The Next Great Adventure

Chapter 1: In which Draco Malfoy communes with ancestors, we discover some interesting things about Dumbledore, Hagrid gets a new creature and Professor McGonagall performs a rite and has an argument.

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Draco Malfoy paused to make sure the stained-glass angels weren't watching as he began to climb the grand state staircase, heading for the upper ballroom and levels of the manor forbidden to him. There were three underground floors, four regular stories, an attic and a few towers that reached higher, but in a few inner passageways one could reach anywhere in the manor. This was why the second floor was forbidden to Draco. If he ever found one of these, even Lucius' study would not be safe. When he came of age in a few months, he would be allowed glances at the only complete map of the place, but as soon as he had recieved the dream, he knew he could not wait.

So he crept up the least likely route, the largest and most obvious and therefore worst watched, with a light step and careful eye. At the top he slipped through the great double doors, skirted the main marble floor and came to a softly draped portrait of the first veela Malfoy. Ironically enough, her name had been Draca; and she looked like a cream and gold dragon in medieval clothing, indeed. As he laid a hand on the curlicue to the farthest right on the baroque frame, she delicately watched, then swung open. The veela blood ran true in Draco, and after all, being her namesake appealed to her vanity. If there had been anyone from Hogwarts there, he would have smirked and insinuated something about Fleur Delacour, but there was no one.

Draco had it on very good word that Lord Voldemort was alive somewhere on the top levels of Malfoy Manor. Dobby had been Father's special toy, but he had a house-elf of his own called Flibbet who could go anywhere she pleased. He rarely saw her anyway, but he had noticed that she was even scarcer than usual when she timidly approached him to say that Mr. Malfoy had told her that she was to spend half her time waiting on "their guest" instead of Draco, and might she follow his order? Draco had said yes (no point in getting on both Lucius and Voldemort's bad sides) and decided to investigate. And then the dream had come, and swallowed up any protests he might have had. It was eerie, and he thought perhaps prophetic: Draco at the Dark Lord's right hand, then taking the Dark Lord's throne after his death - for everything dies, even Dark magic, eventually. He could not be truly immortal, could he? And even if he was - accidents happen, don't they?

But that was not the part of the dream that was most important; he had imagined himself in a position of power many times, and the image was not new to his thoughts. The part that was important was that the very last thing he saw were the faces of James and Lily Potter, or maybe an older Harry and Ginny Weasley, if he squinted. They screamed at him, asking Where is Harry, where is Harry, until he told them quite calmly "I'm going to wake up now," and did. That made him hope: if he could control them simply by waking up, by lucid dreaming, then perhaps they could be controlled more, forced to do what he wanted?

It never crossed his mind that this might be a figment of his imagination, something he ate, a funny bit of cheese perhaps. It was too vivid for that. One can't feel body heat in dreams, but he felt the heat from the Potters' faces as they pressed closer and closer to him in the vision. He could almost still feel them as he entered the passage behind the portrait of Draca, which was bare but dry and well-lit, like everything else in the manor. It was an extension of the vents that circulated air, connected to them but not the main channel the air flowed through, so it was mostly even in width and height. He climbed the tunnel as it wound slightly upwards, probably going up to the Great Tower. Finally, he came to a vent, the first one since he had entered the tunnels, and peered up to look and listen through it and discover where he was. He had never been this way before.

What he saw was staggering, frightening - and strange. The circular room, mostly covered by bookshelves but with one window that was now draped in black, had been changed to hold a single high-backed chair and a small table next to it. In the chair sat the most bizarrely beautiful creature Draco had ever seen, with tight-stretched white skin and a bony face, prominent cheekbones and a small nose, large black eyes and no hair. Still there were no veins to mar the surface, but only the deep white skin, contrasting with its black velvet robe. The mouth was slightly open, and the insides were blood red; it held a heavy book in its long, delicate fingers and read carefully. As Draco studied it - not it, Lord Voldemort - it looked up, eyes towards the vent that Draco stood on his tiptoes to reach. Then it stood from its chair, walked to the vent, and looked directly down at Draco.

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Upon arrival, Harry was taken to Dumbledore's office and left at the doorway, where he stood for a good five minutes. If he hadn't known better, he would have been long gone, but suspecting that the headmaster was taking his own sweet time, he determined to stay for fifteen minutes. Fortunately the statue of the gargoyle opened within five, but Dumbledore didn't come out to greet him - it was McGonagall that came, stiff and starched as always. Despite her outwardly normal appearance, it was clear that something had gone wrong.

"Come in, Potter. You might as well just see it." She stepped aside from the doorway, in order to let him see what was standing in the foyer between the moving staircase and the Headmaster's inner sanctum. It was a glass coffin, with runes laid on the base in gold leaf. Inside - yes, inside was Professor Dumbledore. His eyes were closed, so Harry could not tell if they still shone with inner light; however, his hands seemed bony, his skin paper-thin, his beard and hair less substantial than they were before. "The dwarves made the coffin," McGonagall noted, "those who haven't already gone, that is. They started it many years ago, but I had hoped -" and her voice stopped suddenly. Instead of looking at her pupil or at Dumbledore's coffin, she stepped onto the moving staircase and stared fixedly at her feet.

Harry, meanwhile, did not know what to say or do. Dumbledore had always been there, guiding and nudging in the right direction, sometimes less than responsible but always in control. He had been the ruler of Hogwarts, in some ways, and though McGonagall was his rightful heir, she could never know the school the way he had. There never was a Headmaster like Dumbledore, and there never will be again, he thought to himself, wondering who he had heard say that. In time he too stepped onto the staircase to follow her up, though he did not stare at the floor like she had but rather at the coffin. He didn't want to let the image go; the glass made it seem almost like Snow White, about to be awakened if only the poisoned apple could be made to let go. But if Professor McGonagall said he was dead, he was dead.

In the office he found Fawkes flying free, looking somewhat bedraggled and small, clearly newborn. McGonagall was standing behind the desk, just lifting a plain cardboard box onto it. "These are the things Professor Dumbledore left to you, Harry," she told him, sliding the box over the desk and not paying attention to the papers that fell on the floor. "Most of the things were your parents', but I imagine some of them were his. He left you Fawkes, as well, although you can't have him right away: they're illegal for minors."

"Thank you," Harry replied. He was comfortably numb, not sure of himself or anything at all at the moment.

"Oh!" she had busied herself brushing dust off of the window behind the desk, but then she remembered something. "You must rename your phoenix. They change names, you know, with new owners. Or new roommates, in any case; I suspect that Fawkes owned Professor Dumbledore much more than Professor Dumbledore owned him, but we couldn't see it." He nodded mutely; was he supposed to think of a name off the top of his head? But McGonagall saved him by pinning him with her trademark glare; this once it was clouded, however, by the fact that her eyes were clearly watery.

"What - was he to you, Professor?" asked Harry, not really intending the question in that way until he had asked it. "He -"

She smiled as he cut himself off, soft and sad. "He was many different things at many different times, Harry. Just as he was to you, I expect: co-conspirator, foster-father, patriarch, child, peer." It didn't answer the question well, but that was all right; Harry wasn't sure he wanted the question answered. "You know, he once told me he had the choice of Gryffindor or Slytherin. You know what he chose?"

"Gryffindor."

"No. He chose Slytherin, Harry, and the hat almost shouted it before something else happened, and he was moved into Gryffindor. I don't know what that something else was; I don't understand the Sorting Hat myself, no more than anyone else. But it happened, and later he knew that Gryffindor had been for the best, because while his cunning had already been sharpened he sorely needed some lessons in bravery."

She had obviously said more than she intended, because then she stopped - funny to think of your professor as a she and not an it, Harry thought. It was time for him to go. He asked her to take care of Fawkes for him - she told him it was in her plans, as she was executor of his will - and she told him not to tell his friends that Dumbledore was not simply sick. As he agreed he was already out the door, but he couldn't bear to leave the room without one last morbid glance at Dumbledore; when he turned to look, the coffin had been spirited away in the eyeblink it had taken him to set down his box. He couldn't bring himself to smile at Dobby's efficiency.

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A carven wood bowl stood, quietly, on the top shelf of Minerva McGonagall's wardrobe, not dusty and not needing polishing, though it had stood there for almost twenty years. The darkness around it drew back surprisedly as hands reached forward to pull the bowl out from its corner, and its keeper's face swam into view in the midst of the shaft of sun. Then the world came rushing in, and the bowl stood silent and strong as ever, filling itself with the scent of fresh flowers and new air and its keeper, absorbing the touch of her hands as she set it carefully down. She was wearing the shift that had once seemed so beautiful, when she was younger and more alluring; it was still purest white, but now the age was beginning to show on her face, on her body. Despite her old age she appeared to be perhaps forty, but the cares on her back weighed heavily, and there were lines on her face that no forty-year-old ever had.

Taking a pitcher from the desk the bowl sat upon, she poured water into the bowl's cave slowly and deliberately. The morning sun caught on the water as she poured, then replaced the vessel to where she had picked it up. Also lying on the table was an ornamental dagger, the scabbard entwined with snakes and the pommel a lion's head, the hilt made of leather-wrapped gold. As Minerva drew it out, she saw it was wickedly sharp. After all these years. Shattering the peaceful mood, she quickly slashed it down the palm of her left hand - along her lifeline, pulling the knife from one side of her palm to the other. Instead of crying out, she dropped the dagger to the floor and grabbed her own wrist, holding the hand steady over the bowl as warm blood dripped into the bowl. "Mater," she said in a low, trembling voice, her eyes never leaving the water and blood mixing. "Mater - mater - mother - mother -"

The red swirls began to move, ever-so-slowly, and with one last deep breath Minerva McGonagall was brought into the silent abyss.

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When Harry returned to his dorm, he didn't look in the box more than a glance. He was tired enough from the work the Dursleys' had done, and he had a lot to think about with Dumbledore's death. Instead, he shoved the box under his bed and fell asleep, willing himself not to dream. When he rose the next morning, it was already 8:00 and time for him to scurry down to breakfast - if breakfast was at the same time as usual; nobody had told him differently. When he reached the Great Hall through one of the student entrances, he noticed that only the head table was set for breakfast. Rather than call attention to himself, he edged up the small staircase to the head table and sat down at one empty seat on the end. There were at least three chairs between him and the next professor, Flitwick.

As he helped himself to scrambled eggs and bagels heaped with lox, Harry couldn't help but listen to a noisy argument going on halfway down the table. Professors McGonagall and Snape were obviously in the middle of a conversation, but their voices were raised and McGonagall was half out of her seat. All the other professors had stopped eating and were watching. As Harry turned to stare, Flitwick's fork fell out of his hand and clattered onto the table next to his plate.

"I don't care how risky it was! You know perfectly well that Albus is dead, Severus, and you know I don't do this lightly!" McGonagall brandished her left hand, which was bandaged across the palm, in front of Snape. "I'm perfectly in control of my communication with the Mother, thank you very much. I was talking with her before you were out of Hogwarts -"

Harry couldn't see Snape's face - it was turned away from him - but he could imagine it from the tone: scornful, with the typical stony glare he usually turned on students. "I'm not as easily intimidated as your students, Minerva," he spat. "You don't know what you could have unleashed. You don't know if you really reached the Mother or if someone had tampered with the link in the twenty years you left it lying! All of Hogwarts is probably in danger because of your priestess games. Whenever you contact something more powerful than yourself there will be trouble."

McGonagall's mouth tightened into a thin line. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. How do you know the Mother is more powerful than I am? I don't believe you've ever talked with her. If I were you, I would spend more time thinking about what was in that cauldron and less about things that don't concern you." She stalked off huffily, looking nothing like the cat she became when in her animagus form. Instead, she reminded Harry of a dog that was angry at its owner for not paying enough attention to it. However, the conversation sounded too serious to be funny, and so he solemnly looked back down at his bagel. Slowly, the other teachers returned to their breakfasts as well. Snape looked singularly unhappy, ignoring Flitwick's attempt to rouse him.

Hagrid, who was sitting two seats down from Harry, suddenly got to his feet, knocking his chair over good-naturedly. "Harry! Come wi' me - I've got summat new fer ya, Scylli! Cutest little buggers you ever saw, but ya gotta feed all their heads, an' I sure could use some help." He clapped Harry on the back and trundled away. Harry put down his bagel and followed, although he was secretly quite worried - the Blast-Ended Skrewts of the previous year were still fresh on his mind.

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Draco had never been so scared in his life when he first faced Lord Voldemort. The meeting, however, was not stilted or unpleasing. The short interrogation was nothing like the questions his father asked him; it was far more friendly. Of course the scene when his father was summoned to Voldemort's side was not pleasant - Lucius did not seem to appreciate his lord's newfound affection for his son.

"Thank you, my lord, for your kind compliments. You say far too much. Draco is not worthy of your praise." His gaze rested away from the Dark Lord, on Draco's face; but in his eyes Draco could read the threat of punishments to come. Lucius Malfoy was, in some ways, more dangerous than Lord Voldemort - Draco saw that now. He was not foolish enough to think Lord Voldemort besotted with him to the point of idiocy; but he did see that while Voldemort could use him, Lucius Malfoy would only ever see him as a career move. You are a fool, father, he thought to himself. You don't know how you alienate him. You might hurt me now, but not much longer.

The Dark Lord nodded his head regally, and Draco could see a tormented tyrant behind his features. They were repulsive, it was true; but behind them shone a terrible sureness of purpose. A candle gave backlighting, almost shining through Voldemort's pale skin. His hand rested on Draco's head as Draco knelt at his feet. "Go on, young Malfoy. Your father and I have business to discuss. Your mother would be glad if you ate, I believe." It was a firm dismissal, but far more fatherly than Lucius' edicts. Draco gave a deep nod of his head and followed his mother out the main door of the room.

His first time in the manor's dark upper floors was mostly ignored. Perhaps it was not particularly Slytherin of Draco, but if Voldemort favored him, he would have many other trips that way. Of course he could remember how to find his way back, but noting the portraiture and so forth - that could wait.

"Draco - you must be careful. You've done quite a good thing, but take care to never fall into disfavor." Narcissa's voice was quiet. "This hall is safe from Lucius. There are no charms of recording; it's where all the most secret business is conducted. He doesn't know I know." she stopped, about to turn a corner. "I have had to doctor Lucius' wounds, inflicted by the Dark Lord. Even you or the house-elves could not know. For the family, Draco - you must never disobey the Dark Lord."

This did not sit well with Draco. He found himself taking on his schoolboy drawl, felt the powerful grown-up feeling of his time with Lord Voldemort fading. "I shan't promise you, Mother - what if some time it's necessary?" After a second, he let a sarcastic note drift into his voice. "For the good of the cause."

The Veela blood in Narcissa was far less diluted than in Lucius. Her face became as stone; for a moment, Draco wondered if the rumors linking the ancient Medusa to the Malfoy family were true. "I shall have your promise. And I shall have it now. On the Malfoy crest." She took a fold of her heavy robe in one hand; it was the sleeve, where the crest was embroidered. "Kiss it and swear."

Reluctantly, Draco bent at the waist and put his lips to the words De Gustibus Non Disputandem. His mother nodded, satisfied, as he mouthed the ancient words of promise; then, she was off, forcing him to jog after her in a most undignified way. Her goal was to remind him who held the power in the family. She succeeded quite well.