CRESCENDO
Through the swamp of tears, Lucius is a blur of red, a hazy red monolith at the top of the stairs. He’s already dressed for the day in his cherry red Midsummer robes, like the rest of the guests will be for the party. Red, for sun and fire magic. Red for passion, for life, for the purest of magical blood. Draco’s mind catches on that, the absurdity of Lucius wearing his formal robes in the cellar. His are embroidered with flame designs and solar imagery. Draco has a matching set upstairs in his closet. How is it that he’s already dressed for the day? Isn’t he concerned about the grime, the dirt, the fucking prisoner?
Is this situation so beneath him, that he took the time to dress for the day?
Draco trembles, and his eyes burn as he tries to stop the tears. He’s so stupid. So stupid for calling Trinket. Of course Trinket would have been instructed to fetch Lucius, even with conflicting orders from a family member. Trinket is Lucius’s elf, not his. This is Lucius’s cellar, Lucius’s Manor.
Lucius’s prisoner.
Lucius makes his way slowly down the stairs, still holding both Draco and Theo’s wands. He slips them into a pocket in his robes. He stops in front of him and wipes at his wet cheekbones with his thumb. “It’s okay, Draco,” he says softly. “There’s no need to cry.”
He pulls him into a hug, runs his hand in circles over his back as Draco sobs into his shoulder. His robes are soft, and Draco’s muffled tears make a dark stain, maroon over his heart.
Lucius coos at him, tells him everything will be alright. And it’s hard not to believe him. His father loves him, doesn’t he? He’s always done what’s best for him. He’s always known what’s best. Always.
But huddled against the wall, Hermione’s mum still watches him silently, fear splattered across her face like blood. Father—Lucius— put her here. Lucius did that.
Draco pulls away, drawing a ragged breath. He stumbles backward. “I don’t understand. Why did you take her?”
Hermione’s mum flinches when Lucius turns his head to her. His lips stretch into a consoling smile. “It’s alright, Draco. No need to fuss.”
He twitches his wand and Hermione’s mum wails, dragged forcefully back to the corner with the shackles. They rise up and clamp themselves around her wrists. Another twitch of his wand and her voice is abruptly silenced.
Lucius takes Draco’s elbow and gently leads him—and Draco can do nothing but follow mutely, dumbly, at Lucius’s side—until they’re standing over her. “This is a muggle, Draco,” he says gently, still gripping Draco’s arm. “It doesn’t have a soul. It’s no better than an animal.”
Draco shakes his head, but he can’t bring himself to verbally disagree. The words are swollen, lodged beneath his Adam's apple. He can’t force them up, or else he’ll choke on them.
“Do you know why I took this muggle, Draco?”
Draco shakes his head. He can feel the tears reappearing, as if summoned by an aguamenti from someone else’s wand.
“You decided to dabble in the ancient arts when you had no business doing so. The ancient arts are your birthright, but you were foolish to try to teach yourself. You wanted to learn dark magic Draco? I can teach you.” He leans closer, pulling Draco tightly by the arm. “ Crucio her. Reach inside, feel your hate, your wand, you twist like this—” He twists his own wand, demonstrating. “ Crucio ,” he says, and a jagged beam of cherry red light engulfs Hermione’s mum.
Her eyes roll back into her head, and her back arches at an unnatural angle. Her mouth is thrown wide, like she’s screaming, but she’s silent, as Lucius is still in possession of her stolen voice. She writhes on the ground, her body twitching involuntarily in disjointed, frenzied movements. Draco stumbles as he watches, and Lucius breaks the curse to steady him.
Draco shakes his head. Her eyes are so green, so clear, as she comes out of the curse.
“Draco,” Lucius says. “This is what you wanted to learn.”
“No,” gasps Draco. “No—not—not this, please.”
“Draco, you decided you were grown enough to learn the ancient arts. You used them without any regard to the consequences.”
“No, please, Father.”
He shoves Draco’s wand into his hand. The familiar buzz of magic tingles in his fingertips.
He could try to stun Lucius again. He could try to disarm him? He could try to do something. He has a wand. A wand. He’s a wizard. A wizard .
“Son.” Lucius’s voice is silken. “Do as I say.”
“But—but what about the shield, the Eidolon ?”
But fighting Lucius is surely impossible. Draco doesn’t know any nonverbal spells. He can’t—
“You can’t take the Eidolon before you understand the gravity of the magic it protects you from.”
“I’ve—I already know, please, with Rowle, surely—”
“And I’ve already explained to you why that doesn’t count.”
Last week in his office, Lucius had chastised Draco.
“You said that curse imprinted on my soul—that it will only escalate. You think cursing Granger's mother will correct it.”
“Something like that,” he chuckles.
This is insane. Surely Lucius doesn’t actually believe that? And hadn’t Hermione’s mum just said that he was lying?
Your father doesn’t want you to have choices, Draco. He wants to control you.
It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense .
“She hasn’t done anything to deserve—”
The room lights again with that cherry red light as Lucius casts another Cruciatus Curse.
“ It’s a muggle. It doesn’t deserve anything at all.” He speaks through bared, white teeth as his curse ravishes her, as she gasps silently, weeps silently, thrashes on the ground silently. “The sooner you master this, the sooner the muggle can leave, Draco.”
She can leave? She can leave if he curses her? She can actually leave?
“I can’t.”
He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.
The curse ends and her body thuds limply. There’s a gash on her forehead where she must have hit her head. Her mouth is bloody as well. Did she bite through her tongue?
“ Draco .”
“I can’t.”
“The muggle is just here for your lesson, nothing more. You wanted this, son. The sooner you pass, the sooner the muggle can leave.”
Draco raises his wand. It’s shaking, trembling in his sweaty grip.
“I promise if you pass this test, the muggle can go.”
Lucius moves behind Draco and places his hands on his shoulders. Hermione’s mum pulls herself up slowly to her knees. She can’t stand due to the chains, but sits as high as she can, somehow still holding herself with dignity, somehow holding her body up on shaky limbs, limbs that still twitch with the tremors of the aftereffects of the Cruciatus. She looks so much like Hermione, just older, with lighter skin and lighter, smoother hair. And that defiant jut of her chin. The fierce determination in her eyes.
She shakes her head at him, the slightest pivot left and right.
He grips his wand tighter. His hand is so sweaty.
An emotion flashes across her face. Is it fear? Apprehension? Pity? Draco can’t tell anymore. His chest is so tight, so tight he can barely breathe. Lucius’s hands are still on Draco’s shoulders, supporting him? Or are they dragging him down? The pressure is unbearable, like a python squeezing the life from his body.
“ Draco .”
She can leave if he does this. She can leave. When has his father ever lied to him in the past?
She can leave if he does this.
“ Crucio .”
Cherry red light engulfs her, but she doesn’t fall. Her eyes pinch shut, but she’s still there, stalk-straight on her knees in front of him.
“Good, Draco. But you have to mean it.”
He’s empty. Empty, like conjured animals before their spelled lives end.
“Again.”
“ Crucio .”
Again the spell falls short. She barely winces.
She can leave if he does this. She can leave.
“ Crucio .”
He tries again and again, but she still kneels in front of him with those bottomless green eyes. His chest feels warm, cracked open, and there’s fire licking up his spine. His temples throb. He knows implicitly that the pain will go away if he can get the curse right. Everything will feel better if he can only get the curse right.
“Crucio—crucio—crucio—”
“That’s enough,” Lucius finally says.
“No! Please, I can—“
“You’ve failed, Draco. It’s almost dawn.”
“But what happens to Gr—to the muggle?”
“She dies, Draco. Go get dressed. Trinket!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay with Draco, make sure he doesn’t try the floo.”
***
She dies.
She dies, Draco.
S h e d i e s , D r a c o
After everything, she dies? His father, who loves him, would kill her? To prove a point? To prove what, though? To prove what ?
His father, whom he trusts, whom he trusts, whom he trusts.
His father, dressed in cherry red and with his cherry red spell—Draco’s hand, bathed in cherry red light, as the seconds pass quicker than real time— quicker than real time —as he says the magic word, and the magic word doesn't work .
Magic, which is supposed to be this beautiful thing, this powerful force like love or beauty—And would it have been better if the magic word had worked?
Would it have been better if she had been freed, only to tell her daughter what a vile and repugnant world he belongs to—what a foul and sickening person he is?
In all the holy heavens, dear spirits above, on Salazar’s ancient, hateful grave, he had tried to crucio Hermione’s mother.
He had tried to—
And now she dies?
***
Draco says nothing as Trinket wrenches him away and up the stairs. In his room, Trinket presents him with his cherry red, Midsummer robes. Draco pulls them on numbly, the hole in his chest pulsing painfully.
“Young Master is a good boy,” Trinket keeps saying. “Such a good boy.”
“Isn’t the party later?” Draco mumbles. “Can’t I go to bed, now? Please.”
“No, Young Master, you must be ready now. Master Crabbe will be here soon.”
“Vince? And his father? Trinket, what’s going on? What’s happening?”
“Master Lucius will explain. Come now, Trinket will take you.”
Trinket leads him by the hand, through the house and out the great, iron doors to the Manor gates, where Lucius waits, one hand holding the chain Hermione’s mum is bound to. She’s barefoot on the white gravel, and Draco can see that her feet are clearly bleeding from the walk down the drive. Lucius doesn’t seem to care. He checks his timepiece and sighs. The grey sky slowly lights with the oncoming dawn. The sun has yet to crest the horizon.
“Draco, what do you know about your friend, Crabbe’s boy?”
Draco shakes his head, unable—unwilling to respond.
“As luck would have it, I’ve a purpose for the muggle, since you weren't able to free it.” He pulls on her chain, and she stumbles forward, catching herself with her hands on the white gravel. Lucius’s lips twitch. “Crabbe has expressed interest in the Eidolon for his son, whom I understand is pitifully close to a squib.”
Vince is taking the Eidolon ? Vince??
“Doesn’t he need to understand the gravity of the magic it protects from first, Father?”
Lucius sneers. “What I expect from my son and what Crabbe expects from his are wildly different prerogatives. Crabbe doesn’t understand the nuance of the magic involved. He’s a creature of brute force, and he sees the Eidolon as a quick fix to a simple problem, when in reality, the problem and the solution are far from simple. And I’m always happy to provide favors for my peers.
“Listen to me Draco—look at me, son, not this filthy muggle—this is a good lesson for you. If it’s in your capacity to provide a service or a solution for someone, you should always do so. As a Malfoy, you never ask for favors, you cash them in. You take what’s owed to you.”
Crack .
Crabbe appears outside the gates with Vince at his side, both in red, midsummer robes. Crabbe looks much like Vince, just thicker and taller. He has the same thick, chestnut hair and burly frame, the same crease between his eyes. Vince can’t tear his eyes away from the muggle. It’s possible that he greets Draco, maybe he tries to shake his hand, Draco can’t say for sure. The world is a blur around him, and Draco is barely keeping it together.
They apparate to Stonehenge. It’s only a couple kilometers away. It's already swarmed with muggles by the time they arrive. Draco has never seen so many muggles in his life. Some of them wear Beltane flower crowns and elaborate cosmetics, even the men. Some of them wear red clothing too. Draco fixates on a group of women in long, red dresses with red roses in their hair. They could be witches. They’re dressed like witches, celebrating a holiday that witches celebrate. Draco wants to scream at them to run, run far away.
He doesn’t.
Lucius walks among the crowd, confounding, obliviating, and setting muggle repelling charms. It’s sickening how quickly he’s able to clear them. How easily he can do it. How powerful he is with magic on his side.
It strikes Draco suddenly how unfair it is that Lucius can do this, that magical people can so easily exert their will on others. How stupid those witch hunt stories are that he grew up on. There’s over a hundred muggles here. If they were armed with just vengeance and pitchforks, there’s no way they could overpower even a single wizard. Even with their modern technology, their power is nothing against a capable magician.
Like a lumos in a dark room, a name flashes in his mind. Wendelin the Weird, a wizard Binns mentioned once, enjoyed being caught by muggles. He was burnt at the stake something like fifty times. He escaped every time, easily.
A photograph flutters in his vision: Granger, with her arms spread wide, flurries of snow catching in her bushy hair and her dark eyelashes. Chase after me with a stake and burn me alive too, why don’t you?
He had called her ignorant and arrogant. He had called her a bitch.
Lucius leads their group to the middle of Stonehenge, saying something about Merlin, or magic, or history—something for Crabbe and Vince’s benefit, but Draco can’t focus on the words. The feeling of magic is overwhelming within the circle, even the muggles must feel it. Maybe that’s why they’ve flocked here.
Lucius instructs Vince to stand barefoot at the center, between three smaller stones, so Vince pulls off his boots and socks and places them a few meters away before returning to stand where instructed. At the horizon, the sun peeks through the eastern structure. Crabbe curses, seemingly worried about time.
A sneer and a hand wave from Lucius, and Crabbe deflates. He then procures a bag from his robes. He tips it, and a white, powdery substance pours out. Lucius twirls his wand, and the white powder follows his wand-tip. He begins writing runes in the air with his wand, the powder following his wand’s path. After he’s finished, there are seven white-powder runes hovering in the air at chest height. They surround Vince. Lucius twitches his wand, and they begin slowly moving in a circle, with Vince at their center.
Vince is as white as the powdery runes, and he looks like he’s about to be sick.
“Strength of will is required if you want to survive this ritual,” Lucius says, glancing not at Vince, but at Crabbe. “This is your last chance to back out.”
“He’s fine,” Crabbe growls. “Get on with it.”
“When the spirit latches onto you, it will fight you for dominance. You have to gain control, it’s imperative for your survival.”
Vince’s throat bobs. He nods.
Lucius raises his wand and takes a deep breath, only to be cut off before he can begin.
“Malfoy,” Crabbe interjects, “what about the mandala?”
Crabbe’s right. There should be a mandala. All of the spirit rituals that Draco has seen Lucius perform have included a mandala. A mandala is necessary to contain and control a spirit. This is what he’s always been told.
Lucius scoffs. “Today we’re working with the strongest mandala in England. Merlin himself constructed Stonehenge.”
Crabbe grunts, and Lucius raises his wand again, poised to begin the ritual.
“Water,” Lucius says, “is first—”
“No,” Vince says. “No–I picked earth, the element I’m most attuned to, you said—”
“Yes, yes, boy,” Lucius rolls his neck. “The water is to first cleans and protect before we summon your earth spirit.”
He twirls his wand, and a wave of water condenses from the air. It surges from in front of Lucius, over the runes, and crests several meters above Vince’s head, pouring down over him, drenching him head to foot.
Beyond the stone monoliths, muggles still mill about looking dazed and in every direction except inside the circle.
Lucius hands Hermione’s mum’s chain to Draco. The metal is cold in his hands. If only the muggles surrounding Stonehenge could look past the repelling charm and see. He needs help. If only he knew how to apparate. If only he could take her and run.
Lucius begins singing, chanting in a low, musical tone, right as the sun breaks free of the horizon. It shines from between the stones of the easternmost arch. The downpour continues over Vince, and the sun’s rays catch in the spay, making rainbows in the misty edges of the wave; the runes keep circling him clockwise, faster and faster, blurring in Draco’s vision. The patch of earth right outside the stone circle swells like boiling water. Domes of earth constrict and expand, growing larger then smaller, prying at the surface, undulating, like something below is trying to break free. There must be at least a dozen of them. They swarm the surface of the earth, grassy knots, grassy bubbles, swelling—swelling, then bursting. And from each burst bubble, the earth reaches up in a vibrant, green, mossy figure.
They’re headless, humanoid figures with crumbling soil, stocky legs, and arms like waterfalls of earth. Like geysers, their bodies constantly crumble away, constantly draw new soil from the ground. Their torsos are cloaked in vegetation: clover, vine, moss. They circle counter-clockwise outside Stonehenge as Lucius sings, as the white runes swirl around Vince, as the wave continues its downpour.
The white runes begin glowing, first they’re soft like moonlight, then as Lucius’s chanting continues, they burn brighter like the sun. They burst into red flames, cherry red flames, blazing so hot that Draco can feel their warmth against his skin.
“Draco,” he hears beside him. The silencing charm on Hermione’s mum must have faltered with Lucius’s concentration on the ritual. She’s on her hands and knees on the grass. Draco drops down next to her.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m so sorry–so sorry.”
“Shh, Draco,” she whispers, glancing at Crabbe, then Lucius. They’re not paying attention, they’re both too enraptured by the ritual. “It’s okay. You did what you could.”
“No, I–I could have—I’m so sorry—”
“Draco, there’s no time for that. He’s going to–to kill me. I need you to tell my daughter that I love her, okay? Tell her I didn’t choose to leave. Can you do that, please?”
“I–yes, yes I can tell her.”
“Good, tell her that I’m sorry, that I—I wish I could have been better. Tell her—”
“Draco!” Lucius has stopped chanting—he’s in front of him now.
The earth spirits are weaving through the stone monoliths, converging on Vince. They circle him counter-clockwise, held back by the flaming, red runes.
Lucius grabs her chain and then thrusts a white knife into Draco’s hands. It looks ancient and like it’s made of bone. He grabs Hermione’s mum by the hair, forcing her rigidly straight on her knees, her chin up high, so her neck is exposed. “When I tell you to, you will stab her in the jugular, do you understand?”
Draco shakes his head. “No, no—I can’t.”
Hermione’s mum’s face contorts. “Hail Mary,” she gasps, “full of grace, the Lord is with thee—”
“Your God can’t help you here, muggle,” Lucius spits.
One spirit lunges forward, passing through the flaming circle, but it crumbles immediately under the pressure of the wave, washing out and away in a surge of mud and moss. Another spirit rolls forward past the runes, but this one, too, is washed away. Another and another, they pull forward, then are swept away with the deluge of water. Vince, at their center, is frozen with fear.
“—Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus—”
Another spirit passes the rune barrier, but this one isn’t washed away. It cakes itself around Vince’s bare feet. Losing its humanoid shape, it envelops his ankles, his calves, his thighs. It shrouds his body, climbing higher, higher—to his navel, his heart, his throat. The earth cloaks him completely, covering him with earth and moss, covering his mouth. No, not covering—plunging into his mouth. Dirt forces its way past his teeth, down his throat—He’s choking, coughing, but still, the spirit engulfs him, forces itself into him—
“Now, Draco!” Lucius shouts.
“—Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners—”
He can’t. Draco can’t kill this woman. He can’t do it. He won’t.
“Draco, now! Kill her!”
“—Now,” she cries, “now and at the hour of our death—“
Vince’s bloodshot eyes are darting between Draco and Lucius. A vein pulses on his forehead. The knife slips in Draco’s fingers.
“Now! Or your friend will die. The ritual requires a life. It will take his. He’ll be buried alive! He’ll die, Draco!”
“—glory be to the Father—“
Vince is shrouded completely with earth now, his eyes have disappeared beneath the torrent of dirt and mud. He’s stopped coughing. He’s stopped breathing.
“I can’t! I can’t—don’t make me!”
“Malfoy!” Crabbe screeches. “My son! You’re killing my son!”
“—and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit—“
“Enough!” Lucius snatches the knife away from Draco.
“—Amen—”
Lucius plunges the knife into her neck, ripping forcefully, severing her tendons and her arteries. She makes an awful gurgling noise as blood spills in a river down her body, out of the gash in her throat, out of her open mouth. She’s looking at Draco with her wild green eyes.
The flesh in her throat is loose and slippery. Her head is almost completely severed. Her body hangs by bone and sinew attached so precariously to her head, which Lucius still holds back by her hair.
And the knife comes down again, plunging into her heart. He buries it to the hilt, and blood is spurting, gushing, as he yanks it free. It sprays on Draco’s face, hot. His mouth is wide from shock, and oh Merlin, he can taste her blood. It’s in his mouth. On his face, his robes, his hands.
Lucius’s hand is gloved red with her blood.
She’s looking at Draco with her still, glassy, green eyes.
Dead, she’s dead.
Dead .
Her body falls in a slump to the ground. Her blood soaks into the grass, into the earth. Vince gasps. The shroud of dirt and mud washes down and off his body. Lucius flicks his wand and the wave crashes down and dissipates. The rest of the spirits—there’s only a few left—melt down, rejoining the earth, until no trace of them is left.
Draco thinks he may be crying again, he’s gasping, he’s choking.
“No, no, no—”
Her blood covers Lucius’s hands. It’s splattered across Draco’s body—he was kneeling so close to her—splattered like paint, red, so red on the grass—there’s so much red. Cherry red—
Her body is sinking into the earth, the grass is rippling around her, like she’s a rock thrown into a pond. Draco lunges forward, grabbing at her body, trying to keep her from disappearing beneath the ground. She’s slipping out of his hands—she’s so slick with blood—and her head lolls back and all he can see is that gaping red maw of her neck. Her hair, plastered red against her neck—Lucius pulls him off her.
“Stop, son. The earth must take her.”
“No, no—”
“Draco–” Lucius’s face swims into Draco’s vision. His hands are at his biceps, holding him up and away from the corpse. “Draco, she’s just a muggle. I know this is hard. But it’s better you learn this lesson now. It’s just a muggle. An animal. We use animals all the time in magic. Do you cry for the murlaps when we harvest their skin or the newts when we mince their tails? The sloths when we grind their brains? You don’t think twice when you use them for potions. It’s the same with muggles. There’s nothing wrong with killing a muggle. It doesn’t matter. It’s hard when they wear our faces and look so similar to us, but they’re not. They’re not us, Draco. Do you understand? This is important, Draco. Tell me you understand.”
The blood is smeared on Draco’s red robes, dripping down where Lucius grasps him. They’re both covered in it. Her blood. Her body is still sinking into the ground. On the surface, all that’s left is her face. Her glassy eyes, staring blankly at the sky. Then those too, are covered in dirt and grass, and she’s gone.
“Tell me you understand, Draco.”
Draco nods stiffly. He understands, but he’ll never agree. He refuses.
“Good. I’m proud of you, son. Today was hard, but you needed to learn. You should rest. You must be tired. Your mother’s guests won’t be here until the afternoon.”
Draco nods again, and Lucius pulls him into a stiff embrace.
Vince approaches, leaning heavily on Crabbe’s shoulder.
“I’m taking my son home,” Crabbe grunts. “Can you handle the clean up, Malfoy?”
“Go.” Lucius shakes Crabbe’s hand. “He needs rest. Take him home.”
With a crack, they disappear.
“Trinket.”
The elf appears. He glances around warily, his eyes cutting between the stone monoliths before fixating on the patch of ground Hermione’s mum sunk into.
“Take Draco home. I need to stay and deal with the rest of the muggles.”
Trinket nods. He snaps his fingers, and the blood and grime disappear from both wizard’s robes. He takes Draco’s hand, and then Draco is pulled into nothing as Trinket apparates them away.