's eyes were welling with tears but she met Snape's glare with one of her own, offering him nothing.

Snape sat back in his chair. "I will counsel Draco to let down his guard and open his mind when the Dark Lord approaches him."