"Bella, stop!"
With the voice came a burst of light as a shield spell waved through the hall of Grimmauld Place, separating Draco Malfoy from his aunt's Cruciatus curse. Still sprawled on the glass-strewn carpet, he threw himself back, flinching as the curse broke against the shield cast by his mother.
Until that moment, he had never heard Narcissa swear. "Are you that mad, Bellatrix? Are you? Casting an unforgivable at your own nephew? At MY son? At the future of the House of Black –"
Bellatrix had just begun to say something for herself when Narcissa shouted her down again. "Oh, shut up! Whatever your reason is, it's indefensible."
She dropped the shield and took Draco's elbow, raising him to his feet. "Darling, Draco," she said, fawning, her palms caressing his face. "You are alive. I knew it. Are you harmed?"
Draco didn't dare take his eyes off his still-fuming aunt. "Yes, mother. I'm quite well. Never better, actually."
Narcissa threw her arms around his neck, sighing into his shoulder. "My boy."
Over her shoulder, Draco watched as Bellatrix mimed gagging.
"I'm sorry, Mother," he said, stepping back. "I never meant for you to mistake me for dead. The rumor hadn't reached me before tonight. I was going to come reassure you in the morning, but Aunt Bella thought it better not to wait, I suppose," he said with an uneasy nod in Bella's direction, both of them knowing he was fibbing about turning himself in.
Bellatrix scoffed, sickened as always by the tender politeness between her sister and her spoiled child. "He was holed up at Andromeda's. But of course you know that, don't you Cissie. You and Andromeda and your spawn – you're all in league against me. And against the Dark Lord."
Narcissa was the one scoffing now. "Ridiculous. Like you, Bella, I haven't spoken to Andromeda in decades. It wasn't her who told me where to find Draco just now. It was Aunt Walberga, come from her portrait to the one in my drawing room to warn me. Honestly, Bella, how mad must you be to have Walberga's portrait thinking you've gone too far?"
"Too far?" Bellatrix screeched, a hex slipping from the end of Hermione's old wand to scorch Walberga's now empty frame. Narcissa flinched but did not back down, blocking the line of fire between her son and Bellatrix.
Bella was screeching in words now. "Do you know what this filthy boy has done?"
Narcissa lifted her chin. "No, and I will not listen to another word from you about it while my child stands here bleeding thanks to you," Narciss said. As she bent to examine the cuts on Draco's hands, she gave him the tiniest wink, clucking her tongue as she worked Luna Lovegood's old wand over the wounds. "It's a shame I don't have my own wand to heal you, isn't it darling? But after Auntie Bella was robbed of hers, mine had to be sent away for safekeeping at Hogwarts."
"Stop it, Cissie," Bella said, pulling at her own hair. "We all know the boy has your wand concealed on his person somewhere. If you won't take it back from him, I will."
"Rubbish," Narcissa said. "You will calm down and you will never lay a hand on him in anger again." She had finished with Draco's hands and held them between her own. "Let's get you home to your father, Draco. He's suffered so, believing you dead."
"No!" Bella wailed as Narcissa brandished her wand as if to disapparate. "No, you can't take him back. If the Dark Lord knows Draco's alive, he will demand to know how he resisted the call."
"I was in Denmark –," Draco began.
"Shut up, you brat!" Bella shouted over him. "It's a lie. You united the Triad wands to refuse the call. If he knows the wands can do this, he will demand they be turned over to him. And once he learns none of them is in our possession, he will neutralize the wands by killing everyone on this tapestry who is not already dead. The House of Black will be at an end."
Draco hung his head.
Narcissa tapped Luna's wand against her temple, thinking hard. She turned to face Draco. "I'm sorry, darling. It can't be helped."
With a push of magic, she was in his mind. There was her Triad wand, concealed in the leg of Draco's trousers, the spell wearing off more and more every minute. Draco let her in that far without resistance. With more effort she saw Andromeda and Tonks crouched at a window, watching the countryside burning outside. She saw Remus Lupin cradling a fussy baby, his wand out and ready to evacuate. And then the scene darkened as it moved backward in time, shrinking into a small room with a single window. Narcissa couldn't see much but she heard a voice, a woman speaking sweetly, laughing, and somehow teary, melancholy all the same. The woman was telling Draco goodbye.
The vision ended, Draco's Occlumency rising like a stormy tide, washing Narcissa out of his mind before she'd see any more of what happened in his bedroom, alone with Hermione.
They returned to their senses to find Bellatrix pacing the hall, still ranting. "I should never have let Andromeda get away. I should have burned her house to the ground, scattered her offspring, taken her wand by force."
Narcissa shook her head. "You'd still only have one wand of the Triad. My wand is with Snape. It's confirmed. Not to mention Potter still has yours. Draco couldn't possibly have united the wands to resist the call."
"So you believe him?" Bellatrix wailed. Draco ducked as her wand arm swooped in his direction. "You believe him even though he's clearly been tampering with the tapestry?"
At this, Narcissa finally frowned. "Tampering? The tapestry is ancient magic. It's above tampering."
Draco leapt out in front of this questioning. "Auntie discovered an irregularity near my image. She thinks the – erm – dating I did over the winter – that it – um – "
"He's got some slut pregnant," Bellatrix finished. "I can feel the image of a new family member rising out of the tapestry's fibres. Here."
Narcissa bent to investigate for herself, smoothing her fingers over the embroidery concealed by Andromeda's wand. For once, she made no move to defend Draco. She did give a heavy sigh as she let the fabric slip through her fingers. "Draco, this is very bad."
He sighed, leaning his forehead against her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, going along with the story that the new member was a baby, not a wife. "But even if Auntie is right, we have years for me to sort it. If there is a new baby in the House of Black, it won't be able to use a wand for eleven years after it's born."
Narcissa stiffened. "Draco, we do not refer to heirs of the House of Black as 'it.' No, this is very bad. We will deal with it, but not today. First things first. Bella is right that we can't take you into the presence of the Dark Lord, but we can find somewhere else where you'll be safe."
She was threading her arm through his, preparing to disapparate. No one liked it. Bella was baring her teeth, snarling at the sight of Draco getting away unpunished. Draco himself was rigid and straining against his mother's arm, knowing that in his family there was often little distinction between staying safe and being imprisoned.
But Narcissa had her way. Grimmauld Place disappeared from view. Bellatrix Lestrange disappeared from view. In place of them was a plain, barren room. It was the inside of a building so small it wasn't a cottage but a shack. Cold draughts blew through the spaces between the slats that made up the walls, whistling as they went.
Chilled, Draco hugged himself. "Where are we?"
"In the north," Narcissa said. "My cousin Regulus knew this place. There's a cave nearby. A place of magic so dark no one would ever expect someone hiding from the Dark Lord would come here."
Draco shuddered. This was his prison. And for what? From Bellatrix's ranting, it sounded as if she was intent on going right back to look for Andromeda. Stars, he hoped they'd all got safely away.
"Draco, what did you do?" Narcissa was saying. "The Granger girl you went chasing after with my healing balm the day Potter escaped? She survived?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"Don't tell me you..." Narcissa couldn't continue, shivering herself now.
"She's not pregnant," he said. "I mean, not as far as I know."
Narcissa scanned the empty shack for someplace to sit. There was nothing so she took a hairpin from her head and transfigured it into a curving metal chair. "Not as far as you know," she repeated. "So you've..."
Draco knelt in front of the chair. "I'm in love with her, Mother. Completely devoted to her. For the rest of our lives."
"Your lives? You're eighteen and caught up in a dangerous national conflict. You can't say these things. Certainty like that is not a luxury you have," she said.
"I'm not just saying these things. Mum, the hidden image on the tapestry isn't my heir. It's my wife," he confessed. "It's Hermione Granger."
Narcissa sprang from her chair, turning in a circle, unable to look at him. "You can be in love. Eighteen year olds can't seem to help but be in love, for stars' sake. But you can't be married. Whatever arrangement you have, it can be annulled."
"It can't," he said. "She's on the tapestry right now. You felt it with your own hand. I saw her image and her name there before we cast the concealment spell over it."
Narcissa's chest was heaving, her hand reaching for the wall to support herself. Draco rushed to hold her arm, leading her back to the chair.
"It's not real, darling," she was gasping. "It's Potter working through Granger to control you. He got the Triad battle wand from Bellatrix and now he needs Granger on the tapestry in order to use it in his service. That's all this is."
"Mother no, the marriage wasn't Potter's idea. It was mine first. I wanted it."
Still breathless, Narcissa could hardly scoff. "That's how skillful their manipulation is. You can't even tell what they've done to you."
Draco clamped his hands around his mother's arms, holding her upright, looking hard into her eyes. "Mother, we did unite the Triad wands," he said. "That is indeed how I defied the Dark Lord's call. But you know that. You expected that all along. That's what you intended when you sent me your wand."
Narcissa shook her head. "Nymphadora was meant to have the battle wand. She's an Auror. She would have been brilliant with it. The triad was meant to be you, Nymphadora, and Andromeda."
"Well, Dora declined it," Draco said. "She and I agreed. Granger needs it more. And – and I need her to have it too. The odds of her surviving this as a Muggleborn with only Potter and Weasley to protect her are not good. And because the mad girl loves me as much as I love her, she's used it to protect me too. Without her help, the wands wouldn't have been united when I needed them most."
Narcissa was calmer, breathing deeply but just through her nose. "I need to get back to the Manor. I need to warn Snape. Bella isn't going to expose you until she has all three wands. And mine is..."
Draco bowed his head. They both knew he had the healing Triad wand. And if she took it from him now, he'd be stranded here, powerless.
She held out her hand anyway. "Give it here. It's too dangerous."
"No," he said, stepping back. "If you insist I give up the healing wand, I'll run. I'll apparate away right now. Here," he said, rummaging in a pocket. "Have the Deluminator back instead."
She raised her eyebrows. "What good does that do?"
"I don't know, exactly," he said. "But Dumbledore made the Deluminator himself. To the Dark Lord, that's almost as powerful as Black Family Magic."
Narcissa huffed in protest.
Draco pushed her fingers closed around it. "Take it and tell them it's what I used to repel the Dark Lord's call. Forget Denmark. Bella's right, it's weak. Tell her I lied because I didn't want her to find out about the Deluminator and destroy it. And then," he paused, swallowing hard, "then go ahead and let them do just that. Let them destroy it."
Narcissa rolled the Deluminator between her hands, its silver cylinder clicking against her rings. She sighed. "I will try my best to convince them of this, Draco. And you – you will wait here."
—---------------------------
It was their final morning at Shell Cottage. Harry and Griphook were still in the tiny bedroom at Shell Cottage, fine tuning the best way to wear the Invisibility Cloak over both of them. Ron and Hermione waited outside already in disguise.
Hermione was still flinching from the taste of the polyjuice she'd just drank and fiddling with the ties of her heavy, complicated cloak. Beneath it, her traveling gown was more low cut than anything she usually wore. She was fairly sure once the potion wore off and she looked like herself again, the neckline would show the edge of a small, pinkish bruise on the rise of the left side of her chest...
She let out a sigh, rubbing wistfully at the hidden mark Draco had made on her.
"Yeah, they'd better hurry it up," Ron said, mistaking her for impatient. "This beard is too long and it's all I can do not to scratch it right off my neck."
She stood up, pacing in front of him in her horrifying disguise. "You know what spell we under-use?" she said.
Before Ron could say anything, she answered her own question.
"Patronuses. If they can send messages, why don't we use them all the time? Like Muggles use telephones?" she said.
Ron went to speak only to be cut off again.
"I mean, yes, they are supposed to be special and they're tied to – to morality, I suppose it is. But practicality has a moral side too, doesn't it?" she said, not waiting for Ron to answer. "Would it be so wrong if I conjured a Patronus without life and limb being on the line for once? I mean – "
"Just send him one," Ron interrupted at last. "If you want to contact Malfoy so badly, just do it. Stars only know if we'll speak to anyone else ever again. So you may as well contact Malfoy, especially," Ron paused to roll his eyes, "especially now that your otter flips into a ferret part way through. It's probably not the romantic gesture Malfoy's looking for, but if he's got any sense, he'll understand what it means."
Her wand was already in her hand, the unyielding walnut bent like the handle of a whip. The hand clutching it was hers but it looked like Bellatrix's. Her feelings were failing her. "No, I'll wait," she said. "I'll send him something when we're back. It will give me an incentive to make it out."
Ron was standing. "Right, here's Harry. Let's be off."
‐–‐—--------------
True to his promise to his mother, Draco spent the day at the shack on the stony northern coast of Scotland. The tides were high and fierce, the roar of grey seawater on the rocks never stopping.
It was afternoon and he was sitting in the shack's open doorway, staring through the crashing water at the foul mouth of a black cave not far off. The gaping black chasm had the feeling of death about it. He recognized the feeling from the night in the manor dining room with Miss Burbage. At least he felt hungry. Hunger was for living things, and it left him somehow less deathly, less scared for everyone he loved who was out there fighting while he waited.
At first he thought he had nodded off and dreamt it: a silvery creature swimming out of the sea mist toward him. It was made of light, magical light like a beautiful spell. He'd never seen anything like it.
The spell swooped and spun toward him, around him. It was the form of an animal. Maybe an otter. But then it looked more terrestrial, like a ferret. As it bounced around him, he heard her voice. Hermione was speaking out of it, the words not yet intelligible.
"Patronus," he said. "A ferret Patronus. Bloody hell, Granger..." He laughed as he swore, standing up to try to catch the creature in his arms.
As his arms passed through the light, there were words, ones Hermione had spoken as she stood on the rocky edge of a lake far away and cast the spell. "Gringotts," her voice said, though it made no sense. "Lestrange vault. We've come and gone. Safe for now. Be careful."
"Wait!" he called, his fingers trailing through the fading silver light. "Granger, you can't go to Gringotts!"
The light was gone. Draco was on his feet, glaring across the rocks at the mouth of death.
"No, she said 'safe and gone,'" he told himself. But how? And what about the other thing she'd said, about the Lestrange vault? If they'd broken in and taken something, it must have been kept there for the Dark Lord. Nothing else would be worth the risk. And if the Dark Lord had been wronged again by a member of the House of Black...
Draco's heart lurched. "Mother."
Narcissa wouldn't be coming back for him today. He knew it now, and he disapparated for home.
‐‐—-------------
Gringotts was a ruin, the ceiling torn open to the grey sky outside. The granite walls were scorched and broken, rubble strewn over cracked marble floors. Everywhere there was bent brass and melted iron twisted by dragon's breath and wand blasts. And lying in the dust and shattered glass, groveling for their lives, were the Gringotts goblins. A wraithish figure stormed and raved over them, the Dark Lord himself, a massive green snake trailing behind him as he kicked and cursed.
Cowering near the door, stunned at the violence, stood Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, and Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. Punishing and murdering the goblins was only fueling the Dark Lord's rage. His wand slashed killing curses, reckless and furious. Soon there would be no one left to answer to his anger but the House of Black.
Bellatrix looked away from the carnage long enough to see the damage on the walls and roof. The blast-marks – they were made by the battle wand. Only she would be able to tell, but it was true. Potter had the sword of Gryffindor, the cup, her Triad Sororal wand, and someone who could use it. Was it Nymphadora who'd gone with them? Or that werewolf? Or someone else...
For the moment, none of it mattered. The Dark Lord had remembered the humans were there. His breath wheezing from the strain of so much hexing, he was turning slowly to search them out among the rubble.
"Bring them to me, Nagini," he hissed.
The snake sprang forward as Bellatrix shoved Rodolphus to the front. Lucius held Narcissa, his arms shielding her head. The snake reared to strike. And with a crack, Draco was there.
The snake's attack posture slackened and she veered away, hissing and gliding between the bodies of the slain goblins.
The Dark Lord startled, almost laughing. "Ah, young master Malfoy, to whom Nagini owes a life debt and cannot harm. You've come back from the dead to throw yourself between her and your useless parents?"
Draco's entrance had been brave but he stammered now as he spoke to the Dark Lord face to face. He bowed low. "My lord. You have my gift of Dumbledore's Deluminator?"
"Indeed I do," he said, his anger abating a fraction as he remembered his shiny new trinket. "But I will not be keeping it here."
With that a blast burst from his wand, shaking the plaster from the arch beneath which the humans huddled together.
Draco raised his voice. "Spare them, my lord, I beg you."
"Why should I?" the Dark Lord roared. It was more than Bellatrix could bear and set her sobbing.
"Because I can bring you Potter," Draco replied, his voice quavering.
"I don't need any help with Potter," came the thundering reply. "If he goes to Hogsmead, my snatchers will have him. If he goes to Hogwarts, Snape will deliver him to me."
"After much fighting, perhaps he will," Draco agreed, his confidence rising. "But I am young enough to cross the school's protective age line and get inside without arousing suspicion. And more than that, I can get Potter to follow me into your hands. He – trusts me."
"Lies!" the Dark Lord replied, the last of the glass in the Gringotts windows shaking out of its panes. "Like the rest of your family, you have already failed me, Draco Malfoy. You could have made Potter your friend as a child but you failed and have been his enemy instead, distancing him from us."
"Yes." Draco hung his head. "That was true, but it is not any longer. Potter is still no friend of mine. His Mudblood companion, however..." Horrified at himself, Draco's voice trailed away. He had to go on. It was the only way to keep the Dark Lord distracted from pursuing Potter and Hermione, and the only way to keep his parents alive. They stood behind him, silent. Lucius's face was wet with tears of fright and of joy at seeing Draco alive. But he made no sound, only clung to Narcissa as Bellatrix whimpered at their side.
"What about Potter's Mudblood?" the Dark Lord probed through gritted teeth.
"I've seduced her," Draco said. "When I fled the Manor the day Potter escaped, I went to my aunt, Andromeda Tonks. She tried to convert me to the Order of the Phoenix and that's where I found Granger. She was looking to get revenge on Weasley over some tiff and rightly calculated that nothing would enrage him like letting me – have her. So I did."
"More lies," the Dark Lord sneered. "This is how you've raised your son, Malfoy? Telling filthy lies about debasing himself with Mudbloods?"
"No, my Lord," Draco answered for his father. "Granger has been with me. Disgusting as it is, she has feelings for me now. She wants to please me. Believes anything I say. And she can bring us Potter without a fight."
The Dark Lord paced in a circle, Nagini coiling around his steps.
"Don't take my word for it," Draco said. "See it in my mind."
Without further warning, the Dark Lord lunged at Draco, holding his head between his cold, grey hands, his red eyes wide and boring into Draco's skull. "Legilimens!"
It was like no Legilimency Draco had ever known, like a blow to the head, throbbing behind his eyes. His mouth fell open. He could hardly breathe, but he had to resist. There was so much of Hermione in his mind, and if the Dark Lord saw all of it, he would know Draco would never give her up. What he allowed to go unoccluded could be nothing but glimpses of what matched the story he'd already told.
The night in Grimmauld Place...
He showed the Dark Lord himself and Hermione in the drawing room, arguing about Ron Weasley. He showed her teasing, pushing and pulling, holding him against the wall with her backside as he bowed into her shoulder, and then facing him, kissing him and tugging at his tie as he supported himself on the piano keys. Still unsatisfied, the Dark Lord struck harder, and he was seeing them upstairs, on the floor of the bedroom as she peeled off Draco's rain-soaked vest, her thighs around his hips, her hands reaching for his belt, her voice sweetly asking him please...
Draco choked, mustering the strength to shift the Legilimency forward in time, past the scenes of her comforting him about all the Death Eaters had cost him, past the tenderness of their first time, and into the aftermath of their later encounters, when the room was dark, nothing to see, and nothing to hear but the sound of their breath, and her murmured, "I love you."
As if the words were poison, the Dark Lord withdrew from Draco's mind. He staggered back, his wand dangling loosely between two fingers. For a moment, all was silent in the ruined bank. Overhead, a seagull called through the broken roof. Bellatrix's sobs stopped.
"The Mudblood," the Dark Lord said. "The fool – she has given you tremendous power over her, young Malfoy."
Draco stood doubled over, his hands on his knees, still panting, fighting not to be sick on the floor. He could barely nod. "Yes, my lord. If you please, spare the House of Black and send me to her. And we will bring you Potter."