Surfeit Of Curses

A Surfeit of Curses - Chapter 9

Walls Come Tumbling Down

You don't have to take this crap

You don't have to sit back and relax

You can actually try changing things

I know you've always been taught to rely

Upon those in authority,

But you never know until you try

How things just might be.

Are you gonna try to make this work?

Or spend your days down in the dirt?

Everything can change and walls can come tumbling down...

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"Then go, but find me at the library tomorrow. And bring an answer to my question."

"What is it then?"

"Draco, what in the world are you going to do?"

Even an hour after Draco had left, Hermione was sitting on her window seat. "What are you going to do?" resounded in her head like a mantra. She wasn't sure if she was asking herself, or directing the thought to Draco. Wasn't it enough for her to have to worry about Harry? Why did she have to solve Draco's problem too? Especially given that she was sure - no evidence to back up her assuredness, but it was there nonetheless - that whatever had happened to Draco's brother, it had to be Lucius Malfoy's fault.

She'd learn more tomorrow, of course, when the package Draco agreed to send her arrived. They both thought it was too risky to leave the vault's contents at Malfoy Manor, where Lucius could find them if he swept through Draco's room, or even just walked in while Draco was reading one of Alexander's journals.

He planned to send his owl to her the next day, bearing tapes, photos and diaries. They had also worked out an elaborate plan that would allow them to meet at the Boolean. Hermione would go to the Diagon Alley branch the next day and request a book they needed for their summer Arithmancy project from the reserved section on both of their behalf. Standard policy at the library was that any book in the wizarding world would be available twenty-four hours after it was requested, so this scheme would allow them to meet surreptitiously the day after. Even if Draco's father found out, how upset could he be? They were getting together for schoolwork, this time.

Anyway, it was the best they could do.

Hermione told herself she wasn't helping him for selfless reasons. All her justifications were selfish - at least they were in the interest of self-preservation, and to keep her friends safe. If she helped Draco, and learned more about what had happened with or to Alexander almost twenty years before, she might pick up some clues that Professor Dumbledore could use now, now that Voldemort was back. Every sentence from Draco about Lucius Malfoy or the Prophet or the Death Eaters - no matter what context - might be able to be used to defeat Voldemort, sooner rather than later. And that would be good for everyone, especially Harry.

And of course, there was the Rita situation. Before Hermione set her free, she'd jinxed her with Tenosynovium so she wouldn't be able to write for at least a year.

But Rita could talk. And from what Draco had said, it certainly sounded like Rita had already had at least one chance to speak with Lucius Malfoy and who knew who else. There was no reason for her to not tell Mr. Malfoy what she had overheard the day Hermione captured her on the hospital windowsill.

"Blast myself for not Memory Charming her!" Hermione yelled at her reflection in the mirror, blinking when the mirror didn't admonish her for cursing. It was the same mirror her parents had bought over a dozen years ago, very little-girly in yellow with tiny pink flowers, but after a year with Hogwarts' enchanted mirrors talking back to her, it was almost surprising to not be able to get a response from a reflector.

Especially when all she wanted to do was talk to someone. She'd let Draco talk himself into silence without interruption, but there was nobody who would listen to her.

She had only been home from Hogwarts for a few days, and she certainly didn't expect to see either of her two best friends until at least later in the summer. She looked hopelessly around her room again, and her eye paused on Harry's address, sellotaped to her mirror, right next to instructions on how to get to Ron's house from the Leaky Cauldron via Floo Powder. What would they say if Hermione wrote to them and told them about Draco Malfoy?

At once, Harry's voice seemed to fill her head with all its intense focus.

"You're friends with Malfoy? Hermione, that's really stupid ... Remember what Malfoy's father is, what both of them have done - you can't trust him. I'm going to write to Sirius about this, he has experience with Dark magic and he'd be able to help us figure out if you're Confunded."

Yes, that would be Harry's advice: Go straight to Sirius because there must be a curse making me act this way. Hermione stared out of the window at the inky blue-black sky. She doubted very much whether Sirius could help her now. As far as she knew, he was off laying low at Professor Dumbledore's request, and the last thing she wanted was for him to come out of hiding for her, especially when she knew she was completely in her right mind.

And how could she tell Harry anyway? "Dear Harry, Hi! Um, I'm friends with Draco and he's in a bad way..."

Even inside her head the words sounded stupid.

And so she tried to imagine her other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Hermione, wearing a horrified expression.

"Malfoy?" She could imagine the choking and gagging noises Ron would make. "But ... but no Malfoy would spend time with a Muggle-born witch like you! They'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't they? I dunno, Hermione, why would you want to get caught up with someone like him? I'll ask Dad to talk to you, he knows what Malfoys are really like. . . ."

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, and, as far as everyone knew, he hated Lucius Malfoy with a venomous passion, and had since they were at Hogwarts together, but she didn't think he'd be very sympathetic to Draco. In any case, Hermione didn't like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that she, Hermione, was getting jumpy about Draco Malfoy's pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss, and Ginny, Ron's thirteen-year-old sister, would use the knowledge as a way to get back at Draco, whom she had never forgiven for a comment he'd made in Flourish & Blotts just before she started at Hogwarts. The Weasleys were such a big, happy family; she was planning to visit them later in the summer, and she somehow didn't want her visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about her mental health, or Draco's for that matter.

Hermione kneaded her neck with her fingertips. What she really wanted (and it felt almost silly to admit it) was an adult wizard who knew the Malfoys, and knew what had happened at Hogwarts in June, whose advice she could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about Draco, who had had experience with Dark Magic....

And then the solution came to her. It was so simple, and so obvious, that she couldn't believe it had taken so long -- Snape. She shuddered. Professor Snape was far from her favorite person, but if anyone could be told about Draco, it was him. And hadn't Draco himself said that Snape knew some of what had happened with Moody? And he was Draco's head of house and Draco usually came in tops in his class, over Hermione, even, and... She sat down, trying to come up with more reasons to tell Snape, and couldn't think of any reason not to.

Hermione leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at her desk; she pulled a piece of parchment toward herself, loaded her blue, feathery quill with ink, wrote Dear Professor Snape, then paused, wondering how best to phrase this problem, still marveling at the fact that she hadn't thought of the professor straight away.

Then, she snapped her fingers and began to write.

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What a dull place, Draco thought as he wandered among the parking lots, high rises and donut shops that surrounded Whinging Industrial Park. He made a mental note of the various businesses' names - AJP Insurance, Baker Tilly Accountants, Frazer's Chartered Surveyors, Baron's Bun Bakery, and across the street from that, Grunnings Drills. All quite horribly Muggle, but that was expected. What sort of magic could Lucius expect him to find here, of all places?

When he was Projecting, he could sense magic more clearly and more accurately than wizards normally could. Magic left a residue that certain amulets could pick up, but it was difficult to sense when a spell had been done, especially as time passed. The history books said that this was the reason why Death Eaters left the Dark Mark after they attacked a family - so everyone would know that magic had been done there. Without the confines of skin and bone, it took only a little effort for him to sense magic as easily as the amulets did, with even more specificity as to type of spell and timing, but even under normal circumstances, he knew he was a little better than most people at feeling for magic.

Lucius often criticized him for not utilizing his heightened sensibility in Charms, but he didn't understand that when he was surrounded by witches and wizards it was more difficult to make precise determinations. But if he was alone and Projecting, it was so easy, almost as easy as flying.

Since there was nothing useful around these offices, Draco threw himself up to the roof of the highest building, to see if he noticed any magical areas from there.

This office building was the tallest for miles around. He was almost two hundred feet up and could see both with his eyes, and without them, for almost three miles. The Muggle lights flickered in white and flashed in bright colors that changed shape before his eyes. He'd seen lights like that before, on the rare occasions when he flew in or out of London in the evening; he had to concentrate to focus on the subtle auras that charms left behind. It wasn't until he turned his head to look behind him, beyond the lights from the restaurants and pubs, that he noticed that familiar luminous glow, almost on the fringe of his vision. In an instant, he found himself back on the ground, and he walked in the direction of the glow, in case any smaller magics were visible between here and there.

His trip wouldn't be a waste after all. Lucius would be pleased.

But why did he care if Lucius was pleased? Lucius was a liar, wasn't he? A liar and a Death Eater and a horrible father and a terrible husband and a...a...a brilliant man who deserved to be respected and appreciated for all he had done. A man who had been under Imperio, or so the news reports and historical record said, all through the Dark Lord's first term of power. Anything he did to Alexander must've been done under orders from the Dark Lord, and he probably kept Alexander away at Durmstrang so he'd be safe, the same reason why he was sending Draco to France in July.

Yes, there were reasons. Of course there were reasons. There had to be reasons.

Lucius always had reasons.

Of course, he didn't tell Draco his reasons often. Even for things like the Chamber of Secrets, all he'd said was to stay out of it. No explanation, just an order.

Just like the order tonight.

Rebellious thoughts swirled around in Draco's head as his eyes darted from side to side, looking at the little Muggle houses that lined the streets and the shops on the corners. He simply walked, feeling nothing; thinking, pondering, turning images over and over in his mind.

From the pictures, to the words emblazoned in dark ink on the diary pages, to Professor Snape's face when Draco had asked his first question the day before. He could hardly look for magic while he was thinking like that. And no matter what, he had to finish Lucius' project. If he couldn't prepare a report, Lucius would ask lots of questions about what he'd done all night. If Draco had to lie, and his story didn't hold together...Lucius might get angry and tear Draco's room apart again in a fury, and he'd find Peppy and the photographs and the diaries and everything, and that would be the end of it.

Draco resolved to turn his full mind to the task at hand. A good report tonight might distract Lucius enough that Draco would be able to keep all of his brand new secrets safe, and given the fact that he'd spent almost an hour at Hermione's, he didn't have much time to finish his investigation before it became too hard to safely hold the Projection. He stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, under a burned out Muggle-light. Nobody was around, nobody to see him, or even worse, see through him, so he could make everything he needed to do come into focus.

Lucius had been training him for years with a tool he called Concentration. Even the way Lucius always said the word, it was obvious that it started with a capital letter. Draco hated spending time in Concentration, because it was exhausting and heart-spiraling and mind-shattering and by the time he was done with any particular session, it was usually hard to stand and see, much less move through the day, as required. But the lessons learned from Concentration really could be helpful, in exams when the noises from the other students' quills had to be shut out of his head, or in the dorm when Blaise's snoring made it impossible to sleep, or during study sessions when he knew that it was important to stop chatting to Hermione so they could both get to work.

It was also useful when he was distracted by his own thoughts about Alexander Malfoy, and there was a project for Lucius that had to be completed.

In that dark little space in the middle of a Muggle town, Draco closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. It was a satisfying action, even though closed eyes didn't affect his vision at all when he was Projecting. He stood silently, absorbing the night, focusing on the silent parts of the street and the darkness, not the sound through a window of a baby crying, or the low noise of a violin.

He was moving through pitch darkness, but somehow, he could see. It was like he was in a hallway, and could see the doors all around him, hanging open. Inside each doorway was an image or a sound - Lucius' face, Narcissa's shouts during the Quidditch pick-up game, the expression on Hermione's indignant face, the photograph of Alexander and the Muggle street he'd seen from the rooftop, the facsimile of it in his imagination lit by magic. One by one, without moving a muscle, he closed each of the doors in turn, then opened the one that led to the street and stepped through it.

In front of him was a house, a little ramshackle by anyone's standards, not just a Malfoy's, with a spiraling garden that was so obviously full of magical plants that he was surprised it had attracted the wrath of none of the neighbors who (by the look of the little plastic figures in their yards) were all Muggles. In a window box were three little croppings of leaves which were clearly Mandrakes. An enormous Kneazlenip topiary in the shape of a mouse almost blocked the front steps. A pale layer of orange surrounded everything from the wrought iron gate inward, wrapping over the house and chimney and through the windows and trees, held in nothing but air.

A small figure appeared from underneath a thorn bush, its collar, effervescant in shades of green. That was the customary color for the charmed tag of a registered Kneazle, as he knew from Hermione's Care and Feeding book, which he'd read on a drearily boring Sunday third year while waiting for her to finish an essay. Draco leaned down to see if he could read the inscription. He didn't want to go inside the gate, because even though he had no shady motives, it was never a good idea to come close to a Kneazle without the proper introduction, because they could be remarkably loud and screechy when investigating a new person in a surprising setting.

The letters on the tag were silver-colored and read Androcles Figg, and gave an age of almost four years old. The Kneazle glared at Draco, then moved back under the bush. Draco looked over the house again. All the windows were dark, but a Muggle light glowed outside the door. Of course, it was late, and this was a Muggle community He locked the name of the cat and the address into his mind and went back to the sidewalk.

He refused to let his mind turn to the curious puzzle of why a Kneazle-owner would live in the middle of a Muggle-town. Such things were not for him to consider, not when he had to spend more time investigating; his time was really starting to run short now, and he hadn't covered Lucius' full area yet. If the information mattered to Lucius, he'd use it.

He closed the door on the puzzle, the same way he'd been closing doors on Alexander's smile and Hermione's voice and Professor Snape's concerned expression and Lucius' glare all night, every time they threatened to burst through the doors he had shut so carefully.

But he could feel the curiosity slipping through their gaps and cracks. His mind was hungry for something to think about, rather than this relentless focus on pure perception. He wanted to wonder, but he couldn't let himself do that. Lucius would be angry if he didn't...

...close his eyes, enter the darkness, close the doors, then open his eyes to see...

A house wrapped in magic that was different from any he had ever seen on such a large scale. The protective spells he'd created the previous summer when he was scrying with Lucius' collection of Dark Arts memorabilia looked like this, but those covered amulets and charmed books, not two-story houses with rosebushes and gables and fences and a tidy garden and a brass number four by the side of the door.

The magic was at the same time iridescent and dimly coloured, not black, not exactly, but something so deep that his eyes just slid away from it, as if his they knew for themselves that they didn't want to look. Draco could tell that if he hadn't been in a Projection, he wouldn't've been able to even gaze at the house for a moment, and if this spell was like the ones he'd used the summer before, even a wizard who was adept at seeing auras around things wouldn't be able to see this one, at least not clearly.

Draco tried his usual tricks to see whether this spell felt like the ones he'd used, but he couldn't get any information when he scryed the house with his mind. That was very odd. Over the years, Draco had learned that if something was unscryable, it usually meant that the charm or spell was more than simply complicated. An unscryable spell or amulet had to be created with its magic hidden from the ordinary observer, and as he'd learned when researching some of Lucius' charms the summer before, if the possibilities surrounding that person or thing were in flux, or the magic surrounding it was too old to be clearly detected, he wouldn't be able to read it.

On a few rare occasions, usually when practicing with things that Lucius had spelled in unusual ways to challenge Draco, he couldn't make a determination about the magics unless he became a part of the spell himself. Could he get a sense of the magic on the house, he wondered, if he reached into it?

How could it hurt to try?

He lifted his arm and leaned into the darkness. For a moment, nothing happened.

An alarming shudder coursed through his body, so much more intense than the spark he felt during winter while walking carpets sometimes. He fell back, and if he hadn't been merely vapor and magic, he would've fallen to the ground.

Instead, he realized a moment later, the shock was enough to end the Projection. Without sensing a blink or the familiar tug, the next things Draco saw were the walls of his room. Every inch of skin itched, every muscle felt pulled and stretched. He could feel every strand of hair on his head and light as they were, their weight was painful.

Even though Draco felt that his task was still incomplete, he knew there was no way he could go back, not the way he felt now. A Projection, even one that lasted over two hours, wasn't supposed to leave him annihilated. He could only remember one other time he'd felt beaten from a simple Projection - when Lucius had tested him by ordering him to Project while standing in the middle of his study, to see how long he could stay Projected as his physical body moved towards a state of exhaustion.

Draco took a minute to gather his wits and his strength, enjoying the idea that if he could just write up what he'd seen and get an elf to bring the report to Lucius, he'd be able to sleep late again and recover from all of this. It always took a bit of time before he felt comfortable in his own skin again, and with the way he was aching now, it understandably took a little longer.

He thought about the unexpected spell at the last house he'd visited. The enchanter's wish for the magic to remain anonymous was strong and borne of a knowledge of enough magic to hide his own possibilities from others in a powerful and subtle way.

Finally, he pulled himself off his window seat, dragged his feet across the room, and sat down at his desk; he pulled a piece of parchment toward himself, loaded his crow quill with ink from his Murano inkwell, wrote the usual memo-style header, with its TO: LSM and FROM: DCM, then paused, wondering how to phrase his summary of his discoveries after he'd left Hermione's house.

Then, he snapped his fingers and began to write.

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Just after one o'clock, Draco finally rolled his fourteen inches of parchment and sealed it closed with his wand. Even though nothing he'd written was especially interesting to anyone, Lucius had let him know years before that house elves were not to be trusted to deliver something unless it was properly sealed. Even before he got his wand, Draco always used a signet charm to send Lucius anything more than a request for a meeting.

After sending a house elf off with the note, Draco wanted to climb back onto the window seat and read through more of Alexander's diaries, or look through the pictures again, or use Hermione's information about the tapes and see if they worked like she said they did. He was so tired, though. While normally, he wouldn't have any concern about Lucius coming in at dawn and catching him asleep on the window seat with a book on his lap, he didn't even have to think about the repercussions if Lucius caught him with one of those books.

Those books, he thought as he climbed into bed. He had to get the rest of those books, and read everything Alexander had left behind. Even if he couldn't hear the tapes, the books would let him understand.

Wouldn't they?

He tried to make his mind go blank again, to force sleep to come. It should be easy, especially when he was so tired, but the thoughts he had forced away since he left Hermione's made him feel raw and on edge. He twisted the top sheet, turned his pillows at least a dozen times, got out of bed to get Peppy, then got back out to put him away again. Lucius might come in with questions about the memo and find him.

The next thing Draco knew, someone was shaking his shoulder. If he'd closed his eyes, he didn't quite realize it. Even after he dragged his eyes open, it was still dark and everything was remarkably fuzzy.

He couldn't've had more than a few hours sleep ... he couldn't even draw himself out of the pillows. It had been a hard night; he slept with his body pushed full into the mattress, as if a huge weight had held him in place. His eyes were coated with sand and dust, as if he'd been playing Quidditch in a windstorm. The aches in his arms and legs, which made them feel as if they were weighted down, caused him to wonder whether he felt this terrible because of his thoughts, or because he'd played intensely the day before, for the first time in months.

A vaguely familiar voice hissed, insisting that he sit up and get out of bed immediately. "I don't want to be harsh with you, but you have to do this. Come on, kid, just sit up."

It was Dylan, obviously, but why was he here in the middle of the night? "It's almost six, you have to wake up. We have to be on the pitch in less than ten minutes. Your father wants to see what I taught you yesterday."

Draco resisted. He spoke directly into his pillow, forcing his voice to be loud enough for Dylan to hear, if he listened very carefully. "But you didn't teach me anything. And I hurt."

Had he really said that? Had he really complained about the smallest bit of physical discomfort to this stranger? What would Lucius or Narcissa say ... or do ... if they found out? Given what he'd seen between the coach and Narcissa, Draco couldn't count on Dylan to keep any secrets for him. There wasn't anything in it for Dylan, so why would he bother?

"I have juice."

Draco opened his eyes and turned his head, just a little, towards Dylan. "Bring it here."

"If you get up and walk over to your desk, you can have it."

"Ah, bribery. That I understand." He shut his eyes again, squeezing them tight as if that would keep the noise away. It didn't work. And he didn't have an option. If he didn't crawl out of bed now, and run through his tricks on demand, he knew what to expect.

So he got up, swallowed the juice, kicked Dylan out as he changed from his night robes into sports gear, then joined him for the walk down to the pitch.

The horizon held the faintest glow as the walked through the damp grass. Not even the daybirds were up, although they could hear the soft hoots from the owls on their way to Lucius' delivery office. Draco complained to Dylan about the numbness in his hands - they were definitely still asleep - so Dylan demonstrated an interesting stretch that made Draco's fingers behave like fingers again, rather than like the large, paralyzed bubotuber blobs that hung from his wrists.

He was still stretching when they reached the pitch, stretching and pushing thoughts out of his mind in a way that had become a habit after only a day. It never worked very well, though, because as soon as he realized he hadn't thought about Alexander for a few minutes, the thoughts and images flooded through him again.

Lucius was standing at the end of the path from the house and by his side, the door of the broomshed, where the balls and training brooms were kept, stood open. A Quaffle was hovering about a foot off the ground a few yards into the pitch.

"Dylan, thank you for coming so early," Lucius said politely. "I have a meeting in Stonehenge in about twenty minutes, you know how the Institute is about starting things right at dawn, don't you? So let me see what Draco's managed to accomplish so far."

Lucius didn't even address Draco, didn't really even look at him. He directed every word at Dylan instead, as if his son was a nifty new broom that he was about to send on a test run.

The coach went into the shed to find the Training Snitches, as Draco mounted his broomstick. In a scene reminiscent of Narcissa's challenge two night before, Dylan threw four Glowing Snitches onto the pitch, since they were easier to see in the dim light than regular Golden ones, followed by two Bludgers, which were almost impossible to see.

Using a twisting maneuver Dylan had that was actually somewhat fun, Draco set off to catch the Snitches. If he could capture at least one before Lucius had to leave, all would be well. If he could at least show Lucius some new trick, nothing would turn out badly.

As every minute went by, though, without catching the Snitch, he would hear Lucius call out across the field, his voice augmented by a Sonorus spell. "Thirteen minutes left - you're wasting time with the attention you pay to the Bludgers!" "Nine minutes left - try a starfish hold by gripping with your right hand, since it's quite useless at catching!" "Four minutes left - I can't imagine you'd do any worse on a Comet!"

Lucius never paused the Sonorus spell, so Draco heard him chat with Dylan in between his shouted instructions. Of course, Lucius' idea of small talk was a discourse on the way the world ought to be; Draco had heard it innumerable times before, and could recite portions from memory.

"My view of the universe and Muggles and Mudbloods themselves is pretty narrow-minded, and I have tried to but I really cannot stomach such subwizards, either socially or in an office environment. That's why I frequent the ATE - the Arial Trainingroom in Edinburgh - it has everything I like, and nothing I don't."

Once he'd passed the ten minute mark in the air, Draco searched more frantically. Of course catching a Snitch in fifteen minutes was rare even in tournament play, but there were four Snitches on this field - why couldn't he find even one of them? That was the mystery - he should have at least seen one zoom past, but he hadn't. Of course, seeing stars each time a Bludger knocked into his head wasn't much of a help, but at least the protective charm was holding. He could feel the bruises blossoming, but nothing felt broken or bloody. At least a Bludger didn't catch him in the nose this time.

Down below, he caught a glimpse of Dylan sitting on one of the teak chairs levitating a few feet off the ground, while Lucius stalked up and down the edge of the pitch. His wand was on his knee and his head was in his hands.

Draco didn't have time to be sympathetic, but if he didn't accomplish Lucius' challenge quickly, Dylan would probably be out of a job. Draco wasn't sure why he cared much, given that Dylan was spending way too much time with Narcissa, but he wasn't a completely unpleasant coach - not like the guy from two summers before, who thought it was beneficial to play with one hand tied behind his back.

"Two minutes left - can't you find the bloody things? In the last minute, I've seen three of them! Why can't you?"

Only two minutes more? It was time for a desperate measure, time to use the move he'd never seen used in a match, but had doodled out during an Arithmancy class that spring, when they'd worked with three-frame gimbal rings like those used in some of Newton's alchemy experiments. He flew to the middle of the pitch, about twenty feet off the ground, just high enough to turn easily, but not too high that he couldn't see the ground clearly. The sun was also up a little higher, which made it possible for him to see from one set of goalposts to the other.

He paused in midair for a moment. "You're not giving up, are you boy? You've only got a minute left!" Then, he gripped his broomstick with his right hand, as tightly as he could, and threw his body to the left side, his hand outstretched. The momentum through the air from his thrust send him spinning in a circle. While he was halfway into it, he pulled his broom up, which made him spin in two directions at the same time, to the left, and backwards. His eyes were wide open as he forced them to focus on anything that might pass his field of vision, ideally a tiny golden orb.

Draco didn't get dizzy. He never got dizzy. He just kept spinning and searching and finally, he saw it. Or rather, he saw two "its" - two tiny snitches were within his grasp. One was about five feet above him, the other was less than ten feet below. He'd only be able to catch one of them, though, and didn't have time to think about which one made the most sense.

A pull of his broomstick jerked it out of the spins and he found himself looking straight at the ground. Another tug pulled him out of the drop and to the right, where the Snitch was speeding its way back across the pitch to the Visitor's side, so he chased after it, all thoughts of Bludgers and brothers far from his mind.

But before he could get close enough to grab it, Lucius' voice sounded across the pitch again. "Time has run you down to the ground, Draco. Come on, straight back down to earth."

He didn't even dismount before he started to explain about the darkness and the invisible Snitches and the brutal Bludgers, but Lucius didn't want to hear it. He pulled the broom out from under Draco, and he felt himself slam flat into the ground; his face was pressed into grass; the smell of it filled his nostrils.

When he pulled himself back onto his feet, Lucius finally spoke directly to him in a quiet but fierce voice. "Where did you learn that spin? I don't remember telling anyone to teach it to you. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing it."

"I didn't learn it anywhere - I just made it up. Earlier this spring, we learned something in class that made me think of Quidditch, but I never had a chance to try it before this morning, not with Snitches and Bludgers around, at least," Draco explained. "I did try the spin itself, though, a few times while I was flying this spring."

"You didn't even write to me about it. Why not?" Lucius asked.

"I didn't think..."

"If I ever hear you say that again, you won't be doing much thinking around me afterwards."

His veins were still pounding from the exertion of the move, and he wasn't really paying complete attention to Lucius. If he had, he would've stopped when Lucius interrupted him and not spoken over Lucius as if he didn't hear him at all. "... you'd forget that I wrote about it in the middle of April. I said that I caught the Snitch in the match against the fifth years during a weird spin I was trying out."

"You must've written it up so badly that it made no impression on me. You have one chance to correct it - explain how you worked the move out again."

Draco did, giving perfectly matched explanations each time he answered one of Lucius' questions. It was easy this time, since he was just describing something, to make it come out the same way every time, and felt very clear as he gave his truthful explanations, as compared to the physical sensation of darkness he felt when he spoke untruths to Lucius.

Dylan, who'd jumped back to the ground, had a few questions of his own to ask, but Lucius hushed him, intent on getting the information he wanted. But Lucius didn't seem fully satisfied, perhaps because he was rushing to leave and hadn't really even had the time to ask the questions that he did.

"I must go to my conference, but I will be back this afternoon, around four o'clock, before some evening obligations. I want you, Dylan, to have him practice this move, and any others he needs to work on, until I get back. Arrange for lunch to be served in the field house, and when I get back, I expect to see you working on that little trick," he finished, before Apparating away.

As soon as Lucius left, Dylan started in with a barrage of questions about the twisting move, how Draco developed it and what he did to practice it. Each question was serious and intense, of course, but Draco had the feeling that Dylan was truly curious about the answers, and wasn't simply listening to find flaws in Draco's explanations. Though he did point out flaws anyway.

Draco did a few more demonstrations at different speeds. Then Dylan made his first attempt, which didn't go very well. Each subsequent one was better than the last, and on his eighth try, he even added a third simultaneous spin which sent him up and down on the vertical axis, so he was basically moving in three directions at once.

"I'm not saying this is revolutionary or even especially brilliant, in part because the player has to be able to tolerate a lot of dizziness to do this move, but if it feels right to you, then it's something we should work on."

"Lucius wants us to, which is enough of a reason for me," he said in a way that Lucius would approve of, if Dylan mentioned it to him, or if anyone else had overheard.

And so they did, with brief breaks for oranges and toast about an hour later, then sandwiches around noon.

While they ate, Dylan pondered about Draco's spin. "Maybe you catch the Snitch more quickly during the spin because the circles are a little like the moves their wings make on their rotational joints."

"They're not like Snidgets that think, though. It's not like they could think the spinning seeker is a very large Snitch."

Dylan had a rule about not going into the air for at least half an hour after eating, so through lunch and for a while afterwards, they sat on the grass and Draco answered all Dylan's questions about how he'd trained at school, what they'd done in pickup games without their Quidditch pitch, and whether anyone was still flying the obstacle course through the Forbidden Forrest.

"I've only been in their once," Draco said, "and that was on foot. I had this detention first year, and I'm never going back in, even if I'm in the air. I got a racing broom my first Christmas at Hogwarts, but I never tried the course in there, even when some seventh-year challenged me to a race. I don't trust that place."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By late afternoon, Draco was so intent on trouncing Dylan as they raced back and forth around the field that he didn't even notice when Lucius returned. He'd obviously been watching from the ground for a long while before he said anything to catch their attention.

What he said was the briefest comment he'd made to Draco during a Quidditch practice session since he'd started at Hogwarts.

"I've seen enough of this. Draco, I'll see you in my study in seventy minutes."

To say that Lucius Malfoy was verbose would have been an understatement. He could be long-winded even when he wasn't actually explaining or discussing anything, especially when he was talking to Draco, and especially if Draco wasn't doing something in the exact way that Lucius wanted. Draco hoped that Lucius had been so short with him because he was pleased with the results of the day's practice. He puzzled over this as he walked back to the Manor alone.

Dylan stayed behind to talk to Lucius and put things away, so Draco walked back to the house on his own, turning over thoughts about what Lucius might discuss with him in their Talk.

He didn't even stop in his room as he went to shower. He knew that if he did, he'd want to read more pages in the diary, especially since he hadn't opened them so long, or he'd flip through the photographs again, and he couldn't do that and be in Lucius' study on time. Any new discoveries or revelations would be too hard to mask during their Talk.

On his way into the house, he'd announced to nobody in particular that he hoped his clothing for the evening would be laid out in the bathroom by the time he'd finished showering, knowing that the elves would make sure that was the case.

In all his rushing, he made it to the study before Lucius, and so stood waiting in his usual place on the rug in front of the desk, not touching anything, not reading the papers that lay on the desk, upside down to his field of vision, but still legible, if he'd wanted to defy Lucius' directives over something so trite. His eyes did wander over the bookshelves, seeking out the new titles that he hadn't seen before and wondering what books like The Paradigm of Uncertainty and Wild Swans could possibly be about. He glanced to the side of the room, where Lucius' chair and his own ottoman had been, but for the first time in his memory, they weren't there. He could ask Lucius why, later, perhaps.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been standing there, but he knew Lucius was late as soon as he walked in, because Lucius started asking questions before he even closed the door.

"'If you hide your ignorance, nobody will hit you and you'll never learn.' Is this your quote?"

"I..."

"Is this your quote?"

"It's actually from Bradford Rayburn."

"You quoted Brad Rayburn, who I fired when he was two years out of Hogwarts because he refused to hold to the Prophet's expository style, in this memo you wrote, where in the middle of an explanation of obscuring spells that any first year could write, you run off on a warped little tangent about banning and hiding books. Is this a joke? Is this some sort of pathetic complaint about your punishment this summer?"

"No, I only mentioned it because it's a metaphor and because obscuring spells are a way to..."

"Was that supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to make a point, because I don't accept..."

"No, it was a metaphor for how I got hit by something when I poked..."

Lucius never let him finish the sentence.

Lucius slapped him.

Draco's head flipped to the side from the unexpected assault. Lucius had never slapped him like that before, right across the cheek, with an open palm, so hard he almost lost his balance. The dispassionate, completely emotionless look on Lucius' face was quite familiar, but the absolute cold coming from his eyes was not.

The bottom dropped out of Draco's stomach. Lucius must've learned about the things he'd taken from the Gringotts vault. Why else would he be so angry? Draco couldn't look at him anymore, and turned his eyes to look at the bookcase over Lucius' folder. His cheek stung, but he didn't dare react or ask any kind of question.

They stood in silence for seconds that felt like hours before Lucius spoke again. "I've read your report, and it amazes me that you can mangle the simplest facts in flowery prose that drops silly little hints and creates gaping mysteries. You are supposed to be writing a report, not some sappy novel full of plot holes." He threw Draco's memo onto the desk, pointed his wand at it and encased it in a ball of fire that came close to the edges of the parchment, but didn't actually incinerate it, the desk, or anything else on it.

"You will write a corrected version of your report, accurately, precisely and bereft of metaphors!" Luicus ordered. "And you will keep the fire burning, and the parchment safe, from the time you leave here until you are finished, then return both parchments to me."

Draco reached for his wand, so he could get the burning parchment up to his room without burning himself, but Lucius stopped him with a word. "Did I say you were to do this now?"

"No, sir."

"No, I didn't," Lucius answered himself as though Draco hadn't said a word. "First, I need your help with something. We have a houseguest here, a recent arrival who came back with me this afternoon, and I expect you to chat with him for about an hour."

Draco was used to this sort of thing. It wasn't unheard of for Lucius or Narcissa to set him the task of keeping a guest amused while they were otherwise occupied, and Draco had learned the right kinds of questions to ask their guests over the years. Women liked to be asked about their children, if they had any, or their opinions on recent books or WWN programs. Men usually got caught up in discussing their favorite Quidditch team, but Draco had learned a fair bit about Quodpot from American visitors. And if Lucius was asking him to help entertain a guest, then he couldn't know about the vault - he was just illustrating a point before, and Draco had clearly paid too little attention to fully understand. Yes, that was it, that was the explanation.

"Will I find your guest in the parlor?" he asked, striving to keep his voice from shaking with relief at his realization.

"Not tonight - he's already here." Lucius pointed his wand at the part of the room where they usually sat during their Talks, and said, "Accio!" An invisibility cloak that would've fit a giant flew across the air into his hands, and where it had been, Draco saw a familiar set of furniture. Someone was sitting on the ottoman - his ottoman - with his back turned to Draco and Lucius.

"Sit in my seat, son, and talk to the professor for a while."

"But...I...who?" Lucius was a master of unexpected twists, but this was radically unfamiliar territory.

"Professor Karkaroff is paying me an unexpected visit," Lucius said acidly. "He hasn't been very happy chatting with me, so let's see if you can have some fun with him."

Draco wanted to stay frozen to the spot, standing on the carpet, but he forced his legs to move to Lucius' chair. Professor Snape's statements and Hermione's questions filled his head, and he could hear nothing but a ringing in his ears as he looked down at Professor Karkaroff.

Then he heard Lucius' voice, quiet and hard. "I hope you have an enjoyable chat with Draco. Why don't the two of you chat about how Viktor Krum trains during the school year? Igor may have some good ideas for you, Draco."

Professor Karkaroff was completely silent at this. There was an undercurrent to what Lucius said, Draco could tell, but he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do or say. Under his breath he whispered to Lucius, "I don't know what to ask him - and hasn't he been missing for nearly two weeks?"

Lucius grabbed his wrist and they both walked towards his usual chair; Draco was forced into lockstep at Lucius' side. Instead of an explanation, Lucius pushed Draco into the chair, face to face with Professor Karkaroff on the ottoman, and said, "Think of how a cat teases a little mouse," he replied. "If the cat snaps the little animal's neck with one flick of his paw, the revenge is very short lived, but when he allows the wounded mouse the illusion of freedom, then snatches it away again and again, there is a much greater game afoot."

Then, Lucius whispered into Draco's ear, "I'm sure you can find a lot of things to ask him about - just don't ask him anything about the past month." He didn't say why, but walked back to the desk, said a few words to the still-fiery parchment on his desk and exited without another glance at the two sitting across the room.

Draco sat in stunned silence for so many moments, staring at Professor Karkaroff. The professor never looked up from the floor. He looked exactly the same as he did the last time Draco had seen him just before the third task, tall and thin, with short white hair and a curled goatee that he kept touching and a glazed look in his eyes.

Overlying his blank demeanor was a layer of exhaustion that was almost palpable. Draco scrutinized his face as much as he could, downcast as it was, hoping to find somewhere to begin a conversation. But how do you talk to someone when you're only there on orders, and when the person you're obviously supposed to engage and learn something from clearly would rather be anywhere else?

What could you say other than, "What was Krum's training schedule like? I never saw him fly, not all year. So how did he stay in shape? When I'm not officially training, Lu - I mean, my father, likes me to at least do some practice runs and moves every few days, so I don't lose my style, but ..."

Professor Karkaroff finally looked up and Draco's words trailed off. "I should think you would know. Did your little girlfriend not tell you that he is retiring?" he asked meanly, his eyelids at half-mast over eyes that were still shrewd and considering, but rimmed in red.

Draco's eyes widened. He didn't know which part of Professor Karkaroff's sentence to react to first, and his hesitation gave the professor an opening to fill with his own ramble. "I saw the two of you together at the Yule Ball. Again and again, I told Viktor not to take an interest but he refused to listen to me. He believed her claims instead of my facts, then practically turned his back on me after the article in that magazine. He was so stubborn that it was impossible to help him with the final task, and if I had, it would've ruined everything. Or made everything better, if you look at it that way. I certainly wouldn't be locked to a chair to chat with an oblivious teenager who can't see beyond his remarkably pointy nose."

Draco felt both intrigued and horrified. "What do you mean, 'better'?"

Karkaroff said nothing.

"What do you mean by 'worse'?" Again, no answer. "What do you mean, 'locked'? What do you mean about the final task, and trying to help him? What were you trying to get him to do?"

He was frustrated by Karkaroff's sudden silence. The professor folded his arms and still said nothing. His mouth contorted, as if he was biting back words.

"And what do you mean by pointy?" he yelled right into Karkaroff's face, in much the same way as Lucius yelled at him on the evenings when he sat where Karkaroff was now.

Karkaroff lifted his hand, wiped at his own nose, and allowed the ghost of a smile to cross his face. It didn't lift the sheen of exhaustion, though. He spoke slowly, as if in a dream. "I believe you were ordered not to ask any questions about the merry month of June."

"How did you hear that?"

"Is that a question that I have to answer, or are you just babbling aloud again?"

Impatience prickled along Draco's arm. "Do I have a numerical limit or a time limit?"

"That's one of the first questions I've heard all day that I honestly don't have an answer to," Karkaroff said with a sudden whiff of surprised humor.

"Professor," Draco demanded, "answer this question or I'll... I'll...I'll tell my father. You will tell me what you are doing here."

"That isn't a question," Karkaroff answered, still amused by something.

"Answer it anyway - tell me a fact or two," Draco demanded.

"Facts are, by definition, a therapy of limited usefulness in cases of advanced delusion."

"I am not deluded!" Draco asserted. Lucius had told him to play a cat-and-mouse game with Karkaroff - why did it feel like Karkaroff was turning the tables on him?

"No, but I am," Karkaroff said ruefully. "I haven't slept more than an hour a day for the past three days, and if I wasn't careful now, I'd be seeing little purple spikes all over your face." He tugged at his goatee, which was looking somewhat straggly, and looked at Draco as though unsure he was really seeing him. "For some reason, I remember you with curly hair. When did you cut it?"

A wave of understanding and memory almost knocked Draco off the chair. Karkaroff knew Alexander. Could the professor have been the "K" mentioned a few times in his diaries? Could Draco ask him a question, and would he react the same way Professor Snape did? And more importantly, could he be trusted not to tell Lucius, as Draco had trusted Professor Snape?

Certainly not, Draco thought. He didn't know Professor Karkaroff at all, not really, and he'd never even had a conversation with him, just about him. Maybe, though, he could learn something about Alexander in a more roundabout way, or even trade information. If Karkaroff had been outside the wizarding world since before the third task was finished, maybe he didn't know about Moody not really being Moody. Draco knew from his history books that Moody had arrested Karkaroff as a Death Eater almost fifteen years before - he'd probably enjoy hearing what had happened to Moody. And if he asked carefully enough, and if Karkaroff knew enough, he'd be able to tell Lucius about Moody not really being Moody, without implicating Professor Snape at all.

Draco smiled, his most charming and disarming smile, which made his eyes sparkle sincerely, looked Karkaroff directly in the eye, and asked a question that was simple on the surface, but could lead to buried treasure if he was careful. His voice was full of innocence and cluelessness as he asked, "Have you heard how Professor Moody is doing?" The question could be answered in so many different ways, and almost all of them would open such an important door.

Karkaroff froze, a look of mingled fury and fear coming over him. "I would've fought to protect the Dark Lord's servant, had I not been called away on urgent business earlier that night. I had given him assistance when he requested it during the Tournament, whenever possible. Anyone could ask Viktor and learn the truth!"

Draco didn't want to get caught in a trap. Karkaroff had to speak about the false Moody's identity now, plainly and clearly, and Draco couldn't disclose that he knew anything about it, at least not yet. "What do you mean?" he asked simply.

Karkaroff spoke very quickly, as if he had planned and rehearsed this explanation. "I have been told that the man who taught you as Professor Moody was truly the Dark Lord's most faithful servant, at Hogwarts at his bidding, and I curse the day I refused to believe his claims. When he approached me just after the Champions were chosen, and told me who he was and why he was there, I thought he was an agent of the Ministry, set to lure me into a trap. He refused to provide me with the proof I demanded, to ensure that his claims and promises to return me to the Dark Lord in good stead were true, and I refused to assist him."

Draco stared at Karkaroff. He just didn't see how this could be.

"That devilish little brat tricked me into meeting with him on our ship one afternoon, and in my office, he showed me who he truly was - Barty Crouch. Of course, I remembered the news reports about the Silver Children who had sought to destroy those who they thought were against the Death Eaters, those who had been indoctrinated at only sixteen, and I realized that he was the only one who had escaped Azkaban. He ordered me to ensure that Harry Potter win the Triwizard Cup, and I refused to help him. I wanted Durmstrang to win, of course, and I did not see why the glory should belong to an enemy of the Dark Lord. He did not tell me why, though. He did say that he would give me one more chance to follow his lead. We did not speak again until a few days before the first task.

"It seems that Barty arranged for me to learn that something relating to the Tournament was happening on the Quidditch pitch the day the dragons arrived. I wasn't told why but as soon as I reached the pitch, I knew. What I didn't know was that Barty had followed me there, probably hidden under his invisibility cloak, and he took photographs of me watching the dragons. He must've followed me back to the boat too, because he came to see me the next night, and showed me photos of myself watching the dragons, and with Viktor, showing him my notes.

"That was when he gave me my second chance. We agreed that I could give the marks I wished to give, as long as I didn't prevent Potter from being in the lead going into the third task. Mainly, he demanded that I provide him with certain potion ingredients when I could obtain them, and that as I make sure that Viktor did not have certain information that would have helped him during the third task. Crouch said that as long as Potter got into the maze with a decent head start, he'd be able to fulfill the Dark Lord's plans, and Viktor would be safe, and all the incriminating photographs Barty had of me would be destroyed. And my master would know how I had assisted him in this vital task."

A smile spread wide over Karkaroff's face, as though recalling the sweetest memory of his life. Draco was so surprised he couldn't even ask one of the dozens of questions pressing against his head.

"It was, unfortunately, not to be. Barty had told me weeks before the Third Task that if the Dark Mark on my arm burned, I was to take three drops of Slugworth's Sucrajunts and go into hiding until he contacted me, when the Dark Lord had safely returned and annihilated those who sought to destroy his power. So I did.

"It seems, though, that Barty sought glory for himself only, and never told our master that I had assisted him in his quest. Whether he planned to eventually, I will never know, because before he could contact the Dark Lord, before he could even contact me and tell me that it was safe to return, he was given the Dementor's Kiss, and he is now one of them, soulless and unable to protect me as he promised."

Draco swallowed. His mouth and throat were so dry, they hurt. He had thought that Crouch had been working alone in his schemes - didn't Professor Snape and Hermione believe that as well? But if Karkaroff was telling the truth...

He didn't want to know anything more of the Dark Lord, and he grasped at the straws of the questions he had first planned to ask when Karkaroff identified Moody-the-professor as being an imposter.

"I don't care about any of that," he said dismissively. "It has nothing to do with me. I care about myself, and nobody else. If you knew that the person who taught my Dark Arts class was really a Death Eater, why didn't you tell me that he was treating me the way he was for a reason? Why didn't you tell my father?"

"How do you know I didn't?"

Draco squeezed his eyes shut - he couldn't look at Karkaroff's smirk. "He would've done something. He would've made him stop, or told me so I'd at least have known why he was acting that way. I mean, Azkaban does funny things to wizards, even if they've been out for years, or so the studies say. But you told him and he didn't...he didn't...I don't understand why he didn't."

"Because he didn't know," Karkaroff said in an oddly conversational tone, as if he'd just told Draco that Lucius hadn't known that it might rain that evening.

"But you just said -"

"No, I didn't. I asked if you could know whether I had or I hadn't. You don't know enough to be able to tell what's true and what isn't. The Death Eaters aren't going to believe the story I just told you, no matter how many times I tell it as sincerely as I can -"

"You were lying?" Draco interrupted. "The Secrecy Sensor didn't go off." Lucius didn't really have one in there, but it wouldn't hurt to let Karkaroff think there was.

"How do you know I didn't?" Karkaroff asked, exactly the same way he had before, the same smirk on his face. Draco wanted to curse it off.

Instead, it was time for Draco to play his hand. "I should've expected mind games from you. The way Alexander wrote about you, you'd think you had learned from -"

"Alexander? Who's...Oh!" The professor's mouth hung open and he looked horrified. One of his hands left his goatee alone and he began to pat his hands together rhythmically; his left eye was twitching. His voice broke as he spoke almost the same words Professor Snape had used. "I don't know who you're speaking of. I'm sure I don't know anyone by that name."

"But you did. I know it right from him - you were one of his professors at Durmstrang. That's why I wasn't allowed to go there, isn't it? Can you at least tell me that, even if you can't remember anything else?"

"I can't... I can't... remembering this makes my head throb. Why don't you ask your father? He told you about your brother in the first place, didn't he? Nobody else could have."

Draco didn't disabuse Karkaroff of the idea that Lucius had told him anything; he had a plan, and he would not yield for headaches from someone he didn't even especially like. "I was reading about his plans for his final term project at Durmstrang, from the months before he graduated, but the notes were a little over my head." He really hadn't, but since all the students from Durmstrang, other than Viktor Krum, had been working on their final term projects while staying at Hogwarts, he assumed that Alexander had done the same kind of thing in school. Karkaroff couldn't know that it was all conjecture. "Do you remember anything about it?" he asked.

Karkaroff made a short choking sound. "He never did a final project - he never came back for the last term of his final year. I'm not sure he even finished his homeschooling assignments and became a licensed wizard. But I would think Lucius would've told you what happened - he never did tell anyone else." There was a faraway look in the professor's eyes. "Alexi always stayed at school for the Christmas holidays, unless Flora was on one of her ice-breaking cruises, but in 1977, Lucius arranged for him to come back to England. From January of 1978 through March, he and Lucius were as good as missing. Not one editorial in the paper, not one of Alexander's breaktime assignments, not the tiniest piece of parchment ever reached anyone. I don't think anyone realized it for a few weeks, since Flora was traveling, and the house pretty much runs itself, and it was a slow time for the paper, but eventually people started talking.

"Around the middle of March, they reemerged. What I heard was that Lucius walked into the paper one night and started yelling at the editors, calling them layabouts and useless Mudbloods. Nobody asked where he'd been - they were too afraid of him in general, and the mystery around his disappearance made things even more frightening for his staff, or so the story went. And as time went by, it became awkward for anyone to ask where he'd been."

Draco had known this. In his third year at Hogwarts, he'd hidden in the library for hours, reading The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. Lucius wouldn't allow it into the house, because it had been published and edited by what he called a "revisionist gang of unicorn-hearts", but Draco had read references to it in magazines and other books during his first two years at school. One chapter in the book talked about claims made by some accused of being Death Eaters, claims that any curses they'd hurled or potions they'd administered had been done while they were under Imperio.

The book said that in November of 1981, Lucius wrote a three-page statement for the Ministry, where he said he was unable to remember the months in which he'd been missing. He also said that the only thing he could remember was being placed under the Imperius Curse by the Dark Lord himself, and anything he did after that was not of his own free will.

The book contained no indication that anyone else had been missing at the same time as Lucius, so Draco asked, "What about Alexander? Did he reappear too?"

"Right at Lucius' side that night, and I don't think I saw one of them without the other for the rest of the year, which was very strange, too."

Draco was almost afraid to ask, but he had to. "What about after that year? After 1978?"

"I don't know. I don't have any memory of seeing him after December, but that doesn't mean I didn't. A few things happened that winter which gave me a few holes in my memory, some memory charms that I don't seem to be able to do anything about. But I have a feeling that I didn't actually see him in 1979. Your parents were married in February, and he certainly wasn't there. It would've been too awkward."

"Why?"

"Alexi and Narcissa had known each other since he was born. She was a few years older, but your uncle Charlot was the same year as Alexander, and he attended Durmstrang for a few years in the mid-70's, then transferred to Hogwarts when your grandmother died. Narcissa did come to visit Durmstrang a few times to see Charlot, but she always spent time with Alexi, and he was always happy to see her. I'm sure Lucius never spoke to Narcissa, if he even met her before they were formally introduced the year after she graduated school. I am sure your father knew of their friendship before they were married."

Draco stared at Karkaroff, his stomach churning and his mind awhirl in a wash of surprise and horror. This conversation wasn't anything like the one he'd had with Professor Snape, and didn't resemble the fascinating discoveries he'd had while reading the diaries. Every word Karkaroff spoke was like lifting another rock and finding a mass of poisonous ants underneath. He couldn't understand his compulsion to keep asking Karkaroff questions, but he couldn't fight it either.

"You said before that it was strange that Alexander was always with Lucius when you saw them. Why was that?" His words were hesitant, but somehow steady.

"Before that year, the only time I'd seen them together was the day Lucius brought him to school - oh, and at his Wishing Ceremony too. I can remember that like it was yesterday. It was so odd. It wasn't held when he was a month old, because Celeste had died only a week before, and Alexi was so ill, or so the doctors said. They all said he was going to die too, because he'd been injured when she fell. It was only through modern mediwizardry that they managed to keep her alive until he was born anyway. Who would've thought that a witch as powerful as Celeste could've been killed by falling from a tree? Everyone knows that eating apples so late in a pregnancy ruins a witch's constitution.

"There were only a dozen wizards at the ceremony - no witches. Lucius wouldn't allow any into the house then, which made it an unlucky ceremony from the start. There must be a balance. None of the flowers stayed up through the naming ceremony, and Alexi wouldn't stop wailing through that until one of the guests, some colleague of your father's named Rydell, picked him up and levitated him so nobody and nothing could touch him. Even when he was a baby, Alexi was never very happy if people touched him, and that wizard could tell.

"Other than ceremonial or festive occasions, they were hardly ever together in public, and Alexi was often taken around to things by House Elves and his governess; Lucius never came to visit him at school. Alexi had always been a very talkative, outgoing boy at school, but around Lucius in that last year, he never took a step without looking to his father for permission or approval. Very much like..." His voice trailed off.

"Like what?"

The trance-like look disappeared from Karkaroff's eyes, and he snapped at Draco. "Very much like you, of course. I could tell from listening to the two of you when you came in here, even though I couldn't see, and even though I couldn't've been thinking of Alexi then. It was like listening to a conversation I'd heard years ago. When he was with Lucius that year, he even looked different than he had before.

"At school, Alexi had such a sharp, delicate face, and was so pale - the color of ivory. His eyes were too big for him, and he had a lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead and made his thin face seem smaller. He always looked as if he had been ill, and was prone to fits of crying, more as if he were tired and cross than in pain. When I saw him in the corridors, especially at night, he looked like a ghost, and like he had as much substance as a ghost as well. But afterwards, he looked and moved and spoke exactly like Lucius did - he would say things after Lucius, almost word for word the same. It was uncanny. He wasn't even a shadow of himself. He was a shadow of Lucius."

As Karkaroff spoke, the chime from the desk clock rang out over the room. Karkaroff had been talking for almost an hour, and Lucius would be back soon. And Karkaroff certainly couldn't tell him what they'd been talking about.

"Professor, I have an idea," Draco said politely. He had to be diplomatic and demanding - quite a challenge. "I can't do a very good memory charm, but you need one so you don't tell Lucius that I've been asking about Alexander. He doesn't know I know anything about him."

"But you said..."

"No, I didn't. You assumed," Draco said with a glare. "Now listen to me. If you work a memory charm on yourself, so you forget everything we've talked about for the past half hour, I will remember not to tell Lucius about your little rehearsal of your 'I was under orders from Crouch' speech. If they don't know you've been practicing it, they might be more inclined to believe you - or at least less inclined to think that you're a rat and a fink who's trying to work the Confundus charm on an innocent fifteen year old who hasn't even learned advanced countercurses yet."

"Maybe not in class, but you'd be a liar yourself if..."

"Shut up, and do this. It's better for both of us. You can take my wand."

Karkaroff just laughed. "I'm not falling for that - you're trying to trap me into doing something. You must've read the Squib's Guide to Evil by now," he said sarcastically, "and learned that you're never supposed to arm your rival with a weapon!"

"You wouldn't try anything. If you did, what would you do after? Do you really think you could get out of this house, if you cursed me?"

"I won't get out of here anyway. I could tell from the way Lucius looked at me," Karkaroff said quietly. "Look, I don't trust you to just give me your wand. You'll do something like call a House Elf as soon as I touch it, and I'll be Banished into a dungeon before I can take a breath. If you want my memory charmed to save your own skin, you'll have to do it yourself."

"But I haven't learned how!" Draco really didn't want to try a memory charm, not without a lot of practice first. He knew the words, of course, but didn't yet understand the theory behind the charm.

"Then you'll have to take a chance that I'll tell your father every single question you asked," Karkaroff baited him. "It won't make any difference in the long run anyway. Are you scared, little boy?" Karkaroff asked with mingled snippiness and resignation. "It won't matter in the long run."

"But I..."

"Do it!" Karkaroff whispered fiercely, lunging at Draco's wand. "Accio!" he cried. Draco felt his wand wiggle in his hand, but in Karkaroff's exhaustion, he must not've had the strength to get something that wasn't his without a wand, and Draco was able to keep his fingers gripped around his wand.

And he said the first thing that came into his head. "Obliviate!" The spell exploded with the force of a Filibuster Firework. It was enough to make Karkaroff tumble over, and Draco was knocked to the floor.

He was pulling himself into the chair and gasping a moment later when the door opened. He didn't even turn to look; he knew who it was. Lucius was shouting, "Draco! Who performed that spell? What the hell happened?" Draco looked silently at Lucius, his eyes blinking and flickering between Lucius and Karkaroff in horror.

"The sensor went off - did Karkaroff have something hidden on him? Why is your wand on the floor?" He grabbed Draco by the ear and pulled him to his feet. Draco tried to catch his breath and explain but the words didn't come.

"I... I... I..."

"What a waste of my efforts!" Lucius let go of Draco so he fell back to the floor, then turned to Karkaroff, who was slumped over the ottoman. He tried to pull the professor up, but he was so limp that it was clearly a struggle for Lucius to move him.

"I was holding my wand, that's all," Draco's lie came out in a gasp, "and when he lunged at me, and I just did the first spell I could think of."

"Which was?" Lucius growled, still struggling with Karkaroff, who was slipping off the ottoman despite Lucius' efforts.

"A memory charm," Draco whispered.

Lucius let Karkaroff fall. "A what?" he shouted. "How strong?"

"How...?"

Lucius dropped to the floor between Draco and Karkaroff, pushing the professor's limp body to the side. Karkaroff groaned as he rolled. "How strong? A month? A week? A year? What did you block in him?" Lucius looked back to Karkaroff.

"I don't know," Draco said to Lucius' back. "I've never really done one before, so it couldn't be too strong, could it?"

"When he comes round, we'll find out, but if you managed to do something that knocked out at least a few months," Lucius turned back to Draco with a magnificent smile on his face, "you're even more useful than I ever thought."

"Wha-?"

"Useful but stupid, it seems. Didn't you understand what I was saying when I left you here with him? If Karkaroff doesn't remember why he's done the things he's done over the past few months, then he might still be useful. He may think of himself as a loyal servant of the Dark Lord, instead of a filthy traitor." Lucius moved as if to pat Draco, but Draco stiffened. He didn't want Lucius to touch him, not after what Karkaroff had said, at least not until he'd checked a few things to see if Karkaroff had been lying. The man was good at it, after all.

Lucius was asking something. "I'm sorry, sir. What were you asking?" No matter what he felt or feared, he couldn't let Lucius see any change. He'd have to act the way he always did, or there would be questions during the next Talk, and what if he couldn't keep the lies straight? Things were getting so messy, and Lucius was asking a question again.

"Why can't you listen?" He kicked at Draco's leg. "Pay attention, you're wasting time. Do you know what a traitor is?"

Amid all the horror, he could still pull up recitations like rabbits out of hats. "'He infects the body politic so it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.'"

Lucius patted his cheek, the same one he'd hit barely an hour before. Draco fought the urge to pull away from Lucius' hand. "Bright boy. But if a traitor doesn't know he betrayed all he holds dear, then is he a traitor after all?"

Draco wasn't sure, but he couldn't say that to Lucius. And what would be wrong with betraying things that were wrong? Lucius certainly wouldn't think so, would he? But if he'd truly chosen to support the Dark Lord, but had betrayed him, then... Oh, there were so many ways to answer Lucius' question, and they all contradicted each other.

"I think it depends on the circumstances, because..."

Both Lucius and Draco started when they heard another groan from Karkaroff. "Draco, up to your room," Lucius said. "I think Igor and I need to have a friendly chat, to see just how much damage you've done, and how unbreakable he is. And I want a summary of your conversation delivered within the next half hour. And to make it a round three, I'll need a List for today as well."

Draco pulled himself off the floor and escaped as quickly as he could, without another word to Lucius, levitating the fireball that was his memo a few feet away as he walked. He wanted out, back to the chamber of horrors that was his room, even if he had to do Lucius' bidding before he could turn back to Alexander's things to sort out all of Karkaroff's information and make a few new charts and lists. He wanted to throw up, mostly from sheer shock and horror, but he couldn't. He had to focus and concentrate and he had to write!

At least for once, he didn't have to worry about what he put into the report; he could write a few lines about the identity of Professor Moody and a bit about the end of the third task, using the information from Professor Snape instead of Karkaroff, and Lucius would never know the truth. At a minimum, Draco would be able to argue that Karkaroff's memory of their conversation was not to be trusted. And he could even describe in detail his final Dark Arts exam, how he'd succumbed to Crucio and managed to throw off Imperio, and how strong Lucius' lessons must be making him, to make him able to throw off Imperio even when it had been performed by someone who'd probably been taught the curse by the Dark Lord himself. Lucius would be pleased, and that bit of Draco, that tiny section that still fought the thoughts about Death Eaters and curses you can't undo and the brother he never knew, really wanted to make Lucius pleased.

Draco had refused to let himself feel guilty about what had just happened to Karkaroff. It was all in self defense, and a memory charm wasn't any sort of Unforgivable Curse anyway. Ministry officials did them all the time, against Muggles and even wizards sometimes, too. They were a perfectly reasonable kind of self-preservation, when they were done correctly. But he'd have to get better at them if he ever thought he'd want to use them on purpose, for a purpose.

But given his conversation with Karkaroff, he knew he had to get Alexander's things out of the house, and arrange to speak with Hermione, and with Professor Snape, without arousing Lucius' suspicions. And getting sick all over the place would certainly call Lucius' attention onto himself.

Each of those thoughts that were washing around inside, so violently he could feel them smashing his fingers and teeth and eardrums, each of them had to be put aside, one by one. He rushed to his room, to close the door and move into a state of Concentration, where all the doors could be shut one by one.

When he had put all his thoughts into their respective lock-boxes, he pulled his Alexander collection from the various hiding places and put everything into a Moke-bag, leaving only the photograph of Professor Snape, Potter's father and Alexander behind. He opened his window and called for Kira, who landed on the sill within a minute. With the window open, he could hear vague, dim voices traveling along the outside of the manor from one of the rooms below, where another window must've been open to let in the summer air. The breeze did nothing to lighten his mood or his thoughts.

"Kira," he said gloomily, "you're going to have to clear off to Hermione's for the night - stay there until you get a reply from her - and don't try to peck her when she charms you, ok? Don't look at me like that" - Kira blinked her dark grey eyes at him mournfully - "I know it's a Muggle house, but I'm sure she has owl treats - that owl Potter has probably eats better with her than with him." She poked at his hand as he tied the bag to her leg and sent her off.

A moment later, Kira flew off the sill and out of sight. Draco, now thoroughly miserable and anxious, watched her go wistfully. "I wish you could take me with you," he thought as he walked back to his desk and set to the problems at hand - writing the two memos for Lucius, and keeping the fire burning - since he couldn't think about Alexander until he'd finished them and sent them off to Lucius. He could still hear the voices, but was never able to focus enough attention to find the words; he had no inclination to Project down and see what was going on. He had things to do, important things, things for Lucius. He had to report.

Once he did, and by Lucius' deadline too, he sent everything back to Lucius with a House Elf. None of the servants would be competant enough to get the parchment back to the study without letting the flames go out, and he'd spent a lot of energy keeping the fire alight.

He took a notebook and quill and sat on the bed to write a real summary about what Karkaroff had said, for his own eyes only. He made notes on another piece of parchment - things he could investigate as part of schoolwork or while wandering the grounds, like which garden had apple trees in them or whether any books or articles mentioned any other wizards going missing in the late 70's and falling victim to Imperio, or even what the rival magazines had published when Lucius and Narcissa were married. Every few minutes, he ran his wand over the words, mangling the sentences with a Heuristica charm. He could understand the refashioned sentences, but anyone else who saw them would think that Draco had written a list of what he was supposed to pack for his upcoming trip to France.

France. Uncle Charles' house. Where he might be able to find something more, something else, some mention or hint that Alexander had ever existed, and what that existence had contained.

He had to go to sleep, he thought as he changed and tumbled into bed. Who knew what time he'd have to wake up, go back to Quidditch, get back to schoolbooks, tumble back into Challenges and Tests and Talks and all sorts of other things for which he'd have to push the questions away again, just like he was doing now. There was no point in imagining answers to questions when research had to be done and books to read and sources to check. Imagination was too fanciful, too garbled to be used as a secure foundation for any conclusions that would keep him up all night. Algorithms are nothing if they don't work; theorems are useless if they don't prove what they're supposed to. So why spend time on it at all?

The night was finally silent as he sat in bed, staring at the lazy shadows on the wall. When he was younger, he had looked for faces and chimeras and words in the shadows. On moonlit nights like that one, or when a tiny candle burned from his desk, he could almost read the dark words on the wall. As he drank from the glass of warm milk that came in with the House Elf he'd summoned to bring his reports to Lucius, he thought he could see three shadow-play faces, moving like the boys in the photo that was now tucked into Important Modern Magical Discoveries, borrowed from the school library. Lucius would never look in there, and if he did, Draco could always say that the photo must've been in there when he checked the book out.

He tilted his head between sips. Were they laughing at him? Beckoning him? Talking to him? He couldn't hear anything other than the clink the glass made each time he rested it on the coaster by his bed. He stared even more quizzically as he drank, as his eyes and limbs got heavier. Only the caduceus design along the outside of the tall glass kept it from falling from his fingers to the floor, and before he could even put the half-full glass away for the last time, he fell into another sleep that lasted exactly eight hours.

When he woke at midmorning, he sat up straight into a scroll that was hovering at chest-level over his counterpane. It unrolled immediately, and his vision was filled with Lucius' evenly-spaced words in olive-colored ink.

Why do you persist in demanding changes to your schedule at the last minute? I saw you five times yesterday - why couldn't you ask me, on any of those occasions, whether this would be a good day for you to visit the Boolean?

Lucky for you I'd already planned that you'd spend this afternoon at study. By the time you read this, I will have cancelled your luncheon with your mother; she will see more than enough of you for her tastes on your travels next week.

It is also clear to me that you will have to option but to fail in your promise to me that you would finish your summer assignments before you leave for France. I've sent a letter to Uncle Charles, asking him to provide you with a study when you get to Eze; you will work at least eight hours each day until your assignments for school and for me are finished.

Dylan will not be traveling to France with you; he will arrive the next day, after he's completed a so-called family commitment this side of the Channel.

So hurry off to the library, because it's the only chance you'll have this summer. Make it useful.

This time, Draco had no objection to doing exactly as Lucius said. He was out of the house within twenty minutes, and he flew to London at speeds that matched his velocity the day he'd flown back and forth so many times, dealing with the Rita situation.

He was in better spirits now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hermione was in a good mood too, as she sat on one of the benches overlooking the Bell Waterfall, right in front of the Boolean. The library entrance was officially part of Diagon Alley, but it was set back from the street slightly. It was a stunning building, modeled on the ancient Library at Alexandria, back in the days when learned Muggles moved in and out of the wizarding world, and it was not uncommon for wizards who were so inclined to get involved in Muggle affairs. Of course, there was separation between the cultures, even back then. She'd learned that the first week of Muggle Studies during her third year. But magic had made it possible for a dozen Egyptian witches and wizards to save over one hundred thousand scrolls from the Alexandria Library.

Over the years, the scrolls had been put through numerous preservation processes, and of course the originals were inaccessible, housed in vaults around the world that had been created by goblin contractors using the same principles they'd used in building vaults in Gringotts branches the world over. But there were copies at the Boolean, and that was what she was officially here to see.

But if Draco managed to get to London, she knew schoolwork would take a backseat to the tapes and books that packed her bookbag. On the train into London, and again on the bus to the Leaky Cauldron, she had listened to a few minutes of Alexander's tapes on his ancient, bulky Walkman, which had two holes, so two people could listen at the same time; she'd brought an extra pair of headphones from her own Walkman.

Some of the tapes had songs on them - they had to be by wizarding musicians, because she'd never heard them on the records and eight-track cassettes her parents had played before she was born. A few of the songs sounded like they were sung by Alexander himself - the voice was so similar to the person who spoke on the tapes as if they were his oral diary. Since they probably wouldn't have time to listen to everything, she'd made a transcript of the songs, to give to him. But Draco had to hear the diary tape for himself; if he asked, she wouldn't even tell him what was on it. She'd resolved that after she'd listened to only five minutes worth that morning. She hadn't even listened to them since she packed the Walkman away while walking away from the bus passengers who looked askance at the teenage girl who asked to get off in a street where all the record and book shops were closed.

They couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron of course, even though it was always open to witches, wizards and all other types of beings. She didn't visit the pub, but did pop into the ladies' room to change into the robes she'd brought in her satchel. She didn't want to look out of place in Diagon Alley.

While she waited, she paged through her Fifth Year Herbology text, drawing little flowers and herbs in the margins, and listened to the tiny chimes as they cascaded through the witch-made pond, filling the air with trilling music.

She wasn't sure if Draco would be able to get away, although she knew he'd try. Less likely was whether Professor Snape had taken her letter seriously, or even received it at all. Hermione had written that she hoped to be meeting Draco at the library, and asked Professor Snape to meet them there in the afternoon. If he got it, she was sure he'd be there, but maybe he took a vacation during the summer, to get away from the stink of his dungeon laboratory. She giggled as she imagined him applying sunscreen to his deathly pale skin, mildly wondering whether he'd burst into flames like a vampire if he put on a swimsuit to take in the sun.

Even if he ordinarily took the summer off, he probably wouldn't this summer, given the whole Voldemort situation. He might be off on another mission for Dumbledore, she knew, or even stockpiling potions ingredients in some exotic locale, and wouldn't be able to join them that afternoon. For the first time in her life, though, she wanted to see Snape. Wouldn't Harry and Ron be shocked?

Then again, they'd be horrified if they saw her sitting in front of the Boolean waiting for Draco Malfoy. Luckily, she knew neither of them would come that way. As far as she knew, Harry didn't go to Diagon Alley on his own, and even though Ron certainly could travel around the wizarding world, he'd only been inside the Boolean twice. Both times, he'd lost a challenge from Fred and George, and was sent in to look for Percy.

Percy was actually the first person who'd told her about the magnificence of the library, with its shelves that stretched as far as the stands at a Quidditch pitch, the ladders that floated around the room, from the floor to the ceiling, and the vaults underneath the main room floor, installed by the same contractors who'd built Gringott's London branch. There weren't any dragons lurking among the stacks of books and scrolls and tablets, though. They might damage the printing.

She was about to go inside to see if Draco had arrived via Floo when she heard him call her name.

He looked terrible. His hair was lank, his eyes were red, and even though he had a little color in his face, probably from the broomflight, he looked pale, in a sickly sort of way. When he told her about his father's visitor the night before, and his unplanned memory charm of Professor Karkaroff, she understood why he was such a mess.

"Wow," Hermione said.

"Yes, wow is as good a word as I could ever come up with. Wow just about covers it," Draco replied. "It was like an underwater volcano was washing me out to sea, I had so little control over the situation."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know, but sometimes making metaphors, however flippy, is a comforting experience," Draco said dryly.

"That is not what I meant. I mean your story makes no sense. If Karkaroff was involved with Barty Crouch's schemes, somebody would've known about it."

"Not if Karkaroff didn't tell anyone. But then again, he might be lying. I really have no idea, and it's not as if I can just ask Lucius."

"He is your father. Maybe hearing you ask these questions will get him to think about what he's been doing, and..." Her words trailed off. She remembered Alexander's voice on the tapes, a voice that was as unlike Draco in its sound, but so like him in the bravado that he tried to show as a front, even when there was absolutely no need to pretend.

I'd like to step around the table, touch his hand, quickly, briefly, barely, and tell him I understand his fears and how trapped he feels, Hermione thought. Even if he doesn't know it himself. She wanted to say, I appreciate your dreams and respect your nightmares. But she knew he wouldn't appreciate hearing that, especially from her.

Instead, she asked, "What if Karkaroff tells someone, and they come after you?"

"Hermione, I'm a Malfoy. What could they do to someone like me?"

"When you say 'they', who do you mean? Who's they, Draco?"

"Don't you know?"

"The Ministry?"

"No."

"Then," she hesitated as if she wasn't sure how to speak the sentence, "I don't know."

"Neither do I. I'm not sure who 'us' is anymore, at least not in my world. If I can't figure out 'us', how am I going to figure out 'them'?"

"Maybe if you listen to the tapes..." She took the Walkman in her hands and placed one set of headphones on Draco's ears. She'd charmed the Walkman in a way that probably violated Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act. Since the batteries in these old Walkmans did nothing more than amplify the sound and make the rotators spin so the tape moved, she had worked a rotational charm into the plastic, so they would turn at her direction.

Draco didn't like the feeling of the little plastic pads on his ears, she could tell. As soon as she turned the Walkman on, he grew even more uncomfortable. "I can't understand anything I'm hearing!" he yelled over Alexander's words. "Isn't there any other way to listen to this thing?" He pulled the headphones off and threw them onto the table.

Hermione frowned and thought about sound amplification charms. She pulled off her own headphones and turned the volume on the Walkman up as loud as it could go. They could hear faint words from the earpieces. With a wave of her wand, the volume indicator went one notch higher, to eleven, and Alexander's voice filled the room, as if he was speaking directly to them, at a perfectly conversational volume.

His words weren't conversational at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cassette barely picked up his voice, it was both tremulous and uncaring. The first thing they heard on the tape was, "I shouldn't mention that I am sixteen, should I? I don't feel that young." Then the tape was almost silent for long minutes.

Draco wouldn't let Hermione push the button that skipped across the words and spaces like a rock over a lake, because he didn't want to miss a breath or a cough or any of the noises in the background, which sounded so familiar. The usual rumble of the Manor, with people and elves and beasts and even the vacant non-noise of the ghosts which somehow were audible in here, transported through twenty years of time and immeasurable miles of space.

From a young age, I have had to grow up with my own counsel, because he's never given any to me. Sometimes at school, people visit my classmates and I see families that are loving and fathers who care for their children, and I find myself hating them. I mentioned that to him once, when I was younger - too young for school - and didn't yet know that he wanted me to hate.

Hermione spoke over the recorded voice. "You can't tell, but these aren't all recorded at the same time. I can tell where he's stopped the tape and started recording again - there's a tiny click when it happens. There's no way to tell when he did these recordings."

"They had to have been during the three months that he and Lucius were missing," Draco whispered. "I could hear familiar sounds of the Manor during some of them, but not always. I think sometimes, he's somewhere else. But shhhh ... I want to hear him."

Draco mostly listened with his head on the table. Sometimes he sat up, once, he leapt from his chair and walked around the tiny room, and most of the time, at least one finger was in his mouth. She could see blood where he bit through the cuticles, and that didn't bother her terribly. The places where she could see that he'd bitten through the skin over his knuckles, on the other hand, made her almost ill.

For almost an hour, they listened.

He never wanted me to show any emotion, and he doesn't want them now - no happiness or sadness. No chance of happiness anyway. He can show anger because he's conquered all the other emotions, he says. But he's never tried to conquer hate. He wants to grow it, and grow me, like the Mandrakes we grow in the hothouses at school. I should say 'grew', because I know now that I'm never going back. He wouldn't allow it. I've been through too many exercises and tests and I have to pass and fall in line. I know there's nowhere to run to, there's no choice that's mine. He has spent days explaining his theory of the universe to me. We are purebloods and powerful - nothing new with that, except that he knows I'm not powerful. He says I will be. He will make me be.

As they listened, Hermione focused her gaze on Draco's face. He was so good at looking expressionless. His mouth was a thin line and his breathing stayed steady and rhythmic. Only the occasional twitch in his cheek gave any evidence of the effect these words were having on him. It had been so long since she'd had a real conversation with him - not since the Yule Ball, really - so that she couldn't be certain what his minute reactions meant.

There's nobody for me to talk to, so I am talking to you. I still don't know how he hasn't found you, or my other tapes. I can't listen to them, of course, because I don't have the headphones but it's good to know that I have her music. Who would've thought that a Muggle thing would be so useful? Nari said that it might stop working after a while - that's no surprise, though. Muggle things don't last anywhere near as long as wizard things. I guess that's what he means when he says we're superior. Wizard music never breaks, but it's also harder to keep private.

On the nights he lets me sleep, I always fall asleep crying. I can't concentrate on things because I'm thinking of... of...

I think things should be better. I think there should be a better place. It wasn't at school. At school, I was ... well, I don't think anyone should be bored at all or kept from doing what they want. I used to be bored at school. But then he had me leave and said it was time to discover interesting things. But all I discovered was boredom. Sitting in a room with nothing to look at and nothing to do for hours, other than read the books he's left for me and talk to you, my little silver box, for who knows how many hours, I even count the hours that I lie awake, the minutes and the seconds too, and every so often, food appears and every so often I get to sleep and in my dreams he speaks to me, and tells me I had to be a good boy, his good boy, that he'd left me alone long enough and it was time, my time, his time, 'His' time, with a capital 'H' and all, and I should follow and then I could lead. But if I didn't want to listen anymore, I would choose the boredom and I would wake up.

I have nightmares pertaining to my father. I get angry and frustrated when family is around. Have you ever wondered why you have the family you have? Last year, Charles asked me what I would do if I was brought back to England - did he know then? - I said that if I had to live with him, I'd rather die. I can't stand it. I cry for almost anything, but I can't let him see, so I turn away and shout and yell at him and he thinks I'm angry and am not hurt, and I know that even after all these days I should be breaking. I have to give in and let him have my mind. I don't even know why I'm fighting him anymore. Who am I going to protect? Who is going to have a moment's happiness because Alexander Nefandous Malfoy couldn't do a simple Crucio on a simple Muggle?

"Please stop it."

Hermione jumped in her seat and lunged for the stop button, before remembering that it wouldn't work, because it was playing with a charm, not a battery. A wave of her wand silenced Alexander. "What is it?"

"What am I going to hear, Hermione? How much stranger is this going to get? I can't understand what he's talking about anyway."

"He might be Confunded," Hermione considered. "I know you want to think that your father was just a pawn in this, so I-"

"I haven't heard anything yet that proves otherwise. This might be something the Dark Lord set up. I told you, Lucius gave testimony that he doesn't remember those three months. Maybe Lucius was under Imperio and Alexander didn't realize it. Karkaroff said they didn't see each other much, which I admit isn't a very good thing, but it's still very very different from what he's talking about."

"You're saying Lucius doesn't remember it because he's under Imperio?"

"Yeah."

"Moody, I mean Crouch, put both of us under Imperio. Do you remember what you were thinking during the curse?"

"Only in a very blurry way. I wouldn't swear to those memories under oath," Draco said.

Hermione considered that. It had been almost a year since Crouch demonstrated Imperio on her class, as she thought back to that day, she agreed with Draco that if enough time had passed, such memories would be very hard to recall. "Do you want to listen, or do you think you've heard enough?"

"Turn it back on."

Every day is an unending thing. He has determined to bring magic out of me, magic that almost a decade at Durmstrang couldn't find. Today is the worst of the days. He's moved me beyond my room, for most of the day at least; none of the elves came there. I don't think they saw us at all, or see us now. None of them would know me anyway - I've been away too long. He gave me one more chance to think about the offers he has made. He was almost pleading with me - with me! He said that I should have enough pride to know instinctively what I am meant to do. He says I break a little more every time I close my eyes and tell myself to find and to hold on to the moments that I ignored when they passed. But I don't know what he wants. He yells and says I do, I should, but only I know that I cannot understand. He promises that I will. But I have my photographs and my diaries and I know that I remember something else. I don't want his promises and I don't want to break and I want to go home. And then I remember that I am.

Hermione and Draco were so focused on the whirring little tape that the didn't realize that someone else had entered their reading room. Snape's choking cough pulled them out of their reverie and back into the present.

"Were you listening to the tapes you mentioned to me, Miss Granger?" he asked slowly.

Hermione nodded. She had been so glad to see him, she'd smiled when she saw him standing inside the door. Of course, she had never smiled at Snape before, and wondered if she ever would again. She wanted to ask him about Dumbledore, see if he knew how Harry was doing, ask if there was anything new to know about Voldemort, but Draco was there. Even given his current mess of a life, she still didn't trust him with some of the information she knew. Especially since she'd already heard enough about Alexander to make her very worried about Draco's safety - physically and mentally.

Snape had spun another chair out and pulled it to one of the table's empty sides; he and Draco were talking. "You didn't even remember what he sounded like?" Draco asked, an expression of anger on his face.

"I do now. Since Hermione wrote to me about your midnight visit to house and asked me to come here, I've been looking through all the boxes of things I had when I was in school. When the Home closed back in 1981 all my things were sent to Hogwarts, and I've never bothered to go through a lot of them."

Draco seized this tangent as if he wanted to move away from subjects like Alexander and personal archives. "Why did your home close? Was it damaged?"

Snape laughed, a sharp sound like nails on a blackboard. Hermione had never heard him laugh before, and the sound gave her chills. "No, not my home. The Home. I grew up in the Marvolo Center for Orphaned Wizards and Witches, and it was closed less than a month after Potter's parents were killed."

"But I read one of your mother's books in Muggle Studies," Hermione said. "The one that compared mediwitchery and Muggle therapies for common ailments. Why did you...?"

"My mother was the mediwitch for the Center, and we had a suite of rooms there. I took lessons with the other children - both traditional lessons and some more specific classes, under orders from the founder and funder of the Center- until we were of an age to attend Hogwarts. If you want a full history of my life we can do that another time. Right now, I think Draco wants a more complete history of Alexander's life. Am I right?"

"Can we start the tape again? Professor Snape, if you listen, will you remember more, do you think?"

I have tasted the light. He gave me a moment of it today, when everything swirled away and the pain disappeared and I wanted more. I floated in my aloof sadness and sameness in the lustrous sea. All my fears and sadness were gone for those moments when he gave me the light, and I miss it. All I want now is to get it back. I was a holothurian like the ones Charles brings back from la mer each autumn, and I wasn't sad and I wasn't glad and I want it back.

He's right, of course. There's no reason to suffer when I can taste my light. He promises me that I can live in it every minute of awakeness. I'm so tired when I'm in the darkness. All I see is your little red light. You're not enough to keep me away from his light. I don't even remember why I remembered I didn't want to. I also think I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore.

I have been brought to his side. It hurt so much, more than any medicine I'd ever had or task I'd ever done. It takes such a long time to perform his tasks and I have to scream. I burn for it and I may have actually done it, but with the masks that stared at me, I couldn't tell if anyone heard me. I'm sure they didn't care. I don't know why I am still talking to my little Muggle box. I renounced Muggle things tonight, and I should renounce you too. All my things from my past and my memory and my childhood, I will put away. I want to be his. I want to be His. I like the lightness I feel when I am. When I give in. So I will close you into my box and lock you away and leave you to the history books, and join my brilliant, wonderful, loving father in service to the one who has given me the bliss of the light.

Hermione turned the tape off, and Draco asked to nobody in particular, "He was under Imperio, wasn't he?"

It was now Snape's turn to nod. "Why?" Draco asked.

"I'm still not exactly sure, but it sounds like your father spent a few months brainwashing him, trying to get him to agree to become one of the Dark Lord's bits of canon fodder. If a teenager, someone just out of school, was brought towards the Dark Lord's circle, he would have to undergo a series of tests of his magic abilities and skills. You-Know-Who didn't want anyone on his side who couldn't measure up to his standards in at least one area. I don't think Alexander had the ability to do it on his own, or the inclination either, but your father obviously wanted him to."

"Why?" Draco asked again.

"I have no idea."

"And there weren't any Death Eaters who talked about the way they joined or what they went through for it to be in any of the history books."

"Miss Granger, that's actually not correct. A very small number of former Death Eaters did talk, but it was decided that their stories would not be made public, so no egomaniacal wizards or witches could use those ideas to build an army in the future."

She wanted to make a joke about his inability to take away house points during the summertime, but it wasn't the time or the place. Instead, she asked, "If he was under a curse, then who was controlling him? And why did they need him anyway? It sounded from the tape like they needed him for some purpose - otherwise, why didn't they just give up on him after a week or so?"

"I can't say," Professor Snape said. I've been searching my memories to see if there is anything I remember which would shed some light on this. I can tell you every thing I know, which is not necessarily everything I remember. Some memories are easy to recall clearly, most are not. Little flashes, little mountains of memory are what I have now. When I heard his voice, yet another bolt of memory sparked through me. So many thoughts returned to me at once that it was impossible to focus on any one of them. I need to think about everything a little more, and I want to have another go at my Pensieve now that I have more memories to use. Can you come to Hogwarts or Hogsmeade next week to see them?" He turned to Draco. "Will Lucius let you?"

"No, I'm not even going to ask. We're going to visit my Uncle Charles in France so soon, this is really the only day I can get away. And I need to get some official school work done too, because if I don't, I won't be able to finish some of my ..."

Hermione touched him on the arm. "If you're running out of time, you'd better tell Professor Snape what Karkaroff told you."

"You've seen Karkaroff?" Professor Snape exclaimed. "When? How was he?"

Draco explained about his interrogation and the memory charm. Lucius had made it sound like a good thing, the way he had Obliviated Karkaroff, but Snape was clearly less than pleased. "I need to tell Dumbledore about this," he said. "You've been crossing too many lines this summer, and I don't like it." Draco nodded, as if he had no choice in the matter, as if he had expected it.

Hermione had never seen him look so resigned - almost defeated - as she had over the past few days. It was like watching a different person look out through Draco's eyes. The only familiar thing about him was the coldness with which he'd spoken about questioning and then cursing Karkaroff. She knew it really was self-defence, but she did wonder why.

She asked, "Weren't you worried about what your father was going to do to Karkaroff, when you told him about the Memory Charm?"

"No, should I have been?" he asked. He really looked puzzled.

He still didn't seem to be able to put the puzzle pieces together, even though it was clear to Hermione that they fit together as easily as the wooden toys she bought for her "You can't actually sit here and tell me that you think your father's been under Imperio in the past, and might be again, and that it sounds like someone put your brother under that curse as well, and that spells have been worked into the world to make people forget him. and say that you think your father is again under Imperio and at the same time tell me that you're not worried about what he might've done to Professor Karkaroff?"

"There wouldn't be anything I could do anyway. You heard Alexander on the tape - if Lucius wanted to do something to me, I couldn't stop him. I've never even said no to him! Every time I lie to him, I feel like pins and needles are ripping my mind apart. I do it, of course, but I hate it. Even sitting here and saying these things hurts - it's not right and it's making me crazy and I can't stop thinking about it."

Snape was looking down at Draco, and Hermione couldn't see the expression on his face. For a moment, nobody moved or said anything. Then Snape slowly lowered his hand onto Draco's shoulder. "I need you to do something for me," he said.

Draco spoke as if he didn't hear or feel him. "I've tried to go on ignoring it and pretending it's not really real and suddenly there it is - zap - right in front of me."

"Draco, that's a sign you have to face all of this, and confront him. Talk to him when you get home," Hermione said encouragingly.

"No. Don't." Snape turned Draco's chair to face him. "I told you before, you can't let him know that you know anything. You can't act like anything is different. You can't change the past, but you can change the present."

"And the future," Hermione said. She suddenly realized where Professor Snape was going.

"You won't have many more chances to see Lucius this summer anyway, and what's going to be gained by confronting him that you can't learn from me, or the diaries when you come back from Eze, or while you're in France. You might even be able to talk to Charles - you're a bad judge of character, but you should be able to figure out if you can trust him."

"But he's Narcissa's brother!"

"And he was Alexander's friend, as I remember it. But that's almost beside the point. Do you want to make up for what you did with the spells you researched in January?" Hermione was confused, but Draco clearly wasn't, because he nodded. "Then tell me what Lucius says and does. If he has any more guests, let me know. If he's away for long periods of time, or if he's unusually frenetic, tell me."

Hermione interrupted. "And if anyone starts anything like what Alexander described, let us know before anything else can happen."

"What could you do about it?" Draco asked. Professor Snape and Hermione were completely silent. "Exactly what I thought. But I can't not go back to the Manor, and I don't want to stay there with him instead of going to France."

"Then write to me as often as you can. I'll give you a special assignment for Potions research."

"No, please don't!" Draco interjected. "If you call it an assignment, then I have to get it done as quickly as I can, so he won't be dissatisfied." He frowned. "I'll just come up with a new question for you, every few days, about ingredients or something."

"Will you try to write to me, too?" Hermione asked. "Just so I can keep tabs on you, make sure everything is alright," she finished quickly.

Draco smiled. "Nobody down there cares enough to screen my incoming or outgoing mail, so you can even write back. Don't sign anything, and nobody will know." He scribbled the chateau address on her scrollbook and drew a quick map of Eze next to it.

"Another secret," Hermione noted.

"Isn't it great that I mastered the Bundlebrot last term? I'd have no other way to keep them together," Draco said. "I'll have to pack an extra suitcase for the trip..."

"Just to carry all your baggage."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the days before he left for France were a blur of scrolls, schoolbooks, and Snitches. Lucius never mentioned Karkaroff, or even Barty Crouch, but he also never really criticized Draco about his Dark Arts exam again.

Draco was perfectly polite to Lucius every time he quelled the urge to cringe away from him, especially during their nightly Talks. They never lasted long; Lucius seemed to want to get away from Draco as quickly as Draco wanted to flee from him. When he was in the study, answering each probing question with the precise words that came to his mouth so easily, he felt like he was on a runaway carpet; when he was alone in his room, he didn't have much more clarity.

Even his glasses of milk before bed each night didn't give him the dreamless sleep he was accustomed to. He was sweating through two changes of pajamas each night, no matter how few covers he used, and he even thought he overheard some House Elves complaining about the extra work they had to do to repair his bed every morning. Must be his imagination running away with him.

On Wednesday night, the night before they left, Lucius gave him a list of instructions on his behavior at Charles'. He was not to speak about the Tournament, the Prophet, the Crouch family, Durmstrang or any of its staff, politics in general, and a host of other topics. Draco could, however, talk about Quidditch, Quodpot, broomsticks, the horde of chess pieces recently discovered in a mountain near Eze, Pegasus Polo, and the ongoing attempt by an Australian witch to fly around the world on a Firebolt Maxima without touching the ground.

They held their foreheads together as Draco recited, over and over again, the forbidden subjects, the lists of books Draco was to read and send reports on, the examination Lucius wanted him to make of Charles' garden, and what he could do to keep Narcissa from venturing to too many Eaution Mistresses in search of ever more expensive scents and beauty potions than she already had in her collection.

It was a relatively painless evening. Although it lasted for hours, Draco's head was knocked less than a dozen times, which was a pretty good ratio. In an unusual gesture, Lucius didn't send Draco out of the room when he was finished, but walked him through the corridors, past the music room and salon and up both stairways, to Draco's door.

"One more thing," Lucius said as Draco started to enter his room. "I want you to try to visit me next week, once you've acclimated to your surroundings. I will send you an owl with the date and time and you can try to Project all the way here, at least to your balcony. That's where I'll be waiting."

"But I've never crossed the Channel before, not even for a short jaunt. How can I..."

"You'll just have to practice between now and then. Try to get as far as Montglane, then Paris. Don't worry," he said, which shocked Draco. He didn't think he'd ever heard Lucius use those words before. Lucius pulled on Draco's chin, forcing their eyes to meet, adding, "If you can't, you can't, but there's no reason not to try. Can't you strive for something impossible, just once?"

Without another word, he released Draco and walked away.

He didn't come to see them off the next morning when they went to meet the Travel Agent in the Porte Coche. The Agent had flown to the Manor on her broomstick hours before, and had worked with the Elves and the Mudblood servants to transport their luggage via Portkey. It wasn't pleasant for witches or wizards to travel such a long distance that way, and the Floo network was so messy that Narcissa resisted taking it whenever possible. Even though she had wanted to fly, Lucius had pointed out a few days before that the weather was too chancy this time of year to be out in the elements; he had insisted on booking the Travel Agent instead.

This Agent hadn't been in the business long, less than ten years, but she'd achieved the maximum number of Transfiguration N.E.W.T.s - four - during her seventh year at Hogwarts, and had been the subject of two profiles in the Prophet over the past year. She had been placed under contract by both Gladrags and the Bulgarian team to handle their transportation needs, and it was obvious to Draco that she was bucking for the Prophet contract as well. He heard her mutter to one of the Mudbloods how disappointed she was that Mr. Malfoy hadn't been able to attend, especially given that she'd worn a specially tailored robe for the occasion. The Mudblood giggled at her comment, and Draco turned his back on them, impatient to get going, even though it meant four hours in a carriage with Narcissa. He didn't think he'd spent four hours with her in total since school let out.

He watched as the Agent arranged her tools - one aubergine, tipped on its side and four hedgehogs in a cage that was much too large for such small creatures. An Agency Elf stood at her side, garbed in a tea-towel that was almost the same color as the aubergine. Everyone else was at least twenty feet away, so the Agent could transfigure the vegetable into a coach and the hedgehogs into hippogriffs.

Draco stood in the Manor doorway, almost fifty feet away. He still didn't want to be around creatures that looked like those, even if they still had the slightly less violent nature of hedgehogs. At least in the carriage, he wouldn't have to look at them.

When she was finished, the Agent hurried Draco and Narcissa into the carriage, in which she had placed squishy armchairs and a large picnic basket. They sat opposite each other in silence, which meant that the could hear the Elf take her place in the driver's seat and order the multilayered beasts into the air.

On each chair was one of the Agent's brochures, which described the route they would be taking down to the Mediterranean, the breakfast treats that were packed into the basket, the stop they'd be making at Customs in Boulonge-sur-Mer, and the importance of being quick at that stop. The flight time was almost four hours, and the charm on the auburgene wouldn't last more than five.

He flipped through the brochure, then surreptitiously pulled the Transcroll Hermione had given him out of his travel case. Now that he was away from the Manor, he felt like he could finally unroll it. Hermione had formatted it so it looked like a series of a dozen poems, and even if Narcissa saw it, she'd never be able to guess what it really was.

Narcissa didn't look interested in what Draco was reading, anyway. She just sat on the floor and pulled package after package out of the picnic basket. "Where the hell did they put my Champagne? You can't travel to France sans Champagne!"

Draco didn't want to point out that since they were going to a house with its own vineyard, nobody would be expecting them to arrive with anything like that; it was obvious that Narcissa wasn't concerned about it as a gift. He curled his legs onto the seat and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. If she calmed down, he could ask her about easy things, like what she'd packed for his cousins or whether she'd be playing Pegasus Polo or just working on her Equitation charms this summer. He wouldn't even contemplate asking her why Lucius was sending them away for the whole summer, which was something he'd been wondering about ever since his last conversation with Professor Snape.

Narcissa's yells brought him back from the future. "I hate flying, all trapped in some flying bloody vegetable," she complained, pulling six bottles of Butterbeer from the Coolerater charm and popping one with a wave of her wand. "How can anyone see anything from down here? It's much better to be on a broom, the wind in your hair, outracing the birds, outracing you, certainly," she said, turning to Draco as if she'd just remembered that he was there.

"I bet I could outfly you any day. I could open this door," she rose and moved to the carriage window, "and I'd get there quicker than you, quicker than lightening. Where's my broom? And where's the bloody door? Did you erase it?"

"No, of course not. The Agent did, right after we got in, just like the Ministry requires. Didn't you see?"

"Don't act so smart with me, you don't know everything in the world. Make yourself useful and find me a door!"

He didn't get up, despite her demand, but moved around in his chair, his wand at the ready if he had to stop her from doing something stupid. She didn't look tipsy at all - her hair was loose around her face and her cheeks were pale. But depending on what makeup she'd used, she could be camouflaging something. She was experienced at that, after all.

"You can't just fly out of here," he warned. "We're over the Channel, we're two hundred feet in the air! You wouldn't fly, you'd drown! You're not an animagus, Mother."

She moved from the window to stand before his seat in less than a blink. Now, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were flashing. "Why do you keep calling me that, brat? It might be an official title, but you know I don't want to hear it." He was relieved; at least she'd moved away from the window.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." he replied quietly as he pulled his eyes away from her face to stare at the floor.

She pulled on his chin, almost the same way Lucius had done the night before, the same way she did almost every time she saw him. It was practically the only way she had touched him for years, other than on the way home from King's Cross the month before. But she never made him look at her; she always held him in profile. Narcissa was a lot stronger than she looked.

No more words were spoken as she stood over him, watching, until they heard the Agency Elf, with the assistance of a Sonorous charm. "Lady and young gentleman, we will be landing in a moment at the Ministère de Magie Commande de Passeport. Madame Verna has arranged for the Chièf de Securitè to embark for the procedure, so you can rest in your seats for a few minutes. You will not be getting out here."

"But I want to get off," Narcissa yelled back. She didn't bother with an amplification charm, but she was loud enough that Draco wanted to clap his hands over his ears. "Bring me someone who can let me out of here. I need a bloody drink!"

The Elf didn't reply. Instead, a beefy-faced adjutant Apparated into the carriage, clipboard and quill at the ready. He was very brief. "Your Elf has already shown me your passports, and I see no contraband, so you can go on your way," was all he said before he Apparated out again.

Narcissa didn't even have a chance to make her request. The sweet smile she'd pulled for the official didn't even fade - it just disappeared. "Bloody functionaries, won't listen to a bloody simple request for a bloody welcoming glass of bloody wine!" She leaned over to her bag while she ranted about ministry flunkies not knowing who deserved special treatment and pulled out her wand.

She pointed it towards the wall just as they heard the Elf send the aubergine back into the air. "You can't blast a hole in the wall while we're airborne!" Draco shouted, pulling out his own wand. He couldn't let her get them both killed - he had too many things to do!

"But it's bloody stuffy and I need a bloody drink!" Narcissa yelled back.

"Put the wand away, Mother," he said, forcing his voice to sound calm. If he could talk to her, she might calm down, he thought. Usually, when she started in like this Lucius or one of the House Elves at the Manor forced her mood to change. He'd never confronted her on his own, but now, he might not have a choice. Even if she got angry, even if Lucius pitched a fit when he heard about it, at least they'd be safe on the ground when the repercussions arrived.

"No." She walked across the floor to get closer to the window, clearly unsure if the charm would work from ten feet away. If she had so little faith in her charms, she was either tipsy or had been too long without a drink. Given her current mood, it was probably the latter.

"You're going to crash the carriage, please put the wand down," he asked. He didn't plead. He wasn't going to plead, he was going to...

"'Loham-"

A pile of butter-knives appeared on the floor.

"Alohe-,"

Christmas tinsel fountained out of her wand.

"Alouet- "

Her chair became festooned with purple polka dots.

That was enough. "Expelliarmus!" he exclaimed.

Narcissa's back was to him when Draco disarmed her, so when the wand wrenched itself out of her hand, she stumbled on her high heels. At the same moment, so coordinated Draco wondered if the Elf had been listening, and had done it on purpose, they banked almost straight up into the air. The twist knocked them both down, but Draco managed to hold on to both his wand and Narcissa's, which had sailed from her hand right into his.

She looked pathetic sitting on the ground like that. That must be what I looked like when she took me off the train, he thought. Worthless and weak. But he couldn't leave her that way; it would be dangerous if the carriage made another sharp move. He didn't trust her to not grab a wand from him, though, if he went over and helped her into the chair.

"Narcissa?" he asked tentatively. "Would you just sit down and relax and drink a Butterbeer? Look, the one you opened spilled, but I'll get you another one." He summoned a bottle, popped the top and concentrated on being as precise as possible when he banished it back to her, still in a heap on the floor. She took a few sips, but didn't seem to want to move. And so they traveled the rest of the way across France, Narcissa sipping Butterbeer after Butterbeer, Draco pretending to read, but really thinking about all the different ways he could research Alexander while away from Lucius' control.

It wasn't until the Elf announced that they'd be landing in less than fifteen minutes that she picked herself up and began to get ready to see her brother and his family. She insisted on Draco giving her wand back, so she could fix her hair, change her clothing and charm her lips and face. He did, nervously. Instead of ignoring her while she went about her business, he tucked his wand behind his book and trained it on her. She didn't try another escape, though, and by the time they landed, she was sitting calmly on a settee, paging through Witch Weekly.

When the Elf landed the aubergine on Charles' landing pad and drew the door back into the wall, Narcissa leapt out as if she didn't have a concern in her head. There was nothing left about her which would call to mind the angry woman she'd been a few hours before.

Draco was much more subdued and tired. Traveling with Narcissa was always a draining experience, and all he wanted to do was go to the house and rest. But even though they were just with family, he had obligations to be met first. The warm sun and rosemary-scented air helped to lift the cape of exhaustion from his shoulders; it was much nicer to be outside here than it had been on the rainy moors the past week.

As Charles' wife Shera greeted Narcissa with open arms and a stream of welcoming words, Draco followed behind with his uncle, stepping down the gravel path as the carriage turned back into an aubergine. Under the groves of willows and pomegranates that bordered Charles' gardens, he felt like he was stepping into a new world.

But he didn't take more than a dozen steps down the path when a huge falcon landed on a nearby branch, his weight pulling it down, directly into Draco's path. Narcisssa and Shera were far enough ahead that they didn't notice to stop, but Draco and Charles halted where they were, so Charles could pull the letter off the falcon's leg. On his innumerable visits to Charles' house before he'd started at Hogwarts, he'd become familiar with the Mediterranean way of delivering the post - owls from England usually made it as far as the Burgundy post office, but the French clerks then handed the post to falcons, who were much more comfortable along the seashore, on the European and African sides alike.

Draco walked away to give Charles privacy with his mail - he knew from years of watching Lucius that people did not like to be disturbed when reading their post - and pulled a pomegranate from one of the trees as Charles untied the letter, but before he could open it to nibble at the seeds, Charles called him back.

"Draco, this is for you."

"Who would've written to me so soon?"

"Maybe your girlfriend already misses you," Charles teased as Draco unrolled the scroll.

Draco didn't have a good rejoinder - he had to reread Hermione's letter. And reread it again.

I've just returned home from the library - I didn't find anything useful today, because I had to work on my Potions project - and there's a letter for me here, from the Ministry. I have to go to London on Friday to meet with an investigator, but they won't tell me what the investigation is for. When I read the letter, I assumed it had something to do with Rita - is she applying for registered animagus status? - but my copy of the Prophet just arrived, and two articles on the front page made me wonder why they really want to see me. Your paper has reported that the ministry is investigating whether Harry killed Cedric Diggory - Draco, you know that's not true! - because they can't find Diggory's wand.

The same article also says that they are investigating unregistered animagi, including witches who can transform into bugs (you know who they mean, right?) and wizards who can transform into dogs (I can't explain what this has to do with me, but they might want information from me about it - it's complicated). I've made a copy - it's at the bottom of this parchment.

Draco - I don't know what to do! What should I read to understand ministry legal procedures as they apply to witches? I only know about the way the process works on the Dangerous Creatures committee! Any thoughts?

He scanned down the page and skimmed the article Hermione had enclosed. One sentence caught his eye. "Among other Ministry investigations which have been opened over the past month are examinations of a recent outbreak of unregistered Animagi and the disappearance from the Diagon Alley Boolean Library of all the copies of ancient Egyptian scrolls that concern recorporation of mummified corpses."

His hands were clutching the parchment so tightly it was almost cracking. When Charles pulled his hand away, he could see the lines from the scroll on his fingertips. Draco could do no more than whisper, "Got a quill?"

Charles handed him one silently, and led him over to a grove with a teak bench underneath. Draco ripped a bit of parchment off the bottom of the scroll and scribbled, "Hogwarts - A History - Chapter 12. Take heed. Will write to you there."

Over his shoulder, Charles was reading his words. He couldn't see Hermione's though - Draco kept her letter scrunched in his hand. "What's going on? What does 'Chapter 12' mean? Who are you writing to?"

"You've never read Hogwarts - A History?"

Charles shook his head. "Not in at least twenty years."

"Back in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, charms were placed on Hogwarts so it could operate as a sanctuary for wizards and witches, to escape Muggle persecution. Those charms were never removed, but they have had other uses over the years. Those wards keep out anyone who would enter the castle to do harm to one who has sworn to protect and defend Hogwarts.

"If she goes to Hogwarts and takes the oath when she enters the school, the Ministry will not be able to question her, which means they'll have a hard time finding out..."

"What? Finding out what?"

Draco looked up at his uncle eyes that were clear and hard as moonstones. He'd never spoken to Charles in such an open way before, and he certainly didn't trust him, but if the Ministry was investigating him, then he didn't really have anything to lose. "Someone might be in a lot of trouble."

"What does this have to do with you?"

"She might be in trouble because of me."

"What did you do?" Charles asked.

Draco knew it was a risk to tell Charles even this much, but he thought about what Professor Snape had said and what Alexander had written, and there was something about his uncle's expression that made him take a leap into midair.

"It sort of started when I found Alexander's diary and tapes..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read? Review!

Author's Note Section: I am sorry about the delay between chapters 8 and 9 - since I last posted, my sister got married, we've had family & friends in town twice, work has gone crazy-busy, and my husband spent 4 days in the hospital with noncontiguous viral meningitis (he's doing fine now, thanks for asking) and my grandmother's car was broken into in our driveway, so writing time was hard to find. In other words, it's been a hard month - so please review! My ego & mental state need some polishing...

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave encouragement, including but not limited to: Liza Werewolf, R.J. Anderson, Rachel, yael, Shy_Introvert, Cpt. DeBrowe, Anna Fortuna, Flower of Egypt, karina305, Asleep, Layla, illusions2525, Ali, Myst, teal llama, jen, Katy713, Hermione2, LissaLapin, Jenelin, kayte, Corinne Cassandra Valard , Zandra, Me-Yo-Moi-Jo, Sharon M., elel88, Antelope, Byrony Windflower, neptune42, zephyr, Meghan~Jinx, AVK, Puzzler, Greer, Vicki Granger, Viola, Butterflygurl, Starling, wags, tippy, Tess, Lemming, SmileAlways888, Hydy a.k.a Serpentese. Strega Brava, Mina Jade, The Dreamkeeper, Amanda, AngieJ, Amanita Lestrange, rhiannon, Penny, Majdhr, yuu, Al, Gwendolyn Grace, Silverfox, Dr Simon Branford, Sheryll Townsend, Great Milenko, §phinx, Rhysenn, Meriadoc, Caroline, Yosis, minx, Magic Gerbil, Dulcis, Theron, magical*little*me, Kylara, nosilla, Sanna, Catlady, Carole, raunistar, Anna Milton, PeacockHarpy (kudos for the Quidditch T-Shirt design) and Krolik (THANKS so much for the drawing of Hermi in her shirt!)

Starling drew a wonderful picture of Hermione and Draco, circa Chapter 7 - it can be found by clicking here and joining HP_Paradise.

Title and song are, again, from Paul Weller, Style Council days - the song is obviously called Walls Come Tumbling Down, and is the May, 1985 album Our Favorite Shop. Another song from that album, Down The Seine, will be featured on Alexander's music mix tapes (concept-inspired-by-Moulin-Rouge) - it's up at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise/files/A%20Surfeit%20of%20Curses/.

Other inspiration for this chapter came from Cinderella (yes, Ebony & I share a brain) Emerald House Rising (Peg Kerr), Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett), The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (W.P. Kinsella), Secret Garden (Frances Hodgeson Burnett) and Border Crossing (Pat Barker), as well as The West Wing - Two Cathedrals episode. Names for the businesses Draco saw while projecting are real Surrey businesses - they come from the business directory at http://www.surreyweb.net.

To learn more:

Gimbal rings and gyroscopes are discussed at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gyr.html

A recipe involving aubergines (aka eggplants) can be found at http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=12064

Tenosynovium is a mangled version of the Latin name for carpal tunnel syndrome.