Til The End

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'Til The End

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For the first time ever in his fifteen years, Anthony Weston did not go home via the Hogwarts Express to Weston Mansion. Rather, as everyone else left for the station, he waited alongside a slim, seraphic young girl with a cascade of pale blonde ringlets for Professor Weasley to finish up with her duties. The girl had grinned at him fetchingly, and introduced herself as Gabrielle, his "new seester... sort of". He had shrugged, and merely remained silent. Gabrielle didn't seem to mind much, and grinned to herself as she waited for her sister to "feeneesh jabbering wis ze ozer teachairs so we can go 'ome and play wis Beel and leetle Juliette... I wonder eef ze leetle darling can speak any French yet? Probably not... Beel is 'orrible at ze language..."

In all honesty, Anthony hadn't the slightest clue what she was talking about. Nevertheless, he nodded vaguely as she chattered on, and soon, his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor arrived, wand out, levitating quite a huge bundle in front of her consisting of his, Gabrielle's, and her own trunk, all tied together with rope. Anthony's jaw dropped, but Gabrielle merely walked forward after her sister and looked over her shoulder, "Well, aren't you coming, you seely boy?"

Still rather bewildered, Anthony silently followed the two beautiful blondes and the gargantuan floating luggage out of the castle, where a horseless carriage was waiting to take them to Hogsmeade.

The trip home was rather silent on his part. He had no idea what to expect: All he knew was that Professor Weasley's husband was the eldest brother of the Gryffindor Keeper Ginny Weasley and that he had been a curse-breaker for Gringott's in Egypt up until the year that Anthony had come to Hogwarts. And then, he had moved back to England to help fight for the Light Side, and that the summer after his first year, he had married the part-veela professor. A year later, the professor had been pregnant, and over Christmas break, she had given birth to a healthy baby girl.

With his luck, he'd probably be stuck babysitting a spoiled little brat and changing nappies, he thought morosely. And Professor Weasley's husband would be a stodgy old arse.

"Ansony," A soft voice broke through his pessimistic thoughts, and he looked up to see Professor Weasley addressing him calmly, "when we are not in class, you may call me Fleur." At that moment, the carriage came to a halt, and Professor... no, Fleur, beamed at him and Gabrielle. "We're 'ome. Ansony, welcome to my 'ome; it will be yours from now on as well."

Anthony nodded curtly, and stepped out of the carriage. And blinked.

Well, this was certainly vastly different from Weston Mansion. The house was much smaller than his old home, but quaintly built out of gray, almost-white stone. There was a shingled roof in slate gray and a bay window in the front, and around the house, there was a wrought-iron fence of white curlicues nearly entirely covered with pale purple wisteria blooms. There was a lawn surrounding the house, as green and velvety-looking as a Slytherin banner, and he smiled somewhat. A flagstone footpath led up to the entrance of the house, flanked with blue delphiniums and white lilies in tall spires, and standing at the door, a strawberry-blonde child balanced on his hip and an easygoing smile on his face, was... the coolest-looking fellow that Anthony had ever seen, hands down.

Sure, the bloke wasn't wearing the finest and most expensive in robes. In fact, he wasn't wearing robes at all. He was wearing a casual blue Muggle shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up slightly to reveal lightly freckled, leanly muscular forearms. Underneath, he wore a tight black Muggle T-shirt, and Muggle jeans on his legs. The only thing, indeed, that could have distinguished him from a Muggle were his boots, which were obviously made of dragonhide, and an earring made from a sphinx fang dangling from his ear. He had long, ginger hair, tied in a ponytail, and looked all of maybe twenty-seven years of age.

Okay, so the fellow wasn't a stodgy old arse.

The young man stepped forward and proffered a hand, "I'm Bill Weasley. Anthony, right?"

Anthony nodded, and cautiously shook the man's hand. Good Lord, he had just shaken hands with someone who might well have aided those who had brought his father "to justice". He watched as Bill turned to Fleur, and kissed her soundly as he handed her the baby, and then helped Gabrielle out of the carriage before levitating the trunks easily into the house.

Well, he didn't drop down dead from the contact. Maybe he wasn't doomed... yet.

* * *

A month later, Anthony Weston was still getting accustomed to life around the Delacour-Weasley household.

His first night there had been chaotic. Bill seemed to have many, many siblings, all of which, as well as his parents, had dropped by to see him settled in. Bill's mother was a fussy, affectionate redheaded woman who had brought over a large apple pie and a basketful of other delectables. Bill's father was rather odd, with a fascination for all things Muggle that Anthony found slightly distasteful until the man had presented him with a particularly seductive Muggle toy called a "Game Boy". Surprisingly, it had been the former Head Girl, Hermione Granger, who had tagged along with the Weasley assemblage, who had shown him the delights of the little machine, and within an hour, Anthony had been hopelessly hooked. He might well have played with it the rest of the night had Bill's younger twin brothers not mischievously caused a diversion by slipping some orange powder into the drink of another brother, a serious, bespectacled fellow, who had then promptly turned into an orangutan in a blue curly wig for a few seconds. All in all, it had been like a circus in the little house, and everything had been so wacky that he forgot to think of anything else before he'd fallen asleep from pure exhaustion on the couch.

He'd woken up in his new room the next morning. No dark, drearily elegant velvet draperies. The casement had sheer curtains and the room was white. His things had been moved to the closet, and he found that he had to tidy his own room. There were no house-elves, and although it took Fleur's instructions the first several times, he learnt, for the first time in his life, to make his own bed and fold his clothing.

And then, he had to do chores.

There was no nappy changing, for which he was thankful, but he had to wash the dishes twice a week, putting his arms elbow-deep in soapy water. He also had to water the plants in the garden in the evenings, and help watch the little one when Bill was out at work and Fleur was at the market. He had been defiant at first: such behavior did not befit someone of his rank. But the protests had been to no avail. Fleur was not cruel or harsh by any means, but if she decreed that something was to be done, it would be done, and that was that. It gave him some solace that Gabrielle, for all her angelic blonde daintiness, had to do the same chores as he did. He supposed that this was just the way life was, nowadays.

Gabrielle was something else, entirely. She was quite talkative, and often tried to engage him in conversation. At times, he found her chatter rather tiresome, but at other times, she managed to keep him in stitches. She spent most of her spare time coming up with rather reckless but entertaining schemes and tricks to play on people. A lot of the time, she would go and visit Fred and George, the mischievous, prank-producing twins and co-owners of the wildly popular Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. The other part of the time, she would go down the street to the house of the former notorious Azkaban inmate, Sirius Black, to visit the former fugitive as well as the equally renowned Harry Potter. In both instances, she would come home chock-full of new ideas of tricks to play on people, and Anthony rapidly learned never to get on her bad side, after a rather humiliating incident involving butterbeer imbibed with something that turned his hair fluorescent pink for three days.

And that August, when he went to Diagon Alley to buy his school supplies, Anthony Weston had grown three inches, and developed a healthy tan. And to match the shiny new Prefect's badge on his robes, he wore, for once, a genuine smile.

* * *

Draco Malfoy was getting quite bloody frustrated.

It had been four months since that whole mess at the Avery residence, and that madwoman was still avoiding him.

Jing-Li was a puzzle. He remembered meeting her as Cho Chang's "cousin" at Diagon Alley before his last year. He had been quite curious: the first impression that he had gotten of her was that she felt neither hatred nor love towards him, but a cautious interest. And what was more... she was not at all afraid of him, or disconcerted by him in any way. That had been two years ago.

And then, he'd put her out of his mind, until the fateful day that she had swooped down from goodness-knows-where to get him out of his doomed Initiation. When she'd brought him to the Mage camp, he had no idea who she was, for she did not remove the kerchief covering her nose and mouth. She'd been brusque, and he'd been both annoyed and intrigued.

And surprised as hell the next morning when he saw her unmasked.

She had taken him under her wing, in her own blunt, brook-no-arguments way. She had given him a tent, and any creature comforts that he might require. At first, it had been rather hard to get used to. A lot of the other Mages did not speak any English, and even her English was accented, and hard for him to understand at first. Moreover, his living conditions had been vastly different from the luxurious grandeur that he had been accustomed to all his life. He remembered his horrified shock when his robes had worn out and she had simply given him an extra Mage uniform. He had been aghast, and had transfigured the thing into a robe at once. However, when he had realized that there would be no one to clean anything for him, and that silk robes with a long cloak were far more easy to sully and difficult to clean than the more sensible Mage uniform, he'd stopped, and now, to his great surprise, he found that he actually preferred the uniform and the ease of movement that it gave.

The Mage Leader, Jing-Li... she was something else. A feisty little demon with a sharp tongue and a quick wand arm. Lean and wiry and flexible as if her entire body had been constructed from willow branches. Fierce, and fiercely loyal. Quick-tempered, and quite used to getting her way and being obeyed. In the latter sense, in an odd way, she was almost like him, a Malfoy. There would be clashes of wills, for the two of them were both indomitable.

On the one hand, she was almost severe in her discipline and the glacial calmness and relentlessness with which she went after Death Eaters, trained the other Mages, and brought little Jack up to be strong, self-respecting, smart, and obedient. And on the other hand... when she was angry and lost her temper, almost always around him, he'd see something that was almost akin to passion.

Her anger around others usually amounted to an icy-calm but deadly fury. But around him... there would be screamed profanities, crimsoned cheeks... and in an odd way, this made him feel almost triumphant. No one else ever managed to get that sort of rise out of her. And lately, he had taken to wondering what she would look like if she were enflamed with another type of passion.

I must be desperate, or daft. Or both,

he thought ruefully. For only a truly crazy individual would dare to think of the defiant, daunting Zhao Jing-Li in such a manner.

She was as prideful as he was, although in an entirely different way. For her to have her life saved by him was anathema. And since that incident, she avoided him studiously. She didn't even get angry with him any more. And for some odd reason, this irritated him to no end.

* * *

There was a Mage council that night. Common enough occurrences, and usually conducted in unintelligible Chinese. He was never invited, nor did he usually want to be. He was not a Mage, and he knew full well that he was a fugitive, despite Jing-Li's beliefs to the contrary.

However, this time, he was summoned. Everyone sat in Jing-Li's tent, around a rosewood table. She sat at the head, and he at the foot. Her expression was unreadable as she faced him, before she cleared her throat and began the meeting.

"Today we have news that the Death Eaters have managed to procure the release of the Lestranges, Mulciber, Rookwood, Travers and other captured Death Eaters from Azkaban a fortnight ago. The Dark Lord shall be building a new force, to make up for the ones that we have taken down. The Ministry has ordained it appropriate and necessary to raid Malfoy Manor. Based on information given by a special scout, there are no planned activities taking place there tonight. It should not be overly difficult to capture Lucius Malfoy, but I call this council because someone in our midst will be directly affected by this plan."

And then, she, and everyone else, turned dark eyes towards Draco. Finally, Jing-Li asked, in a crisp, succinct manner, "What do you say?"

Draco paused, and for a few minutes, the air in the tent was charged with a tense silence. He remembered the toys, the material wealth that he had... everything that his father had bequeathed upon him during his life...

And then, he looked directly into Jing-Li´s eyes, and saw once again those same eyes, fiery, intrepid... glowing like dark jewels over a black kerchief as she plucked him from death... death by his father's hand.

"I'll go with you."

"What?!" Jing-Li leapt up from her seat and stared at him, wide-eyed, "You've never been trained! You could be KILLED! He would kill you in an instant, you know that!"

Draco didn't lower his gaze, "And so could you. But at least I've lived there for nearly all my life. I know the secret passages and the traps. Come on, let me go with you. We can watch out for each other."

She looked torn, and Draco Malfoy spoke one word that, a year ago, he would never have imagined himself saying to anyone, "Please."

Finally, as all the others looked on, she nodded. And so, their fate would be sealed.

* * *

"So, to infiltrate after you deactivate the Anti-Apparition spells. The thirteenth gargoyle from the left has a sickle-shaped knob on its head. Press it, and there will be a trapdoor leading to the attic library. Go right, and you will see a bookshelf full of books on Potions, next to a crystal and obsidian chess set. Take the obsidian king and insert it into the hole in the side of the shelf, and the shelf will turn to reveal a hidden room with a door. Still using the obsidian king, insert it into the keyhole in the door, and it will show a staircase that leads straight to my bedchamber. Use the fireplace to floo to my father's office. Take care."

As soon as Draco had finished giving his instructions, Jing-Li turned, and frowned slightly, "And you? What will you do?"

Draco gave a little smirk, and held out his left hand. On the middle finger, there was a large, ornate silver ring in the shape of a serpent. "I'm a Malfoy, and this is my house. I go through the front door."

Jing-Li gaped, "And will your servants not bring you to your father in chains?!"

Draco smirked, "The servants are house-elves. They´re not going to do anything."

Jing-Li nodded dubiously, "Just be careful," were her last words before she nimbly shimmied up a tree, and with the aid of a slender rope, raised herself onto the roof of the building. She watched with knitted brows as Draco, shoulders back, head held high, walked up to the front door, inserted his ring into the keyhole, and strode inside. She raised her wand to deactivate the wards, and muttered a quiet prayer under her breath.

Indeed, Draco did not meet any resistance in the form of servants of the Malfoy estate. The one house-elf that he met along the way, he gave a quelling look, and the little creature scurried off for the kitchens without a word. He avoided the traps that had been set around the place, and made straight for his father's office.

Lucius Malfoy was in the middle of writing some sort of correspondence when the door to his office opened. "Set the brandy on the desk, Zippy. I've got work to do."

"Hello, Lucius," a cold, familiar voice drawled, and Lucius spun around to see a face that he had not expected ever to see again in this house.

"Draco," Lucius sneered, "So, my errant son has come home. Unfortunately... if you were expecting any type of warm welcome..." he gazed at Draco's Mandarin tunic and Muggle trousers, and his lip curled in derision. "My son's taste has certainly gone down. I suppose that you're all taken up with the little Mage whore, as well."

Draco's face was stony as he drew his wand, "You're one to talk of little whores... I know what you did to that Muggle girl during your initiation... and you were engaged to Mother at the time..."

Lucius' face turned an ugly shade of puce, and his wand was out in an instant, "I will not bear your impertinence, boy! Conburo Dermae!"

But Draco dodged the hex, and it hit a pillar by the fireplace, leaving a flaming gouge. "Collacero!"

The hex, aimed at Lucius' head, hit his left arm, and immediately the skin tore jaggedly, and the older man hissed in pain. However, a moment later, he had recovered somewhat, and he managed to sneer, "I taught you all the hexes you know, boy... and I know a few that you don't. You will not win... and you will not live. Tundo Contusum!"

The hex hit Draco in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him for a moment. Lucius took that moment to smash a book at his head with a banishing charm. Draco rolled out of the way, and wincing slightly, got back to his feet. No... Lucius would not win. Never!

The formerly tidy study was soon becoming a mess of smoke and sparks from hexes flying back and forth. The two men were about evenly matched, but Lucius was tiring rapidly. And finally, Draco called out "Expelliarmus!" and Lucius' wand went flying into his hand.

The man himself was on the ground, his face bloody from a cut on his lip. Draco stared down at him, both wands pointed at Lucius´ head, and his father sneered. "You can say it. Just two words... I taught you them myself."

Avada Kedavra.

And Lucius would be gone. Draco knew how to cast the Killing Curse. And... he also knew that had he been the one on the ground, he would have been dead already. But... he was better than Lucius. "No, I won't. I'm better than you."

Still holding his father's wand firmly in his hand, he stepped away and turned half around to survey the trashed room. He was gazing at a photograph of his mother... taken more than twenty years ago, when Narcissa Richardson had been fresh out of Hogwarts, a fey young girl with her hair down in golden waves on her back and a sad almost-smile on her face... and then, suddenly, there was a roar of a flaring fire, and a feminine shriek of "CAREFUL! STUPEFY!" followed by a metallic clang as a dagger zipped past his head to imbed its point about three inches away from his left ear in the wall. Draco spun around to see Jing-Li still half in the fire, her wand drawn, and Lucius frozen on the ground, his hand still upraised.

A moment later, Jing-Li stumbled into the room, her face pale and contorted with more fury than he had ever seen from her. "YOU BLOODY IDIOT! You... you tian xia di yi de ben dan!" She regressed to Chinese at places as she lost her temper entirely and screamed at him, lunging forward to shake his shoulders with every word. "How can you be so STUPID?! To trust HIM! Not even stunning him first! Feng zi!"

In the middle of her tirade, the door of the study burst open and several Aurors, including Draco's old nemesis Harry Potter, walked into the room. Jing-Li let go of him, and Draco rolled his eyes slightly. "It's about time, Potter... what took you so long?"

Harry gave a little snort, "Well, it might interest you what we found locked up in a secret chamber in the upper floor."

"Not particularly; I've probably seen all the torture devices in here already," Draco snapped, "Take him and get the hell out."

"No, you really might be interested, Malfoy. We found your mother. She seems to have been locked in her chamber for two months. According to the house-elves, she had upset your father somehow, so... but they have been able to bring her food twice a day." And then, Harry Potter stepped aside, and another Auror whom Draco recognized as Justin Finch-Fletchley half-led, half-carried a slim, pale, still-beautiful Narcissa Malfoy forward. Draco looked down at his mother, who was weeping silently, one pearl-white hand clenched around a lock of knee-length tangled blonde hair. She slowly looked around the wrecked room, from the Aurors, to the young Chinese woman in a Mage uniform, to Lucius, stunned and bloody, lying on the ground, and finally, her gaze fixed upon Draco, and she cried harder, even as she gave him an odd, almost-dreary smile.

Draco sighed somewhat, and then, turned his eyes back to Harry Potter's. "Take her to St. Mungo's."

Potter nodded, and he and Finch-Fletchley levitated the blonde woman onto a stretcher. As the rest of the Aurors scattered about the bleak old mansion, Draco gave Jing-Li a brief look, and, taking advantage of the still-disabled wards, Disapparated from Malfoy Manor for the Mage camp.

* * *

Only a minute later, both he and Jing-Li had arrived back at the Mage camp, and she was once again railing at him.

"You were going to be KILLED! How COULD you?! That... that BASTARD was going to throw that knife into your neck! Bloody hell, Draco Malfoy, do you even KNOW what nearly happened?!"

Jing-Li's voice was bordering on hysterical now, her hands thrown into the air, her hair entirely undone and almost quivering with anger. Her eyes, blazing into his, were frantic.

She was not simply angry at his stupidity, he realized. She was also breathless, her chest heaving from the stress that tonight had brought. And she was beautiful. And she was fearless, with a soul of fire to melt his heart of ice. Without knowing quite what he was doing, or considering that he had now obviously gone completely daft, he strode forward, closing the distance between the two of them, placing his hands around her waist and cutting her off by pressing his lips against hers.

She stiffened, and squirmed, but Draco Malfoy groaned slightly against her lips and held on for dear life. He was crazy, absolutely insane... she was raising her hand upward, towards his head. Dimly, he remembered how she had broken Goyle's jugular, and wondered if he, too, was going to die drowning... but all thoughts, gruesome or otherwise, were dashed from his mind when her hand cupped his cheek surprisingly gently, and her lips opened underneath his. Their kiss deepened as he pulled her even closer, and her hands lifted to tangle in his hair.

And then, belatedly, both of them became aware of a gleeful little voice piping in the background, "Dwaco and Jing-Jing thitting in a twee! KAY EYE ETH ETH EYE EN GEE!"

Draco pulled away reluctantly from the intoxicating, searing kiss and gave Jack a glare that sent the boy scampering, giggling as he ran. Then, he took a deep breath and turned back to Jing-Li, who was still resting comfortably in his arms. "When we have children, they'll have to learn not to intrude when mummy and daddy are snogging," he muttered.

Jing-Li´s face turned crimson, but she managed to snap back at him, "And what makes you think that I want to have your children?"

Draco smiled cockily as he pulled her back into his arms, "Because I insist, and I always get what I want." She glared at him, and his smile widened as he ran one hand through her dark hair, "Also... because I want all of my daughters to grow up as strong, feisty and fearless as you. And... last but not least..." he bent his head down, pressing his forehead against hers, "I love you," he whispered against her lips before kissing her again.

* * *