World's Smallest Violin

Chapter 6: News from the Front

"How is the Auroring business these days?" Draco asked after dinner. Nott's response to his letter had been brief and to the point: My mother's dead, you prat. Draco had forgotten that fact, if he had ever known it, and it left him in the position of trying to wheedle information out of a still more unwilling subject.

"Splendid," Nymphadora replied, her face expressionless. "I helped arrest a few dark wizards just recently."

Unfortunately, Draco could not tell whether or not she was lying about this.

"Where was this?" Draco pressed.

"Do you read the Daily Prophet?" Nymphadora responded.

He did, it was about the only reading material in the house that still interested him, but there were so many recent reports of Auror activity that it was of no help.

Draco had long known that the cousin his parents held in such contempt was and Auror, but for some reason he had never before considered the fact that she would do any actual fighting. He felt a faint prickle of apprehension in his gut as he contemplated the likely outcome if it ever came to wands between them.

Still, if things continued as they were going, it was perhaps inevitable that the two of them would eventually meet in violence. Would she be the one who some day burst through his doors, or would he burst through hers?

"So what homework have you got left, then?" Nymphadora said.

"Do you know anything about Ancient Runes?" Draco asked hopefully, pulling out the book.

"Not a thing, I'm afraid," Nymphadora replied. So much for her being an encyclopedia on any subject. "But my Dad does, he still brags sometimes about getting an outstanding on that N.E.W.T. He's a cryptographer now, you know."

"I didn't," Draco said.

Nymphadora sat watching him, probably enjoying his dilemma: struggle through his homework on his own or ask a Muggle born for help. He decided not to give her the satisfaction.

"Professor Binns wants three rolls of parchment on the roll of wizards during World War II," Draco said dully, reaching for his History of Magic textbook instead.

"You're taking N.E.W.T. level History of Magic?" Nymphadora asked. "Are you some kind of glutton for boredom or something?"

"My mother insisted," Draco muttered. "Said it was family tradition."

"Mum!" Nymphadora shouted unexpectedly. "Did your parents make you keep taking History of Magic after your O.W.L.s?"

"They tried," Andromeda called from the kitchen.

"So I take it you never did this assignment," Draco said, resigning himself to completing the essay on his own.

"Not so fast," Nymphadora replied. "I might not have done the History of Magic N.E.W.T., but no less than fifteen dark witches and wizards tried to make names for themselves during that time, and it was the worst breakdown in magical secrecy since wizards first separated themselves from Muggle society, I studied the time period during Auror training. Now, this was a Muggle conflict, so if I were you I'd start with that side of it, give yourself some framework."

"I don't care what the stupid Muggles did," Draco complained, tossing his textbook heavily on the table.

"Like it or not, what Muggles do changes us, and what we do changes them," Nymphadora said. Draco was getting very weary of her sanctimonious, know everything attitude. "There are examples all through history. What Muggles did during those years, some of it was terrible, and some of it was great, sometimes it was both, depending on your perspective, and for wizards it was the same. Magical or not, what people in England did during that time was amazing, the way they banded together and fought back even through it seemed hopeless, you could learn a few things."

Draco considered this for a moment, then said, "Merlin, you are a Hufflepuff."

"Not the point," Nymphadora groaned. "But yes, I was, and proud of it, though mostly I figure I was just too much of a weirdo for any of the other houses to take me. Now do you want help on this essay or not?"

When Andromeda appeared two hours later with two mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of biscuits, Draco was half a parchment deep and Nymphadora was searching for more information in a stack of books she had retrieved from her father's study.

"How do you think Binns grades these essays?" Nymphadora asked suddenly.

"What?" Draco said, straightening up, his stiff back cracking.

"Well, he can't handle the parchment himself," she replied, breaking a biscuit in half against the plate and nibbling at it. "Do you think he has someone lay them all out so he can read them? Maybe someone just reads them to him, or maybe he doesn't grade them at all and someone else does."

"I just wish they'd replace him," Draco muttered, stretching out his cramped writing hand.

"They can't," Nymphadora replied. "There's no one to replace him. As far as evil plans go, it's fairly diabolical: make the subject seem so boring that no one wants to learn it, and he gets to keep his job forever. I wonder if he did that on purpose."

"You ask a lot of questions," Draco pointed out.

"It's good fun, you should try it sometime."

"Are all Aurors secretly philosophers?"

"Good start and the answer is an emphatic 'no,'" Nymphadora replied. "Do you suppose this is how normal cousins act around each other?"

"Dunno, I've never had a normal cousin." It might have been the most honest thing he had said since leaving Hogwarts for the summer, probably even longer.

"Ever think about what you want to do when you finish school?" Nymphadora asked, taking a bite of the other half of her biscuit.

Draco carefully set aside his quill and picked up a biscuit because he needed to stall long enough to think of an answer. Ever since the Dark Lord's return, he had known that he would follow his father and become a Death Eater, acquit himself admirably in the coming war, and earn a position of power in the Dark Lord's service, but this was not the sort of thing one told an armed Auror.

"Probably something to do with potions," Draco replied at last. "It's my best subject."

"The Healers are always looking for skilled potioneers to identify new poisons and create antidotes for them," Nymphadora suggested.

Draco could not think of a less interesting way to spend his career, so he decided to change the subject.

"Why did you decide to become an Auror?"

"I was recruited out of Hogwarts," she replied. "Someone has to keep an eye on the dark wizards, and I had the skills."

"That sounds like the answer you'd give a nosy reporter," Draco said. "What's the real reason?"

"I can't stand the banner of hate and bigotry all dark wizards seem to rally around," Nymphadora grumbled. "It makes my teeth itch."

"Close, but still not the real reason," In fact, Draco was sure of no such thing, but in that moment he knew that if he asked she would answer.

"You're too young to remember the first war. I'm not. It wasn't a hard decision."

"Ever wonder what else you might have done?" Draco asked.

"No," Nymphadora replied, and to Draco's ear her response was too quick, too emphatic. He pressed his advantage.

"Don't you ever think, though, that maybe you ought to change sides before it's too late?"

"Never."

"You can't win. The Dark Lord's already been killed once, and he came back. As long as he's around, you can never win, and he can't die."

"The difference between us, Malfoy, is that I'm fighting for something more important than my skin."

"And what about when you've lost this war and all your lofty ideals and your skin is all you have left?"

"Then I'll keep fighting, for as long as I have a heart and lungs and a brain, and maybe even after that. How about you?"

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Malfoy, I am fighting because I don't want to get to the end of this thing and look back and realize that there's something I could have done but I didn't."

Nymphadora stood and strode quickly from the house. Satisfied, Draco gathered up his book, parchment, quill, and ink, and took them to the guest room. He reemerged a minute later and settled on the sofa with A Farewell to Arms.