Missives From Moscow, Or, Draco Malfoy and the Order of the Augurey

Missives From Moscow

Chapter 2
"Ye are of your father"

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

- The Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verse 44

An interlude on matters indirectly related to the narrative.

1927

The witch looks at her baby son, and she sees his dark curls of hair as just another defect to go with that invisible deterioration of the blood. Her mind is made resolute when her husband enters the bedchamber and takes the child from her gently, clutching their child (his child) to him, rocking the child from side to side. She clicks her fingers to summon a house elf, remembers with irritation that she is no longer at her ancestral home (her real home) where a servant will appear at the tut-tut of annoyance. Instead, she is here, with only an old Muggle housemaid to tend to the home. Her husband is devoted, but this is no longer the delight she had married him for. When she was young, she had bought a mongrel puppy to spite her parents when they bought her a pedigree Krup, but it had grown old and ugly, no matter its loyalty, and she had been forced to abandon it to the Muggle world again when she left for Hogwarts. The dog reminds her of her husband.

Her reverie is broken when the house maid enters with her tea. It is simply impossible to buy the camomile and elfglove tea that she greatly prefers, and even now she is too weary from the birth to take a trip to Diagon Alley. Instead, the tea is strong and milky, and she leaves it on the side table to get cold. Her husband smiles at her and kisses her on the forehead as she sinks back. He asks whether she wants to hold the baby, she refuses and excuses herself to go to sleep. Smiling wanly, she turns her head to one side and pulls the covers back over her body.

Her husband sits for a while. The baby needs changing though, and he kisses her again on the forehead and leaves the room to tend to him. She looks above the covers furtively, waits for a minute, then climbs unsteadily out of her bed. Reaching beneath the bed for her trunk, she pulls it out. It is locked. She knows her husband wants to keep her safe from harm, but she takes it as a challenge nonetheless. She tips the tea onto the sheets and wraps the cup up in the pillow case, to muffle it when she smashes it against the side of the bed. It chinks gently, and she pulls a fine shard out, tries to cut through the leather. It leaves a white line where she tries, but it doesn't cut. Across the room is her dressing table. She pulls herself to her feet, and crosses the room, picks up her looking glass, and puts it in the pillow case. Another hard rap, and she carefully extracts a shaft of glass, wraps it in the hem of her night-skirt to keep from cutting herself, and begins to cut again.

This time the leather gives way, and she pulls at the tear harder, until a large hole across the trunk is torn. Revealed is a heavy fur robe, she pulls it out quickly, and beneath is her wand. A muttered charm and the trunk is opened properly. In the attic is her broomstick, but she can't risk staying like this for more than another few minutes; her husband is attentive to every detail about her. Instead, she pulls on the robe and crosses across to the window, opens it, and points her wand at the ivy around her. It sways and thickens, and she clambers out onto the strengthened vines. The chill February air whips against her face, and she considers, momentarily, of turning back to her bed, but it's really all too late. She climbs down the last few feet of ivy, her feet pained by the thick wood, and then she lands amongst the frosty soil. Creeping across the vegetable patch down to the bottom of the garden, she opens the gate slowly, and steps out into the meadow. Another whispered charm and the warmth returns to her feet. She runs now, across the meadow, over to the road. Placing her wand out, she waits for the bang of the omnibus, and, when it appears, steps back into her world of magic. Behind her lies the Muggle world, and she leaves her husband and child to grow bitter.

* * *

"Now, how about some vodka? It's been a while since I last ate or drank, and I think only strong liquor will wash away whatever that meat was really."

I told him that they didn't serve vodka here, only watery beer. He laughed.

"Fine, so we find the one place in Russia that doesn't conform to the stereotypes. I'm still hungry. Get me something a bit more meaty, and by that I mean meat that you wouldn't keep as a pet back in England, and I'll continue with my birthday."

I sighed and signalled to the runt. "Erm, azú iz govyádiny? And pívo."

He nodded and scuttled off to the kitchens, then ran back to thrust out a hand for money. A few more roubles changed hands, and he left again.

"Well, Malfoy? You defrosted, and then you went to kill somebody?"

" somebody, and it pains me to hear you talk of death so flippantly. Has the War truly taken such a toll on the unfettered, boundless joy of the Creevey brothers?. And I'll say no more until my beer and my stew gets here. Talking on an empty stomach is terribly exhausting, and I haven't eaten for several days. A dear friend of my fathers occasionally throws me some coins for performing little errands, but foreign beggars are hardly welcomed in Moscow."

We sat in silence for a few minutes until the food arrived. Draco ate slowly. Perhaps he lied about his hunger, or perhaps he was still too much the aristocrat to gulp his food down messily. After a while, he finished, and placed the spoon down again.

"Thank you, Creevey. Most filling. Now, where had I got to?"

"You were defrosting," I proffered.

"The question was rhetorical, I am perfectly able to keep track of my narrative. As I was saying, my father held my hand as I slowly," he coughed, embarrassed, "thawed out. He taught me how to use the staff properly, and then we ate a delicate luncheon, before setting off to St. Mungo's. We travelled by broom, my father asking about my studies at Hogwarts, and about where I saw my life going- pointless questions, we both knew the answers, or so we thought. We arrived, and my father strode across to the reception, asked a few questions, and then strode off down the passageway towards the main stairs. I hurried along after him.'

"The stairs were ornate, oak-panelled and with rich carpeting. Behind this façade lay the emergency wards, linked by circling corridors through which silent bodies floated, oblivious to the world through the haze of anaesthetic potions, flanked by frantic nurses in uniforms of black and white. Smells of iodine wafted down the passageways, with the slght scent of magic that reminded of Hogwarts, or indeed any other place where the concentration was so high as to invade the very air. We kept walking, until the doors that separated one stretch of passageway from the other became thicker and heavier, laden with charms and hexes. They glowed as a mark of our passing, and then, as I looked back, they faded back to blackened carvings. My father had seen this many times before; when the Terror was at its highest, St Mungo's was a battleground over which every force fought, its instruments of healing a boon to Death, Ministry and Riddleman alike.'

"At the end of the final stretch of corridor were two doors that were sealed shut. When they opened, I knew why the wards were there; a cacophonic babbling and screaming of the mad flooded down the corridor, and the wards flickered at the far end. A series of rooms with bars across the doors lined the walls. In the office sat the ward nurse, my father walked over to him and stunned him. A few screamers stopped, others who had made no sound cackled madly and rushed to the doors. In other cells, a young woman paced endlessly, an old man rubbed at his bare arm incessantly, as if in disbelief that no mark was there, still others sat on their beds and stared with eyes of marble at the opposite wall. My father took me by the shoulder and marched me down to the end of the ante-chamber, where a door was already open.'

"Inside, the room was far larger than it had appeared from the outside. A double bed contained a man and a woman, sat bolt upright on the bed. The mans' eyes were closed, the woman's were open, and they shined like those of a broken doll. Her mouth babbled a torrent of whispers, but not a single word could be truly identified. The man said nothing. On the bed was a tray of thin gruel, and a long wooden spoon. The side table was bare but for a normal, twenty-four hour clock and two photos. One was of the man and the woman, about ten years younger, holding a chubby little baby in their arms. In it, the man wore the badge of an Auror. When I caught their eyes, they scowled, and I could even see the man reach instinctively for his wand. I turned my attention to the other photo. It contained the picture of a boy I knew most well, and I stepped back from the foot of the bed to read the parchment charts. It confirmed my suspicions, and my stomach rippled with a nauseous tang of horror and malice.'

* * *

1942

The boy is about sixteen. He enters the headmaster's office, removes his pointy hat, flicks a piece of dust from his shining silver prefect's badge. A tall fellow, with jet black hair, he looks nervous.
"Ah, Riddle," says the Headmaster.
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" says Riddle. He gulps nervously for effect.
"Sit down," says Dippet. "I've just been reading this letter you sent me."
"Oh," says Riddle, and now his nervous behaviour is genuine. He sits down, gripping his hands together tightly.
"My dear boy," says Dippet, with some annoyance in his voice, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. I know you feel that you have particular insights into the cases of paralysis that have occurred, but you must tell them to me instead, rather than dash off in some investigative fervour. You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?"
"Yes, sir," says the boy with a trace of pride in his demeanour.
"You are Muggle-born?"
"Half-blood, sir, best of both worlds. Muggle father, witch mother."
"And are both your parents-?"
"My mother deserted my father shortly after my birth, and after my father and grandparents died in the house fire, all records of her memory were lost."
Dippet clucks his tongue sympathetically.
"The thing is, Tom," he sighs, "the Ministry are already harassing me over this unfortunate affair. We are no longer near to uncovering the source of this unpleasantness- and with the victims coming from prominent Pureblood families, well, the politics behind it all is most strong."
Riddle's eyes widen.
"Sir- if the person was caught- stopped- what would happen to them?"
"Riddle, I've asked you before, if you have any knowledge please tell me. You are one of our brightest students, but the job may fall to the Hit Wizards, or even the Aurors if this goes too far. You are not in a position to delve in such matters."

But Riddle's mind is made up. He must find this attacker of Purebloods, and when he discovers who it is, there will be most interesting discussions held.

* * *

"The Longbottoms did nothing. My father asked me to kill them. It was a test of my nerves and my worth as a Malfoy not to just vomit there and then. Even now I can remember his words.'

"They are hardly human. It would be an act of mercy to take their lives now. Over a decade, hundreds of desperate attempts to recover their minds have failed. Imagine what torment their souls are in, when a simple spell could end it. Imagine the relief it would give to that Squib of a child, to know that his beloved parents have had their souls laid to rest, that the hellish, essential job that my friends and comrades made those many years ago was completed? And I need not remind you that the dear Magus to whom I owe my life and my loyalty would hold their killer in highest favour. They were enemies of his rule, and they were traitors to the legacies that we Purebloods hold so dear. This act of mercy is blessed threefold; to lay them to blissful sleep, to strengthen the souls of the Pure, and to place you high on the road to the Magus.'

"Then why do you hesitate, my son? What excuses run through your mind? I always believed that when you were placed in the crucible of our master you would make my eyes brighten with pride, and my heart swell with delight in your victory over death. To kill is to conquer all fear of death, our Magus understood this most well. Even now he is growing, do not let me report to him that the sins of the father are not reflected in the son.'

"Still I hesitated.'

"Will you damn me with you, my son? My Magus, no, our Magus, for I have moulded the fate of the Malfoys in his image, is a wrathful lord. If not for yourself, then take their lives for me.'

"And I looked into the eyes of my father, and drew my wand from its holder. Moody's unorthodox instructions had remained in my mind, and I had practiced on a number of beasts throughout the holidays. But it had never really occurred to me why I was doing this; power, of course, but over a human? This was something beyond that of taunting and bullying, and it attracted and repelled in equal measures. Not because it was against my morals, but because it would mean stepping beyond my comfortable dominance into something else, and when I returned to Hogwarts my old way of life would never be obtainable again. Only one other person I knew had killed a man, and that was in his first year- Potter- and there had been something different about him after that, a sense of destiny, of power unwelcomed but acknowledged, no matter what he might profess.'

"All these thoughts hurried through my head as I raised my wand, but my father stopped me then.'

"Put your wand back, Draco. We will not have long after leaving, and to be caught with the bloodied wand would be most unfavourable at such an early stage. There was a reason why I gave such a terrible artefact for my gift to you this morning. It was lost after the Reformation, presumed destroyed as an icon of papal idolatry, and the Ministry will be baffled by any death from its power.'

"I grinned. When such an act was so carefully planned out, with such arguments as these, how could my young mind possibly deny my dear father? I took my birthday present from its case. This time, rather than letting the deadening moisture spill from the pearl, I anointed a line across, as an eye, and as the thorns emblazoned on the staff rippled against the palms of my fists, the pearl blazed open like a balesome eye. The blinding light singed the covers where it fell, and I brought it up across the doll eyes of Mrs Longbottom. I moved my attention to her husband, and he gurgled once in his restless sleep. When the light cleared, I could see them bubbling and the juices ran down across her cheeks like tears. For a moment I thought she was still alive, but the whispering was a death rattle that hissed once, then expired. Her husband was still alive though, and I tightened my grip on the staff as my father had taught me that morning.'

"The light grew stronger, but in the reflection of the cowering photographs I could see the light darkening and trembling as it burned through the still air of the ward. With a sudden scream that panicked me and made me drop the staff, Frank Longbottom died. I vomited over the bed sheet, and my father mopped the bile from my face. He held me to him to support me, reached down to the staff, now still and unmoving, sat me down next to the bed, and put the staff back into its case. Then he moved his palm over their faces, closing their eyes for the last time. Were it not for the congealing remnants of her eyes on her cheeks, and the bloodied drool down his chin, it might have been a perfect picture of middle-age contentedness, their hands clasped together to the end.'

"My father gave me a few moments to recover my senses, then raised me to my feet, and we walked out of the room into the ante-chamber. The mad cowered as we walked past them, but the man with the spotless arm thrust it towards us as if in recognition. My father said nothing, did not even look at him. We left the ward, and I did not dare look back.'

"Have you ever noticed that when you ponder whilst walking, between the split second of losing your thoughts and regaining your feet, you feel as if you are floating? The automatic stride of your body takes over, and for a moment you wonder whether or not you even have legs. Suddenly you remember that you most certainly do, and you might stumble slightly, or walk in a slightly different direction to the automated path your brain had decided on, and then you lapse back into your musings, or you concentrate on your surroundings.'

"This time, however, I did not. As I slowly floated I observed myself and the face of my father, and I saw that his eyes were the same eyes I had seen gazing from the face of Mrs Longbottom, before I had finished the deed that the Death Eaters had started long ago, and rather than fall back into my path through life I turned from my father, ran through the hall of St Mungo's, and out into the streets of London."