Sorcerers' Endgame

Sorcerers' Endgame

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Penpusher

Sequel to "A Most Ingenious Paradox" and

"By the Pricking of My Thumbs"

Prologue

A green flash, laser-thin, shot from the end of a slim, black wand, through the air to impact on something soft at approximately floor level. An agonised shriek broke the silence, followed by muffled groaning. The figure standing by the massive mahogany desk giggled uncontrollably and raised the wand once again. He rained a volley of identical attacks in the same direction, cackling loudly, almost jumping up and down with glee at the resulting howls of torment emanating from his helpless victim. With a flourish, he took aim once again.

"Crucio!" he declaimed triumphantly, eyes afire with unholy delight as the Unforgivable Curse slammed home, its target writhing in unspeakable agony. The anguished screams were quieter now, the vocal cords raw and lacerated from protracted abuse. The victim's body arched so violently it lifted an inch or so from the floor. It landed with an audible thud and subsided into an ominous silence.

The torturer, his manic grin fading into uncertainty, repeated his Curse. In the light of the log fire, the shapeless lump jerked once as the magic hit home, but was otherwise still. Again and again the torturer cast the spell, his voice rising in frustration. The limp body of his victim remained obstinately unresponsive.

"Fool!" snarled a new voice, harsh and angry. A third person rose swiftly from behind the desk to knock the wand irritably from the other's flaccid hand. The new man strode over to the prone figure sprawled on the exquisite Chinese silk rug and kicked it brutally in the ribs. He turned on his ill-fated colleague, his expression a mixture of rage and contempt.

"You are just as incompetent at torture as you are at everything else!" he roared. The other flinched and cowered away.

"I'm certain he isn't dead, sir, just unconscious."

The voice was oily and uncertain, the face flabby, pale-eyed beneath a thinning head of grey hair.

"Of course he isn't dead, imbecile!" The answer was sharp, irritated. "You're not even adept enough to kill him."

Impatiently, the man paced around the still body, hardly seeming to register its presence.

"The essence of torture is control, always control," he began, his voice assuming a calmer, more didactic tone. "The practitioner must have the skill and patience to assess the victim's pain threshold, the restraint to put aside his own gratification, and the discipline to maintain the level of agony to just below the point at which the brain inevitably cuts in to trigger the relief of unconsciousness."

He gave the boneless figure an indifferent shove with an immaculately shod foot.

"Torture is more than a skill; it is an art," he continued meaningfully, "An art in which you demonstrate the deepest incompetence, as with everything else you attempt!"

His voice rose almost to a shout as he turned to regard his hapless colleague once again. The pale man winced and cringed away involuntarily. The other sneered at him in open contempt. He waved a negligent arm at the figure crumpled on the Chinese rug.

"Have him thrown into the dungeon," he ordered peremptorily. "The East Wing, mind. Nothing but the highest security for this one - he was a very able and promising student at one time. And, of course, Blood will always out."

The man sighed and sat back in his chair, smoothing his silver hair gently.

"After all, he spent more than twenty years in my house, under my instruction."

He sighed again then added almost inaudibly:

"As my son."

His colleague had heard none of this; he was busy issuing instructions to unseen minions for the removal of his handwork from the library. The silver-haired man sighed again then opened an inlaid mahogany cabinet and proceeded to pour himself a substantial drink. The other, having followed his orders, hovered nervously in the shadows by the doorway until his superior waved him away.

"Are you still here?" the silver-haired one grated irritably. "Get out of my sight - I've endured enough of your dismal ineptitude for one day. It defeats me how you ever managed to train as a wizard in the first place, let alone become an Animagus."

He took a small sip of his drink then slammed the glass down on his desk, his anger boiling over once again at the mixture of fear and servility in the demeanour of his assistant.

"Away!" The silver-haired man gestured impatiently. "Don't taunt me with your stupidity. You're a constant reminder of how difficult it is to get good help these days. Take your miserable hide out of my sight and keep it there until I summon you."

Trembling, his hapless assistant made a timid bow and scuttled towards the huge oak doors with obvious relief.

"And stay away from the East Wing dungeon!" his superior barked at his retreating back. "When he wakes, have him brought back up here. I'll deal with him this time - and perhaps then you might learn a thing or two about torture, Pettigrew. From an artist!"

Wide-eyed, the balding man fled the library, wiping sweating palms on the seat of his robes. For a long while the silver-haired wizard sat motionless at his desk, gazing unseeingly at the blotter. Eventually he shook his head, making a sharp noise of irritation and reached out for a small, exquisitely cut tumbler half-full with a clear, amber liquid. The light from the dying fire caught on a carefully fashioned device etched into the side of the glass. The man sighed; he knew the design so well he could have sketched the crest in its entirety on the blotter without a moment's thought. And the motto, in Latin of course: Ex prestantiae cupiditate, dominatio. Roughly translated: "Ambition is the mother of power." That mantra had dominated the whole of his adult life.

He had done his duty to the Malfoy name. He had married well, maintained the family honour, and produced an heir to continue the family line. Was this miserable situation to be his reward? What more could he had done? With a grunt of disgust, he drained his glass at one gulp and crashed it down onto the desk, heedless of its fragility. He crossed to the threshold in three impatient strides, slamming the door forcefully after him. The contents of the desk trembled in the aftershock and the glass, already unsteadily poised, tipped over, spilling its dregs onto a neat stack of parchment. The liquid soaked into the letterhead, blurring the exquisite calligraphy: "Lucius Malfoy Esq."

~oo0oo~

Draco Malfoy came to slowly and painfully. He felt like he'd been on a three-day bender with the Bulgarian International Quidditch team, and then comprehensively stomped on by a herd of mastodons with appalling body odour. Come to think of it, that more of less amounted to the same thing, didn't it? Gods, his head hurt!

It seemed like several days later when he at last managed to drag his eyelids open. Blinking stupidly, he cudgelled his stiff brain to assess his present situation. It was not good. Currently, he seemed to be lying in a sprawled puddle at the far corner of a damp, dirty and extremely smelly basement. Further examination of the bars on the windows and the heavy iron door led him to revise his conclusion: this was, evidently, a dungeon. To be precise, his dungeon, in his home. At least, it used to be his home.

Draco sighed. By his calculations, he was in the High Security East Wing. As a boy, Draco had watched, hidden in shadows, while his father's prisoners, screaming hysterically or ominously silent, were dragged into the East Wing. None of them had ever come out again.

Despite his precarious situation, Draco couldn't help being perversely flattered; Lucius evidently had a greater regard for his son's competence than Draco himself. His very presence in the East Wing dungeon made his chances of escaping more or less negligible, although he could pass some time prowling around to make sure. Just as soon as his legs agreed to hold him up. How in hell had he managed to get into this situation anyway?

Draco fell against the wall once again and let his mind travel back. He hadn't exactly expected to get off scot free for allowing Ginny Weasley to slip through his fingers. He knew he was due for some pretty serious punishment - after all, Lucius rarely tolerated any kind of failure - but Draco hadn't bargained for Veritaserum. He had expected to blag his way through his current difficulties; Draco's flair for duplicity had hoodwinked Lucius many a time. Unfortunately, this time his father had declined to take Draco's explanation at face value. Something in his tone, words, or his demeanour had evidently set his Lucius' suspicious antennae twitching and he had chosen to use the truth drug rather than accept the veracity of Draco's word alone.

Draco chuckled mirthlessly. He had never seen his father so overcome with shock as when the real truth of the matter was forced out of his son's own mouth. Initially, this numb disbelief had proved to be Draco's salvation; Lucius had been careless and Draco had escaped. However, still weak from his interrogation, the younger Malfoy had left a trail as wide as Hogwarts Lake. It took Lucius' thugs a mere two months to catch up with him. Macnair had actually made the capture; Draco's face burned with humiliation at the memory. Macnair was a Malfoy lackey whose contract he, Draco, would take great pleasure in terminating one fine day. With extreme prejudice.

The pain of his injuries and the effects of starvation and thirst made Draco light-headed. His mind wandered into unfamiliar territory, dogged by memories he would have preferred to suppress. He had been poised on the brink of something no other Dark Wizard, including you-know-who, had been able to accomplish: to seriously damage, perhaps destroy, the famous Harry Potter. He called himself every foul name he could think of. How could he have been so stupid? Lucius himself would have pulled it off admirably. He would have revelled in the experience, would have been aroused by the girl's obvious coercion, been excited by her helplessness.

Just as he would take an equally twisted pleasure from the next task on his list.

Draco knew he had no future. He was facing little more than a slow death by torture at the hands of his own father. He had already given Lucius every scrap of useful information in his head, and a good deal that was not. He was an empty husk, drained, bled dry, useless now except for the entertainment his father would derive from watching him die.

Draco had no illusions as to the esteem in which his father held him. Draco's mother, Narcissa, had been a career wife: beautiful, educated, willing to tolerate an arranged marriage for the sake of money and status. She had done her duty to the Malfoy dynasty by producing an heir, and subsequently her husband had no further use for her. Lucius had been discreet, but Draco had always been wired for sound. He had learned very early on, even before his mother's death, that there were many other women in Lucius' life. Narcissa had slipped quietly away, making little fuss, creating no waves; Lucius barely paid lip service to her memory. No trace of her remained in Malfoy Manor, with the exception of the obligatory family portrait. Draco had stared at it for hours, trying to discern something of the mother he remembered in the stiff features, the empty demeanor. Draco was the only concrete reminder that Narcissa Malfoy had ever existed, and he was under no misapprehension as to the extent of his father's familial love now that he himself had also outlived his usefulness.

Unaware that he had slept, Draco was roused by a scratching at the prison door. Eyes wide, heart thumping, he watched as the key turned slowly with a dry, scraping noise. The door swung open on its hinges to reveal a small stooping figure carrying a tray. Draco let out an unsteady breath and consciously relaxed muscles tight with anticipation. He watched the House Elf diffidently approach him and nerved himself for the pain of movement, taking note of the chains on his wrists and ankles as he did so. The effort of sitting up was neither as great nor as sore as he had anticipated, but he still felt weak as a kitten.

The House Elf set down the tray without raising its eyes, then, before Draco could blink, it shot a bolt of silver sparks from its fingertip directly at the chains around his wrists. Draco opened his mouth in surprise, but the House Elf raised its head, a long index finger over its lips. It turned back to its task, quietly opening the shackles on his ankles without destroying the chains themselves. It then gestured urgently towards the tray, lowered its hood and made as if to leave.

"Why are you helping me?"

Draco's question was so quiet as to be almost inaudible. He shook his head in bewilderment. This was impossible. There was no one at Malfoy Manor who would pour water on him if he were on fire; the Young Master's reputation with servants generally and House Elves in particular was far from good. The Elf paused then lifted its hood once more.

"The mistress says 'All debts are now paid'. That is all. Nothing more."

The diminutive figure scuttled quickly away. Draco stared after it, something niggling at the back of his mind. He shrugged, sat up, more comfortably now without the chains, and investigated the tray: bread, a slab of reasonable-looking cheese, and a pitcher of water. He searched for a knife to cut the cheese and his fingers curled round something slim and wooden. Feeling his skin tingle at the contact, Draco's thin lips curved into a smile. His wand! Now he had a fighting chance. He knew it would be difficult, impossible even, but suddenly hope was rushing through his veins like iced water. Draco straightened his spine and set his teeth.

Presently, he broke off some of the bread and took a long drink from the pitcher of water. A frown spread across his forehead. Why did the House Elf come? Who sent it? A faint wisp of memory chased its own tail for a while, and finally broke through to the surface. Dobby, he affirmed silently. And the mistress? Well, I think I can risk a guess who that might be. So all debts are paid are they? Draco shook his head, smiling enigmatically. We'll see about that.

~oo0oo~

"Bring him in."

The bald-headed man scuttled quickly out of the library, returning moments later with a suitably battered and chained Draco before him. One particularly spiteful shove sent Draco sprawling bonelessly forward onto the Chinese rug, smearing it liberally with nameless filth from the dungeon floor.

"On your feet, you worthless piece of excrement!"

Lucius was already beside himself with impatience. Draco allowed himself an inner smile: Dad was losing it already, and he hadn't even started. It took Draco three attempts to lever himself off the floor, and each effort ground more and more grime into the pastel silk. In actual fact, Draco had made good use of his time in the dungeon. The bread and water had, of course, saved his life giving him the energy to perform healing spells for his considerable hurts and to provide the wherewithal for a comfortable night's sleep. A subtle use of Glamour magic returned Draco's appearance to that of a badly beaten victim hovering at Death's door. Further investigation of the tray had revealed a small sealed bottle of Pepperup Potion, which, upon waking, he had downed quickly to further assist his recovery. His wand he had hidden in an emergency sleeve sheath, one of which, by his own instruction, had been invisibly sewn into every shirt he owned. Inwardly, Draco smiled: the clothes he wore might be filthy, torn, smelly and disgusting, but at least they were his own.

Lucius rose slowly from his desk, visibly struggling to subdue his temper. Slowly and with the utmost care, he removed his cufflinks and began to roll the sleeves of his immaculate bespoke robes to his elbows, taking his time, prolonging the expectancy. The meticulous preparation soothed him, cooling his rage, calming his volatile temper.

The bald-headed man watched the proceeedings with barely concealed excitement; tongue darting rapidly over thin lips, eyes glinting feverishly. Draco glanced briefly at him and swallowed back bile: now he remembered why he had been so revolted by Peter Pettigrew from the very beginning.

"Now, Wormtail," began Lucius, silently sliding open a desk drawer and removing his wand. "The promised demonstration. As I told you, torture is an art form; one that must be carefully prepared and meticulously researched before the practitioner can be truly successful. I studied with a lifelong master of the art: my father, whom you never knew. That small fact is, of course, very fortunate. For you, that is. Belianor Malfoy would never have tolerated such a feeble, useless piece of refuse as a servant. Ah, me." Lucius sighed in an exaggerated fashion. "He always did upbraid me for being too soft."

For the first time Lucius' eyes lit upon Draco, hard as flint and just as unyielding. Draco flinched visibly.

"Father," he began, swallowing convulsively. Lucius sent a sudden bolt of fire into the rug at Draco's feet, clearly having written off the antique carpetwork as beyond salvage. The young man cowered, the chains around his wrists clanking as he brought his hands up to protect his battered face.

"I have disowned you," Lucius hissed savagely. "You are no longer my son, you are no longer a Malfoy. You are nothing! Just a piece of dirt, a miserable, snivelling vermin, a failure and a turncoat. You will not dare to speak in my presence!"

Draco turned terrified eyes on to his father.

"But, Father; I did my best ..."

"If that is your best, then the Dark Forces are well rid of you!" Lucius snapped back, abruptly losing what little cool he had left. "You are worthy of nothing better than the Avada curse."

He raised his wand. Draco drew in a sudden breath, preparing to duck, but Pettigrew could not contain himself.

"Oh, go on, sir! Good show!" he chuckled evilly, clutching Lucius's left elbow in his excitement. Lucius glared down at Pettigrew's hand as though it had leprosy. He shook the other man off violently and towered over him, glowering in fury. Pettigrew cringed.

"If you ever lay hands on me again ..." rumbled Lucius, leaving the threat unspoken. Pettigrew nodded frantically, eyes wide, unable to trust his speaking voice. Baring his teeth at him to ram the point home, Lucius turned back to Draco.

"But Father, one mistake - just one!"

Draco was trying again. Lucius took an infuriated step towards his son.

"One mistake? One mistake!" he shouted. "If it were only that, perhaps something could be salvaged. But you were always a disappointment, Draco, never the Dark Wizard you should have been!"

"But why? How did I let you down so badly?"

Draco was shaking his head in apparent confusion.

"Why? How?" Lucius began to pace around in his agitation.

"No family of any status in the wizarding world has had to endure such a pathetic failure as a son and heir," he raged. "You disappointed me at Hogwarts and you were hopelessly inept as a post-graduate. The rank you finally achieved was so low as to be a disgrace to the name of Malfoy. My influence wasn't enough, even that couldn't redeem you. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, brainless as they are, at least married decently and produced biddable canon fodder for the Dark Side. My only son and heir couldn't even succeed at that! You were given countless opportunities; endless pure-blood girls were paraded for your selection, any one of whom would have been suitable, but did you make the slightest effort? You were too busy playing with your keyboards, or some other benighted instrument, wasting good parchment with your scribblings."

Lucius lifted his hands to the heavens.

"Music!" he bellowed with scorn. "Scarcely a fit pastime for a Malfoy."

"I rode horses," protested Draco. "Dressage and cross-country. I studied archery and falconry. I fenced - I'm still pretty handy with a sword. I even hunted..."

"Only when you were forced to!" Lucius roared back. "And you were never skilled enough at any of those things to attract the attention of any decent, pure-blood House. You couldn't even be bothered to try! Why, if she'd lived, even your worthless, insignificant sister could at least have made some kind of useful alliance, although who would have had her..."

Colour flooded Lucius' face. He stopped abruptly mid-rant. Draco's eyes shot wide open.

"My sister?" he demanded, his voice rather higher than usual. "What about her?"

But Lucius had turned away and was walking back to the desk. Draco straightened up, all thoughts of escape forgotten.

"Father, look at me," he rapped out.

Draco's voice held an unmistakeable ring of command. Reluctantly, Lucius turned to face his son, his face still stained a dull red.

"I shouldn't have said that," Lucius admitted, avoiding his son's eyes. Draco felt his muscles tensing, his breathing quickening. It had to be soon.

"Lucius," Draco said calmly, coldly. "What about Aurora? Her name hasn't passed your lips in almost a decade. Why mention her now? And why do you call her worthless? What twisted little scheme did you have in mind for her that never quite came to fruition, eh?"

Lucius struggled, his face working.

"She's dead," he managed, trying to get his voice under control. "She died before she could be of any use to her House. She's just a name on a gravestone now - of course she's worthless!"

"Were you planning to marry her off to Vincent Crabbe then?" Draco was getting into his stride now. "I guess that would have kept the Parkinsons in their place, although Pansy would have put up no end of a fight when push came to shove. Or was it Gregory whom you had in mind as a son-in-law? Not done too badly for himself, has he, making an alliance between the Goyles and the Bulstrodes? Mind you, anyone who can cope with Millicent deserves full credit for stamina. Or was it Blaise? Yes, I think it must have been Blaise you were planning for Aurora. A pity it all came unstuck really; the House of Zabini is almost powerful enough now to eclipse the Malfoys. It could all have been so different..."

"Silence!" bellowed Lucius, almost purple with rage. With a roar he drew his left hand back and struck at his son hard across the head.

This was the opening Draco had been waiting for. Watching his father's body language, he predicted the blow and ducked to avoid it. It was not a totally successful manoeuvre, but at least he maintained his footing. The heavy iron chain fell away from his legs, but he held on to the one between his wrists. With a nimbleness at odds with his injured exterior, he kicked the wand from his father's right hand while freeing his own from the sleeve sheath. He pointed it straight at Lucius.

"Stupefy!" he shouted, simultaneously swinging his chain in an arc until it wrapped itself firmly around Pettigrew's neck. Pettigrew gave a horrified gurgle and scrabbled uselessly at the chain with both hands, his eyes starting out of his head. Draco took the opportunity to connect his left heel hard against Pettigrew's groin, grimacing in satisfaction at the ensuing shriek of agony. Lucius crashed headlong onto the abused Chinese carpet like a fallen tree. Pettigrew grovelled, scrabbling at his master's feet, paralysed with pain and vomiting helplessly.

Draco shook his head, examining the tableau before him diffidently. That carpet has to be a write-off, he thought, then Stunned Pettigrew too, for good measure. He stood for a moment to regain his breath, listening for the sound of reinforcements before once more aiming his wand at the two prone figures.

"Astringo!" Draco muttered. "Nothing like both belt and braces."

Cords flew out of his wand, trussing the two unconscious wizards quickly and efficiently. He then moved over to the door, opening it carefully. Nothing. Apparently the cavalry were on holiday.

Of course, Draco smiled grimly. No witnesses to my father's little hobby; just Wormtail to clean up afterwards.

His stood in indecision in the middle of the study floor while all about him the silent house attested to his solitude. In all honesty, he had not expected to get this far.

While captive in the dungeons, still healing his wounds and recovering his strength, Draco had told himself that the aim of his slender plan was to escape from Malfoy Manor, but inwardly he was fooling no one, least of all himself. Dobby's assistance had been timely and Draco was grateful for it, but he knew that he had not been offered freedom. No, all that could be hoped for in his position was a quick death rather than the anticipated slow extinguishing of his life, little by little, over a period of weeks, perhaps even months.

And so, against all odds, Draco Malfoy stood in the middle of his father's study a free man - for the present.

"Slow down, Draco," he muttered to himself. "Don't just pick up the nearest broomstick and bolt. Let's see what can be done to give you a sporting chance this time."

Unthinkingly, Draco brought a broken thumbnail to his mouth. The rank taste of his dungeon-encrusted finger brought him back to the present with a grimace. Fighting the urge to gag, he moved quickly to the desk, selected a quill and a stack of headed parchment and began to write. Brain working on overdrive, he scribbled feverishly, only stopping to renew the ink on his quill.

About fifteen minutes later, his scribing completed, Draco propelled himself from the desk to crouch by his father's motionless body. Turning him over disdainfully with his foot, he spotted the object he sought gleaming on the third finger of his father's left hand: a large gold ring sporting the family crest in mirror image. Lucius used it to create the distinctive official Malfoy seal.

Hmm, Draco mused thoughtfully, reaching for his father's beautifully manicured hand with his rather dirty, battered one. He doesn't wear the thing as a rule. He must have been engaged in some official correspondence before he was so rudely interrupted. I wonder if he actually sent it, or if it's still waiting for an owl?

Draco's pale eyes glittered. Reaching for his wand, he tapped the ring and muttered a brief charm under his breath. For a moment nothing happened, then the crest opened bright green eyes. A blunt head lifted from its surface, a forked tongue slipped out of a red mouth and a quiet hiss broke the silence. Draco stared at the snake and held out his hand, palm down in unmistakeable invitation. Slowly, reluctantly, the gold metal band morphed into gleaming coils, unwinding themselves from Lucius' finger in a measured manner, unhurried, unexcited. Still maintaining eye contact with the unwinking reptilian stare, Draco thrust his hand closer to the snake. The creature gathered itself, sprang, then with a whiplash of twisted gold, it wrapped itself around his finger, becoming rigid, frozen. The intricate insignia now gleamed balefully from Draco's left hand. Studying it carefully, he nodded to himself.

Draco knew he had to buy as much time and freedom of movement as possible to escape from his father's clutches on a more permanent basis this time. Chaos within the Malfoy business empire would give Lucius something else to cope with besides the recapture of his errant son. Rising to his feet, Draco strode over to his father's desk. He snatched up a quill and reached for the pile of custom-headed parchment, sweeping inkbottles, sealing wax, letter knives and small ornaments into careless disarray. His fingers left greasy prints on the blotter. Draco smiled faintly at the sacrilege, then, his expression becoming thoughtful, he raised his wand.

"Cremo!" he muttered. The thick paper flamed briefly then disintegrated. Draco honestly did not know whether Lucius had heard of such a thing as fingerprinting, but he did not intend to give his father even the shadow of an advantage. Not this time.

One hour later saw Draco sending off the last of the family owls. He was showered, newly attired in his own clean clothes and carrying a backpack containing a number of useful items, most of which were not his own. He stood in the middle of the library surveying the unconscious bodies of Pettigrew and his father, deep in thought. His eyes flickered once again to the desk. Moving over to it, he began to take it carefully apart, perusing documents, throwing items apparently at random into the fire. Methodically, he searched for hidden drawers and, finding two, examined the contents, burning what he did not transfer to his own backpack. Finally, he rose from the chair, pondering one final small item held between finger and thumb: the heavy gold ring with the Malfoy crest. Tossing it up to the ceiling, he caught it in the palm of his hand and pocketed it with a smile.

"Finders keepers," he said quietly, and left the library without a backward glance. Lucius would find it much more difficult to undo Draco's mayhem without his seal of authority. When he finally woke up, of course.

Minutes later, Draco arrowed his way through the clouds astride a stolen Nimbus 2000 from the house collection, a very thoughtful expression on his face. He had made up his mind where he was going - at least for the time being.