Chapter 13: Yuletide
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
“Tell me again, Mister Malfoy, what you and Miss Granger were doing when you found him?”
It was late. The candles guttered low in McGonagall’s office, and two pieces of hair hung loose somewhat from her scalp-straining bun, suggesting that she had been indulging in some version of leisure before Filch hauled them in.
“We were getting some food,” blurted Hermione, ever incapable of leaving a teacher’s question unanswered. “We’d just come back from a walk around the grounds, and we were hungry. Percy said the kitchens were open to students.”
Draco marveled proudly at the dexterity with which she (1) lied, and (2) punted Percy Weasley unceremoniously under the bus. He could’ve done no better himself.
“And you were alone? Just the two of you, no other students?”
“No one. Ask the house-elves,” he assured McGonagall. “Spratt will remember us.”
McGonagall paced. “And you heard nothing, while you were in the kitchens? No disturbances? No sound of a fight?”
“It’s rather loud in the kitchens, professor,” Draco objected. “And the possibility of nonverbal magic—”
“I know.” She sank into her chair, massaging her temples. “My apologies. You understand the extraordinary worry that this has caused among the faculty.”
“Of course,” said Hermione. Her voice was wooden. “He was muggle-born, wasn’t he? Colin? That’s why he was attacked.”
Draco had known that, but he hadn’t remembered it until she brought it up.
“He was.” McGonagall’s tone, while far from soft, lost a fraction of its usual steel. “I assure you, Miss Granger, Hogwarts will do everything possible to ensure the safety of its muggle-born students.”
He couldn’t imagine this was a very comforting promise, considering what had just happened. Hermione didn’t seem assured either.
“In the meantime, we are concentrating on measures to secure the school. Curfew will be moved up to sunset; professors will escort students of all ages to and from their classes. You will be required to check in with a prefect at mealtimes—”
“That’s not fair!”
“Mister Malfoy, restrain yourself.”
He scowled.
“Other security measures will be taken,” she continued, “as we continue to investigate. I acknowledge that these are sacrifices. I apologize to both of you, on behalf of the school, and on my own behalf, for the fear and worry that has been inflicted on both of you tonight. If you would like to discuss these events at length, I would offer my office hours as a place to do so.”
A knock came at the door. McGonagall said, “That will be Filch. Mister Malfoy, he will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower. Miss Granger, if you would linger for a moment; I would like a word.”
Draco almost objected, but Hermione’s face was still white as a sheet. She glanced at him and nodded.
He decided not to raise a fuss. “See you tomorrow,” he muttered to Hermione, and slunk out of the office.
As he was shutting the door, he heard McGonagall murmur, “Have a biscuit, Granger.”
The new rules came down hard and fast. Ron complained loudly of how breakfast check-ins forced everyone to get up earlier. Percy Weasley planted himself on the grand staircase with a massive scroll, crossing off names, and editorializing whenever someone was late: “Safety is no laughing matter, Mister Jordan!” or “Spending a little too much time in the powder room, are we, Miss Patil?”
“Should’ve been a Slytherin,” Ron muttered one afternoon, when he and Draco were three minutes late to lunch. “Righteous git. Bet he’s glad this all happened — who cares if someone’s in the Hospital Wing, so long as he feels important?”
“He would’ve done quite well in Slytherin,” Draco agreed.
“Don’t say it like a compliment.”
They laid Creevey next to Thompson, and the Gryffindors took turns keeping him company. On Monday, Fred and George played a game of Exploding Snap at his bedside, pretending to let the immobile Creevey win; on Tuesday, Lavender and Parvati painted his nails, and fastened a friendship bracelet around his tiny wrist. On Wednesday, Seamus Finnigan somehow snuck in his boombox, and played him a new album called “Rage Against the Machine,” or as much of it as he could finish before Madam Pomfrey chased him out.
Besides these visits, one guest remained an erstwhile presence at Creevey’s side. A first year Hufflepuff named Justin Finch-Fletchley had parked himself by the bed and refused to leave. Evidence suggested he slept in his chair, and subsisted on whatever food Madam Pomfrey could force on him. When Harry and Draco visited later in the week, Finch-Fletchley was still there, reading aloud from The Standard Book of Spells.
“I don’t want him to get behind,” he explained, when Harry asked what he was doing. He had a low, dull voice, and Draco was reminded of how much louder Creevey had been when they’d met. “Mum says people in comas can hear what people are saying, sometimes, even if they can’t talk back.”
Draco was about to point out that even if Creevey could hear, listening to someone read a description of a spell he’d never cast wouldn’t help him with exams. But Harry, perhaps intuiting that his next remark would be along these lines, stepped on Draco’s foot, and said, “That’s really nice, Justin. Let us know if you need anything, yeah?”
“Okay,” said Finch-Fletchley dully, in the tone of someone who had heard this dozens, if not hundreds of times, and went back to his reading.
Ginny Weasley, who sat next to Creevey in Charms, had become agitated by the changes. She rallied some of the other pureblood and half-blood first years and traveled in a phalanx around the muggle-borns. Rarely did a muggle-born first year request to use the bathroom without Ginny or one of her friends springing up and begging to go, too.
Meanwhile, hidden from the teachers, a roaring trade in talismans, amulets, and other protective devices was sweeping the school. Neville Longbottom had taken to hanging a fat, odiferous green onion from the foot of his bed, and allowed a newt tail to rot on his bedside table, before the smell finally drove Percy to put his foot down and Vanished both with a judicious sweep of his wand.
“Neville, you’re a pureblood,” Hermione sighed, when Neville complained of the loss. “If anyone’s safe…”
“That’s no help. It’s muggle-borns first, but squibs next,” said Neville miserably. “That’s the way it always goes. I’ve read history books.”
He had been acting gloomy of late because his Potions score had dropped ten points on the last assignment, and despite Draco’s coaching, and he was once more within range of a failing grade.
In the second week of December, Professor McGonagall collected the names of those staying for Christmas. Harry and Ron signed up immediately, as did Fred, George, and Ginny (who sprang for a quill once she saw Harry’s name on the list). Draco and Hermione numbered among the few Gryffindors going home.
They trained down to London together, while the first snow descended on the countryside like a curtain of goose-down.
“What are you going to tell your muggles?”
She wanted to use her last few hours on the train to practice spells, and they were taking turns shooting sparks into the air.
“Verdimillious. I don’t know,” she said, as red constellations flowered on her wand-tip. “I know it’s bad of me, but I’m rather tempted not to. They’ll get worried, and they’ll want to keep me from going back, but they won’t really be able to do anything about it. Then I’ll have to reassure them, which is awfully hard… it might be easier not to say anything.”
She glanced at him furtively, as though she expected a reprimand, but he shrugged.
“Why don’t you?”
“Because they’re my parents?” she said slowly. “And lying is wrong? Usually?”
“Only if you get caught and it hurts someone. And in this case, it’s impossible for you to get caught, because your muggles will never know anything about Hogwarts that you don’t tell them.” He polished some soot from the tip of his wand. “Anyway, they can’t help. All they can do is keep you from going back, and then we’ll have to stage another extraction, like we did for Potter. Personally, I’d dodge the hassle and take the train.”
She smiled. “It’s true. I don’t think they’d like it if I got kidnapped by strange wizards in the middle of the night.”
“Who are you calling a strange wizard? Verdimillious.” His sparks leapt up in a profusion of lime green. “Plus, it’ll hardly make them feel better, will it? Knowing it’s their fault their daughter has it rough.”
She frowned. “It’s not their fault,” she corrected, sternly. “My parents aren’t the problem. It’s the people who hate them.”
He rolled his eyes. “Wizards are not the problem.”
“The person who paralyzed Colin wasn’t a muggle,” she reminded him. “Zero students have gone to the Hospital Wing because of muggles. Wizards, on the other hand…”
“It’s not that simp— look. Agree to disagree on this, Granger?”
“If you like, but you ought to know I’m right,” she said primly. “McGonagall says so.”
“And if McGonagall says so,” he muttered. But by then they were pulling up on King’s Cross.
The Manor was alight with music when he returned: his mother had enchanted the piano to play Christmas carols, and she and Dobby were decorating the tree when he came in. At the sight of him, his mother dropped the star she’d been levitating (Dobby apparated to catch it).
“Darling!” she exclaimed. “I missed you so much I nearly perished. Do you know, I wanted to write to you, but that beastly Severus didn’t come visit once, all term? No matter how I begged and begged! I mean to send him a Howler.”
“Things have been rather busy at Hogwarts, Mother. The professors have much more to do.”
She kissed his cheeks, and snuck a third onto his forehead before he swatted her away. “So I’ve heard,” she laughed. “What a silly business it all is! Dumbledore couldn’t be handling it worse.”
“I quite agree. Mother, it’s the most ludicrous thing, we’ve got to check in with prefects at meals.”
“Oh, horrid!”
“We can’t even leave the common room after dark, not even in groups.”
“What have they done to that school?” Narcissa sighed, smoothing one hand over her temple. A bit of glitter from the garlands clung to her fingertips and streaked her scalp, where he noticed a rim of gray hairs edging the black. “It’s enough to make one think about Durmstrang — not seriously, darling, don’t fret. I’m only making a point. Two students in the Hospital Wing, and the whole place falls to pieces… in my day… well, mudbloods had more serious things to worry about, I’ll leave it there.” She kissed him on the forehead, absent-minded, and said: “Now tell me everything you would have written me. Leave nothing out. Is it true they’ve stolen your rightful spot on the team and given it to Harry Potter?”
The Manor sparkled at Christmas, as it always did. In the drawing room, eight-foot candelabras of burnished brass wore stoles of silver and gold garlands, braided with emerald chains of greenery, and drooping fingers of mistletoe lurked from every eve. Red wool stockings, fat with presents, swung pendulous from the mantlepiece, and through the great bay windows, a constant gentleness of snow paraded past the windows, cloaking the ribbed fields in a gloss of white. At dawn on Christmas morning, Draco woke and ran down to the drawing room in time to see a family of reindeer tiptoe across the great lawn, leaving delicate constellations of hoofprints in the fresh snowfall.
Then his mother came down, yawning and rubbing her eyes, looking disheveled and dramatic in her black silk dressing-gown. She rang the breakfast bell, and soon platter after platter of French toast emerged from the kitchens, fat dark slices drooling syrup and coronated with powdered sugar, and spotted with bloody slices of caramelized strawberry. Draco ate two plates and begged off finishing the rest, and thought fondly of how Ron could have managed it without hesitation; and then he set to eviscerating the stack of presents under the fir tree, while his mother reclined on her chaise and sipped espresso.
Narcissa had given him a pair of dragon-hide gloves, scaled in green so dark it looked black. The lining was velvet and unicorn fur, and it was soft as anything. From Snape, he received a copy of Moste Potente Potions, the inscription of which read: For an aspiring potioneer. The rest of the book was covered in the same slanted longhand, comments scrawled thick in the margins and spilling over the footnotes.
“He’s given me a second-hand book,” Draco said, mildly outraged. He hadn’t expected a set of crystal gobstones, but his presents from Snape were usually much better than this.
“Surely not, darling.”
“He has, look. It’s full of scribbling. Practically useless, you can’t even read the recipes. And we don’t start on anything in this book until fourth year, anyway.”
Around ten, a pair of owls came fluttering up to the balcony doors, and Dobby let them in. One was Ulysses, a great horned owl approximately the size of a spaniel. The other was a much smaller barn owl, which went by the unfortunate callsign Thucydides, because its owner was a ridiculous witch. Both carried a package and a letter apiece, and joined forces to pester Draco until, grumbling, he fed them some crumbs of French toast; taking these, they roosted together on the mantelpiece, preening. Thucydides liked to bite Ulysses on the tail when she wanted something, and the fact that Ulysses tolerated this with the long-suffering hoot of the resigned, rather than attempting to annihilate her, showed the extent to which captivity at Hogwarts had broken his owl.
He’d sent Ulysses back to Hogwarts a few days ago. He’d carried a box of German chocolates filled with cherry liqueurs, some sweetmeats, and a deluxe package of special edition Chocolate Frogs, along with a note: Dear Mssrs. Potter and Weasley. Please find enclosed an opportunity to educate your palates. Sincerely, your generous benefactor, Mssr. Malfoy. (A postscript, scrawled in a different ink: Merry Christmas, or what have you. DM.
He hadn’t expected anything back; he’d meant it almost as a joke: Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I sent you a present? But when he opened Ulysses’ letter, he found it covered in familiar chicken-scratch.
Dear Mssr. Malfoy,
Please find enclosed an opportunity to pull your frankly enormous head out of your woeful arse.
_OK seriously though. Thanks very much for the chocolates & choc frog cards. We shared them with the other boys and everybody says thanks. Unprecedented levels of goodwill for Mssr. Malfoy currently running wild in Gryffindor Tower. Must correct soon. Return pronto! _
To be honest our present isn’t anything very good, but hopefully it’s better than nothing. Ron won them in a game of chess w/ Percy. I can’t wear them and Ron says they’re too posh for him.
_Hermione says you made up. Really glad to hear it. It would have sucked to pick a side, I hate it when friends fight. (Ron is reading over my shoulder & says I should make sure you know that part is just me talking and not him, and that he would not have any trouble picking a side and that it would be Hermione’s. The rest of the letter is both of us though.) _
Merry Christmas, dolt.
Love,
_Harry & Ron _
“What’s that, sweet one?” said Narcissa, sweet with false nonchalance.
“Letter from some people at school,” he said, tucking it safely into the breast pocket of his pajamas. No use leaving it around for her to snoop. He loved his mother, but he knew from the glint in her eyes that any scrap of information left unguarded would find its way into her possession.
“Oh, but how darling,” she cooed, as he snapped the twine on Harry and Ron’s package. “They sent you presents!”
“We’ll see,” he sniffed. “Knowing them, it might be rat droppings.”
She tittered. “When he started courting Bella, Rodolphus would send Christmas presents for the whole family. Andy and I both got bouquets of six white roses apiece, and I got a set of pearl earrings with gold thread. Hers were pearl and silver.”
Draco went still. They rarely, if ever, mentioned either of his mother’s sisters, albeit for very different reasons.
“And Bella got twenty red roses, and a diamond necklace worth six thousand galleons,” said Narcissa dreamily. “She made such a fuss when Mother wouldn’t let her wear it to Christmas dinner. Lord, how those women could fight! But then Rodolphus showed up that evening with fifty roses and a set of mother-of-pearl caviar spoons for Mother and Father, and Mother went sweet as a lamb…”
She faded, as if drifting back to earth, and broke off.
Draco cleared his throat. “I don’t think these blokes are trying to court me, Mum.”
“No? Their loss,” she said, coming back to herself. “They would be lucky to have you. What did they send?”
It was a set of round gold reading glasses, the sort that might hang by a chain from one’s waistcoat. One lens was red, the other blue. He put them on, doubtfully, and they sank down to the tip of his nose. Narcissa broke out giggling.
“Mother.”
“No, I like them! So stately and dignified. You look like Lucius.”
“Mother, please.”
“I swear it’s true.” She squinted through a pair of lenses made from thumb and forefinger. “He had these fishbowl spectacles for reading. He loathed them! I had to carry them in my purse at restaurants, because he wouldn’t bring them himself, but he’d not be able to read the menu otherwise.” Sadness tinged the edges of her laughter. “He’d give me that same scowl when I brought it up, too.”
Draco set the glasses aside. He hoped Percy didn’t need them to see.
He knew what Hermione’s gift was as soon as he shook the package: the rattle of a cassette deck made him grin. It was a tape called “Substance,” by a muggle group called New Order. Attached was a short note from Hermione, wishing him a Merry Christmas and thanking him for the book Social Sorcery: An Encyclopedia of British Wizarding Customs, by Nicodemus Scrimgeour.
“And that?” teased Narcissa. “More rat droppings?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, sticking the cassette into his pockets. “An inside joke, Mother.”
“I like inside jokes.”
“It wouldn’t be funny if I explained it.”
She sighed, pillowing her chin in her palm. “How soon they grow up and have secrets,” she said. “It was only yesterday my boy told me everything. Dobby, wasn’t it just yesterday?”
“Quite so,” squeaked Dobby, who was furtively trying to corral the strewn wrapping paper into a manageable pile for removal. “The young master is so tall now, and Dobby is always remembering when he was two and three, and shorter than Dobby!”
“Oh, yes. Do you remember that, Draco? You were always after Dobby to play trains.”
“Dobby was the blue conductor,” said Dobby proudly. “He was second-in-command of the whole railroad.”
“That’s enough. Both of you.”
“Dobby,” said Narcissa delightedly, sitting up, “do you still have the hat?”
“Mother. No.”
“Dobby knows for certain where it is, miss!” agreed the little traitor, slyly. “Dobby put it away with Master Draco’s baby clothes. Dobby can fetch it now, if she likes!”
He glared at his elf. “Et tu, Dobby?”
Dobby’s ears snapped back to his skull, and his eyes grew wide, evoking a very small, very sad basset hound. “Dobby would never try to embarrass Master Draco,” he said earnestly. “Dobby only wanted to reminisce about the small master, who was a little boy so recently, and who he misses so much…”
“I think that’s enough Christmas for today,” Draco announced, climbing to his feet. “I’m going flying. Don’t wait for me; if I don’t hurl myself from the roof, I should be back around noon.”
“My little dramaturg,” said Narcissa wistfully, beaming at him. “I always thought that you might make a great actor, in another life. I told Constance that you would do a splendid Coriolanus…”
A thump came at the window. Another owl alighted on the balcony, even bigger than Ulysses, with sabled feathers and talons the size of razors, between which dangled a small envelope sealed in red wax.
The bird gave a horrible, rattling cry, and Dobby hurried to let it in.
Narcissa took the letter from Dobby’s hands, but almost immediately handed it to Draco, who moved to sit with her on the chaise. “It’s for you,” she said, in a voice of queer formality.
He took it. It was addressed in curling, ornate green script, so thick he could barely read it:
The Most Noble and Most Ancient
_House of Malfoy _
Malfoy Manor
Wiltshire
The crest was a sword plunged through a hangman’s knot. Draco broke it and slipped out the card, which was a thick sheaf of cardstock, embossed in green and black.
Mr. Sibelius Nott
requests the honor of your presence at his annual
**YULE HUNT **
Tuesday, the 26th of December, 1992
At five o’clock in the evening
At his ancestral home of
**KNOTSCLIFF PEAK **
reception to follow
Narcissa read over his shoulder. “The Notts?” she said in surprise. “Or ‘Nott,’ rather, I suppose? That’s a small wonder.”
“Why?” Draco flipped over the card, which had an R.S.V.P. form, and the simple order: Come!, scrawled in a different hand from the rest of the card. He could guess whose it was.
“They haven’t thrown in some time. After the wife died, that house shut up like a lockbox. Not that they were ever at the heart of the scene to begin with… Sibelius Nott was an odd duck, I always thought.” Narcissa tucked her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat.
“Odd how?”
“Oh, I hesitate to say.”
“No, you don’t,” he said in amusement. She gave a tinkling laugh.
“Well, I wish I did! Gossip was always my vice, I could never help it. All right, I’ll tell you, since my cover’s blown. Governesses seemed to come and go very quickly in that household. If you get the idea.”
Draco wrinkled his nose. “Eugh,” he said. “Is that what you meant, ‘odd’? He’s a lecher?”
“Sort of. They were an arranged marriage, Sibelius and Cassandra — she was a Greengrass, if I’m not wrong, and I rarely am — and they married when she was seventeen. Sibelius was over fifty. It was almost unseemly; at the wedding, he looked like her father. Of course, it was a good match, and he was the family heir, but it wasn’t as if there were no bachelors her own age… you know, I, for one, always thought there was something going on between her and Rabastan? But at any rate, she gave birth the next year, and as far as anyone knows, they never shared a bed again.” She sniffed and lifted her espresso to her lips. “Some of those governesses left the house a lot rounder than they were when they came in.” She drank.
“How squalid.”
Her lips twitched. “Society was like that,” she said, “back in the day. We had a scandal with every meal. I think your father was one of the few who ever managed to keep his nose clean, and even then…”
“Mother, please.”
“Don’t be such a puritan, Draco. I was a modern woman, I understood the way of things. I wasn’t a saint at Hogwarts, either—”
“Dobby! Where are you? I need a glass of bleach at once!”
Narcissa cackled, and snatched him into an embrace. He squirmed like a chained octopus, but this served only to rumple his hair and his pajamas. His mother’s grip was unyielding. Finally, he went slack, like a fish falling limp on a hook, and resigned himself in beleaguered moaning to the cuddle assault.
“Do you want to go, then?” he said, once she’d freed him. “It seems rather an insult to refuse. But I don’t know. We might say we’ve a standing commitment, or something.”
Narcissa paused, and then said in delicate tones: “An invitation to a house is meant for its head, dear. What do you think?”
He read the invitation once more, frowning. “Is there a game here I’m not seeing?”
“Oh, almost certainly,” she said airily. “But that’s no reason to turn down a nice party.”
Knotscliff Peak, fulfilling the promise of its name, perched astride a white sheet of stone, ensconced by several hundred feet of air from a black froth of waves below. The side of the estate not facing the sea overlooked a dense skirt of forests, which ran from the house gates down several miles of unbroken woodland, and ensconced the house soundly from any neighbors. The power of the wind cresting the cliff’s edge could be gauged by the severe angle at which the first line of these trees peeled away from the house, as if reeling from a heavy blow. In response to the natural challenges of location, the architect had built it low, square, and strong, with stone washed dark by the perpetual fog, and from its belly three turrets impaled the hostile sky.
Theo met them at the gate. Draco, his stomach still queasy from side-along apparition, nevertheless stepped forward first to shake his hand, while his mother hung back.
“Welcome, Lord Malfoy,” Theo said, with a toothy smile of appraisal. “A pleasure to see you out of uniform.”
Draco wore an ash-gray three piece suit, with a tie striped in green and gold, and a fur-lined cloak of black mink. His mother’s dress, a high-collared evening gown, matched the green of his tie, and for jewelry, she wore only a gold hairpiece and her rings: wedding and signet. Sword and shield, he thought.
“Mister Nott,” he said pleasantly, and enjoyed how Theo’s face flickered with irritation. “Allow me to introduce my mother, Narcissa Black Malfoy.”
Theo bowed. “Mrs. Malfoy. An incomparable pleasure.”
Narcissa extended her hand. “Hello, Theodore. Draco’s spoken well of you.”
“My dear lady, you have charm enough without such lies,” he said solemnly, taking it.
“That’ll be a handshake, not a kiss, mind you,” Draco said sharply. Theo laughed.
“No, I’m on my best behavior tonight. I’ll not be seducing any widows, unless they seduce me first. Now, we’re having cocktails in the sitting room, and the hunters will set off in a quarter-hour; would either of you care for a saddle?”
Narcissa smoothed her skirts demurely. “No, thank you. My hunting days are quite behind me, and I’m not at all dressed for riding.”
“I’m certain we could find a habit for you, but I won’t badger. Draco? You could borrow my jodhpurs, we’re about the same size.” He looked Draco up and down. “Though on second thought, they’re perhaps a bit large.”
“Next year, perhaps,” Draco deadpanned, and for some reason that made Theo chuckle, too.
Inside, the sitting room bloomed red with firelight. From atop the gnarled stone mantle gazed a trifecta of deer’s heads, each one festively collared in a Christmas wreath, while oil paintings of giant stags and dark-haired wizards on horseback chased each other across the walls, shining muted in the firelight. Witches and wizards in glittering finery promenaded around the room, holding flutes of champagne and hors d’oeuvres harvested from the silver platters that orbited the room, levitating, like a celestial host. A floating orchestra, moved by the hands of an invisible virtuoso, rendered a selection from The Nutcracker.
There were a startling number of faces there. Brutus Travers stood at a table with Corban Yaxley. Sibelius Nott held court on a sofa in front of the fireplace, surrounded by the Parkinsons, the Goyles, and a pair of Rowles. With a start, Draco recognized the sallow profile of Severus Snape, lurking in the corner with Constance Crabbe and Pius Thicknesse, looking bored to the point of violence.
“Let me seat you,” Theo said courteously, leading Narcissa to a free armchair. “Can I offer you a drink? Champagne, firewhiskey?”
“If you force a glass down my throat, darling, I won’t stop you,” Narcissa said idly, settling her skirts. “But I warn you, I won’t respond to anything less than absolute force.”
“Back in a nonce, then,” said Theo, and with a wink at Draco, he was gone.
The woman beside her, a steel-haired witch whose nose strongly evoked a hawk, did a double-take when Narcissa sat down. Then she leaned in and clamped her bony fingers on Narcissa’s arm. “Narcissa Black, ” she screeched. “You homely, thankless wretch! How dare you!”
Draco surged forward, his hand moving to his wand, but before he touched it, something hard smacked his shin. He stumbled, cursing: Narcissa had kicked him.
“Aradia,” she said, turning to the other woman. “You starveling matchstick. All these years, and you still can’t afford a dress that flatters your hips.”
“If I’d married Lucius Malfoy, I’m sure I could have. Though apparently even his millions couldn’t buy his wife a tolerable personality!”
Draco made a noise of shock, but Narcissa merely tossed her hair and said blithely, “But it’s strange you say that, darling, because your beaux always tolerated me quite well.”
She smiled, all teeth, at the gray-haired woman. The woman’s scowl deepened, hardened — and then cracked open into a cheek-splitting beam.
“You deplorable bitch,” she said, and seizing Narcissa’s face, she kissed her cheek so hard it left a flush. Narcissa, laughing, returned kisses on both cheeks, and then they were wrapped so tightly around each other that their faces vanished into each other’s hair.
“…can’t believe you! I haven’t seen you for years—”
“—come to visit me ever, I should have you hanged—”
“—shut up in that big old house like a poltergeist—”
“—always did take an army to get you to answer an owl—”
Theo reappeared, holding two flutes of champagne. “Ah,” he said pleasantly. “Good. They’ve found each other.”
“Who’s that?” Draco demanded. His mother and the other woman had plunged into chatter so fast and furious that he feared losing a finger if he tried to intercede. “And why is she so…”
“Rude?” Theo handed one of the flutes to Draco, clinked it, and drank from the other. “Aradia Burke. Slytherin, Class of 1975.”
“I’ve never heard of her.”
“No, I suppose not,” Theo said mildly, steering Draco away. “She doesn’t come to these things often, she spends half the year in France. Never married, you see. Some people — not me, mind you, but some very scurrilous people I’d never claim to know — will tell you she’s a friend of Artemis. Wink, wink, et cetera. Fantastic witch, though. Hunts like a bloodhound, drinks like a fish. Would you like to see the kiddie table? We’ve made a home of it, Pansy and I.”
In a secluded corner, a sapphire sofa foamed with cushions, and Pansy Parkinson sprawled across it like a sensuously toppled box of hatpins. She wore a frilly pink dress which flattered precisely nothing, and was brutalizing a monstrous slice of chocolate cake.
“I am warning you now, Teddy,” she said, tonguing her fork, “if one more pimply brat asks me to dance, I shall rend my clothes and scream.”
“Forgive them,” Theo sighed, flopping down beside her. “Hypnotized by your beauty, they know not what they do.”
“Har de har. Why don’t you dance with me, if I’m so pretty?”
“I’m not half worthy of the honor,” said Theo, swiping a fingerful of frosting. “And I wouldn’t want to discourage the pimply brats. My good looks might afflict them with a jealous rage.”
Draco leaned against the wall. Pansy lifted an eyebrow at him. “Malfoy.”
“Parkinson.”
“I like your outfit,” she said.
“Thanks. I don’t like yours.”
She guffawed. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it?” she admitted, plucking a frill. “My mother picked it out. I wanted to wear pants.”
“Jealous wretches, mothers,” said Daphne, emerging at Draco’s elbow, wearing an unusually girlish pouf dress of red tartan. “You’d think they don’t want us to have any fun. Mum has Tori in gingham. Merlin wept. Hello, Draco. Smashing tie.”
“Thank you. My mother chose it.”
“Narcissa? Is she here?”
“Squirreled her off with Aradia,” said Theo, waving his hand. “We’ll have Draco for an hour or so.”
“More like a week,” said Pansy, spearing a rose of frosting with vim. “She cornered me earlier. If I hear the phrase ‘when I was your age’ one more time tonight, I swear…”
“You’ll rend your clothes and scream?” suggested Draco drily.
Daphne said, “You might as well, it can’t possibly make that dress any worse. Oh, Tori, there you are. You remember the name Draco Malfoy?”
The child squinting up from under Daphne’s arm was a copy of her in miniature: lovely and round-faced, with a sheaf of silken hair a few shades darker than Daphne’s. “Hullo,” she said shyly. “I’m Athtoria.” Her tongue slipped thickly over a pair of missing teeth.
“Tori’s seven,” said Daphne. “She’s going to be eight in three days. Aren’t you, Riri?”
“Two dayth and theventeen hourth,” said the girl proudly.
Theo kicked up his legs lazily. “And you haven’t a beau yet?” he demanded, looking at Astoria severely. “No courtiers? Almost eight, and no marriage prospects? Goodness, you’re practically a spinster.”
Astoria trembled with the rage of the unfairly treated. “Daphne’th never had a beau!” she cried. “And I don’t get to have one until thee doeth!”
“Well, Daphne’s a lost cause, obviously,” Theo said, gesturing at her. “I mean, look at her. What man could possibly bring himself to come home to that every night?”
Daphne gave him a smile and a lonely finger. “In fact I have had one,” she said sweetly, “so suck it, Nott. Tori, don’t tell Mummy, or I’ll turn Duchess into a spider.”
Astoria gave a cry of dismay, and clung to Draco’s leg. Draco looked down in disgruntlement.
“Remove yourself,” he told her. She did not.
Theo sat up straight. “You have not,” he said to Daphne, half in disbelief, half excitement.
“Have too.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” Pansy said, bored. “He only trailed her like a duckling all first year.”
“…Stefan? Stefan Petrovsky? That rat-faced one, with the mouth?” Theo gave a rude bark of laughter. “He got shipped up to Durmstrang for breaking that kid’s nose.”
Draco had heard something about that secondhand, from Harry; there had been an altercation in the stands during a Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin quidditch match, and a third-year Ravenclaw had “tripped” down two sets of bleachers.
He lifted an eyebrow at Daphne.
“Allegedly,” insisted Daphne.
“Did you kiss him?” demanded Theo.
“A lady never tells.”
“Yes, she did,” said Pansy, tossing her plate aside. “Twice. In the Astronomy Tower.”
“Rat! The moment you get a boyfriend, I’m telling your mother.”
“Do it, she’ll be thrilled. I wish I could go to Durmstrang,” Pansy sighed, abruptly changing the subject. “They’ve much better faculty. And they don’t make you take Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“Podmore isn’t so bad,” Daphne piped up. “His politics are rubbish, but he’s so dreamy you almost don’t care.”
“I hate him,” Pansy spat. “He’s horrible. I’d go to Durmstrang just to get away from him. At least there they wouldn’t — wouldn’t bully you around, like him.”
“Yeah, except for the corporal punishment, Pans,” said Theo, slinging his arm around the back of her seat. “One smack, and you’d be running back to Hogwarts.”
One of the adults broke away from the floor and stepped into their corner. He was thin, short, thin of muscle and hair, and wore an ascot of white-and-gold stripes. Looming behind Theo’s chair, he pressed his hand down on Theo’s shoulder, and Theo went stiff as a board.
“Theodore,” he said. His brogue was a thicker, colder version of Theo’s, like the same melody in a minor key. “Happy Yule. I hope your friends have yet to grow bored of your chatter.”
Daphne tittered, uncomfortably. She was the only one. Pansy had found something terribly fascinating in the crown molding.
“Thanks, Da,” said Theo flatly. “Happy happy. You remember Daph and Tori. Pans, obviously. Have you met Draco? He’s our token Gryffindor.”
They shook hands. “Forgive my son’s disrespect, I beg you,” Sibelius ordered, in such a way that it did not sound like begging at all. “He means well.”
“Slander. Libel,” said Theo dully, staring at his shoes. “No, one of those is written. Someone get him a cocktail napkin, then he can libel me.”
Sibelius squeezed his shoulder. “Haranguing is Theodore’s language of affection,” he said coldly. “Among the perennial joys of raising one’s children is to be so often reminded of one’s spouse.”
“Zing,” said Theo. “Aren’t you menfolk supposed to be hunting something? Leave the women and the children to our girlish devices.”
“I offered you a mount this year.”
“In fact he did,” said Theo, speaking to Draco. “But negotiations fell apart over the condition that I not embarrass him. It was simply too steep a price to pay.”
Sibelius’s fingernails were carving dents in the fabric of Theo’s tailcoat.
A bell rang, and the music stopped. The crowd in hunting gear migrated to the door, while the others followed in their wake, murmuring excitedly. Sibelius excused himself, and cut through the crowd to lead them out of the manor.
Draco cleared his throat, but Theo refused to meet his eyes.
“Well, that’s the hunt,” he said, slapping his knees. “Fancy watching?”
“Nothing better to do,” muttered Pansy, and that served to motivate the group. They rose and followed the crowd out to the great lawn, where a row of thoroughbred stallions snorted and clawed the turf, reined by struggling groomsmen. The hunters mounted these with varying degrees of success: while Garrett Goyle hauled his ample bulk astride the horse without difficulty, Brutus Travers flailed and toppled from the stirrup, and had to be boosted up by a pair of horsemen.
Sibelius Nott spurred his horse ahead of the others, and drew them all to attention with a piercing blast from a silver whistle. Lifting his wand, he shot a firework of green and silver sparks into the air, which exploded into the shape of a stag; the crowd cooed and applauded politely. Then he gave another short blast on the whistle, and with a bevy of cries, the riders charged from the lawn, and rode cheering into the forest.
The crowd whooped and jostled merrily. Draco found himself and Theo boxed in next to a pair of gentlemen who’d stayed behind.
“He’s getting stronger in the South, you know. There are new numbers coming out of Lancashire…”
“Let’s not inflate our expectations.” This was Corban Yaxley, a stern wizard in his late forties, with a buzzcut and a tendency to speak through his teeth.
“No, but these numbers! You wouldn’t have believed them, a year ago! I don’t know where all of Nott’s money is going, but I hope it stays there.”
“It’s because Fudge is getting steamrolled in the Wizengamot. He promised to have the MSA on the floor by December, but after Dumbledore’s editorial, the thing ground to a standstill…”
“Bless Dumbledore. Age-addled fool. I suppose he thinks it’s a great victory for deliberative democracy, when all he’s done is prove to the world that the Pops like to run their mouths and then sit on their thumbs…”
“Don’t underestimate him,” said Yaxley coldly. “Once Fudge and Asquith rally the block, the act will pass, and the polls will rebound. If that happens, Runcorn is dead in the water. And Nott will be, too.”
“Sibelius is no idiot. He never commits unless he sees a path to victory.”
“Sibelius is excitable,” intoned Yaxley, moving away. “He smells the winds of change, and goes rowing after them, instead of waiting for them to come fill his sails… excuse me, Orpheus. I promised a word to Prescott…”
Theo snapped his fingers in Draco’s face. “Word of warning,” he said. “I do love a good eavesdrop, but I’m reliably informed that it’s rude to stare.”
Draco swatted his hand away. “It was interesting,” he said irritably. “I haven’t heard anything about the election. They don’t talk about it much at school.”
Theo sighed, “Yaxley’s got the right of it on this one, I fear. My dad’s prone to get carried away. I just hope there’s some of my inheritance left once Fudge wins.”
Daphne appeared at their side, holding a glass of something pink and bubbly. “What’s happened to Theo’s inheritance?” she inquired. “If it’s gone, I have to leave, I can’t be seen with poors.”
Draco snorted. She grinned at him. “Hello,” she said. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh, I think, stoneface.”
“Maybe that’s the first time you’ve been funny.”
“No, he only laughs at the misfortune of others,” said Theo plaintively. “Like me, for instance, now my inheritance is going to Runcorn.”
“That is hilarious,” Daphne agreed. “Is Runcorn that fellow Daddy keeps prattling about?”
“Theo thinks he’s going to lose,” Draco said, searching the crowd for Yaxley. He and the other man seemed to have disappeared. Draco thought this was odd, and he wanted to keep listening to their conversation.
“Because he hasn’t got a chance.”
“What about Lockhart?” said Draco, remembering the conversation he’d overheard between Snape and Dumbledore.
“That joke?” Theo snorted. “He’s polling single-digits. Even Witch Weekly is too embarrassed to shill for him, anymore, and that tells you something.”
They floated through the crowd of bedazzled witches and wizards, as the winter sun slipped down over the sea. Torchlight flowered along the walls, and garlands of fairy lights gleamed to life in the hedges. Music resumed, and some danced, although Daphne made no attempt to coerce Theo nor Draco into a bout; her ankle was still wrapped in surgical tape, and she demurred that her father had quite forbidden all calisthenic activity.
“Which wouldn’t stop me for a moment,” she whispered to Draco, “if he weren’t about ten feet away and ready to jinx my legs together if I tried.”
Another round of hors’d’ouvres came floating out of the parlor, and they rescued Pansy from an encounter with an amorous thirteen-year-old from Romania, and then Draco (after much badgering) danced not one but two pavanes with her, to fully dissuade her suitor from his quest; this job being accomplished, he parked her at a table with Astoria and her mother, and excused himself to get a drink. On his way back, Draco saw Snape standing with Narcissa alone under one of the eaves, murmuring to each other in tones so low they verged conspiratorial, and Draco decided, somewhat spitefully, to interrupt them.
“Uncle Severus,” he called. He sauntered over with a fingerbowl of sparkling cider cocked in his fingers. “Happy Yule.”
Snape greeted him with a meager grunt.
“I received your Christmas present,” Draco continued, unfazed. “I must say, after last year’s, it was something of a letdown. Are you perhaps still cross with me for being late to class?”
Narcissa clucked her tongue. “Now, Draco—”
Snape’s mouth twitched. “I apologize for having disappointed you,” he said silkily. “And have you attempted to brew anything from that book?”
“Certainly not, I’ve been on holiday.”
“So you have judged it wanting without using it.”
“Not ‘wanting,’ but—”
Narcissa said, “Draco is very grateful for all your gifts, Severus. As am I. Now, Draco, I’m terribly parched; if you could fetch me some champagne?”
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” he said, indignant. “What are you two gossiping about over here, anyway?”
“Not at all, darling. In fact, nothing could make me happier than a good long chat between the three of us. Severus was just filling me in about all the exciting things happening at Hogwarts, and explaining some of Dumbledore’s decisions. It always helps to have the faculty perspective. Don’t you think, Severus?”
Draco could not discern from either of their expressions whether Narcissa had been lying. He didn’t get to ask, either, because someone cried, “Narcissa!”
They all turned. It was Brutus Travers, riding out of the forest at a full gallop, his hair mussed, his robe billowing behind him. His gray hair had tumbled free of its braid, and his wizened face blazed with excitement.
“Oh, good Lord,” Narcissa muttered, and Draco shot a surprised look at his mother.
“Narcissa! We’ve got it! We’ve got it!” He pointed around the house, toward the great lawn. “Garrett got it on the run, they’re herding it up the lawn for the final drive — come quickly, we’re going to bag it! Will you come to watch us?”
“In a moment, Brutus,” she called, fluttering her fingers at him.
“I’ve a seat for you! It’s near the front! It’s a very good seat! Will you come?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be there in a heartbeat, I really will.”
“Watch me, Narcissa!” he added, daringly. “It’ll be me or Garrett! We’re the fastest. You’ll want to be watching Garrett or me!”
“As if I needed the invitation,” she cooed, and with this reassurance, he wheeled his steed around to rejoin the others.
As soon as Brutus’s back was turned, Narcissa’s smile melted into a grimace. Snape chuckled to himself softly. This startled Draco even more than his mother’s sneer.
“Does he want children, do you think?” inquired Snape, leaning leonine against the wall. “Or would he be content with Draco?”
She gave him a distraught look. “Severus.”
“Why, Cissa, you must make haste. There is a very good seat waiting for you.”
He watched with fascination as his mother turned pale, then pink. “Don’t be blue,” she said primly, and stalked past with a snap of her skirts.
He turned to Snape when she was gone. “What did you mean?”
“I hear you have still been helping Longbottom in Potions,” said Snape suddenly, interrupting him.
Draco paused, confused. “…So what?”
“Have you?”
“Yes. He asked me to.”
“And what are you getting in return?”
He shuffled uncomfortably. “The confidence that he probably won’t blow up his cauldron while I’m sitting near it.”
Snape regarded him, calculating.
Again, seemingly at random, he said: “Granger is ordinarily your Potions partner.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
The question confused him. “Because she’s brilliant,” he said. “She’s the only Gryffindor who’s half decent at Potions, besides me. And she’s good at working with me. I mean, we have a system.”
Snape hummed in thought. Draco thought about it. He thought of how Hermione sucked her lip between her teeth when she puzzled over a question; he considered the deep knot of her brows, the ceaseless drumroll of her fingers on the nearest available surface, including, if available, his arm. Then he thought of how she tugged frantically on his sleeve when she found the answer, or hit his shoulder, or knocked his knee; how familiar the glow on her cheeks as she rushed to tell him, rich red and thrilling, brighter than a sunburst. It was almost impossible not to smile back at her, when that happened; it would be like a mirror choosing not to reflect light.
“And,” said Draco, finding that he couldn’t stop, “she’s clever about — little things. She thinks about why things work, she understands it. She can work around holes in the recipe, she can think around them. And she remembers everything. I mean, if you’ve never seen — the witch has a brain like a library. She reads something, and she never forgets it. It’s sickening. Arguing with her is like arguing with a wall. You can’t get anywhere. And she won’t stay quiet if she thinks you’re doing something wrong. She’ll tell you. Which is profoundly annoying—”
Snape said, “That’s enough.”
Draco shut his mouth quickly, embarrassed.
“You consider her your friend.”
“Yeah,” he said automatically. Then: “I mean, we just spend a lot of time together. It doesn’t… I mean, she is muggle-born, but there are worse things.”
Snape closed his eyes, and Draco tensed, wondering if he’d said something to upset his godfather. He’d never put his finger on where Snape landed politically; obviously, he ran with a certain crowd, but he didn’t come from any pureblood family that Draco knew.
“Be careful, Draco,” he said softly.
Draco’s brow furrowed. “Careful about what?”
Screaming erupted from the front pavilion. Draco instinctively started off for the front lawn, but realized after a few steps that his godfather had not joined him; when he looked over his shoulder, Snape was walking swiftly in the opposite direction.
When he reached the great lawn, the crowd had knit into a bustling mass near the treeline. The trees were trembling, and a chorus of shouts swelled from within the forest. As Draco watched, the trees broke apart, and a giant white stag erupted from their enclosure.
It was twice the size of a grown stallion, with antlers the size of scimitars, and a coat of shaggy white fur, matted with soot, earth, and blood. Arrows protruded from its back and peppered its flank. As it broke the tree line, it reared up on its back hooves with a mighty low of pain.
He scanned the crowd for his mother. He found her near the front, folded elegantly into a lawn chair, and fanning herself with a napkin. Another woman was talking to her, but she seemed distracted; her eyes flit frantically from face to face, and her nails drummed on her armrest. As the stag screeched, she screwed her eyes shut.
When she opened them, they were distant, glassy, fastened on something far away. Her mouth went slack.
Draco dropped his glass and ran.
He smacked into a wall of bodies and shoved his way through, spilling drinks and bowling over guests wherever he went. Several gave indignant shouts when he pushed through, but these were lost to the bellow of cheers that erupted when the hunters broke through the treeline, their hoofbeats thundering on the turf. Glass cracked, and something wet and sticky slipped down Draco’s neck, but he ignored it, pressed forward, threw an elbow, and squirmed back within sight of his mother.
One of the riders fired a green spell that missed the stag by a foot, and it let out a scream, galloping for the cliffs. A cry of dismay went up from the crowd, and they shot spells after it, crackling bursts of light that squealed and boomed like fireworks, scaring it away from the cliff’s edge. “TOO SOON!” roared Brutus. “Too soon! Bring it back this way! Wear it out! Closer, men, closer!”
Narcissa had stood up, on trembling feet, and was trying to escape the crowd. But it pressed closer, a wall of bodies, herding her towards the great lawn, where the stag was sprinting back toward the forest.
Draco seized her arm. She didn’t notice.
“Mother, are you all right?”
Narcissa whispered, “Lucius?”
“Mother, no, ” he said, panicking. They were in public; worse, they were in a crowded, formal setting, populated by most of the important people they would ever meet; if she had an episode, there would be no way to hide it. “It’s Draco. It’s 1992. What you’re seeing isn’t real.”
“Lucius?” She stared at him, unseeing. He gave up, and threw his arm around her, herding her away from the crowd.
“Come on. We’ve got to go.”
“Lucius, they’re going to kill it,” she said shrilly. “That poor innocent animal, they’re going to kill it.”
“I know, Mother. It’s tradition. Come this way.”
“It’s just a baby,” she said, and a tear slit the plane of her cheek. “It’s just a little baby animal, and they’re going to kill it.”
“That thing?” Draco glanced over his shoulder. The stag was a behemoth, and going by its horns, it’d been alive far longer than Draco had. “That’s no baby.”
“How could they be so cruel?” she demanded, ignoring him. “How can you bear it? Lucius, you have to stop them.”
“Okay, M– Narcissa. All right. After we get you out of here, I’ll go and stop them. How’s that.”
“Promise me? Promise you’ll save it?”
“I promise.”
She sagged against him suddenly, and he stumbled, going down on one knee in the grass.
“I knew you would,” she said dreamily. “And you did, too, didn’t you? You went and stopped them all… your father was furious, but you didn’t care. You said, I don’t care, it’s upsetting Cissa…”
“Please get up,” he begged. “Mother, people are going to see.”
“Draco?”
It was too late. They were halfway between the great lawn and the front gate, and Draco knew who it was.
He looked up into the stunned face of Theodore Nott. Behind him stood Daphne and Pansy.
His mother preempted him. “Lucius?” she said in a small voice, clinging to his sleeve.
Theo’s eyes flickered between Draco and Narcissa. The appraisal taking place behind them was swift and ruthless.
Draco pulled out his wand.
“Nott,” he said in a low voice.
Theo glanced down.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Draco.
“What a coincidence,” said Theo tonelessly. “I had the same thought.”
“If you stand aside, I won’t have to.”
“But if I don’t?”
The silence grew sharper than dragon fangs. He gripped his wand tightly.
“It’s my mother,” he said.
Theo pressed his lips together.
“Yeah,” he said, to no one in particular. “All right.”
Then he turned to Pansy and Daphne. “Either of you have a decent Muffling Charm?”
“We’re not allowed to use magic outside of school,” Pansy said immediately.
“It’s just the Trace, and there are about a million wizards here right now, you think the Ministry’ll notice if you cast a measly Muffliato? I say again: can either of you produce a Muffling Charm? For I cannot.”
“I can,” Daphne interrupted, drawing her wand. “And I don’t give a fig about the Trace, they can take me to court if they like. Daddy’s solicitors will make a snack out of them.”
“Good. Draw the boundaries from here to the pavilion, nice and big. Pansy, get the Lady Malfoy on her feet.”
Pansy whined, “But—”
“Pans,” said Theo. Something passed between them.
Wordlessly, Pansy stepped under Narcissa’s arm, and helped Draco drag her upright.
“This way,” Theo said, turning back to the house. “We’ll Floo you home. Dad keeps the powder in a hidden compartment under the grate. He uses it when he doesn’t want me to know he’s going out. He won’t notice if a pinch is gone.”
“Muffliato,” cried Daphne, and her wand cut an arc through the sky, leaving a queer ripple in the air. The cheers from the pavilion dulled as if submerged.
She turned, grinning. “I’ve never done magic outside of Hogwarts before,” she stage-whispered. “I feel naughty.”
“Nicely done,” Theo said admiringly. “This way.”
They carried Narcissa into the house and through the empty sitting room. Her head lolled on her neck, and the stray word slipped from her lips, but otherwise she was numb to the world. At the hearth, Theo pointed his wand at one of the bricks under the grate and said: “Reducto, ” and it exploded in a small crater of dust.
He plunged his hand into the remains and withdrew a small snuffbox of Floo powder. To Draco, almost apologetically, he said: “Dad uses a password to open it, but I don’t know what it is, and frankly, I’ve always wanted an excuse to use that spell.” He held out the snuffbox. “Bottoms up.”
Pansy, who had been struggling with all her might, leaned Narcissa against the mantelpiece. Daphne came hurrying after them, holding Narcissa’s cloak, and tucked it gently around her shoulders. She tucked a strand of hair behind Narcissa’s ear and said wistfully, “You’re so pretty. I hope we’ll meet properly someday, even if you are a raving nutter.”
“Andy, don’t be rude,” murmured Narcissa, her eyes rolling up. Daphne tut-tutted, fastened Narcissa’s cloak, and stepped back.
Draco took a handful of powder. He paused on the hearth.
“Thanks,” he said shortly. “You — you didn’t need to do this.”
There was much shuffling, pshaw-ing, and muttering of demurrals.
“Slytherins stick together,” said Theo. He looked Draco up and down. “Well. And honorary Slytherins, I suppose.”
“Honorary?” snorted Pansy. “Since when are we doing ‘honorary’? What’s this business about hall-pass Slytherins?”
“Have a heart, Parkinson, he’s a legacy admit.”
Draco was floored by a humiliation of gratitude.
“Piss off, you brats,” he said roughly. “If any of you think you can hold this over my head, you’ll regret it.”
“Draco Malfoy, you’re a remarkable fool,” Theo said. “Get the hell out of my house.”
He held out his hand. Draco shook it.
The Floo powder sizzled and turned the flames green. Narcissa leaned on his shoulder, her head pillowed on his collarbone.
“Malfoy Manor,” he called, and stepped into the fire.
NEXT CHAPTER: 10/9/22
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