Chapter 1
His mother woke him with a clammy hand over his mouth in the middle of the night. Her long silvery hair was loose rather than her usual chignon bun, her breathing harsh and ragged.
She put a finger to her lips and then made a beckoning gesture to rouse him from the bed as she began silently shoving his belongings into a bag, wordlessly casting an expansion charm to enlarge the luggage case.
Draco didn’t dare speak or break the strained silence. After a moment, he rubbed his eyes and then swung his legs over to the side of his bed dissipating the fog of sleep. Then he gathered his composure just as he had always been taught as the perfect pureblood heir to the Malfoy name and assisted his mother in packing the things he needed from his room. His papers, parchments, textbooks, his favorites robes, small trinkets he’d been gifted by his parents over the years displayed proudly on a large vanity. A jewelry box with his favorite cufflinks and rings, along with other magical family heirlooms he’d acquired over the years. A little wind up metal and glass bird that he’d been gifted when he was nine that upon turning the lever on its side would come alive and fly around the room with silvery trills. A small potions kit his godfather had given him when he was seven made of pure silver. A charmed watch Pansy had gifted him in his third year. The last things he took were his favorite books on runes and potions in the adjourning small personal library to his suite within the Malfoy manor.
He tried to catch his mother’s eye when he was finished. What next?
He hadn’t asked her what they were doing. He knew, by the tight set of his mother’s mouth, her stiff posture, the way her fingers had run themselves through her fine silver hair, that she was afraid.
They communicated in the wordless way she’d been teaching him since he was a boy. Draco was the heir to the Malfoy name, but after his harsh and stilted lessons with his father in the imposing walls of Lucius’s study growing up—about what was expected of him as an Heir to the name of Malfoy—he had learned everything else he knew at the feet of his mother.
In secret they had begun their own lessons— lessons that not even Lucius was aware of. Anyone in high wizarding society would see Narcissa as simply a pureblood housewife— wealthy and influential, yes, but they would not have singled her out as possessed of any distinct magical talent. They would have been wrong. His mother was an adept practitioner in the mental magicks, in runes, and in alchemy, and she had been sharpening his mind and his cunning since he could walk. Teaching him the old ways of magic.
Her fingers flashed in one of the few signing languages she had taught him. We must get past the wards then make it beyond the gates.
He winced. The whole manor was warded, even the fireplaces for floo travel. He glanced out the french-door windows of his upper story balcony and the long manicured lawn to the forms of the sleeping peacocks on the grounds and beyond those, the wrought-iron gates. The wards were keyed to the rightful Lord of the property, his father. They would wake and alert him if anyone tried to cross through, in or out, could hold them in place until he had retrieved them again to be safely ensconced within the manor’s walls again if they failed to break through.
How? My blood? He signed back.
She nodded, her face beautiful and white and bloodless against the light of the moon filtering in through his windows.
The wards would be tricky, but not impossible to dupe. He was the Malfoy heir after all, and Lucius’s blood flowed through his veins. Using his blood, they could likely create a rune circle by the edge of the gates to counter the wards and circumvent them without alerting his father. Not foolproof, but it would have to do.
When he nodded his assent, she took a few steps forward to rest her hand on his shoulder, and he looked back into her storm-gray eyes, seeing the hard lines of determination in his face. She tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and signed proud to him, and then tapped her wand to his head and he felt the cool ticklish sensation of the disillusionment charm slide in place.
They were slow and meticulous in their way out of the Manor. His mother had cast spells to muffle their steps and disguise them but there was always the chance the house-elves could find them before they ever made their way out the door.
When they had crossed the lawn and made it to the gates, they set to work on the rune sequence. His mother had the most experience, so he held back and watched her make quick work at the foot of the gates. When he was sure they had finished, he offered his hand, palm up to her. She took his palm in her hand and with her wand, made a cutting spell that pierced his skin and blood welled up in his palm. The pain of it was sharp but cuts at wand-point had the advantage of being clean and precise as opposed to the microscopic damage even a sharp-edged blade could cause. She took his hand and pressed the palm of it in the middle of the half-moon rune sequence. It was far-more advanced than even his advanced knowledge, but he understood the outline of it. It was clever. In this small portion of land, the runes created a different reality, one where he, Draco, had ascended from Heir to Lord. She had used the positioning of the stars tonight to reinforce the circle. His constellation, was visible in the sky tonight and that could only help fortify the power of the runes— names were important to the old magic. It was a fragile reality though, it would not last long. With the blood still in his palm he left a bloody handprint in the middle of the stones, then turned back to his mother.
Still as she was in the night with her hair of pure silver reflecting in the moon’s glow, she looked like some kind of moon goddess, like Diana herself. She healed his cut and then gripped his still bloody hand as they stepped through. Stepping inside the circle he felt a weight descend on his shoulders as the magic of this meter-wide circle recognized him as the Lord Malfoy.
Stepping forward felt like swimming through water, there was a resistance in the air, but he managed to swing open the gates and push himself forward when a pop of apparition echoed from behind.
His mother’s hand clenched tighter and he didn’t look back even though he knew his father was standing behind him as he made it past the gates and over the tense air of the rune sequence.
“Cissa, I shouldn’t like to think where you are going at this hour,” his father’s low voice snarled from behind them.
“Don’t let go of my hand, Draco,” his mother ordered as he pulled her through the rune circle behind him.
Then she pushed him down to the ground as a stunning spell went past their heads and then Draco was being jerked wildly side-along from his mother’s apparition, the last thing he could see was his father’s rage-filled eyes reflected in the moonlight and the sparks of another curse directed straight at his mother. No, he turned to the side to catch it before he was sucked through entirely into thin air.
They apparated in a wooded clearing and Draco couldn’t breathe. His eyes rolling back in his head, his fingers going to his throat as he tried to inhale but couldn’t from the force of his father’s last choking spell.
“Draco. Draco!” His mother cried while he writhed on the ground. She was muttering counter-curses in quick succession and he was staring up at the sky, idly seeing the Dragon constellation he was named for twinkling down at him.
A moment later he felt a rush of air into his lungs and his mother gathering him up in his arms.
“My darling, breathe, just breathe.” She said.
Harsh gasps sounded in the clearing that he only vaguely recognized as his own, as he tried to fill his lungs with the sensation of air again.
She stroked his hair until his breathing had calmed and then she pulled him to his feet, her hands stroking down the sides of his head and his shoulders a few times more.
She seemed to allow herself a moment more of this before his mother’s iron composure hardened once more under a mask of perfect control.
“Where shall we go? We can’t stay here long.” He said, his voice echoing out in a hoarse croak. It was true. His father was likely marshaling all his power to tracking them as they spoke.
“No, we cannot linger on British soil. Our flight from the manor will not be unnoticed. Come, I’ve secured a portkey.”
He watched as she used her wand to unearth a chest buried in the cold earth.
“How long have you been planning this?” He asked, his arms crossing his chest. It seemed like their silence had been broken after their escape from the manor.
With a flick of her wand, Narcissa unlocked and the chest clicked open and she levitated a stone from inside it.
“Always have a contingency plan in place. Safe places to Apparate to with supplies to keep you alive,” she instructed, not meeting his eyes.
“Don’t make this into a lesson,” he snapped back. “How long, mother?”
She turned on him, her lips white with fury. “As soon as he came back. I will not have you caught in the Dark Lord’s web, even if you must renounce your title and your position, even if we must flee to the edges of the earth. He will not have you. As soon as your father returned to his side, he sealed our fate.”
He blinked at the heat of her words, grappling with his feelings and deciding that it was too late to think about what that meant for him. For the path he’d had laid out in his mind— of his future, of his position as Heir Malfoy, any of it. He was too tired, he’d just been ripped away from his home, left his father, he couldn’t think about it.
He nodded tiredly, and touched the smooth stone his mother had retrieved from the chest. Once they were both touching it, she murmured the spell to initiate the portkey and he blinked and then he was standing in a dirt road in the middle of a large field, his mother striding forward down the winding path. There seemed to be a sea breeze nestling the air as he walked. There were lights in the distance.
He followed after his mother, trying to guess where they were. She hadn’t said. Probably a test, he thought irritably. He looked up at the sky again. Still in the northern hemisphere then looking at the positioning of the stars. His mother had said they could not stay in Britain any longer though. The only other connections he knew his mother had were in France, he was guessing somewhere off the southern coast.
“With whom did you find sanctuary for us?” He asked quietly as he caught up to her purposeful strides forward.
“An old friend—a mentor really. We lost touched a long time ago, but I wrote to her after - after the quidditch world cup,” his mother said softly. After father went parading around with his death-eater buddies, Draco filled in the gaps of what wasn’t said.
He nodded curtly. They walked until they reached the edge of a gated property, one he could sense wards behind. Wizards lived here, he could tell.
They stepped through, knowing they were announcing their presence to whoever lived there. It was a long path up the hill to the house, and they passed rich gardens and a glass greenhouse until they made it to the front door of the estate. His mother took the lead and knocked, and the front door opened to the face of a woman who looked no older than in her mid-thirties, with sun-blond hair braided behind her back, an apron over her dress and a warm smile on her face.
“Narcissa, it is good to see you again,” she said, kissing both of her mother’s cheeks, then turning to him. “You must be Draco, your mother has written all about you. Come in, love, you are welcome here.”
He looked to his mother’s face. As always, she was the picture of composure and elegance, but the iron mask she always wore was softened at the edges as she greeted the other woman.
“Draco dear,” his mother said. “This is my old friend Perenelle. We must thank her for her hospitality.”
Holy Merlin, she's THE Perenelle Flamel? Draco raised a shocked eyebrow first to the seemingly youthful woman in front of him and then to his mother in awe.