Chapter 6: The Lady of Malfoy Manor
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
The holidays arrived far too slowly, and yet somehow earlier than anyone expected. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts rose to find itself covered in several feet of snow. A glassy sheen of ice covered the lake, and icicles the size of dragon claws dangled from the eaves of the Great Hall. The Weasley twins bewitched some of these to drop whenever a Slytherin passed underneath them. Poor Ulysses, who had fought his way through a stormy sky to deliver Draco’s Daily Prophet , sprained his wing, and Draco spent a fretful morning in the rookery nursing him back to health.
He was very much looking forward to going home. His mother’s letter had overflowed with encouragement and praise, and tactful allusions to the many presents and treats which awaited him at Malfoy Manor. His absence had a bad influence on her, and led her to be profligate with Christmas shopping, and though she knew she ought to save some of them for his birthday, she might be persuaded, with a certain quantity of hugs and kisses, to release them early unto his keeping.
Granger was going home, too. “My family always spends Christmas at my house,” she explained. “My grandparents come to stay with us, and we have the neighbors over for dinner. It’s quite nice.”
They were working in the Great Hall. Fat Christmas trees strangled in garlands and baubles flanked the walls, christened with a dusting of magical frost. Snow floated past the windows in feathery whirls, and Nearly Headless Nick led a caroling band of ghosts around the castle, guiding them in mostly tuneless renditions of ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘Christmas Time is Here.’ Peeves had strapped a bough of mistletoe to a fishing-rod, and with it, took to harrying young couples around the castle, hooting and heckling.
Something occurred to Draco. “Granger,” he said, “what do your muggles do for a living?”
“My parents? They’re dentists. Together, actually. ‘Granger and Granger, Orthodontia and Dental.’” She sighed glumly. “They want to start me on braces next year.”
Draco frowned. “What kind of dents?”
“…What?”
“What kind of dents do they study?”
She hid a giggle behind her hand. “It’s nothing to do with ‘dents.’ Dentists are people who fix your teeth.”
“Oh,” he said, irritated by her condescension. It wasn’t like he ever needed a stupid dentist. “Why are yours like that, then?”
When she didn’t answer, he looked at her. Hurt dimmed Granger’s face like a sudden rain cloud on a sunny morning, swooping out of nowhere and sullying all the fun.
“They’re getting fixed next year,” she muttered. Turning away, she hunched over her book.
His satisfaction from shutting her up evaporated quickly, and the knowledge that she was guilting him on purpose did not help him resist the effort as much as he would have liked.
“There’s no need to be a baby about it,” he muttered back. “I was only asking a question.”
“It was a rude question.”
“Don’t be silly. Can’t you see I don’t give a fig about your teeth, whether they’re snaggly or otherwise?”
“Snaggly!”
“Snaggly, outsize, crooked, what would you call it?”
“They’re — in need of correction,” she said, shrinking into herself.
Realization struck. “They don’t look like that on purpose?”
“Draco!”
“No, I — listen — don’t hit me, witch — you’re serious? You don’t like them? Why the devil haven’t you been to St. Mungo’s for them, then?”
“I don’t know what that is!” she wailed, and making a sound like a kicked kitten, she scooted away from him.
He flung one hand in the air. “Well, that’s not my fault!”
Weasley, who was puzzling over a chess game with Potter, looked over. “Malfoy,” he said sagely, “you ever hear the one about the wizard in the bottomless pit?”
“No,” he replied, through gritted teeth.
Potter, after ten minutes of deep concentration, ventured: “Knight to D-six.”
Weasley glanced at the board, said “Queen to D-six,” and his queen trotted cheerfully across the board to clobber it. “All right, you’re about to hear an Arthur Weasley classic.” (“Goody,” said Draco.) “So this guy, he’s stuck in a bottomless pit. And he’s been falling for a while, when his mate gets him on the radio, and he says: ‘Where are you?’ and the guy says ‘I’m stuck in a bottomless pit.’ And his mate says ‘Well, you better apparate out of there.’ And the guy says, ‘No, no, that’s impossible.’ So he hangs up. A few hours later, his mate rings him again, and he says: ‘Hey, listen, I’ve had an idea to get you out of the bottomless pit. I’ll apparate in there, grab you, and you can side-along apparate out with me.’ And the guy says, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ And he hangs up. And then a few hours after that, his mate rings him a third time, and says: ‘Okay, I’ve got it. I’ll apparate in there, hand you a Portkey, and it’ll teleport you right back to the top.’ And the guy says, ‘Thank you, mate, that’s really nice and all, but I just can’t do it.’
“And now the mate’s really good and fed up, I mean proper fuming, and he says: ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve been in there for hours, what’s the problem?’ And so his — oh. Rook to G-eight,” he added, and Potter made a sad noise as his knight was bludgeoned to death. “Check. So his mate’s saying this, he’s saying: ‘What will it take to get you out of this bottomless pit?’ And the wizard says: ‘Why would I leave? Any minute now, I could see the bottom!’”
Draco lifted his eyebrow. “And you decided to bequeath this pearl of wisdom to us, because…?”
Weasley glanced meaningfully at Granger, who was still hunched over her book. “Starting to see the bottom yet?” he said.
The bell chimed four o’clock. All along the Gryffindor table, a line of china teapots shimmered into existence like a row of eggs. Draco filled his cup, and then, after a moment’s thought, he filled Granger’s. She continued to ignore him.
“Here,” Draco said loftily. “Girls drink first, that’s the rules.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t be like that.” He paused. “I haven’t anything against your teeth. Nobody even notices them.” He pushed the teacup closer to her. “Cream or sugar?”
She shook her head.
“Take it black, do you? That’s sort of tough, Granger. I’m impressed.”
“No, I don’t,” she huffed, reaching past him for the sugar. She dropped four cubes into her teacup and stirred vigorously. Draco stared.
“What on earth—”
“I like it sweet.”
“As syrup?”
“They make it bitter here!”
“Are you deranged? Are you, in fact, possessed?”
“Well, how do you take it, if you’re such an expert?”
“Dash of cream and a squeeze of lemon. It’s superior.”
“Blech.”
“Philistine.”
“Blech!”
But she was talking and laughing again, and that was far preferable to the alternative, so he elected not to prosecute the matter any further.
On December twenty-first, he rose at dawn and brought his trunk down to the Great Hall, where a swarm of students buzzed excitedly in anticipation of going home. Some came to see them off, including Fred and George Weasley, who were organizing a massive snowball tournament for all the students staying behind. They had dug up a pair of banker’s visors, and carried around clipboards and quills, offering people the chance to sign up. The morning’s sole point of excitement occurred when Marcus Flint tried to enter a first-year Hufflepuff’s name in the seventh year bracket, and the twins repaid him by jinxing a battery of snowballs to chase him around the courtyard; this lasted until Filch caught wind of the trouble, and chased them all the way back to Gryffindor Tower, cane in hand.
Granger rode with him on the train. She was getting off in London, whereas he was to change trains at King’s Cross and continue south. As they were disembarking, she handed him a folded square of parchment.
“That’s my address,” she said. “I already gave it to Harry and Ron; you can write to me, if you like.”
He held it awkwardly, not quite sure what to do.
“And… and I suppose I ought to have yours,” she said, crossing her arms, “if I’m to write you.”
“You don’t have an owl.”
“I’ll get one!” she said, turning brilliantly red. “Or I’ll send it by regular post; it’s good enough for most people, anyway.”
He was fairly certain that the last muggle to try and deliver anything to the Estate had brought news of the Roman invasion, but nevertheless, he jotted down the address. Granger squinted at it.
“‘Malfoy Manor,’” she read, “‘Wiltshire.’” She paused. “That’s it?”
“Well, yes.” He tapped the page. “You’ll want to put my name on it, too, or else Mummy will think it’s for her and read it.”
“What about a postcode?”
They both gazed doubtfully at the parchment. He didn’t know what a postcode was, but he was too embarrassed to ask.
“There’s only one Malfoy Manor,” he observed.
“Right,” she said, looking faint. “I suppose so.”
He bid her goodbye, and resolved to write her a letter, if only to prove that he hadn’t made the address up. Then he was alone on his second train of the day, and speeding through the English countryside towards home.
Malfoy Manor stood dark and resplendent under a cloak of ivory snow. A horseless sleigh carried Draco through wrought-iron gates and a twinned marble gateposts, along the long shaft of an avenue paved on either side by silver-clad lawns, more gates, an arrowhead of a drive in dark stone, and above it, the enormous layer-cake of a Neoclassical mansion in red brick and granite trim. The ground plan of the manor was oriented on a cross-axis, formed by the intersection of a domed central pavilion and wings extending to the east and west, each of which sported twelve windows at least. Over the twelve-foot maw of the entrance loomed a heavy pediment, braced on marble pilasters, with arched loggia and an elaborate relief of a pair of sea dragons doing battle. Marble sculpture clung like crusts of frost to the long, slate-covered ridge roof.
On the plinth stood a small, dark-haired figure in a green velvet peacoat and a cossack hat. At the sight of her, Draco leapt out of the carriage and ran to the door, staggering through billowing drifts of powder.
She hurried down the steps; he went charging up them; they collided in the middle, and she went down on her back in the snow.
“Sorry!” He sprang up, horrified. “Sorry! Sorry! Mother! Are you alright?”
Narcissa flung her head back and laughed not from amusement but from delight. “Goodness, am I really so frail as that?” she said. “Can I not receive an embrace without hurting myself? Perhaps I am old.” She held out her hands and waggled her fingers. “Come and kiss your mother that loves you. You’re so beautiful I can barely breathe.”
He helped her up, brushing snow from her shoulders, and stood somberly at attention while she peppered his face with kisses.
“It was my fault. I oughtn’t have jumped. It wasn’t proper.”
“Boys always down from their first term with terrible manners,” she said mildly, batting away his hands. “I was warned to expect it. Besides, there’s no one here but you and I. Oh, and, well— Dobby is quite desperate to see you, but I told him you would meet him in the dining room. He has been cooking furiously. One would think we were receiving you back from war.”
“Excellent. They only had candy on the train, I’m starving.”
“Did they really? Appalling. When I went to Hogwarts, they served three-course lunches in the dining cars, and you could get bottles of Bollinger delivered to your compartment on request. Sic transit gloria mundi, my darling … shall we go and put poor Dobby out of his misery?”
In the dining room, Dobby had outdone himself. Lifting a silver cloche, he presented a bowl of spiced mushroom soup, a loaf of black rye bread with hazelnuts and pumpkin seed, and a rose of soft yellow butter. The napkins were folded in the shape of a heart.
When Draco entered the room, he bowed so deeply his ears touched the floor. He was wearing his finest pillowcase, with lace trim and hardly a stain on it. “Master Draco,” he said. “We welcomes you home, sir. Dobby has prepared a soup—”
“Dobby!” It surprised Draco how much it pleased him to see the elf. He rubbed the little creature’s head affectionately. “Have you been eating? You haven’t grown a bit since I last saw you.”
“This is a very good joke,” said Dobby with plaintive dignity. “It is getting funnier every time, sir.”
“Isn’t it? I think so. This looks very good, by the way, well done.”
The elf’s ears twitched back in pleasure. “Thank you, sir. There is madeleines and honey date ice cream in the freezer, if the master wants dessert.”
“You mean honeyed dates and ice cream, Dobby.”
“Indeed, no, in fact. Dobby has been experimenting with ice cream flavors,” Narcissa said indulgently, settling herself at the table. “He’s working on… oh, what was it, this week?”
“Olive oil chocolate eggplant,” he said proudly.
“Mm-hm. Just so.” She lowered her voice to Draco. “We decided it was best for him to get a hobby. There was a grieving period when you left in September — meals were inedible for a month. I lost nearly a stone.”
“And you eat this ice cream?”
“Oh, yes, some of it. Or somebody else does. I had Constance Crabbe over for tea on Thursday, and I made it clear she absolutely could not leave without trying some of Grandmother Malfoy’s Frozen Cricket Surprise…”
Draco snorted. “And she liked it, did she?”
“Well, she couldn’t very well say she didn’t. That would be heinously rude. Luckily, Constance has an expressive face.” She sighed. “She will forgive me. After all, I am a madwoman, and a madwoman must have her amusements.”
This was sobering. He set down his spoon.
Narcissa had scarcely appeared in public since his father’s death, ostensibly because she was still in mourning, but actually out of a desire to keep away from the Society limelight. As an excuse, she informed people that she was unwell, which at first garnered much sympathy, but after several years, the rumor mill kicked up again.‘Malfoy Manor – CLOSED FOREVER?’ speculated one author from Witch Weekly, in an issue Draco had burned before his mother found it. ‘Narcissa Malfoy quits the scene to hide in seclusion with her son! It appears that her husband’s untimely death, combined with her sister’s betrayal, have driven her quite insane.’
It all would have been easy enough to dismiss, if none of it were true.
“I’m sure she didn’t thank you for that,” he said, tearing a chunk of bread.
“I should have done worse,” she said grimly. “She was a terror. Manners that would have had my grandmother rolling… ‘I’m ever so glad that Vince is following in the family footsteps, because you know, family is very important to us Crabbes.’ And then: ‘Oh, but I do hope that doesn’t offend you, Narcissa.’ She thinks that’s subtlety? Why, I ought to have laughed her out the door — ‘very important,’ she says. Constance! An upjumped American dollar princess. Her ancestors were accountants for my ancestors, that’s what her ‘family footsteps’ lead back to. And she has the nerve to pretend she pities me, as if she wouldn’t punt her precious Slytherin son from the Tower to be in my position.”
At the word ‘Slytherin,’ Draco swallowed. “I see,” he said quietly.
Guilt flashed across Narcissa’s face. “Oh, but it’s not a worry to me,” she said quickly. “You must believe me, Draco, it’s not your fault. The Sorting Hat made an awful mistake. I’ve written to Dumbledore but he says nothing can be done…”
“There’s no point.”
“Yes, and it really isn’t so bad,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. “There are lots of successful Gryffindors. And you’ll make all sorts of connections—”
“Such as?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly what connections, but there must be some. Lots of Ministers come from Gryffindor.”
“I don’t want to be Minister of Magic.”
“Goodness, at least have a think about it first.” She smiled and reached across the table to take his hand. “Really, darling, you can’t take it to heart. It’s a dreadful shame but — these things do happen, and when they do, we must lift our chins, and show a stiff upper lip, and simply carry on with our lives. And you know, I always thought you looked very handsome in gold.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ve been thinking about it, and imagine how well you’ll look in your Gryffindor quidditch uniforms! And Gryffindor prefect, of course, because making prefect will be easy for you… and you know, when you really think about it, everyone knows that Dumbledore favors the Gryffindors, that’s no secret. So your chances of Head Boy—”
“I don’t care about being Head Boy, either.” He shoved his bowl away from him, and folded his arms, sulking. “I hate it there. It’s loud, and messy, and everyone’s stupid or low-class or both, and there’s barely anyone like us.”
“Have you made any friends, at least?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
She smiled encouragingly. “Other boys?”
“No. It’s… well, there’s one girl. But she’s bossy and loud and she annoys me most of the time.”
Narcissa was beaming. “But that’s splendid! I’d like to meet her. Shall we have her over? Would you like to invite her?”
“Probably not,” said Draco, thinking: Absolutely never. He pushed back his chair. “Perhaps some ice cream later,” he told Dobby’s hopeful face.
His mother caught his meaning. She said, “You must be tired, my darling. Shall I show you your room?”
“I remember the way. It’s been months, not years. You should have a lie-down. Have Dobby see to your back.”
“My back is fine. I’m thirty-two, not sixty.”
“Well, fine, but I’m having a lie-down, and I’m not sixty, either.” He stood, and she rose with him. “Dobby, bring Mother’s dressing-gown, would you?”
Narcissa halted the elf with an outstretched hand. “Dobby, don’t,” she said. “I’m not having a lie-down; I haven’t any interest in one.”
“Yes, but if the lady changes her mind, I’d like her to have it.”
“And if the lady changes her mind, she knows where to find her own dressing gown,” she said sweetly. “And she knows how to call for her own house-elf, too. Has her son forgotten?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Never mind. In fact I think I will go upstairs,” she said, striding past him to the stairs. “I have a novel to read, and I may do some painting while you convalesce. I find myself restless.”
“Mother.”
“Don’t fret! I will be perfectly happy to entertain myself, as always. You know where to find me.”
“Mother!”
She turned, and her expression was bright and pained and lovely. “Oh, Draco, you worry too much,” she breathed. “How am I to feel like a mother when you fuss more than I do?”
He bowed his head, uncomfortable. But in a moment, the fire went out of her, and she sank like a punctured zeppelin. “But you’re only looking out for me,” she said. “You’re only looking out for your mummy, aren’t you? My darling boy. You only want to take care of me. I don’t know what I did to deserve — such a darling — darling boy.” She turned, grasping the banister for support, and Draco noticed that beneath her peacoat, Narcissa was terribly thin. “Dobby, please… Please bring me my nightgown, after all.”
“Yes, mistress,” Dobby cried, clearly relieved that his masters’ orders had finally eclipsed, and disappeared.
Draco offered his arm. “I can help you up to your room—?”
“No,” she said coldly.
There was a silence.
“No,” she murmured. “No, that’s all right. Thank you, my sweet one. You go and rest. It’s been a long day, and we all need… some rest.”
And lifting the hem of her skirt, she slowly receded up the stairwell, leaving Draco alone in the vast dining room.
On Christmas Eve, he woke up to the sound of an owl doing its level best to destroy his bedroom window.
“Ulysses!” he snapped thickly, kicking off the covers. “You little airborne rat, I told you not to scratch the glass.”
As he staggered out of bed, slinging on his bathrobe, he realized the bird terrorizing the glass wasn’t Ulysses, but a scrappy-looking screech owl with a letter and a package tied to its legs. He hauled up the sash, and it fled into the room, made a frantic circle around the ceiling, and alighted on his desk. It required several treats before he could coax the letter away from it.
It was addressed:
Mr. Draco L. Malfoy
Malfoy Manor
Wiltshire(???)
The envelope wasn’t sealed with wax, but a sticky substance he had to work off with a letter-opener. The letter itself was written in some kind of strange gray graphite-residue instead of ink, and left silvery smudges on his fingers when he touched it.
Dear Draco,
_Merry Christmas. I really hope this owl gets to you somehow because I went through a whole lot of trouble to get it. My parents still wouldn’t get me one of my own so I told them I had to go to Diagon Alley for more schoolbooks and while they were distracted I snuck into Eeylops and asked them if I could rent an owl for one use only. The clerk didn’t want to do it but I begged & begged so he let me use his personal owl for three sickles and a knut. I don’t know if that’s a good rate or not because I haven’t used wizard money much before but I didn’t have any other choice. Please do not tell me if I have been robbed. _
How is your break? Mine is good. My grandmother is here. I can’t talk about magic or Hogwarts or anything around her, because she thinks I go to a girls’ boarding school in Edinburgh, but I do give her an edited version. (I have to pretend you and Harry and Ron are all girls. Sorry.) My grandfather is eighty-nine years old and doesn’t hear very well, so I have to shout everything around him, he reminds me ever so much of Binns. It’s hard to remember that the stairs here don’t move and I don’t have to worry about the chocolate running away. Everyone was very excited to hear that I have friends now.
I’m sending you a Cadbury bar so you can see that muggles have done at least one thing better than wizards.
Yours sincerely,
Hermione J. Granger
He folded the letter carefully and set it aside. The accompanying package was wrapped imperfectly (there was liberal application of tape) in yellow paper with a pattern of sheep, and tied with a cherry-red ribbon. Inside he found a hardcover book called History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides, with a brown leather cover and a title in gold embossed lettering. He flipped open the cover to read the inscription:
To DLM: Thucydides = muggle!! -HJG.
He rolled his eyes.
There was also a bar of something called Cadbury chocolate, which he nibbled and deemed acceptable. It wasn’t the next Bertie Bott’s, or anything, but he could understand why she kept nattering on about it.
It really was outrageous that her muggles wouldn’t let her have her own owl. Something ought to be done about that. Maybe he’d write to the Minister or something.
Dobby apparated into the room with a crack. “Merry Christmas, Master Draco,” he chirped. “Mistress is still sleeping, but she is asking Dobby to wake her up when her darling boy is awake, so she can come and open presents together.”
“That’s fine, but hold off a minute, would you?”
Draco stooped over his desk, fumbling around for a bit of parchment.
Dear Granger,
I received your letter. It is mildly impressive to me that you managed to find the shabbiest, loudest, most ill-bred owl in the world. I am sending this with Ulysses so you can see what a proper owl acts like.
Thank you for the book. It is very nice. I appreciate it.
You will find enclosed a cheque for 10 galleons, which
He paused, tapping his quill on his bottom lip.
You will find enclosed a cheque for 10 15 galleons, which should be enough for something
He paused again. Then he wet his quill and struck through what he’d written.
Thank you for the book. It is very nice. I appreciate it. You will find enclosed a cheque for 10 galleons, which I will bring your present to Hogwarts.
Merry Christmas.
Regards,
Draco Malfoy
He folded up the letter, strapped it to Ulysses’ leg, and released both owls into the bright winter morning. Closing the shutter, he said, “All right, Dobby, go on and wake her.”
It was an excellent haul. In addition to dozens of books and toys, his mother had bought him a new broomstick, the Nimbus Two Thousand, and heedless of her pleas, he mounted it immediately and rode it down the stairwell. It flew like a dream, smooth and fast and snappy, and he didn’t get around to his other presents until noon.
He knew Potter would be sick with envy. Maybe, if he was extra nice to Draco, he’d let him ride it. (Then it occurred to him that he couldn’t take it to school, and the chances of Potter coming to Malfoy Manor were about a Cleansweep Five’s against his Nimbus; and he decided he would just have to brag about it enough for Potter to get the idea.)
Dobby had a present for him, too. It was a poppet made from braided string and pillowcase cuttings that must have come from his own supply. Draco thanked him withh an orange, which Dobby tearfully promised to add to his collection.
“Collection?” said Narcissa thoughtfully, once the elf was out of earshot. “So that’s the smell coming from the cabinets. I thought we had mildew.”
The last gift on the pile, wrapped in plain black paper, was Snape’s. He saved it for last.
It contained a note in jagged cursive:
Draco.
This was your father’s. Upon his death he willed it to me for reasons unclear. It may have been some sort of joke about keeping one’s cauldron lit.
I expect you will appreciate it more than I.
—Professor Snape
The idea of his father making a joke was novel. In his few memories of his father, he did not recall a lot of chuckles to be had.
Under the wrapping was a cedar box with the Malfoy crest inset, and it opened up to a lovely bed of purple silk, upon which rested a silver lighter, engraved ‘L.A.M.’ When he thumbed the wheel, a small blue flame sprang from the top, about the length of his thumb.
He showed it to his mother.
“Oh, that was your father’s,” she marveled, lifting it to the light. “I remember. I wondered where this thing got off to.”
“Is there anything special about it?” He tried not to sound ungrateful. “Or is it just a lighter? Because even I can do a Fire-Making spell.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “It’s very high quality, for one thing,” she said, squinting at it with an expert eye. “It’s goblinmade. Sterling silver, probably varnished with mermaid’s tears. If I had to guess, I’d say Moribund’s, they were the haute jewelers when we were young. Everyone in our year got their engagement rings there… it should have the year…” She turned it over and showed him the bottom. It read: Pro parva lux mea / 25th December, 1975.
“‘For my light’?”
“A gift from his mother, I imagine.”
They were in the drawing-room, and light poured through the bay windows, illuminating the carnage of wrapping paper and boxes surrounding the twelve-foot Christmas tree. The smell of cooking turkey and cranberry sauce filled the house. Dobby was already at work on Christmas dinner.
His mother said, “Oh, and the flame was waterproof, if I recall. He’d make a show of taking it out and lighting his pipe in the rain.”
“No, really?” Draco scrambled to his feet. “It’ll burn underwater?”
“I presume so. A gimmick enchantment, I thought, since what on earth you’d do with a flame underwater — Draco, where are you going?”
He ran to the bathroom and threw on the faucets. Once the sink had about an inch of water in it, he plunged the lighter under the water and thumbed the spark-wheel. The blue flame blossomed under the surface of the water, shimmery and strange, like a feathery bit of kelp.
All Christmas Day, Draco set everything he was allowed to on fire. He insisted on doing the candles for dinner, the sparklers, the stoves, and the dining room fireplace. Then he took the leftover kindling outside and burned that, too. In the evening, he begged his mother to let him light something else, and she condescended to let him do her after-dinner cigarette, which she held in a holder the length of his arm.
The rest of the holidays passed in a blink. He put the Nimbus through its paces on the Manor grounds, scaring pigeons off the roof, and when it was too snowy or too cold to do that, he lit a fire in his father’s library and read Granger’s book. It started far too slow, in his opinion, but after you slogged through the dull bits at the beginning, it got pretty cracking, and it was well worth it in the end.
On the last day of break, with the sun glinting off melting icicles on the trees, Narcissa ventured out in the snow herself. Both Draco and Dobby did much hand-wringing over this, but she brushed them aside with a laugh and a cry of: “Faint of heart! Faint of heart! Entendez-vous dans les campagnes, mugir ces féroces soldats? My mother rode a broomstick, pregnant, through a snowstorm to St. Mungo’s because she was afraid to splinch the baby. It takes more than snow to hurt a Black!”
So Draco and Narcissa spent the afternoon laboring on a Hagrid-sized snowman, the final ball of which had to be levitated by Narcissa while Draco provided support on his Nimbus. Then, she passed the facial details — Dobby supplied a carrot and some coal bits from the kitchen fire — up to him, and he planted them in its face. The resulting creature was tall, wide, crooked, and ugly. Narcissa adored it.
“What a ghastly beast,” she exclaimed in utter delight. She conjured a top hat for it. Draco burst out laughing in a way he hadn’t in months, and she hauled him down into the snow, where he howled and kicked and pleaded for a reprieve from her cruel regime of tickling.
After a meal of turkey sandwiches and whipped chocolate trifle with raspberry jelly, Draco went upstairs to gather his things. Dobby had packed his bags, including his books, his new robes, and a variety of snacks for the train, including a temperature-controlled jar of something frozen that he dreaded to try. (Perhaps he would offer it to Potter or Weasley as a Christmas present.) Looking at his assembled trunks gave him a feeling so dismal that he left his room, and wandered the dark wooden halls of Malfoy Manor: up uncarpeted, noisy elm stairs, following passages of hardwood bisected by black tongues of drugget, through linoleum hallways lined with tapestry and grated windows, whisking here and there up minor staircases and passing by secret doors into hidden rooms, and through the vast atrium where an abandoned ballroom decayed under the dusty altar of a four-tiered diamond chandelier. He ran his hand over the old walls, and something in them hummed back to him, like the magic in his wand, an echo of a call he hadn’t known he’d given.
He found his mother in the portrait gallery. Along one side of the vaulted space sat a row of Malfoy family heirs, direct descendants of the male line dating back to the 1400s. Opposite each on the other wall sat his wife. In the mourning custom, black tarps covered the portrait-frames, and Narcissa had yet to remove these, though the duties of mourning had elapsed two years since.
Narcissa was kneeling in front of the last portrait in the line. It was the only frame that lacked a mate. Her head was bent, and she was mumbling something to herself. The corner of the tarp had been drawn up, he saw, and pinned to the wall with a hatpin.
“Mother?” he ventured.
She did not seem to hear him. Her voice was low and slurred.
He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Mother?”
Narcissa’s head snapped up, and her pupils were the size of sickles. A chill ran up Draco’s neck.
“Lucius?” she said, her voice hoarse and doubled.
Draco stumbled back as if burned.
“Lucius,” she said, excitedly. “Lucius — is that you? Lucius!”
Her hand gripped his robe. He snatched it away from her, and she fell forward, onto her hands and knees.
“Mother, it’s me. Draco. Your son.”
If she heard, she gave no sign. She dragged herself up the wall, her hands scrabbling on the limestone. “Lucius! Lucius, where are you? Lucius, I can hear you!”
He tried to keep his voice low and soothing. “Whatever you’re hearing, Mother, I promise you it isn’t Father.”
Her head snapped around. She stared at him, beady-eyed. For a moment he hoped in vain that she’d heard him, and was giving it consideration.
Then she whirled and ran, her skirts billowing behind her, screaming: “Lucius! Lucius! Lucius!”
Draco swore and dashed after her. “Mother! Come back!”
“I hear you! Lucius, I hear you!”
She let the door to the Portrait Gallery slam closed in his face, and he caught it with a grunt. While he struggled, Narcissa dashed around a corner and out of sight.
Moments later, he rounded it and charged after her, but she was gone: vanished entirely from the hallway. In the distance, he could hear her cries echoing through the house as she moved further away.
“Damn. Dobby!”
The elf appeared with a crack, holding a frying pan in one hand and a scrubbing-sponge in the other. “Master Draco!” he said happily. “You are summoning Dobby?”
“Go and seal the doors, deadbolt them. Lock the upstairs windows, and if you see Mother, come and find me. Don’t do anything she says.”
Dobby was nodding until this last order, at which point he cringed. “Yes, Master Draco,” he said. “But only — if Mistress gives Dobby a direct order—”
“You do what I tell you! I’m the heir. I’m the firstborn of the male line. I’m the master of the house, and you’ll do as I say, or I’ll — I’ll make you iron your fingers.”
Dobby squeaked in terror. He disappeared.
Draco fumbled his wand from his pocket, ignoring the pinch of guilt in his stomach. Fear had made him cruel. He didn’t like threatening Dobby, but sometimes a heavy hand was required.
He lit his wand-tip, and hurried down the twilit halls. His mother’s voice had grown distant, and he chased it back through the winnowing heart of the manner, through parlors whose furniture sat under ancient sheets like a herd of ghostly oxen, past marble statues of witches and wizards who all sported his father’s scowl, and corridors lit by floating candelabras, and populated by the fading remnants of his mother’s cries. He raced up a wrought-iron staircase, burst through a pair of doors into the East Wing, and found himself in his father’s chambers.
The hangings had been torn from the king-sized bed, and the pillows shredded, their innards scattered across the room like fresh powder. The doors to the balcony waved softly in the evening wind, while digits of fog pressed in from the gloomy moors.
Narcissa leaned over the balcony railing, bent at the waist, one spectral arm protruding into the gloom. Tears streaked her gaunt face. Her shirtwaist had soaked through, and her long, thick hair, thrown free of its chignon by her frantic escape, fell in dark waves around her waist, swaying as she sobbed.
“Come back,” she sobbed. “Come back, please. I miss you. Come back! I promise I’ll be good… where did you go? Don’t you miss me, too? Don’t you love me, Bella?”
At the word ‘Bella,’ Draco startled: he thought she was calling for Lucius. But whatever specter his mother wanted, it showed no sign of mercy, and her sole answer came from the mournful croon of the wind.
He extinguished his wand and moved silently onto the balcony. She was perilously close to tipping over the railing, and as she gave another lurch, he leapt forward to catch her: but she caught herself, and canted backward, lowering herself slowly onto the pads of her feet.
When he touched her, she gave a hiccuping moan, and collapsed into his arms. He caught her and carefully lowered her to the ground, cradling her.
“Mother,” he said gently, “it’s Draco.”
She turned her head this way and that, moaning.
“Mother. It’s me.” He tried to mask the anxiety in his voice, and failed. “Your son. You’re at home.”
“Home?” she slurred. Her eyes slitted open. “Am I home? But I haven’t been to the Abbey in ever so long…”
“You’re at Malfoy Manor. Don’t you remember?”
“Malfoy?”
“Yes, Malfoy. You married Lucius Malfoy, and I… you had a son.”
“A son? I had a boy?”
“Yes.”
“How lovely. Lucius wanted a boy,” she said dreamily. “I wanted another… have two, I thought… a girl and a boy… a matching set.”
He spoke through a tightness in his throat. “Why didn’t you?”
“Five years in Azkaban, five years, I was alone with my boy… a one-year-old boy. And when he came back, he didn’t want… wouldn’t allow… it wasn’t safe, he said, not for a daughter, a lovely little girl for the whole world to hate…” She turned her head into Draco’s chest, and wept.
He held her until her weeping ceased, and she was still. She had fallen asleep.
He patted her cheek. When she did not stir, he called for Dobby. Together, they lifted her and carried her into the guest bedroom.
When Narcissa was tucked in and sleeping soundly, he slipped out of the guest room and closed the door behind him. Dobby apparated beside him, holding her soiled laundry in a bundle under his arm.
“Did this happen while I was gone?”
Dobby dithered, yanking on his fingers.
“Dobby.”
“The Mistress says Dobby is not to answer questions about her,” he fretted. “The Mistress says that if he tattles, he must knock his head very hard against the wall and be sorry.”
“That won’t happen. I won’t tell her you said anything.” Draco knelt and tipped up the elf’s chin. “It’s very important that you tell me. For her safety.”
This was the ticket. The faithful servant quailed in the face of danger to his mistress, and his lip quivered. “Twice,” he burst out. “Once on Halloween and once on the old master’s birthday, she is having these daydreams, when she runs and yells and takes her clothes off! And Dobby is chasing her, saying no, mistress, please, mistress, but she is not hearing Dobby! She is not listening! And sometimes, she speaks to Dobby, but she is ordering him to do the strangest things: ‘Clear the tennis courts,’ she says, or ‘Go fetch Mistress a peacock feather,’ only we are not having any tennis courts at this house, sir, and there are no peacocks around! And she is not calling me by my own elf-name, but ‘Kreacher’!”
He could take no more. Letting out a wail, he flung himself at the wall, and Draco had to snatch him up like a toddler to prevent him from slamming his head brutally against it.
“No! No, stop it!”
“Dobby is bad! Oh, Dobby is a very, very bad elf! Low, lying, deceitful, thankless…”
“Stop it! That’s an order.”
Dobby broke off as if someone had cut his vocal cords. Suddenly placid, he relaxed in Draco’s arms.
“You’re not a bad elf, don’t be stupid,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with authority. “You’ve done exactly as you were told.”
“I am a bad elf,” Dobby said matter-of-factly. “I am lying and betraying Mistress.”
“You’re not betraying her. Listen. I’m going to give you an order, and it’s very important. You must listen carefully and always follow it. If anyone gives you another order that contradicts it, you must follow this one, instead.”
“What is it?”
“If my mother does something that puts her life in danger,” he said slowly, “or hurts herself, you must do your best to protect her. But if you can’t, you run and get—”
Get me, he was about to say, but what could Draco do? He couldn’t apparate, and he could barely do magic. Even if he could get back to the Manor in time, he’d be less than useless.
“Get Snape,” he decided. “Run and get Severus Snape. He’ll know what to do.” He shook the elf. “Do you understand me?”
“I do, sir.”
“You must swear it. Swear it on… swear it on our house. Like wizards do.”
Dobby swelled with self-importance. It was unusual for a house-elf to be asked to swear or promise anything; the laws of their servitude bound them too tightly to make it necessary. “Dobby swears on the house of Malfoy,” he said. “He swears it by the land and the blood and the name of his young master, to whom he is a good and loyal elf.”
“Good. We won’t speak of this again. Now fetch my trunk, I’m going to be late for the train.”
The journey back to Hogwarts felt short, for he spent most of the time sleeping, and yet when he arrived, he still felt weary. The train arrived late, and he dragged himself up to Gryffindor Tower without a word to anybody, save Peeves, who received a heartfelt four-letter one.
Once term started, it became apparent to Draco the clever trick in which their professors had colluded: they had waited until after holidays to assign the nastiest homework, so the students couldn’t run home and tell their parents about it. He resented this as much as he respected it. Slogging through a thirteen-inch essay on the “quintessential similarities between a tea kettle and a piece of flash paper” for McGonagall, he resurfaced to find that he had spent four hours in the same corner of the library, and his right hand had cramped so badly he could barely feel his fingers.
When he returned to the common room, he found that Potter’s posse had colonized the good table by the window, and were musing over a carnage of ink and wasted paper. A low fire guttered in the grate, and endless rain pounded against the windows, turning the landscape to a silvery mush. It smelled of candles and woodsmoke, and the Weasley twins were teaching some second years to play Exploding Snap by the fire. Seamus Finnigan had put on the new muggle music he’d gotten for Christmas, so the Gryffindor commons was filled with some throaty-voiced fellow called Smiths yowling to ‘take me out tonight…’
Finnigan and Thomas were hopping together in the corner, holding hands and singing along.
“Er, one,” said Weasley, using his quill to clean his ear. “You can step on them.”
Potter nodded vigorously, scribbling. “That’s good. That’s good.”
“Two… you can throw them.”
“Dynamite. Keep going.”
“Three,” he said doubtfully, examining the quill, “you can… cover things with them…”
Granger sighed, lifting her head. “Oh, come on, both of you, she doesn’t want a list. The quintessential similarity between flash paper and a tea kettle is that both of them do their jobs through the application of heat.”
This had also been Draco’s answer, and it secretly relieved him that she thought so. He closed the portrait-hole behind him.
“Oi, Malfoy,” said Weasley, sitting up. “D’you hear about Snape?”
“What about him?”
“Percy just came through and told us,” Potter said, grinning. “He caught a cold over the hols. Can’t teach classes. We’ve got a substitute for two weeks!”
“A cold? Is he all right?”
Granger, hearing his worry, gave him a sympathetic look. He ignored her.
“I dunno. Cracking good luck for us, though,” Weasley sighed, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Bet he was going to give us loads of homework… serves him right for being such a git.”
“He’s a professor, Weasley, have some respect,” snapped Draco. “And what do you mean, he’s got a cold? Can’t Madam Pomfrey do anything about it?”
“Reckon she’s tried, mate,” Weasley said reasonably. “Sometimes you’ve got to sweat it out.”
“‘Sweat it out’? He’s one of the highest-ranking potioneers in the world. You know that, don’t you? He’s an actual, proper genius,” said Draco tightly. “What’s he sick with that he can’t cure?”
“The cure might take more than two weeks to brew,” Granger said reasonably.
He grunted in acknowledgement, though this was the first thing anyone had said to soothe his fears. “Is he taking visitors?”
“Visitors! Blimey, I didn’t ask. We got two Snape-free weeks! You don’t pull a gift unicorn on the horn.”
“Ron, don’t be insensitive,” Granger whispered. “Snape is Draco’s godfather.”
Weasley goggled.
“Godfather?”
“Yes, and even if you don’t like him—”
“‘You’ don’t like him? If ‘you’ don’t like him?! I’m sorry, didn’t he dock you five points for knowing the right answer?”
Draco winced. This was true, and it had been overkill. He hadn’t said anything, but he was fairly sure ‘failing to offer Miss Bulstrode a chance to raise her hand first’ wasn’t listed in the school handbook as grounds for citation.
“Even if ‘we’ don’t like him,” she admitted, “he’s still Draco’s family.”
“That explains so much,” said Weasley fervently.
Draco arched an eyebrow at him. “Such as?”
“Such as… I mean…” He gestured broadly at Draco’s person. “The whole… oh, you know…”
“I never drink… wine,” Potter muttered cryptically. Weasley knocked his head against Potter’s shoulder and buried a laugh in his elbow.
Generously ignoring this, Draco turned to Granger. “Did he say who was replacing him?”
“No, I don’t think so. You might ask Percy. Percy?” she called, and the redheaded prefect, who was reading the Prophet by the fireplace, looked up. “Did they say who was replacing Snape?”
“Quirrell, I think,” sniffed Percy. “At least for fourth years and below. For the N.E.W.T. level classes, they’re bringing somebody in, but it’s obviously hard to find at this point in the year…”
“Great,” said Draco sourly. “So we get the second-rate replacement.”
“One has to imagine staffing first-year Potions isn’t the first thing on Dumbledore’s mind,” Percy said. “After what happened on New Years’.”
“What do you mean?” said Granger.
“You didn’t hear? There was an attempted break-in.”
Draco stood at attention. “Where? When?”
“Oh, seven or eight o’clock, must have been. New Years’ Day. They herded us all into the common rooms and made us stay there until they’d secured the castle. I tried to get McGonagall to tell us what happened but they didn’t want to worry the students. Anyway, nothing was taken, but Dumbledore must be quite concerned. They’ve closed a whole corridor on the third-floor for the investigation.”
“The third floor?” Potter piped up, and the four of them exchanged glances. “Is that by the Charms classroom?”
“Why, yes, I suppose.”
“You mean…” Weasley coughed into his fist, and it sounded suspiciously like “the dog.”
“Use a hanky, Ron,” Percy said disgustedly. “And Malfoy, I assure you, Quirrell will be more than up to snuff. He once studied at the hands of Nicholas Flamel. And he was State Alchemist under the late Prime Minister of Romania.”
“Flamel?” Granger murmured to Draco.
“Famous alchemist,” Draco said, under his breath. “Bit of a niche celebrity in the Potions community. Of course, none of his discoveries have been corroborated or peer-reviewed, but—”
Percy rolled his eyes. “Oh, not this.”
“Allegedly, he succeeded in creating a Sorcerer’s Stone.”
Potter said, “Is that hard?”
Draco guffawed. “Is that hard? Is creating a rock that makes you immortal ‘hard’? I don’t know, Potter, how many of them do you have?”
“But he can’t be really immortal,” Granger said in alarm. “Immortality is impossible. Even through the use of magic.”
“Impossible to demonstrate,” Percy corrected, lifting his finger. “And the trouble, of course, is—”
“Once you go around yelling that you’ve made yourself immortal, the first thing everyone wants to do is kill you and take the thing that did it,” Weasley finished, yawning. “Plus, these things are all guesswork. It’s the Peverell Paradox. You can’t know if someone’s immortal or not unless they die, and if they die, they’re not immortal.”
Draco stared at him. “What?” Weasley said defensively. “It’s in Beedle the Bard. I read, too, you know.”
Granger, exchanging a subtle glance with Draco, indicated that this was news to both of them.
“Well, if anyone’s immortal, it’s Flamel,” said Draco. “He’s over six hundred. Oldest wizard alive.”
“He claims to be over six hundred,” Percy amended snidely.
“He’s got historical records.”
“What records? They didn’t have birth certificates in the fourteenth century.”
Draco couldn’t fathom Percy’s skepticism; personally, having grown up in a world full of flying broomsticks and literal dragons, he could tolerate the strain that one special rock put on his suspension of disbelief.
“Sorry,” interrupted Granger, “but you said the Sorcerer’s Stone could make you immortal?”
“Allegedly,” insisted Percy.
“And Dumbledore knows him? Flamel, you mean?”
“They co-authored Dumbledore’s star-making paper,” said Percy, obviously pleased to have the opportunity to discuss it. “I’ve read it, obviously, and it’s quite good. If anyone’s interested, it’s called—”
(“They’re not,” Weasley told him.)
“So Dumbledore would, theoretically, know how to make someone immortal,” she said. “If he wanted to.”
“Allegedly!”
Draco rubbed his temples. “I mean, sort-of,” he griped. “It’s not clear if the Stone would work for anyone except Flamel. When you boil it down, it’s just an enormously powerful alchemy stone, so it’s made for the personal use of the wizard who shapes it.”
“But if someone might come to the conclusion that it was worth the risk.”
“Course they might,” Weasley said blithely. “That’s why he’s in hiding. They recalled his Chocolate Frog card upon request a few years ago, because he was getting too much attention.”
“And so,” she said, haltingly, “if he wanted to prevent the Stone from being stolen, might he ask his close friend, Albus Dumbledore, to help him keep it somewhere safe?” She looked at Draco, then Weasley, then Potter. “Maybe somewhere safer than Gringotts?”
“Safe from whom?” Percy said skeptically. “I don’t think immortality sounds very appealing, personally. I dread to think what I’d look like in two hundred years.”
“Oh, I know,” said Potter suddenly, startling everyone. “What about Voldemort?”
Draco and Weasley both flinched so violently that the table bucked.
“Harry, mate, hasn’t anyone ever—”
“Keep that word out of your mouth—”
“—seriously dangerous, there’s a taboo—”
“—show even a modicum of respect—”
Potter raised both hands slowly.
“All right,” he said. “What about ‘You-Know-Who.’ Hey? Big evil bloke who wants to live forever? Killed my parents?” His tone dripped with sarcasm.
When an awkward silence fell, he added aggressively: “Well, he’d want it, wouldn’t he?”
“If he were alive,” said Draco, deeply uncomfortable. “But he’s dead, Potter. You of all people ought to remember.”
“That wasn’t proven, actually!” trilled Percy, delighted by the chance to provide yet another correction. “His body was never found! It was concluded that he died based on circumstantial evidence at the Potter home, and the fact that he disappeared immediately afterwards. But there were no witnesses, except… well.”
He trailed off, glancing sheepishly at Harry, who gave a sarcastic salute.
Granger exclaimed, “There you go. So Voldemort—”
“Don’t say it!” snapped Draco and Weasley at once, and it was hard to say who was more embarrassed.
“Oh, fine! The bad guy, you-know-what, whatever you call him, could still be alive. Theoretically.”
“Theoretically,” said Percy. He checked his watch and stood. “And the Americans could win the Quidditch World Cup next year. But you’d need all the magic in the world.”
NEXT CHAPTER: 9/8/22
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