Dragons, Phoenixes, and Faeries
Narcissa is waiting in his room when he returns. She’s sitting on the side of his bed, twisting hands clasped in her lap, head bent so low that her long hair covers her face in streaks of black and platnium-white. She’s wearing cherry red Midsummer robes made with rose patterned silk fabric.
“My dragon.” She rises, and her footsteps are soft on the thick cream carpet. Her brow furrows as she moulds her hands around his, pressing a vial into his palm. He looks away from her. Studying the cream wallpaper, the gold-foiled panels on his wall. The cold vial against his skin.
Dreamless sleep.
“You should rest before the party.” She squeezes faintly at his hands, a silent plea to meet her eyes. “You must be so tired, Draco.”
He can’t look into her eyes. He trusted her. He—
Focus on the beating of your heart. Count down from ten.
The memory of her words mock him. Why is it her voice that he has to hear in his head when he needs occlumency?
He hasn’t slept in so long. It would be a blessing to sleep.
He pulls away from her, a halting, jittery step back. “You could have saved her.”
She steps forward, trying to grab his hand again. He won’t let her. He doesn’t want to touch her. Her words come out so softly, he has to strain to hear. He doesn’t want to strain to hear. He doesn’t want to hear her excuses. But the urge to let her explain herself—the urge to trust that she has a reason, any reason, please, please let there be a reason—prevails.
“It was just a muggle.” Her hands are at her heart now, clutching that space above her chest, that same space where Lucius drove his knife into Hermione’s mum. “It’s hard, when they look so much like us, Draco. But it was just a muggle.”
He chances a glance at her face. Her eyes are vacant.
He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. He trusted her. He wants to accuse her of his misplaced trust, but he can’t force his mouth to form the words. The moment lingers on in silence, tension lingering in the air. She says something else, but Draco can’t hear her words over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. With a swish of those cherry red robes, the door shuts, and he’s alone.
She’s left him alone. So utterly alone.
He’s shaking. He’s trembling as he squeezes the vial in his hand, and then he lets it fly. It arcs across his room and crashes into the wall, shattering. It leaves a dark stain against the wallpaper and the room fills with its peppermint scent.
The smell makes him gag. It’s too much, a sensory overload.
He falls to his knees, and shards of glass bite into his flesh. He takes a savage delight in the pain—it forces him into the present, away from the Eidolon, from his parents, from himself. He’s tired, but he doesn’t deserve the blessings of sleep. And besides, he doesn’t need sleep. He needs occlumency. He needs that cool void of nothingness to block out his mind, where ‘Draco’ is a just boy he can observe from afar. Where all that exists is white space, the sound of even breathing, the sound of a heartbeat—and it sounds like thunder, like spring rain on a closed window pane, rhythmic and melodic. Where all that exists is the sound of the universe, and it’s a song that can whisk him away from himself.
Imagine a trunk. Inside, envelopes filled with your memories. Lock them away. Don’t think about them. You don’t need them, Draco. You are an empty vessel.
An empty vessel, Draco.
Ten. His soul is cracking, and he can hear the sound, like shattered glass, like bells chiming, like the softest plinking of piano keys.
Nine. He can feel the pieces flutter away like butterflies, like moths. He’s drowning in music, a cacophony.
Eight. Like the Moonlight Sonata in the music parlour at Hogwarts, written by a muggle—it’s hard when they look like us, because they are us—where Theo gave him kindling, and then later when Hermione gave him Prometheus’s fire.
Seven. He never asked for this. Dear Merlin, he never asked for this—but now the eagle and the chains are waiting for him.
Six. Hermione’s mum died while Lucius sang, and the chanting was beautiful, the spell awe-inspiring. How unfair that her life had to end with music.
Five. With her dying breath, she made him promise. Tell my daughter. But Granger will never understand. How could she?
Four. Draco will never understand. He told her once that his life was fated, written in the stars. And when he said that, he felt so validated, so sure of himself. But he never thought the stars would show him this or bring him here .
Three. His vision is black. He forces the memories off of the back of his eye-lids. He focuses on void, on nothing. If he closes his eyes; he can’t see the stars, he won’t. Get rid of the eyes, then you won’t have to.
Two. Like the Hyena, who he cursed for her, his eyes bleed. He deserves to bleed.
One. And blinded, all he can sense is the music, the symphony of his sins.
As he sinks into the fuzzy nothing of occlumency, he imagines digging at the earth with his hands. He claws at the dirt, digging, digging, until there’s a hole big enough for his trunk. Then he buries it six feet under, as glass shards dig into his hands and knees.
***
Minutes pass, or hours pass. Days, maybe. Sometime later, the sound of chattering voices pulls him out of his trance. He looks out his window. Below, the garden is a sea of cherry red, ebbing and flowing in one mass. The monolith of wizarding society at his doors.
Theo is sitting cross-legged on Draco’s bed, also in formal midsummer dress, red trousers, a black shirt, and a flowing red over-robe which splays out behind him. How long has he been there? When Draco meets his eyes, Theo sighs.
“Trinket knocked me out with something. I just woke up.”
Draco nods, numb.
“What happened? Should we still… Is Hermione’s mum—Did she–”
“Dead.”
Theo’s head droops. His whole body deflates as he stumbles through his words. “How…What…How did it happen?”
“We have to get to the party. Narcissa is expecting us.”
“Draco.”
“Please, Theo.” He sucks in a deep breath. “I can’t. Not right now. I promise—later. But—I just need to get through the rest of this day.”
Theo nods. “Okay. I think I saw Daph and her dad. Wanna go find them?”
Draco rises, wincing at the pain from landing in the broken glass. He quickly banishes the blood and heals himself. Theo purses his lips and looks away.
And then they leave the feeble sanctuary of Draco’s room to greet the masses.
The Manor is a claustrophobic, open wound. Wearing red Midsummer robes, the guests fill the corridors and rooms like rushing blood cells. There are so many people, that although the party is mostly inside, they spill out the front doors in a gushing scarlet mess to the garden beyond. Every notable person in England plus their ancient, bigoted grandmother is at this party. Legislators, educators, sacred twenty eight, socialites… Draco spots the entirety of last years’ spring line up of the Holyhead Harpies being greeted at the floo by the Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, an ugly woman with glassy, toad-like eyes. The Minister of Magic himself is chatting with the Astronomy and Divination teachers from Hogwarts and one of the board of governors, a witch Draco recognizes from meetings with Lucius. They all wear simpering smiles or mean smiles or fake smiles, and Draco hates them. He hates that he’s expected to paste on a smile of his own. How is he supposed to smile?
And Narcissa, like their queen, like a spider at the centre of a web, is in the centre of them all. Her smile is demure, as if she wasn't complicit in a woman’s death mere hours before. What’s a mere murder when there’s a party to throw? If hosting was a competition, Narcissa would win the grand prize—as long as her guests have blood as pure as hers.
It’s sickening, the effort she put into the decorations. Inside, she has entombed the walls with thick, crawling vines of red roses. And she’s imprisoned the portraits into charmed crimson robes and charmed, dripping crimson backgrounds. Some of them grumble at their new apparel and the flowers encroaching on their frames, yet others look thrilled to be included in the holiday festivities.
Showy Devonshire pixies flutter in glowing, rosey clusters along the high ceilings, singing in their own fae language. It's a soft tune and it’s ethereally high-pitched. The pixies dance around garish gold and red ribbon banners that run along the walls. There’s celestial imagery everywhere, suns and stars on the ribbon banners, the upholstery, woven into guests’ blood-red robes. Everything is gold, like the sun, or dripping in cherry red, like blood.
In the orangerie and solarium, the glass ceilings are charmed an artificial stain-glass ruby red, and the light filtering through refracts into red puddles on the floor. The trees in the orangerie are knotted and tied with gold ribbons.
In the library, there's a full bar set up with three veela bar-tenders wearing gaudy gold dresses. They’re serving flaming cocktails in gold-rimmed glassware to salivating wizards. Tables are set up on one end for gambling, and witches with vermilion eyeshadow and vermilion lips are smiling as they peek over the tops of their cards. Piles of gold pass between players as their luck shifts.
Near the head of one such table, they find Daphne and her sister chatting with Blaise and his mother. Draco often forgets Blaise’s veela heritage, but it's impossible around his mother. If Draco wasn’t safe behind a locked trunk lid and six feet of imaginary dirt, he’d have a difficult time keeping his eyes off her. The other men in the room aren’t so lucky. The gamblers nearby keep glancing up at her, letting their cards droop in their distraction. Draco spots her glance at the man nearest to her cards, then with her hand at the edge of her robes, she briefly folds her pinkie and ring finger down, making a ‘three.’ She winks at the man at the far end of the table. He’s a white man with thick, dark hair, and he quickly wins the round, pulling the pile of gold in the centre of the table in front of him.
Draco makes his greetings to his classmates, forming his mouth into smiles and pleasantries fit for the Malfoy heir. Blaise is halfway through an off-colour joke about the House of Black. Something about the recently pardoned Sirius Black being a blood traitor. Draco can’t focus on his words, he’s too busy moulding his reaction into something appropriately bigoted.
Blaise’s mother wanders toward the bar to order a drink, and Draco sees her face go frosty and her nose turn up at one of the veela bar tenders. Blaise captures Draco’s attention again. He’s telling Daphne and her sister that the man at the end of the table who just made the windfall is his newest stepdad.
“Condolences,” Theo offers.
Blaise smirks. “He’s not dead yet.”
Daphne’s sister’s eyes go wide. “The stories are true then?” she whispers.
“Tori.” Daphne smacks her sister’s arm lightly. “Sorry Blaise.”
“No need to apologise,” Blaise says smoothly. “Who wouldn’t speculate with the sheer number of dead exes she has? I do, and I’m her son.”
“So you don’t know if it's true?” Daphne’s sister glances at Blaise’s mum, who's still mid-verbal altercation with the veela bar-tender.
Blaise just smiles. “Some things are better left a mystery.”
“Unless you’re him,” Daphne says, nodding her head toward the gambler.
A few minutes later, the group has scattered, and he’s standing alone with Blaise, who’s looking at him quizzically.
“I said, are you doing alright, mate?”
“Hmm? Yeah, just—uh…” With a stroke of divine inspiration, he knows how he can get through this wretched party. “Are you still selling the, uh… potions?”
“Why yes.” Blaise breaks into a wolfish smile. “How fortunate of you to ask. You going yellow or green?”
He’s fairly certain Granger was on the yellow during Beltane, and the last thing he needs right now is to lose motor function and have a full blown panic attack. “Green,” he decides.
“That’ll be a galleon a vial.”
“How much is in a vial?”
“Enough to get you mashed, not enough to make an arse of yourself.”
Draco nods and Blaise produces a glowing green vial from somewhere on his person, and they make their exchange.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” Blaise struts away, his robes clinking.
Draco surreptitiously downs half, then caps the vial and shoves it in his pocket, wandering through the maze-like, rose covered corridors.
Outside, the garden is spectacular. Conjured phoenixes fly in choreographed sequences in the sky, their wings smouldering in white-hot flames. Under them, golden tents line Narcissa’s rose garden, flowers climbing their sides and swaying in the breeze. Under one of them, Narcissa has relocated the Fazioli grand piano, and at it sits a witch in a gold dress, playing Engel—no, Beethoven. There’s a champagne fountain, towers of colourful macaroons, and a five-tiered cake. Hors d'oeuvres float on golden trays.
Under one tent, a group of adolescent dragons strut about in front of a group of oohing and aahing onlookers. The dragons stretch their wings and rear on their hind legs. A short distance away, a stocky handler in plain robes and floppy, orange hair maintains the wards around the dragons, keeping people from approaching too closely. He has his wand out and is grimacing at the crowds.
Draco spots Greg and Vince by the dragons and makes his way over to join them. Greg nods at him, but Vince doesn’t acknowledge his presence. He looks sallow, probably still recovering from the ordeal this morning.
“Your mum’s a legend.” Greg bounces on his toes, barely able to contain his excitement. “I can’t believe she got dragons.”
Draco nods. “She’s a Malfoy, so stakes are high.”
“Shut up, Draco,” Vince scowls.
“Who pissed in your pants?” Draco grins, nudging him.
Vince huffs and stalks away.
Incredulous, Draco stares after him. He blinks and shakes his head. “What’s up with him?”
“I don’t care,” Greg says, peering around Draco’s shoulder at the orange haired dragon handler. “But what are the chances, as a Great Malfoy, you get me in with that dragon handler. He’ll let me pet one, yeah?”
He arches an eyebrow, still half watching Vince’s retreating back. “Chances are zero.”
“Come on, Draco, just ask.”
If he had more energy, he would take the piss out of Greg for acting like such a swot. He can’t bring himself to.
“Mother will kill me if we ruin her party. Actually—" Ruining Narcissa’s party wouldn’t be that bad, come to think of it. “Okay, come on.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes!”
Across the garden, Vince is with a group of older Slytherins, all in cherry-red. Marcus Flint, Adrian Pucey, Graham Montegue. They’re laughing, mouths open, and their teeth are glaringly white.
It’s only been ten minutes or so, but Draco is already losing patience. When is the potion meant to kick in? As they push through the crowd, he gulps down the rest. They approach the orange haired handler, who nods at them apprehensively, one hand on his wand and both eyes on the dragons.
Draco sticks out his hand. “Malfoy,” he says as a greeting.
The man absently shakes his hand. “Charlie,” he says. “You need something?”
“This is my esteemed guest, Goyle. I’ve told him you’ll help him get closer to the dragons. He would like to” —he falters, hearing the bullshit evident in his own voice— “pet them.”
Greg straightens his posture. “Hullo.” He grabs Charlie’s hand and shakes it firmly. “They’re Chinese Fireballs, right? Probably about six months old? Were they born in captivity or captured? Probably born in captivity, yeah? They look like siblings, with the familiar way they’re acting. Where’s their mother? Shouldn’t they still be with their mother at six months? They need to be properly socialised, yeah?” (Charlie is deflating under Greg’s enthusiastic monologue, however Draco is feeling better and better by the second. ) (His brain feels like warm honey, smooth and syrupy, and his arms feel pleasantly heavy. He would like to sit down, preferably soon.) “I’ve never been so close to a dragon before. I understand that at six months, Chinese Fireballs don’t have fire capability yet. And they’re not venomous. So really, it’s not dangerous to pet them.”
Charlie lets out a long sigh. “Look,” he starts, but Draco cuts him off. The Malfoy Mask is slipping on easier with his artificially raised spirits.
“He’s going to pet the dragons, and you’re going to let him.”
Are his arms supposed to feel this heavy, though? He feels like someone’s transfigured him into a mashed potato. Oh, that would be lovely. He’d go for a whole heaping plate of potatoes right now.
Charlie stiffens. “I’m getting paid to make sure no one pets the dragons, kid.” He crosses his arms, his eyes still trained on the dragons.
“You can call me Malfoy.” Draco squints. Does this orange haired baboon not know who he is?
Charlie finally turns his full attention on Draco and frowns, unimpressed. “Sure, Malfoy , the answer’s no.”
“I don’t think you understand,” he says pleasantly. He leans forward, swaying. “This is my party. I’m the one paying you.”
“I’m a big bloke, but I’m quick on my feet,” Greg adds hopefully. He shoots a worried frown at Draco’s swaying form.
“Your mummy ’s the one paying me, Malfoy. And, I trained for six months before I went within ten feet of a dragon. It’s not happening.”
“How much is she paying you?” Draco asks, trying a new angle. He wobbles again, and Greg throws his arm over his shoulder to support him. How nice. Such a sturdy fellow. Greg is a good pal, isn’t he?
Charlie narrows his eyes at him, and Draco offers a wan smile.
“Why, are you trying to bribe me?”
“Yes,” says Greg. “You can have all his money.”
Charlie sighs. “I need a smoke. Sinclair!” He motions over another plainly dressed handler, a man who’s leaner and taller, with skin as dark as Greg’s. “Take over for me for a moment, will you?”
Sinclair raises his eyebrows and takes out his wand, relieving Charlie’s position by the dragon perimeter.
Charlie nods his head to the nearest tent, and Draco and Greg follow him. He stops behind the tent, at the far end, out of view of the party goers. He sighs again and digs in his pockets, retrieving a palm-sized paper box. He opens it and slips out a paper tube about the length of his finger, putting it between his lips. The end lights with a wordless charm, and he inhales deeply. Then, he smirks and blows smoke directly into Draco’s face.
Draco sneers at him, leaning against one of the tent poles, inwardly relieved to have non-Goyley support for his recently gelatinized muscles.
“What’s that?” Greg asks.
“What’s this?” Charlie scoffs. “Fucking purebloods,” he mutters. Then: “It’s a cig.”
“A cig?” echoes Draco.
“A cigarette? A smoke? Tobacco?”
“Like a tiny cigar?” asks Greg.
“Exactly,” says Charlie. “Jesus.”
Draco, recognizing the swear from Granger, says importantly, “Are you a muggle-born?”
Greg shoots Draco a look and takes an uneasy step back.
“It’s not contagious,” Charlie says flatly.
“Alright,” Greg says rigidly. “I don’t care if you’re a mudblood. All I care ‘bout’s the dragons. How much does Draco need to cough up?”
“Don’t say that shite around me, alright?” Charlie takes another long drag off his cigarette. “I don’t do business with bigots.”
“Too late,” Draco drawls. What a hypocrite. “You’re already doing business with my parents. Where were your grand morals then?”
Charlie rolls his neck. “How much?”
“A hundred,” says Draco.
Charlie gives him an incredulous look. “Do you know how much a trip to Mungos’ costs? Plus risking my job? Please. Do I look that cheap to you?”
Draco, sheltered in riches as he is, and therefore truly having little to no concept of the value of money—and lacking the immediate brain capacity to use context clues—pauses, probably longer than seemingly necessary.
Charlie raises his ugly orange eyebrows.
“Come on, Draco,” Greg encourages. “You’re filthy rich.”
Giving up on providing a sufficient counter offer, Draco settles on an easier, scornful response: “You’re a muggleborn. I was assuming you were cheap.”
“Alright, I’m not even a muggleborn, but you’re pissing me off.”
“But you said you were,” says Greg.
“No, little bigots.” Charlie takes another drag. “I said it wasn’t contagious. I’m a Weasley.”
“Arguably,” says Draco, “that’s worse.”
“That’s it. No deal—”
“No, okay—fine. Three hundred.”
“A thousand.”
“Five hundred.”
“Deal.”
“And,” Draco quickly adds, congratulating himself for his top notch bartering skills, “you give me a cigarette.”
Charlie hesitates, eyeing Draco (who’s wobbling a bit, still trying to balance against the tent). “Fine.”
“Wonderful,” says Greg. “Alright, let’s go–”
“No,” Charlie scoffs. “Not yet. Wait until the firework show later, when most of the guests—and your parents—are distracted. Hold onto your knickers until then, yeah?”
“Okay, yes. Thank you, Weasley! You won’t regret it—”
“I want my cigarette now,” Draco pouts.
Charlie hands him the box, and Draco takes out a cigarette. He puts it between his lips and—unfortunately, he doesn’t know a wandless, wordless cigarette lighting charm.
Charlie snickers at him. He digs in his pockets and pulls out a small metal contraption. “If you’re gonna smoke my muggle cigarettes, you’re gonna light them the muggle way,” he says. He demonstrates flicking the lighter on (condescendingly), then tosses it to Draco.
Draco struggles with the lighter for a moment before getting it to work, then lights his cigarette. Almost immediately, a coughing fit ensues. Like a complete arse, Charlie doubles over, laughing.
“Alright, kids,” Charlie smirks, “see you ‘round.” He drops his cigarette and crushes it under his boot, then he stalks away, back towards Sinclair and the dragons, leaving Draco still holding the pack of cigarettes and the lighter, which he pockets.
Once Charlie’s around the corner and out of earshot, Greg crosses his arms. “Mate, what in the loving fuck is wrong with you? Did someone hit you with a jelly-legs jinx when I wasn’t looking?”
“Thank you, Draco,” Draco sulks, “for buying me a playdate with the Whistle and his dragon.”
“The Whistle?”
“Weasel.”
“Right.”
“Right.” Draco tries another drag off the cigarette, but it's just as horrendous as last time.
While he’s busy coughing up a lung, Greg takes the cigarette out of his hand gently and pats his back. Draco, wiping his mouth, straightens in time to see Greg take a tentative drag off the cigarette. His face screws up, but he doesn’t cough, damn him.
Draco plops down, flat like a starfish, on the grass to rest his jelly appendages. Greg rolls his eyes and settles next to him cross-legged. Above them, the conjured phoenixes make fiery figure eights in the sky. They watch them silently.
“Ran into Blaise?” Greg asks.
Draco grunts.
“On one of his potions?” Greg asks.
Draco grunts.
“Hard day?”
Draco grunts.
“Vince told me.”
Draco freezes, then quickly scrambles up to a seated position, jelly be damned. “I don’t—”
But he’s saved from offering a response or an explanation by the sound of approaching voices around the corner of the tent. Greg tosses the cigarette, and Draco arranges his face into an approximation of sobriety.
“There you are.” Greg’s mum rounds the corner, scowling. She’s a tiny woman, so much so that it seems impossible that she could have produced such a giant son. Her hair is braided into about a thousand strands that are all gathered into an elaborate updo that gives her an extra twenty centimetres or so in height. But even with her hair, when Greg stands up, he’s at least two heads taller than her. “I could skin you alive and cook you into a cauldron cake, Gregory.”
“What’d I do?” Greg whines.
Draco stands and nods politely at her, but she ignores him. Draco nods again, mostly to himself, and starts edging away from the conversation, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of Greg’s mum’s wrath.
“I just had a rather enlightening chat with Eloise Bullstrode.”
“Who’s that?”
“Millicent ’s mother? The witch you’ve been courting for six months?”
“It’s not like that, mum.”
“Six months, Gregory.”
“It’s nothing serious, Mum, we’re just frie—“
And he’s free, escaping around the corner of the tent, leaving Greg to be berated by his terrifying mother.
Draco wanders for the next few minutes, observing the phoenixes and the party goers. As he passes the macaroon table, he finds himself famished, and digs in. Nothing has ever tasted as good before this. After stuffing about three or four in his mouth at once, he notices Vince on the other side of the table, blocked partially by the tower of macaroons. Vince meets his eyes, then scoffs and marches away.
Was he just brushed off? By the Crab? Merlin, why’s he being such a wanker today? If Draco can put on a mask for this party, surely Vince can suck it up and put aside their traumatic morning for a few hours. Does he not understand how critical it is that no one finds out about the Eidolon? Human sacrifice is clearly illegal, even when the victim is a muggle. What if someone sees how sour Vince is and starts poking around? Draco hastily grabs seven to ten more macaroons and shoves half of them into his pockets, and the other half into his mouth before hastily trudging after him.
“Hey.” Draco jogs to his side. “Why’s the broomstick up your arse today?”
“Piss off, Draco.”
Vince keeps walking, up the front steps of the Manor, through the front doors. They pass into the hall. The whole house smells like roses from the thousands covering the walls.
“What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
Vince whirls on him, leaning closer, teeth bared. “Are you kidding me?”
Draco gapes at him. “What?”
“I’ve put up with shit from you—from everyone—for ages. Even I have a limit, yeah?”
Several guests milling in the entry hall glance at the spectacle they’re making.
“Lower your voice,” Draco hisses. What’s wrong with him?
Vince doesn’t like this. His mouth twists into a mean frown, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are wide and glassy, and if Draco didn’t know Vince to be incapable of an emotional range larger than a macaroon (Merlin, he’s hungry) he’d think he was close to tears. “Just—Just leave me alone. I don’t wanna—You think you’re so great, don’t you? So much better than me, don’t you? You—you’re not. You can’t k-keep—keep—You can’t keep—”
“Spit it out, Crabbie.”
Vince shoves him, hard. And Draco stumbles backward into an elderly witch, who huffs at him. Draco moves away, to the side of the room, and Vince stomps after him, causing the twenty or so red-robed party goers in the room to gawk at them.
As conversations sputter back on around the room, Vince’s voice is a harsh whisper. “You can’t—can’t keep walking all over me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re supposed to be my friend, Draco. But what have you ever done for me?”
“For one, I wrote half your essays last year.”
“Wow, thanks, Draco.” He smacks his forehead sarcastically. “Should’ve remembered that. The brilliant Malfoy heir managed to climb off his high horse to help a friend—but only after calling me stupid, right? And you act like I can’t hear it—think I don’t get it. And—and I didn’t care, did I? Draco’s just a prat. And when Blaise does the same thing, Blaise is just a prat. And even—even—even Greg too, sometimes… You all act like I don’t get it when you make fun of me—have a good laugh, then make me do your bidding like a dog. But—but being an asshole isn’t—isn’t fucking quirky, it’s just annoying. And today was the last fucking straw, yeah?”
What is Vince on about? Did the Eidolon give him more brains along with more magic? He can’t deal with this right now. His hand finds a macaroon in his pocket, but it seems inappropriate to pull it out and eat one right now, while Vince is acting like a cracked cauldron. His gaze wanders as he looks for an escape. Vince’s eyes narrow.
“Yeah, fine, Draco. Run away.”
“Lighten up, will you? It’s just banter. Can’t take a joke anymore or something?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Whatever.” Draco shoves past him, leaving Vince fuming in the entrance hall.
What in Merlin’s name is wrong with Vince? Did the spirit change his personality?
He pushes through the crowds, making his way deeper into the house. To his left is the staircase. He could just go back to his room. He’s shown his Pretty Malfoy Face at the party, so there’s no need to keep hanging around. He wants nothing better than to find his bed and go to sleep. What was he thinking wasting the whole day occluding instead of sleeping?
But in his moment of indecision, someone’s spotted him. Tracey. Was she even invited to this party? She’s sulking under the stair bannister, red faerie light reflecting on her shiny, brown hair. And—Salazar’s sodding ballsack—standing next to her is none other than that wretched blonde Hufflepuff, Almonds.
“Malfoy,” Tracey says. She’s got her hand outstretched. A pixie hovers by her pointer finger.
“Davis,” Draco replies. He pops one of his pocket macaroons into his mouth, scanning the crowd, searching for an exit. The only other people Draco recognizes in the hall are Lucius’s friends—ex Death Eaters, MacNair and Yaxley—and Draco has no intentions on sparking a conversation with them.
“Hi, Draco.” Almonds’s voice is disgustingly breathy and high pitched. (He despises her.) “Do you see Tracey’s made friends with one of the faeries? Isn’t it adorable? It’s so cool that your mum got faeries for the party!”
“Right,” says Draco.
The faerie in question is a tiny, little thing with a cherubic face and shimmering dragonfly wings. It skips up the length of her hand gracefully, then sits cross-legged on her palm.
“Your house smells like dark magic,” Tracey says, not even deigning to look at him. “The fae don’t like it.”
“They’re here for their looks, not for their opinions.”
“And who is here for their opinions,” Tracey asks. She brings her hand closer to her face to inspect the pixie. “Those two?” She nods her head at MacNair and Yaxley. She meets his eyes, and hers are accusing. “We all know what wonderful ideas they have.”
The pixie flutters away, and Tracey’s hand closes into a fist.
Almonds clears her throat. “Would you like to dance, Draco? I believe they’re playing a waltz in your ballroom.”
Draco, wobbling slightly, chomps on another pocket macaroon as he focuses on Almonds. On her dirty blonde hair and her pink cheeks, her hands as they twist in her robes. Her inexplicable desire to dance with him. His limbs are heavy, and he doesn’t think he could force them into jubilant, light-footed submission, even if he wanted to. She reaches a hand out tentatively and places it on his arm. He takes a step back, moulding his face into something pleasant.
But pleasantries elude him. “Not a chance,” he says smoothly, and then quickly makes his exit, brushing a crumb from his mouth.
He should come up with a new name for Almonds. Something more fitting. The Bowtruckle, perhaps. Or the Grindylow. Something with pinchy, reachy hands. He supposes he could just learn her actual name, but he’d rather not. Why bother?
With their eyes on his back and with nothing better to do, he heads to the library, to find somewhere to sit down. Someplace where he can rest his hazy mind and enjoy the remainder of his pocket macaroons in peace. He regrets entering the library immediately, because sitting at a gambling table with several other people is Lucius, and he’s motioning Draco over. Wonderful.
With a look that brokers no rejection, Lucius pats the seat next to him. Draco considers fleeing, but as satisfying as it would be to disobey Lucius, the thought of pissing him off is terrifying. Who knows who he’ll murder next time?
They’re in the middle of a round as Draco takes a seat. Lucius runs through a brief explanation of the game, of which Draco retains next to nothing, too busy curbing the desire to pull out a pocket macaroon. (He really is quite famished.)
Lucius starts introducing him to the people at the table, and Draco nods and smiles, hoping they don’t see through his noble attempt at hiding his high. He can’t quite get the smile to feel natural on his face. It’s possible he’s smiling too much, or maybe not enough. His cheekbones feel odd. His tongue feels odd. Draco is suddenly consumed by an uncomfortable awareness of his own tongue. He’d never put much thought to it before, but it feels thicker and wetter in his mouth. What are tongues supposed to feel like?
He sticks it out, experimentally, and with horror, realising where and with whom that he’s with, covers quickly with a cough, hoping no one saw.
Lucius definitely saw. His eyebrow twitches in a way that bespeaks meaning—what meaning, Draco doesn’t have the mental capacity to fathom at the moment—and continues introducing the table.
There’s Ludo Bagman, a sweaty sort of fellow with a saccharine smile and an overbite, who introduces himself importantly, even though he’s an unimportant ministry dreg, albeit a department head, for the Department of Magical Games and Sports. To his right, sits Amycus Carrow, a relation of those weird twins a year above Draco. The man’s built like an overgrown bowtruckle (twiggy and mean looking with sharp, talon-like fingernails). (Bowtruckles are vicious little shits. Draco was once bitten by one as a young boy, when he climbed a yew tree on the Manor grounds.) (Draco would not put biting past this man, as a form of low-class attack.) (Draco would not climb a yew tree if this man was a resident of its branches.)
Also at the table is Angelica Dolohov, the beady-eyed wife of an incarcerated Death Eater, and their son, Bertram, who Draco remembers from his escapade with the now-vanquished Hogwarts record book. Bertram, in Draco’s year, and notably not in attendance at Hogwarts, had the misfortune of being tagged ‘low’ in magical capability, just like Vince.
Draco wonders now if Bertram even received a Hogwarts letter. Did Vince? Maybe Vince’s parents had to bribe the school. Hogwarts: A History claimed that the school discriminated in magical ability, and Vince is the only name he remembers with the ‘low’ tag who’s actually in attendance.
“Bertram goes to Durmstrang,” Angelica says, beady eyes squinting around the table. “It’s the best education these days, especially considering the leadership of both schools….” She taps the edge of her cards on the table, focused on the game. “Twenty,” she says, pushing coins to the middle.
Bagman averts his eyes. “I suppose Dumbledore’s set in his ways.” He lays his cards face down, folding.
Carrow, to Bagman’s right, sighs. He eyes Angelica, searching for a bluff.
“He has no respect for the old ways,” Lucius agrees. “Karkaroff, however…”
Angelica smiles. “He understands how things should be done.” Silence lingers at the table, and Angelica huffs. “Fold, Amycus. If you have to think that long, your cards aren’t worth it.”
Carrow shoves his gold into the middle of the table. “Raise,” he growls, “to fifty.”
Angelica chuckles, but Lucius just rolls his eyes.
Draco decides that it’s not too socially unacceptable to eat a pocket macaroon. They’re serving them at the party, aren’t they? He sneaks one from his pocket, and eats it delicately, like a gentleman would do, so as to not garner any ‘high on Blaise’s probably-illegal potions’ suspicions.
Lucius twitches his eyebrow again, and Draco deduces that this was not a Good Malfoy Move on his part. With relish, he takes another from his pocket (the last, alas) and eats it in a far less gentlemanly manner, which elicits another meaningful twitch of Lucius’s eyebrow.
Fuck you, Lucius.
Bertram quickly folds his cards, then pushes back from the table. “Excuse me,” he says. “I’ve got to go find the loo.”
He walks not in the direction of the loo, but toward a group of Hogwarts girls at the far end of the room. Ravenclaws, maybe. Draco couldn’t care less.
Lucius matches the bet, his face stoically giving away no information. “How is old Karkaroff?” he asks. “I haven’t seen him in ages.” He raises a brow. “Not since I last saw Antonin, at least.”
Angelica’s nostrils flare and her gaze darkens. Antonin Dolohov has been locked in Azkaban for over a decade, and everyone at the table knows it.
Bagman shifts uncomfortably in his chair, and he looks like he might try the same move as Bertram and make up a bogus bathroom excuse to escape. He seems to think better of it, and stays silent.
“Tell me.” Lucius flips a card, starting the last round of the game. “Have you seen Antonin lately?”
“You know the visitation rules just as well as I do.” She shoves more coins to the middle. “Fifty,” she snaps.
Carrow wilts, hand to his forehead, as he takes a long moment to consider his cards again.
“Must have slipped my mind,” Lucius smirks.
“Poor dear,” Angelica says through her teeth. “I forgot what an ordeal you were under back then. All that impirius and obliviation.” She addresses Draco. “Your father’s mind must have been in a haze.”
Draco says nothing, waiting for Lucius’s response.
“Not at all,” Lucius smiles.
Tension is palpable at the table, as Angelica continues to glare at Lucius.
“Why ‘not at all,’ Lucius?” Angelica snarls. “That was your story, wasn't it?” She leans forward, gripping the edge of the table with both hands, white-knuckled. “There are days that I wish Antonin had a story like that…however, he’s always been a man of his word. He was never afraid to stand behind his actions.”
Bagman rises abruptly, offering a jovial, yet very obviously forced laugh. “I hate to dip out, but I do believe I just saw Rita.” He motions to a blonde woman across the room in atrocious, red-sequined robes. “There’s so much tournament business to discuss, so I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you all here.”
Lucius waves his hand, as if brushing away Bagman’s bullshit. “Run along, Ludo. We all know the real reason you’re leaving.”
Angelica jolts, and Carrow’s eyes go wide. Draco is even surprised at Lucius's candour. He shouldn’t be alluding to his Death Eater days with such nonchalance, to a ministry official, no less.
“Don’t want to lose any more gold to me, Ludo?” Lucius continues smoothly. “I’ve taken half your pile in the last fifteen minutes.”
Bagman forces another too-loud laugh. He points at Lucius theatrically and shakes his head. “You’ve got me there, Malfoy. You’ve got me there.”
Lucius smiles again, turning his gaze back on Angelica. “Where were we again?”
She smiles back sweetly. “Amycus was about to fold.”
“Like hell I am,” Carrow grunts, matching her bet.
Lucius silently matches as well. “Let’s see what you have, Angelica.”
“Aces,” she says, flipping her cards.
Carrow lets out a long breath, burying his face in his hands. He throws his cards at the centre of the table and rolls his neck.
“Bad luck, Amycus,” she says, and he shoots her a dark look.
“Bad luck indeed,” Lucius smirks, showing his cards, “because I’ve got a full house.”
The gold in the centre of the table levitates toward him, where it lands in neat stacks.
“Another round?” he asks.
“You’re cheating!” Angelica snarls. “You can’t win that many times in a row.”
Carrow rolls his eyes.
“Don’t be a poor sport, Angie,” says a voice from behind Draco.
Carrow is on his feet and with his wand drawn before Draco can even blink. The buzzing chatter filling the room fizzles and dies as all eyes turn toward their table. Stupidly, Draco pivots in his chair.
Behind him stands Sirius Black.
With trimmed hair and a washed face, he’s hardly recognizable from the deranged looking fugitive Draco met a few weeks ago. He’s still wearing that lunatic smile from his wanted posters, though.
Even if he weren’t recently an escaped convict and more recently, a known blood-traitor, he would stand out. He’s in muggle clothes: black trousers and a white tee shirt that features an unmoving print of a man with a pink lightning bolt painted across his face.
“Call off your dog, Lucie,” Sirius says, settling loftily into Bagman’s empty seat. “Don’t fight your own fights anymore?”
Lucius glances at Carrow, and Carrow stiffly takes a seat. Conversations sputter back on, but attention is still heavily on their table. People sneak glances and whisper, as the room fills with noise again.
“Draco,” Lucius drawls, “I don’t believe you’ve ever met your mother’s cousin, Sirius Black.”
Sirius winks at Draco, and Draco averts his eyes. At least he managed to keep one secret from Lucius last year. He still doesn’t know Draco was partially responsible for Sirius’s happy introduction back into wizarding society.
“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reconnect. Family is so important, isn’t it, Lucie?” He leans back in his chair, looking at Lucius with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.
“If you’re going to attend my Midsummer party, at least dress the part,” Lucius continues, lip curled as he addresses Sirius now. “But respecting tradition has never been your forte, has it?”
“As I didn’t receive an invitation, it was hard to come in the dress code.”
“Any real wizard,” snaps Angelica, “knows the Midsummer dress code. It's been the same for centuries.”
“Am I not a real enough wizard for you, Angie?” Sirius grins. “I have your pure blood, isn’t that all you people care about?”
“If that’s all that mattered, Black,” says Lucius, “then you’d have gotten an invitation.”
“I figured you owe me, Lucie—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“—since I practically served your sentence for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucius hisses.
Carrow still has his wand clasped tightly in his hand, eyes trained downward on the table, ready to jump into action at Lucius’s word. Sirius is right. Just like a dog.
“I’m talking about the massive bit of karmic injustice, where I got locked up while you—the loyal little Death Eater—got off scot-free for your many crimes.”
“What crimes, Black?” Angelica smiles coyly. “Everyone knows Lucius was just as much a victim as you were, isn’t that right, Lucius?”
Lucius says nothing, stoic in his seat. He leans back, appraising the table.
Sirius leans forward, plucking a champagne glass off of a passing golden tray. “Cat got your tongue, Lucius?” He takes a sip. “Or maybe I should ask Cissa. She was just as involved as you were, wasn’t she?”
“Don’t you dare go anywhere near my wife,” Lucius hisses. “You’ve already caused her enough grief.”
Sirius puts on a show of affront. “How could you say that? After all, as Angie just said, we’re on the same side, aren’t we?” He takes another menacing sip of his champagne. “We’re certainly on the same side of the law.”
“You’ve always been a devious thorn in our side, and you only ever operated to bring shame and grief to your family. You tore the Blacks apart with your foolhardy—”
“I tore the Blacks apart?” Sirius scoffs. “The Blacks have been tearing themselves apart since far before I was born. Besides, if anyone tore the Blacks apart, it would be you. You and your band of Death Eaters that were so happy to recruit from my family. Sure, take Bellatrix. No one liked her anyways. But Regulus? He was as innocent as any Black could be before you manipulated and corrupted him—recruiting him at sixteen, I might add—with your revolutionary propaganda.”
“Regulus knew what he was doing—”
Sirius leaps up, throwing his arms out wide, and champagne splashes to the floor. “How’d you get away with it, Malfoy? Who’d you bribe to keep you out of Azkaban?”
“Keep your voice down, Black,” Carrow growls. “You’re making a spectacle.”
Around the room, silence has fallen. People are now openly staring at the verbal duel. At the door, people are filtering into the room, drawn by the noise of the argument.
“You won’t get away with it this time, Malfoy,” Sirius snarls, voice low so their eavesdroppers won’t hear. “I know it's happening again, and when we beat you again, I swear you’ll pay. You’ll get locked up for the rest of your life, Malfoy” —he leans forward, eyes bright and wild, only a breath away from Lucius— “unless I kill you first.”
And as Sirius and Lucius’s eyes are locked in a heated battle of wills, both of them breathing heavily, Draco’s heart drops.
No, no, no, no, no.
It can’t be. She can’t be here.
Because there, across the room, glowing with warmth in beautiful scarlet robes, is Granger.