The Shadow of the Manor
“Should we summon him?"
“Not now! Put the children in the cellar and bring Potter to the Drawing Room. We’ll wait for my son and Crouch. Once they arrive, then we shall summon him…”
Harry tried his very hardest to make sense of any of these words as he was being dragged across pebbles of a driveway lined with deep green hedges, but those facts were confusing enough without the voices he was hearing added on. The hedge told him maze, I’m back in the maze, which was a scary enough thought, but then the pebbles were like that of a road.
Where in the world were they?
A great caw rang through the air and Harry bent his head back to try and get a look at the source, spotting something white on top of one of the hedges. Seemingly bright in the dark night and the contrast of its surroundings, it seemed to be a pale, albino peacock. Harry recalled having seen peacocks only one other time in his life; at the Muggle zoo he had gone to on Dudley’s birthday years and years ago now, but those were vibrant colors of blue and green. He didn’t even know white ones existed. Perhaps they were magical…
He was dropped as his captor suddenly came to a halt, and turned himself over on the ground so that he could lie on his stomach and see what lay in wait before him, dropping his jaw at the sight of a massive mansion, the likes of which he’d never seen in Little Whinging or any of the neighborhoods around it, and not even on Diagon Alley. The Burrow would’ve reached its height if the pointed roof tops were removed but even then the castle-like building was wide enough to fit several Weasley home’s inside it, and Harry could only imagine how long it was.
“Sanctimonia vincet semper.” He looked up to see Lucius Malfoy had dropped him because he was using his wand to tap on the wrought iron gates they had stopped before, as the gates swung inward, Malfoy reached back down and hoisted Harry back up to his feet, and pushed him inside.
Several more peacocks appeared on top of the maze as they passed, and Harry gazed at them each in wonder, and had a feeling, a feeling he was almost certain of, that this was Draco’s home.
Malfoy again had to merely tap his wand to the handle of the double doors to enter, further cementing Harry’s theory, and then he had to blink rapidly to adjust to the sudden influx of fire and candle light in side, though the man gave him no breaks, and instead kept forcing him along the gallery they had entered, and towards a set of long, low-ceilinged stone steps.
“C’mon, we have to move them to the -”
“Lucius?” They only stopped when a woman’s voice, soft and frail, carried out across the hall, and Harry was let go of once more, so that he could turn his head around and spot Narcissa Malfoy standing at the top of a curved, ornate marble staircase, wearing a nightgown and looking as frail as her voice made her sound with slightly sunken features. Harry was beginning to think that this trend of Malfoy’s looking all too sleep deprived was getting well on his nerves. “Did you get it?”
Malfoy held up the prophecy quickly to answer her question, to which Narcissa smiled softly, her shoulders resting as she sighed. “That’s wonderful.”
“Cissy,” Bellatrix shoved through the other Death Eater’s to stand beside Malfoy, and Harry could see, when he turned his head in her direction, that she was still holding onto Ginny, who was still hanging her head limp. “Hurry and get dressed, the Dark Lord is arriving. This is a night of celebration, we will want to be prepared, won’t we?”
Narcissa’s eyes flicked to Malfoy’s, who gave the smallest, slightest nod Harry had ever seen in his life, and then the woman had turned and ran back up the stairs and out of sight.
Malfoy turned then and gave Harry a very hard push down the stairs, causing him to smash from step to step before finally rolling onto the cold floor below with an ‘oof.’ He could hear the other Death Eater’s laughing above and the cries of his awake friends as each of them were pushed down as well, but he didn’t care for the mocking, only for their safety, and craned his neck as best he could against the body-bind to get a good look at them, sprawled across the floor around him.
Thankfully, with a flick of his wand Malfoy removed the curses on he and Pansy and they both sprung at their friends instantly, before a pair of Death Eater’s made their way down the cellar steps and threw them all through a large gate one by one.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Harry pushed himself off the cold ground, turned, and ran at the heavy door that had just been closed on them, pressing his face against the dark wood to try his best to hear Lucius Malfoy’s drawling voice speaking to them. “Once the Dark Lord arrives you’ll be out of this place. Enjoy the company though, I bet it’ll be a happy reunion.” He heard footsteps as Malfoy turned and walked away when he was finished, but still Harry banged his fists against the wood and hollered and shouted in an attempt to call him back.
“Think of your son, Malfoy! Draco! What’ll he think? WHAT HAS HE DONE, MALFOY?! WHO HAS HE KILLED?! MR. MALFOY!”
It was useless. After a sudden rush of pain in his scar Harry stumbled backwards and pressed a hand to it, hissing through his teeth then glaring up at whoever had just dared to rest a hand on his shoulder. Luna stumbled backwards, frowning at him, then nodded into the dark room they had just been thrown into.
“Someone’s in here, Harry,” She said, her voice still light, but not quite in the free and happy way it used to be. “I heard a voice.”
Call it instinct, but instantly Harry’s hand went to his wand, and he retrieved it from his robes. They hadn’t taken their wands, though he assumed it was simply out of cockiness, and he didn’t blame them. He didn’t see how they were possibly getting out of this mess now. But he did know Malfoy had mentioned a person they were going to be happy to be reunited with, and he for one wanted to know who that was very, very much.
He pushed Neville aside as he stumbled deeper into the cellar, whispering, “Lumos!” and not flinching in his concentration at the sudden rush of light, instead letting it fall on the slim form of a man dressed in muggle clothes, holding two hands up in front of his head, which had been covered with a burlap sack.
“A-Altais?”
Draco’s cat? “No, no my name is Harry Potter,” the man let out a gasp. “I’ve been captured and taken to this place. Who… are you?”
“I can’t tell you!” The man recoiled, stumbling back, and Harry got the sense, slightly, that it wasn’t a man. His voice seemed a lot younger, and oh so scared. “He’ll kill me.” Especially those last three words, whispered and frail as Narcissa’s voice. Harry stayed still, unsure of what to do, but watched, and didn’t dare stop, Luna walked towards him. For she had proved to have a lot more knowledge than he thought anybody gave her credit for, so most likely knew exactly what she was doing when she knelt in front of the boy and cautiously raised her hands to the rope binding the sack around his neck.
Her hands shook as she untied it, but still she didn’t let herself show anymore fear, and Harry found himself slowly walking forwards, Neville and Pansy doing the same behind him, as if in awe, before kneeling down beside her as she pulled the sack from the man’s face.
And it wasn’t a man indeed, but a boy. A handsome boy, though time, starvation, dehydration, and sleep deprivation had sunken his face a lot more than the Malfoy’s, causing his once chiseled cheeks to hollow and his once sparkling hair to flatten, greasy with uncleanliness. Worse were his eyes, once bright, sparkling as he would throw his head back to laugh at a joke or gaze upon his gorgeous girlfriend, were now dull and as hollow as his cheeks, saddened by the grief of isolation.
If Harry had not been promised a happy reunion, he wouldn’t believe this to be Cedric Diggory at all.
“Cedric?”
“No!” Again the older boy threw his hands up in front of his face, as if to shield it from their view, but Luna raised her own to gently lower them, saying in that same soft, wifty voice of hers, “None of that matters anymore. The Death Eaters wanted us to find you - I think. Right Harry?” Harry nodded numbly, still stunned by who he was looking at, and trying to reason with who could have been the Cedric he had played Quidditch against this year, analyzing his strange change of character towards the game. Whom he had dated the ex of after Cho broke up with him due to his uncharacteristic cold attitude towards her. Whom had joined the Hogwarts Order of Defense, journeyed to the Ministry with them, found Fudge -
“Did they catch you when you ran back to Fudge? Is that why you’re here?” It was a weak sort of hope, for Cedric was far too skin and bone to have been here for an hour or more, and yet Harry prayed that was the case, because he couldn't be fooled again. Not again. Not after Quirrell having Voldemort on his head, and Lockhart being a fake, and Peter being alive and guilty, and Crouch Jr being Moody, and the whole Department of Mysteries being a trap. Not after all those reveals and lies and times he’d had to be pulled back from the belief that he was in the wrong - that he should have known.
“What’re you talking about?”
But it was a fool’s hope, because Harry had been fooled again, and he should have known.
Luna began to examine the rags that were tied around the boy’s legs and Neville and Pansy bent down to help but Harry backed away, falling back on his hands and crawling across the cellar floor back to the unconscious bodies of his friends. His friends who had gotten hurt because of his reckless, impulsive, ‘saving people’ attitude, and inability to tell real from fake.
“It’s time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter.”
To see the lies in an obvious situation. To connect the dots and stop throwing accusations at a wall to see if it sticks.
“You’re throwing claims at a wall to see if it sticks!”
Cho had been right. Oh she had been so, so right. Pulling his knees up to his chest, Harry tucked his head in them and squeezed his arms around his leg in an attempt to banish the voices from his head, but they just kept coming.
How could you not have seen it was a trap? You were warned to not let Voldemort in. If only you were better at Occlumency. But you’re too dumb for it anyway, or you would have known that Diggory was a fake.
“Stop… I didn’t know…” As if in response, his scar burned, and Harry pressed a hand to it, slamming his wrist against his forehead while crying, “Stop!” repeatedly until his ears were met with a very real sound, and not phantom voices. Someone was coughing, and when he looked up, he saw it was Hermione, body jerking on the floor as she coughed but was too weak to move up other than involuntary motions, and a head roll to the side so her eyes could lock with his when she whispered, “Harry?”
“Hermione!” Harry lunged forward to kneel beside her and help her sit up as much as she could as she continued to cough, gripping her ribs and immediately howling in pain when she did so, causing the passed out Ron beside her to mumble incoherently in his sleep. Harry could see his other awake friends scramble towards them as Hermione’s eyes drifted down the red haired boy, and she frowned.
“I -” She tried her best to clear her throat, but when she spoke her voice was still raspy. “I tried my best for him. I heard him screaming and I had to… help him… Is he okay? Oh Ron…” No doubt she had been the one to blast the brain off of him, awaking only for that purpose for reasons Harry believed to know quite well - though he also knew his own judgment could clearly not be trusted as of late - and then passing out once more from the effort.
“He’s been passed out since you tore the brain off of him, Hermione,” Luna said, her voice gaining a bit more of its usual lighthearted tone at the sight of her alive and something resembling well. “But I’m sure he’ll awake soon now that he’s heard your voice.” Again, Ron mumbled, a little louder this time, and Hermione’s face flushed pink, then she rolled her head back to look around at their dark surroundings.
“Where are we?”
“Malfoy Manor,” Cedric rasped, crawling across the ground to them too, though it seemed more that he was dragging himself, and Harry remembered, with a start, his vicious injury at the end of Fourth Year he had ‘miraculously recovered from.’ Clearly, the real Cedric had not been so lucky.
“Oh,” Hermione’s eyes widened and filled with sorrow, “So we… lost?” Harry didn’t blame her for it a bit.
They all fell silent with the same grief and sorrow, and it took only the cold Pansy Parkinson to state the awful truth after a minute of deafening silence, saying frankly, “Yeah, Granger, we lost.”
Again, everyone was silent, all except Pansy, who explained in the same frank tone everything that had gone down, seemingly the only person strong enough to say it. To say they had lost the prophecy, because they were just kids, and never had any real hope against fully grown Death Eaters, professionals in their craft, anyway. Because Harry had led them into a clear, and obvious trap, again. Because Harry had a saving people thing, and couldn’t just give it up and wait for an adult, once again.
He was grateful to Pansy at least for not painting any one of them as at fault, but he knew, especially in the eyes of Hermione Granger, how obvious it was this was all because of him. Who else could have such bright ideas that led them into this cellar anyway? Maybe if Ron hadn’t been made into a drunkard, things would have been different, and he could have come up with a smart strategy to get them out of all of this, but anyway you word it, Harry led them to the Ministry in the first place. Gotten them into Umbridge’s office in the first place for Merlin’s sake. If not for him…
“Harry?” When Pansy was done with her story, Harry was left with a worried looking Hermione, who he couldn’t bare to lock eyes with for more than a second, because not only was the fact that those eyes were open and alive something he could barely wrap his head around, but he knew he couldn’t stand the pity he’d be met with. And what if, somehow, selfishly - maybe, she was even angry at him?
“You know this isn’t all your fault, right?” Of course she’d never be angry with him, she was Hermione.
“Who else could it be, Hermione?” And he was Harry, destined this year to snap back at his friends, whether they deserved it or not. “You said it yourself; I have a ‘saving people’ thing. I should’ve just listened to you back in the forest… No, even before Umbridge! I never should have stuck my head in that fireplace…”
“Harry!” A hand was gripping his shoulder, and he looked up and finally allowed himself to look in those brown eyes that had greeted him on the train. That had stared up openly at him in the hospital wing. That had gotten tired and worn through months of using a Time Turner. That had filled with tears when met with Viktor’s body. That had stood before a crowd of students and strongly declared rebellion against a corrupt Ministry employee, who had somehow been made their teacher. The eyes of strong, smart, brave Hermione, who would never, ever allow herself to say it was his fault. “This is not your fault. Do you hear me? Don’t blame yourself for loving too much. Don’t blame yourself for wanting to save people. Just because you got tricked… and people got hurt…”
“It makes me a monster.”
“It doesn’t make you a monster! Harry,” She gave him a strange sort of half-smile, as if she was trying her very best to convince him her next words were a good thing before she said them. “That makes you human.”
“THEN - I - DON’T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!” The roar, the yell, came out of nowhere. Or maybe out of the particular hollow pit of guilt in his gut that had grown since he had arrived at row 97 to find Sirius not there. Wherever it came from, it was loud and animalistically full of fury, coming out of him and sending Hermione stumbling backwards as he sprang to his feet, fists clenched at his sides.
But the fury didn’t last. After a hard release of breath Harry fell back onto his butt on the cold floor and pressed his face in his hands, struggling to steady his breathing and not willing to look in his friends eyes. In those pitiful, scared, wounded -
He finally jerked his head open at the startling sound of the heavy cellar door being forced open, letting in a rush of warm orange light as two figures stepped forwards. Harry squinted, shifting to one knee in anticipation for what he knew was most certainly coming as long pale hair revealed one of the figures to be Lucius Malfoy.
“It’s time,” He stretched out his arm, wand out, and Harry gritted his teeth to stand, pushing past the other Death Eater that had come, wand out as well and looking as if prepared to restrain him, but Harry marched on, keeping his head bowed, not daring to so much as glance back at his friends pitiful faces.
He stopped only when he reached the first step up the steep stone stairs, raised his head, and did a double take. At the top of the stairs was a man he’d only seen once before, in a memory long gone, when he was much younger. There wasn’t much that was different about the teenaged Barty Crouch Jr and the man that stood above him now, however, except maybe the more permanence to his manic gaze and hollowed out eyes, and the light yellow stubble on his face.
More jarringly, was the fact that slung over his shoulder hung the limp, unconscious body of Draco Malfoy.
“DRACO!” After the initial shock of seeing Crouch Jr in person for the first time in a year, Harry wasted no further time in gawking and instead charged up the stairs to his friend, but the Death Eater’s were quick as well, and Malfoy and the other man had him by the arms after five steps, so that he was lifted into the air kicking and howling with all his might to the boy in Crouch’s arms as he himself was dragged forwards and down the gallery, all the while Malfoy growled in his ear for him to calm down and Crouch laughed and laughed and laughed.
“Oh, look at this!” Harry continued to fight as hard as he could against the pair of Death Eater’s holding him as Bellatrix Lestrange appeared around the corner of the room they were headed towards, but stayed silent to sneer at her when she grinned, equally as manic as Crouch. “Potter and Malfoy reunited at last. Isn’t it just a night filled with happy reunions, Barty?”
“‘Tis indeed, Bella,” Crouch Jr smirked, coming to stand beside her and wink in Harry’s direction. He practically growled back, “If you touch one hair on his head -”
“Oh we’ll do nothing of the sort! He is my nephew after all, Potter.” Bellatrix said, and the Death Eaters continued to drag Harry forwards, this time on his knees as he had stunted his fighting enough to examine the room they were heading into. It was wide and open, and Harry could only assumed it might be the Drawing Room, though one could easily mistake it for the dining room, judging by the distinguishable giant table running the length of the room, at which every Death Eater that had attacked them at the Department of Mysteries and more were sat.
As Crouch Jr dropped the still all too limp Draco in the chair at the farthest end of the table, right beside the fireplace, where his mother was already seated across from him, Harry was sat at the head of that end, his wrists pulled back and wrapped in tight magical cords, all too similar to the cords he had been wrapped to Tom Riddle Sr’s grave with a year ago. Draco got the same treatment, though he showed no resistance, head lolling dull and mundanely.
With each passing second, the only thing keeping Harry dead silent now was growing fear and anxiety. Because this table was filling up now, Bellatrix sitting with her sister and Crouch seated right beside the empty chair at the opposite end of the table. That too was beginning to worry him; the empty chair. He knew who it was for, there was no doubt about that, but that knowledge only made it worse, because all he could do was wait anxiously for the Dark Lord to take his place at the head of his army.
Something slimy and smooth slithered past his leg, and Harry jerked his head down to see a pair of yellow eyes glaring up at him, a thin red tongue hissing at him below.
“Welcome, Harry Potter…” Nagini said, the parseltongue words coming to Harry as naturally as always. “The Dark Lord is very grateful you have brought the prophecy to him.”
“He just better hope he keeps your slimy teeth off my friend,” Hermione, if she was here, would wisely slap Harry across the face as hard as Umbridge for that retort, because Voldemort’s most trusted snake is hardly the thing you want to be taunting, but then again Harry was and had been for the past four hours running on pure adrenaline, and at this point, it didn’t seem he was going to live much longer anyway, feeling like the main course to the dinner of Death Eater’s.
So what was even the point?
“Tut, tut, Harry Potter,” Especially now, with those words seeming to be the thing to finally make Voldemort arrive for his all too eager party of guests, along with a searing pain cutting across his forehead and causing him to throw his head back and wince, contorting beneath his cords from the pain. As he tried to open his blurry eyes he could see, his head leaned back against the back of his chair, a familiar pale white hand stretching out to him.
Familiar, because he had seen through those red eyes for months now, with that pale hand the identifying trait that told him this was no dream. And this, most certainly, was not a dream, as he was looking at Voldemort as Harry now, watching the snake-like face creep into his line of vision with a demonic smirk playing on its lips, red eyes narrowed to slits. Nagini slithered past Harry’s leg again, no doubt to rejoin her master at his feet.
“That is no way to treat my loyal pet… apologize.” With a wave of his wand, Harry felt the familiar effects of the Imperius Curse take hold of him, and usually he was good at resisting it. Usually this was his one strong suit in Occlumency - but not tonight. Not with fear chilling his body and fury lighting his heart and his brain split open with the pain of how close Voldemort was to him now, and how triumphant he was tonight.
“Harry…” But that voice was enough. His head jerked forward, a sudden spark igniting somewhere in his heart from hearing Draco’s voice alone and throwing back at the Curse enough to throw it off from causing Voldemort that much shock. Harry hardly took notice, eyes focused only on the boy seated diagonal to him, slowly beginning to wake, hands twitching and head lifting enough so he could meet his eyes to whisper, “Don’t…”
“Ah, so my newest Death Eater finally wakes,” Voldemort, with all the air of a man who indeed had won tonight, the only thing missing being the prophecy in his hand to prove it, marched over to lay his pale hands on the back of the youngest Malfoy’s chair now, the other two noticeably flinching at the contact towards their son. “You should be proud, Draco, tonight you have done your Lord a great service.”
“What’re you talking about?” Harry growled, barely getting the words out through gritted teeth, speaking against the pain in his skull. Voldemort met his eyes with the same malicious smirk to say, “I’m speaking of dear Draco’s act of service to me, tonight, Potter. What, did you never wonder - did it never occur to you - what had been going on with your friend all these months? Don’t lie to me, I’ve seen your thoughts. I’ve seen your mind. You were always wondering, every second of every passing day. But now, you finally get the truth! This will be a night of truths revealed, Potter, and this shall be the first; Draco Malfoy has been made the youngest Death Eater in my army, isn’t that right, Draco?”
Again, Draco forced his head to rise to meet Harry’s eyes, sad and grieving, while Harry simply shook his head slowly, horror struck with disbelief. “No…”
Nagini slithered up to Draco’s left arm, binding to the arm of the chair, and sank her teeth into the cords, cutting them so Voldemort could reach down and lift up Draco’s robe sleeve. The sight almost caused Harry to gag, but instead he turned his head away instantly, biting his lip. The Dark Mark was an ugly thing indeed, and it had no place on Draco’s young, innocent skin.
“Wonderful, isn’t it? And the wonders never cease, Potter, no, no, for it wasn’t enough to make Draco a Death Eater. No, any Death Eater of mine has got to prove their loyalty, isn’t that right Lucius?” Malfoy, at being called by name, jerked his head up, wide eyed and fearful as a deer in headlights, and nodded. “Of course, My Lord.” He said, bootlicker as ever, and Harry was tempted to yell when Voldemort kept on speaking smoothly. “Yes, and unfortunately your friend has caused quite a number of problems for me, Potter, so of course I had to make his assignment worthy of redemption.
“But you did prove yourself, didn’t you, Draco,” Voldemort nails dug into Draco pale skin as he lifted his chin up to smirk down into his eyes, the young boy putting up no fight or effort in looking back, blankly staring up at him. “Your efforts tonight were truly commendable. I expect high efforts from you in the future.”
“What…” Harry swallowed hard to get past the sudden block in his throat, not willing himself to even think of what Malfoy had said in the Death Chamber, about kill - “What did you do?”
“Answer him, Draco, what did you do?”
“It wasn’t me,” Weakly, Draco tried to shake his head but Voldemort only gripped him by the chin even harder, saying stronger this time, “Your actions led to his death, didn’t they? Answer him.” He then dropped his chin, letting the boy's head lull to the side where a pair of gray eyes met green for the briefest of seconds, and both sucked in a breath.
“I’m so sorry,” Draco whispered, almost like a plea, but Harry leveled him sternly, and he swallowed hard, so his Adam's apple bobbed in his thin throat. He didn’t have time for apologies now, he just wanted to know who Draco killed.
“Draco… What did you do?”
“I…” A long, endless, desolate pause, and then, three words. Three words that wrecked Harry’s mind worse than any nightmare ever could. Because no matter how awful, this was no nightmare indeed, it was real. All too real. “I killed Dumbledore.”
In one second, Harry’s entire world tilted on its axis and shattered, so that he was left stumbling for footing on an Earth no longer table, and inside a body forever broken by that fact. That terrible, evil, impossible fact.
He remembered a boy in a robes shop, turning his head to eye him up and down skeptically. He recalled an old man greeting him as he awakened at the end of that year inside a hospital bed. He remembered the young, eager face of a twelve year old thrilled to be on a broom and playing Quidditch on a real Quidditch Team. He recalled a pair of blue eyes peering out over half moon glasses with a soft smile to his heroic actions at the end of second year.
Memories of Draco giggling as he opened up the threat-filled note he’d been sent in Third Year, contrasted with Dumbledore’s wink, clueing Hermione and him into going back in time to save Sirius. He remembered the sincere trust in Dumbledore’s gaze when both boys claimed to have not put their names in the Goblet of Fire, but that memory was clouded by the feel of Draco’s hand in his as they shook firmly after a long ago denied offer of friendship from years past.
Every memory of a young, maybe foolish, but still innocent Draco, contrasting with the memories of the old and wise Dumbledore, and meeting in Harry’s mind with disbelief and horror. There was no way. No possible way he was dead. And Draco couldn’t - he wouldn’t.
“You’re lying,” Harry didn’t even look at Draco for longer than the second it took for him to process those words, flicking his chin up instead to gaze up Voldemort, whose red eyes seemed perfectly harmless compared to the boy he had trusted for two whole years as if he’d known him far longer, and had now seemed to be the murderer of the greatest wizard of all time.
Voldemort only smirked. “I haven’t said a word.”
“Well then you’re making him lie!” Harry’s hands, free enough to move against the binds which only held down his arms, gripped the ends of his chair armrests in his anger as he shouted this up at Voldemort’s noseless face. “It’s not true! It can’t be. Dumbledore can’t die -” He stopped talking because the block in his throat had returned once more, and he knew if he said one more word, he would break right then, and he couldn’t break. Not in front of all these evil monsters, here to witness his suffering. He couldn’t give them that kind of satisfaction.
“Mr. Potter,” Slowly, very slowly, Harry turned his head to the opposite end of the table, where Crouch Jr had leaned forward to give him a disappointed, almost teacherly gaze. A gaze he had become all too familiar with. “Come now, we both know you are far smarter than that.”
“Bartemius is right,” Voldemort said, gesturing to him with his wand before leveling Harry with a cold stare once more, shaking his head with each word as he continued; “Albus Dumbledore is dead,” Barty let out a raucous whoop that led to cheering and clapping from many other Death Eaters, to which Voldemort showed his support with a nod of his head and a grin on his face. But that grin vanished in a second once he met Harry’s eyes again. “Accept it, Potter. Grief will do you no good.”
Voldemort had truly crossed a line in thinking he could ever give Harry good advice, so instead of letting himself think on the impossibility that was Dumbledore was dead, he gripped the armrests harder and glared as hard as he could against the pain in his head straight at the monster before him.
“Don’t you dare lecture me.”
The reaction was immediate, but not positive. At least not what Harry would have wanted. The Death Eater’s instantly broke out into rowdy laughter at words he’d perceived as strong but now felt foolish for stating due to their laughs. Even Voldemort joined in, throwing his head back and slapping his hand against Malfoy’s chair as he passed it, walking down to the other side of the table. As if on cue both Malfoy parents joined in on the laughter and Harry forced himself to give them a disgusted glare.
“Well whether you think you’re going to put up a fight tonight or not, Potter, I promised you - and I - all answers, didn’t I? And in my hand,” Voldemort reached into his robe sleeve and pulled out the clear, crystalline prophecy ball. Harry felt his heart drop and shatter at the bottom of the pit that his gut had become at just the sight of it in his hand. “I hold those answers. So let’s not waste anymore time, shall we?”
Voldemort held his arm holding the prophecy far out in front of him, pressing down on the glass ball with his wand with the other, and whispered, as the Death Eater’s leaned in slightly with interest, a series of words Hary could only assume formed some sort of chantlike spell.
“Vatem loqui ad me. Da responsa de futuro. Vate mihi responsa.”
There was a small pause following Voldemort finishing his words, then, all at once, the clear, miraculously still intact ball shattered. Its pieces spread out across the table, some Death Eater’s ducking their heads as shards flew around them only to stop and hang in the air, like a hundred shimmering stars, around a cloud of smoke swirling into the form of a shape. A shape of woman, speaking in a voice Harry recognized after a second of bewilderment as that of his Divination Professor; Sybil Trelawney.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches,” She began, speaking in the same harsh tones he recalled from when she’d prophesied the night Pettigrew returned to Voldemort’s side. “Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”
Silence. Seemingly endless silence followed the final words in that prophetic message, continuing on even as the hundreds of tiny shards of glass flew back to resemble themselves around the retracting smoke, and fall slowly into the palm of Voldemort, who was staring at where the prophecy had been not with the same stunned silence as his Death Eaters, or with a sick churning in his gut like Harry felt at that moment, but with stern conviction.
“Of course,” He spoke the first words, breaking his followers out of their dazes to snap their heads around to him, like obedient crups. “Of course… Months of planning… so many loyal servants lost,” His fingers closed tight around the ball in his hands - a couple Death Eater’s closest to him flinched. “And all you can tell me is I have to do what I have tried to do for sixteen years.”
With a sudden crash, Voldemort dropped the ball on the table hard and it shattered in an instant, now causing nearly every Death Eater to jump in their seats from the shock, flinching out of the way of spiraling pieces of glass. The smoke rose up in the air in the formation of a person, and repeated once more, “Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…”
“Untie him,” Voldemort snapped and Malfoy practically flung himself out his chair in his speed to get to Harry’s and begin to undo the binds wrapped tight around him, tapping his wand against each cord and causing it to snap and fall. “And when you’re done with that I require your wand.”
“My L -”
“I do not have time for protests, Lucius! Your wand! You were there in the maze that night, one of the few at this table who returned; you saw what the meeting of Potter and I’s wands causes. I require a different wand if I mean to kill him and, seeing as there is no other reason for me to wait, I don’t intend to let this sixteen years go on any longer.” Voldemort was speaking fast, a clear signal to Harry that whether he willed himself to show it or not he was angry, and that was terrifying. Because it meant he was no longer in any mood to talk, and talking meant stalling, and stalling meant time for his friends to escape, and if his friends escaped…
Then that still left him, rising from a chair with the same high-chinned bravery that had got him through the graveyard, staring back into a pair of red eyes alight with hatred. And oh was this all so similar to the graveyard. Complete with a pair of gray eyes to his left staring wide eyed, open mouthed up at him, shaking his head with horror, but not able to say a word from the fear causing his whole body to shake. If his friends escaped, that would still leave him and Draco here, and if he knew Ron and Hermione, he knew they would never leave the other two members of their Quartet behind.
No, he had to fight.
With a shaking arm and bowed head, Malfoy handed his wand to Voldemort, who stretched it out towards Harry. The teen’s hand inched towards his pocket, fingers grasping his wand, and their gazes stayed lock tight as pain spread across Harry’s scar like a chain reaction of sharp stings. He raised his wand high, so that the two were completely level now. It was almost poetic. Though Harry didn’t understand half as much of that prophecy as he would have preferred, or could have in a better mind, he knew enough to know that the pair of them standing on opposite ends up a table, holding up wands prepared to cast spells with colors matching that of their eyes, was part of it. A prophesied fate. What that meant as a whole… He could only guess at.
Everyone held their breath, Harry saw a flash of an old man’s face, smiling softly at him over his spectacles, and then -
“Avada -!”
His signature disarming spell was on the tip of his tongue, and he had every intention of casting it, but for reasons that, again, Harry could only guess at, as his answer giving mentor was long gone now, that spell never came. Instead, Harry’s arm shot forward with an intensity he didn’t ask it to, commanded as if by the wand in his hand, now burning his hand with the heat of the spell bursting out of it.
A jet of golden flame, meeting the jet of green light halfway across the table and then, with a huge crack, the get exploded into a wave of fire so that Harry lost sight of Voldemort and was blown backwards into his own seat from the force of his own spell, but managed to keep a tight grip on his wand, as if it was glued there with the heat it still gaze off in his hand.
He could hear screams, yelling, but in the few seconds of chaos he knew that spell (whatever it was) would give him he knew he could only do one thing, and so he made for Draoc’s chair, tacking his wand and casting any char he could think of to transfigure the ropes away. Once they had all been reduced to water, bubbles, or feathers, he then grabbed Draco by the shoulders and hoisted him up out of the seat.
“C’mon, Mals, we gotta go,” He whispered, slinging one of the boy's arms around his shoulders, and not a moment later a pale white face emerged from the golden flames now burning away at the polished wood of the Drawing Room.
“A wand. Someone give me a wand!” In his pale hand, Harry could see Voldemort tossing away the ashen remains of Malfoy’s wand, which meant that, no matter how small that window of time may be, they still had more time to escape.
“Let’s go,” So he turned on his heel and made to stumble for the entryway he was brought through, even as he heard Voldemort calling behind him. “Catch him, you fools, we can’t let him escape!” His wand still acted, as if fully entering an auto-pilot survival instinct now and brought his wand arm up to swing in a circle around his head before firing a second burst of golden flames, this time spreading in a line across the ground and rising so that it blocked the boys from the Death Eater’s by a wall of flame. Harry allowed himself only a second to stare at it in wonder, already feeling his face grow hot from the burning heat, then he turned for the cellar steps, and began to scramble towards them as fast as he could with Draco wrapped over his shoulders.
He came to a halting stop, however, when the door suddenly swung open, and had to immediately duck out of instinct when two forms zoomed out on a pair of brooms.
“Oi! This your doing, Harry?”
“Blimey, I’ve never seen something like this. Why didn’t you teach it to us in the HOOD?”
“Fred? George!” Taken aback with shock, Harry stumbled backwards a few steps when he lifted his head to see the Weasley twins circling over it, a still unconscious Ron slumped against one's shoulders and a still unconscious Ginny slumped against the others - Harry couldn’t pinpoint which was which against the glare of golden light cast upon the pair from the flames and the speed at which they circled. It made him dizzy so he looked away after a moment back to the doors to find Hermione stepping out, his other friends peeking their heads out behind her. In her hand she clenched a glowing H.O.O.D. coin, and right then he knew exactly what she must have done. Brilliant, that Hermione.
“Harry! Oh you have Draco, that’s wonderful! Now, we have to go!” The twin with Ginny on his broom lowered down to Harry and gestured between Draco and the broom, probably indicating that Harry could drop him onto it, and carefully, he did so, taking a regretful look at the drooping eyelids of the pale blonde before snapping his head back towards the flames at the sound of a crash.
The table had been blown right through them, turning on its side against the gallery wall with a hand outstretched from behind it, then slumping. Voldemort had clearly chosen to throw his anger out on one of his own, and sure enough, without a second to react Harry saw a jet of green light coming towards him, only for his wand to react of its own accord once again and spring forward, firing out a thin jet of flame at the wand hand stretching out through the flame.
They all heard a howl of pain and then a whole that had been opened in the wall of fire started to close, but just before it could a figure flung itself forwards through it, rolled across the floor and stripped himself of his still aflame cloak, then stood to glare at the group of kids before him.
“Potter, put my son down,” Lucius Malfoy said in the same commanding drawl he had used in the Department of Mysteries - a voice Harry now sneered at, matching his glare. “No.” He said sternly, and continued to help Draco onto the broom as the boy turned his head and stretched out his hand to his father.
“Dad… You’re alive.”
It was honestly something to marvel at; how quick Malfoy’s face went from fury to guilt, as his attention turned to his still only half-conscious son, squinting at him through the firelight and smoke. “Yes, Draco…” He took a half-step forwards, like a stumble, then froze, as if hesitant to go further to a son he’d hurt more than he would ever know. “Yes, I’m alive.”
Draco opened his mouth again, no doubt ready to say something more heart wrenching, when Harry suddenly felt a light pattering of something liquid against his cheek and turned to see water spraying out of his golden flames. The Death Eater’s on the other side must have been trying to get through.
Turning back to Malfoy, coughing into his fist from the smoke gradually growing around them, escaping the water spraying their source, Harry again remembered that look of desperate from the Department, and the pieces slowly fell into place that the whole Malfoy family had to be trapped in some plot with Voldemort - he wouldn’t be at all surprised if that were the case. But still, the urge to plead with the man one more time, if nothing else for his son’s and his friend’s lives, was overpowering.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Harry wand hand raised, again as if controlled entirely by the wand stuck to his fingers, to the gradually opening flames, he could barely see Malfoy now, however, as he stepped closer, for the smoke had engulfed the entirety of the gallery and the heat of it all stung at his eyes and was blinding. There were creaking noises ahead, and we dared to glance up, he only got a rush of smoke in his eyes so who knows what was making that noise. “If we stay here you won’t be safe. Your son will die.”
“Dad,” Thank Merlin Draco was awake enough to help him, because he doubted he’d get very far through Malfoy’s walls if his son didn’t help. Also, his cloak had just caught fire, so he spared himself a moment to shake and stamp it out as quick as he could, catching Hermione’s eye, coughing into her arm and waving at the smoke, no doubt trying to make him out just as he had to struggle to see her, and saying, “You need to go.”
Meanwhile, he could hear Draco still attempting to reason with his dad, but a moment after he’d told Hermione those words a huge crash sounded and he sprung backwards out of the way of a falling, long block of what appeared to be wood in the dark. Likely the source of the creaking earlier, now a piece of the ceiling that had crashed in flames from the firing spreading to it.
“Harry!” Hermione must’ve been caught on the other end of the wood, though he couldn’t see a thing but black smoke, and the two forms a foot away from him that he knew to be the Malfoy men. “Harry are you al -” She fell into harsh, awful coughing noises and Harry winced as he felt the water coming onto him, harder now, grabbing onto Draco’s wrist blindly in the dark and calling out, “I’m fine! Just get out of here, go! Take the others with you. Fred, George, get as many as you can on the brooms, just GO!”
“Stupefy!”
Several spells fired at once and Harry grabbed Draco by the shoulders to force him down out of their way when several jets of red shot out through the flames, which were beginning to fall enough to make way for a group of cloaked figures, including a recognizable very pale head.
“Lucius, grab them!” Voldemort ordered his loyal servant, who took a moment to hesitate while looking down at his son, coughing viciously on the ground underneath Harry’s arms. Just a second of hesitation, but enough to give Harry time to aim his wand at the man, and yell, “Stupefy!” The blurry form of Lucius Malfoy fell backwards and out of sight in a plume of smoke.
“Dad!”
He’d had enough chances to choose good, and Harry had only stunned him. It was the best they could do for now - but they needed to get out of there right now.
As if to exaggerate the urgency, Harry heard the beginning of a cry of, “Avada!” but then his whole body spun a one-eighty turn and his wand aimed towards Voldemort, as if pulled by a magnet to fire a third jet of flame, which he sidestepped away from and hit a Death Eater behind him, alighting him in an instant. At the same time, a second plank of the ceiling fell and more shouts of Death Eater’s it no doubt hit joined with the screams of the burning one.
Harry could only hear all of this however, as even the pale skin of Voldemort, and the vibrant pale hair of the boy in his arms was gone in the smoke. He couldn’t even see the hand in front of his face.
“Lumos!” He attempted to call, immediately coughing following saying the spell and though the light only managed to break through the smoke about a foot around him, it was enough to work with, as he turned for where he thought the door had been - even without the darkness, arriving at the Manor was still a blur in his memory for him - and stumbled forwards with an arm tight around Draco’s waist, leading him forward.
“We’re - almost there - Draco,” He said through two harsh coughs and slow, stumbling steps. His hand, outstretched and still holding onto a wand that felt permanently glued to his palm, ran into the smooth wood surface of the gallery wall (hopefully), and, turning right, Harry ran his hand along it as a guide, continuing for the door, attempting to ignore the shouts, the crashes, and the spells he was hearing around him.
Surely, the darkness of the smoke would serve as his friend in this instance, and the Death Eaters were just as disoriented as he. Surely the collapsing building would offer protection from them reaching him. Surely the crash and the sudden sharp sting he just felt in his cheek was from smoke but the glass of a window that had just shattered with that crash - his friends had escaped. Surely, they’d all suffered enough this night, and one thing, just one thing would now go right.
His hand hit something that shook under it, and he knew he’d hit the door. Shining his wand at it, he spotted the golden door handle and forced one of the double doors inward, pushed Draco out of the literal line of fire with all of his might then practically threw himself through the doorway as well. Then, just as he had done countless times before with the doors to the Department of Mysteries, he slammed it shut, and yelled, “COLLOPORTUS!” The door clicked satisfyingly shut.
“HARRY!” He turned away from the alight mansion to see, lit up by the crescent moon above, two brooms swirling in the air, singed at the tips and trailing dark smoke. Everywhere he looked, he still couldn’t escape that smoke.
“Come on, Harry, we have to go!” That was Hermione’s voice, though he couldn't see which broom she was riding on in the dark, but still, he stumbled towards the one that was lowering towards him. He remembered how Fred and George could apparate - had been doing so all the time back at Grimmauld Place. That’s probably how they got here.
“Grab on, Harry!” Fred, or George, called to him but before he reached out with his hand still holding his wand, he allowed himself one last glance towards the Manor.
Once brilliantly white against a midnight blue background, the first floor now burned a bright gold, smoke seeping out the shattered window Fred and George had broken through, and through that shattered window, framed against smoke and dancing flames, Harry could still make out a pale face, and a pale arm outstretched.
His hand started to turn towards Voldemort, drawn by whatever bond connected them, that Harry now knew to be the reason he’d been attacked as a baby, the reason that prophecy was made, but Draco never let their wand beams meet, just as they had in that graveyard.
Call it self-preservation - the need to survive, or maybe he had finally come to terms with his parents’ choices and set the past behind him along with a burning home. But Draco grabbed the twin before him’s hand, and in doing so allowed he and Harry, along with all of their friends, to get carried away, away, away, into a swirl of colors and pain. But away from the Death Eater’s, away from his home, and away from his parents. To safety.
Voldemort was left to let out a howl of fury, and raise his wand to release his spell; a bolt of bright white lightning lighting up the sky. Miles, miles away, it lit up Harry’s scar too, and he too let out a howl of pain.