Et Nulli Miseretur

She had been taken to London, they had interrogated her for nine hours on end without receiving any useful answer and had to release her eventually because helping a close family member in that one's flight wasn't technically criminal. Draco Malfoy appeared to have committed a series of crimes in which any support would have been illegal, but right now, they couldn't prove her that she had been involved with those.

She did not go home after her release, but went straight to her child and waited patiently until he'd wake up. She watched him sleeping, and it hurt her to think what must be on his mind - he tossed and turned, he winced and contorted his face, mumbling incomprehensible words, beads of sweat shining on his forehead. She swapped them away with her handkerchief and stroke his cheeks. Her poor darling. If only she could have saved him all this... Where had they gone wrong? When had this one moment been that had doomed them eventually?

When Draco had been born, she had sworn that she'd do everything in her power to protect him, and so had Lucius. They had promised themselves that he should have everything he could ever need, not only the material goods that went along with the territory of being the heir of Malfoy Manor, but everything else, attention, love, care, the best education. And they had not failed, had they? So how come her baby was here now?

His eyelids fluttered, and she strained to smile, so the first thing he saw when opening his eyes was his beaming mother. "Mon trésor," she murmured tenderly, "you're awake. How are you?"

"I - where -" He insecurely gazed around, then memory seemed to hit him. "Oh god... Oh mum! I - the Dark Lord - I got to - he -"

"Shhh. It's all right, chéri." And she gave him a rough sketch of the previous night's events. Leaving out the more unpleasant details like the Cruciatus punishment. He was agitated enough as it was.

"I'm so sorry, mum! I was so bloody stupid - forgive me - I was so silly not to listen to you - so disrespectful - please, I didn't mean to -"

"Say no more, my love. I understand. And what is more - it was good that you didn't listen to me. You had to follow his orders anyway, and this way you've secured us all a chance to get through this. I am very proud with you."

"No, you're not."

"I am. You've been quite ingenious! Finding a way into Hogwarts - excellent, indeed!"

"And for what end? To bring that total maniac Greyback into the school? I've stepped on some corpse, mum! I - oh lord - and it's all my fault! Dumbledore - even there, he still offered to help me! Can you imagine that?! He knew I've meant to kill him all the time, and he still wanted to save us? You, and even dad!"

"Because he has believed in you, darling, and so do I."

"Yeah?" He chuckled bitterly. "I'll let you all down, you know that? I can't do this, mum! I can't! I thought I could, but I'm just a coward, I -"

"It isn't cowardice when one risks the Dark Lord's wrath to spare another human being, dear. It is right, it is brave, it shows maturity and strength of character. Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted to help you if he had believed you were a killer. And I wouldn't be so proud with you either. I'm very, very happy that you couldn't do this."

"But he'll murder us all!"

"Not if we're careful - and lucky. I've taken ample of precautions, trust me. For a start - this place. It's absolutely unplottable. Nobody could find it, unless you, Professor Snape or I brought him here. We've got food for an entire year, and I suppose we could easily get more from the muggles if we need it."

"But if I hide, he'll have dad killed!"

"That's all taken care of, darling. You are going to commit suicide - don't look at me like this, you'll only stage it, of course. You'll leave a tearful letter, putting all the blame on Dumbledore and his lot, and both your father and me will have the most credulous motive for revenge on them. Why do you think that Lucius is still alive? Because your master treasures your father's gifts. He can't afford to lose a wizard of his capabilities. And your old mum is said to be quite a good witch, too. He'll come to appreciate me."

"You mean - you want me to stay here, waiting that one day you don't come back and I'll know you're dead after all?!"

"See this as a last resort. Actually, I've planned to bring you somewhere else, equally safe, but remarkably less uncomfortable."

"And where would that be?"

"You are aware that your very own cousin is both an Auror and a member of Dumbledore's order?"

"So basically everyone in the family is bound to end up dead, or what?"

"She's a good girl. Good-hearted, too. And she dearly loves her mother. You're one lucky boy that your mother and her mother are sisters, you know that? Very lucky. Your aunt Andromeda is a very kind woman, your cousin is going to vouchsafe for your sake."

He stared at her. "Mum, you might not know it yet, but I - no vouchsafing will rescue me. I've used an Unforgivable - I've imperiused Madam Rosmerta."

"Oh yes, I know. Spent the entire morning in the Ministry of Magic, they've read me a long, long catalogue of your sins. Don't worry. You'll serve the Ministry as a witness, and they'll drop the charges against you."

"They said that?"

"No, but they will after all."

"Dory - mum, she was there! She won't do anything for me, mark my words, you ought to have seen her face looking at me! She hates me, she -"

"Nothing of this matters right now anyway. You are going to hide and keep your head low until the entire war is over. And then, the Ministry will be desperate to get the true villains into jail. That's where you come into play. Either they'll agree to our terms, or you'll just vanish. They'd never find you in the Muggle world."

"Are you kidding me? The Muggle - what -"

"The Muggle world is decidedly more pleasant than Azkaban prison, Draco. You'll soon see that."

She left it at that and took him in her arms. It felt so good - she had missed him. Additional to everything else she hated Voldemort for, the alienation from her baby had weighed heaviest. She didn't need to hear Draco's excuses, his pleas for forgiveness; it was enough that he endured her embrace, that he no longer pushed her away, that he was her little boy again, confiding in her, trusting in her...

They hadn't got much time for their little reunion - aunt Bellatrix wanted to be attended to. For safety, Narcissa put the Imperius Curse on Draco, so he could give the right answers, show the proper attitude. He willingly permitted her, because he was terrified enough as it was, because he thought that he didn't have one ounce of strength inside him. It all went smoothly; his aunt didn't become suspicious, no one else did either, and finally, Narcissa was permitted to take her son with her again, undoing the Imperius and giving him another mild sleeping potion. He needed rest - and Narcissa needed to see The Eel.

The potion didn't work for long though, and Draco woke up again, unable to keep from violently trembling. Never in his life, he would have been able to imagine the anguish he could be feeling. Every time when he thought it couldn't get any worse, he'd receive another blow, and right now, he didn't think he could take any more. How had he come here? He gazed around the small cave, twitching with the sight of a daring mouse coming out of his coat, that he had thrown away carelessly.

Nothing had prepared him for this; for sixteen years, he had been a little prince, almost oblivious of that privileged state. He realised that now, wistful, scornful against himself. Somehow, he had thought it was always going to stay this way. Maybe it was true that one could only appreciate things once they were lost. He had been born to the oldest family in all England, born to wealth and power, to parents who would adore their only son. Regarding his start in life, it was hard to understand how those favourable conditions had come to nothing in the end. Now, he could hardly picture how much he had worried for trivialities, only a year ago - who would win the House Cup, to beat Potter in Quidditch and Granger in school subjects, or the latest racing brooms. What would he give to be able to go back in time!

Everything had been a game then - although he hadn't understood that yet, and taken it ludicrously serious. Even the war had seemed like a huge play, it had been thoroughly beyond him to see that it was real. But in his silliness, he had only seen the petty advantages for himself; he had believed he could finally get even with Potter, or Weasel Bee, or Granger, he had thought he would see his worshipped father seize the power that truly belonged to him. He sneered at himself for that thought - yeah, there it was again, the little prince, sitting between his royal parents.

It had all started out so promising, but somewhere in between, things had run out of hand. He couldn't put the finger on the exact moment, on the true culprit, all he could say for sure was that he was doomed. As a child, his parents had taken great care to give him a perfect education, he had had the best tutors that could be bought with means of money, just as with fame. People had been smitten to get a job with The Malfoys, it must have appeared to be the perfect career step.

He had been poised for success, had been told how great he was, and that he was bound to become just as powerful as his father, just as acknowledged and respected. Their predictions had turned out true, partly. He was after all to walk in his father's shoes, though it weren't the elegant evening shoes, but the ragged sneakers suited to escape, to run for one's life. He had believed that he couldn't go wrong, doing exactly what his father would have done, and wasn't it ironic? He was hardly better off than this one. In fact, he found his father was still in a slightly better position, imprisoned in Azkaban.

The little spoilt boy that had intended to become Minister for Magic, or a Quidditch pro, or sometimes, while watching his mother, dreaming to become a famous pianist, that boy no longer existed. Without noticing it, he had lost more and more of his options, finding himself left with no chance at all eventually. When had that happened? When his father had been arrested? When he had joined the Death Eaters, glowing with pride to be given that chance at such a young age? He sneered with his own naïveté. Becoming a Death Eater was no chance - it was a sentence.

His mother had tried to warn him, set him on his guard. But being that smug brat that he now knew that he had been, he had dismissed her good advice as belittling, offended with her apparent lack of faith in his talents. Well, he had spent a good deal of time hating himself for that complacency already, at last coming to the conclusion that this wasn't the only thing that had gone wrong. Even if he had had so much sense as to realise what he had been doing there, it wasn't as if he had been in a position to choose.

The Dark Lord had sought revenge, and it hadn't been Dumbledore in the first place that he had wanted to get back on. Only a naïve child such as himself could have been so foolish as to believe that, bloody hell. His mum hadn't dared speaking plain words, and he couldn't blame her. He had been so blinded, he might have brought her into greater peril yet if she had been entirely open. The Dark Lord was furious with his father, for that one's failure in the Ministry of Magic, and there seemed to be something else, too, although Draco had no clue what it could be. However, his glorious father, that he had meant to be infallible, had messed it up, and his master was none to humour with.

The idea had been brilliant, in a sick and twisted way. Let Lucius' son replace his father, send him on a suicidal errant, during which he would be killed either for trying, or for failing, no matter what, the outcome had been pretty obvious. Lucius Malfoy would have been punished with the loss of his only child, and in the same moment have seen his famous old lineage cease for good. There could only be one Malfoy in each generation.

Well, he had survived, hadn't he? But he couldn't be proud with so much even; that he was still alive was owed to Dumbledore's magnitude, his mum's interference, to Snape's determination and influence. He wasn't so childish any longer as to presume that it had anything to do with him. The only thing he indeed had achieved was cornering the old Headmaster and introducing a bunch of killers to roam the school, among them the ferocious Fenrir Greyback, and the sheer thought still made him want to throw up. What if Greyback had attacked little Linny? Or Panse? What if -

He was haunted by the memory of that one's blood-smeared fangs, the savage glow in his yellowish eyes. He would dream of the nauseating sensation shaking him when accidentally stepping onto that corpse, or what he had supposed to be a corpse. He had caught a glimpse of his cousin, who had been attacked by two Death Eaters and fought them in style - the very same cousin whose mere existence he had denied most of his life. Nymphadora, his half-blood cousin - how ashamed he had been of that relation! That terrible night, he had spotted her, being impressed despite himself, realising that she must be as embarrassed with him now as he had always been with her.

If that night had produced any effect at all, it was this - he couldn't do this. He wasn't cut out to be a Death Eater, or to kill, or to show any of the traits that would be necessary to come through this war and live to tell the tale. As much as he had always craved for it - he wasn't like his father. He lacked pretty much everything that distinguished Lucius Malfoy, the ruthlessness, the cold blood and will to stop at nothing. Draco had admired him for those qualities, at the same time despising someone like Dumbledore, who had represented the complete opposite. Only in the night of this one's death on that roof top, he had come to understand his true greatness of mind.

Lucius Malfoy was no longer his son's hero, which came in as bitter as everything else, perhaps even more. Draco surely wasn't the first boy to understand at last that his parents were only human, too. But he had fallen from a greater height, and the impact had taken his breath. Did it need a situation like this, pointing a wand at a defenceless old man with the order to murder him, to get what killing was about in the end?

Snape had been able to do it, and so would his father have. Greyback did it on a monthly basis, his aunt Bellatrix seemed to regard it as some sort of sports, the Dark Lord would do it with an ease as if he were to squash a mosquito. Being a child still, he had believed it to be the easiest thing in the world, everyone could do it, so why shouldn't he? 'Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe', Dumbledore had said... Snape had killed because he had wanted to save his best friends' child, because he would have perished himself otherwise. He had given the Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa Malfoy. Snape, who might be an old friend of his parents, but was not more than a teacher for Draco - a teacher that he had treated with disparaging contempt for the whole last year - Snape had risked his life only to save Draco's...

To his eternal disgrace, he had to admit that he had never taken them completely serious, his own mother and Snape. The latter being a little teacher, alas, living by Dumbledore's mercy, compelled to hide who he truly was, as if being a mighty Dark wizard was something to be ashamed of. On the other hand his mum - gentle and lovely, beautiful and gracious - an asset to be proud of, sure, but not from this world, and as much as he had always loved her, even when they were fighting - he had basically thought that all she knew were books and songs, but nothing that truly mattered.

Stupid boy! He smirked at himself, angry, bashful, contemptuous. If only he had been more like her! Imitating his father had brought him half the way to the point of no return that he had reached now. And worse, much worse - her own life depended from him, too. He and his father had manoeuvred her into a situation without a possible escape. Aunt Bellatrix and Snape would stand up for her, hopefully, but one more mistake, and they couldn't help her either. That suicide scheme would never work out, not in a million years - he had gathered some experience with impossible things.

Still, he'd do whatever she'd ask of him. He owed her. He owed Snape, who had saved his life for the second time yesterday. He even owed Dumbledore, the one person whose death he had craved for so long. If his mum demanded that he'd jump down the weir tower of Malfoy Manor without a wand, without a net, he'd do it. It no longer mattered, nothing mattered any more.

She had made some adjustments to the plan. Instead of a suicide, Draco should appear to be killed on the flight, and yes, the new plan did include hurling himself down the highest staircase of Malfoy Manor. He'd make sure that the Aurors surveying the house realised he was there, he'd run away from them, drink the Draught of the Living Dead when reaching the highest step, and all left to pray for him was that he wouldn't break his neck for real. His mum was supposed to throw herself at her lifeless son then and hide away the vial before the Aurors found it, and then, she'd discover his 'death' and swear revenge to the Aurors, the Ministry, and everyone connected to them.

It would not work out in a million years, sure, but he owed his mum that he gave it a shot nonetheless.