Surpassing Danger
Chapter 48: Fight Brave and Bold (Year 7)
By Anne B. Walsh
I disclaim two quoted lines in the middle of the chapter. Also, more creepiness. Be warned.
The master of Malfoy Manor sat in his house's library, his eyes on his book, turning the page every so often, though he was absorbing nothing from the words. His attention was directed out and back, towards the soft footfalls and breathing he could hear approaching.
Perhaps I should not have trusted my dear Starwing's Memory Charm. She never had a chance to truly learn them, after all. Still, what else could I have done? And this will be for the best, after the messy parts are over…
A wand's tip poked into the back of his neck, sliding between his layers of hair to prod against a vertebra painfully. "Get up," ordered a voice. "Hands where I can see them."
"Really, now, Rowle," Lucius said calmly, laying the book on the table and doing as he'd been told. "What do you hope to gain from this?"
"You took my prize away from me," Rowle accused, keeping his wand jammed against Lucius's neck. "The Nott boy. You let him go, and tried Obliviating me and my partner about it."
"Did I." Lucius took a long, deliberate breath, and smiled at the faint hint of old blood and powdery scales which lingered on the air of the library. "May I turn around? I dislike holding conversations with a man I cannot see."
"No funny business," Rowle warned, pressing a little harder on the wand before withdrawing it. "I've got you covered."
"As you say." Taking his time, Lucius turned about. "No…funny business." Face to face with Rowle, he looked the broader-built wizard over, head to foot and back again, enjoying the faint twitch of discomfort visible in the thick features before he had finished. "So," he said when he was ready to speak again. "You believe I released Theodore Nott from your custody, then altered your memories to hide the fact."
"I know that's what you did." Rowle grinned triumphantly. "The Dark Lord looked into my mind and saw it."
"And you think that entitles you to threaten me in my own home?" Lucius shifted his weight inch by inch as he spoke, letting the back of his mind work through the business of speeds, angles, necessary force. "To hold me at wandpoint and make demands of me as though I were a Mudblood?"
"You're a Squib, is what you are," Rowle began, "and—"
Lucius lunged, his left hand closing around Rowle's wand and twisting it savagely from his grasp, his right choking off the other man's howl of pain as his momentum carried them both back three steps to slam against the wall. "You forget what else I am," he breathed, lifting Rowle easily from the ground by his clutch on the other's throat, Rowle's feet paddling ineffectively in midair as panic suffused his reddening features. "What I have been for some years now. And a predator, you see, knows only one way to deal with a threat."
His fingers closed with crushing force.
Rowle thrashed in terror, his face darkening from red to purple towards black as he fought for the air the ruins of his throat could no longer supply. Lucius stood immobile, watching his enemy die, and only when the last quiver had stilled did he allow the corpse to fall into a heap on the floor at his feet.
Soft, slow applause sounded from across the room, and Lord Voldemort stepped forth from between two shelves of books. "A masterful performance, Lucius," he said, waving the Death Eater to his feet when he would have knelt. "Now, explain yourself. Rowle's story was true."
"It was, my lord. But I acted as I did for several reasons." Lucius stooped to pick up Rowle's wand, setting it on the table beside his book. "Most, if not all, of which relate to the furthering of our cause."
The Dark Lord tapped his fingers against his opposite arm. "Go on."
"Patroclus Nott is a good and faithful servant to you, my lord. But he is not as single-minded as he could be, and the sudden appearance of his son would tend to divide his loyalties further. Especially since he is not as good a wizard as I was." Lucius scowled momentarily. "And will be again. Still, Patroclus would need to spend more of his time and energy on controlling the boy than I did with Draco. Time and energy which could be better spent in your service. To add to which, Theodore would be a constant danger, for it is possible that Patroclus might slip and allow the spells to lift, and Theodore could be intelligent enough to act as though they had not. And if he then began to send everything he saw and heard to our enemies…"
"Cogent points, both." Lord Voldemort nodded. "Is there a third?"
"My lord, there is." Lucius smiled. "I recalled a bit of gossip I had gleaned from Draco, and cast a spell in the dark by suggesting to young Theodore that he take Astoria Greengrass with him in his flight. Which, judging by what I hear from other quarters lately, he did. No doubt other young purebloods will also think to flee the country on a romantic quest for safety with their beloved ones, and will wish to be unremarkable among their new neighbors. Which means they will, most of them, begin to produce children within the next five years. Magical children, my lord. Pureblood children. And if my enemies could so thoroughly corrupt my son when they did not have control of him until his fourth birthday…"
"We could surely do the same, but in reverse." The Dark Lord laughed softly. "Lucius, you are a continual wonder to me. Now tell me how we shall find these happy little couples, and my day will be complete."
"Why, most simply, my lord." Lucius chuckled. "A spell I came across just last week does that very thing. And the only requirements are a bit of blood from two of the lost one's relatives—one from each side of the family is best, but anyone with a strong relation will do in a pinch—and a specially sensitized compass. With a drop of blood apiece from Patroclus and Deianara, for instance, we could find young Theodore across the widest ocean or over the tallest mountain. It would take time, but it could be done."
The Dark Lord frowned. "I take it the blood must be fresh," he said. "And that the results become less accurate as the degree of relation diminishes."
"Sad, my lord, but true." Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Had you hoped to use it on someone soon, perhaps? The compass will need to be constructed, first, and the process is complicated. The carving must be absolutely accurate to the diagrams, and certain potions are required for the sensitizing process…"
"Have Severus begin on those, then, and assign the construction as you see fit," Voldemort ordered, waving a dismissive hand. "Once it is finished, inform me immediately. Oh, and Lucius." His smile showed all the warmth of a wintry night. "Look up the Black family tree and find out who, besides Bellatrix, is Sirius Black's closest living relation."
"I will, my lord." Lucius bowed deeply, his eyes sparking with humor. "Because where one finds Sirius Black…"
"One will, doubtless, find Harry Potter," the Dark Lord finished. "To work, Lucius. And do not let me hear of such things as this from another's lips again." His flicked finger took in both Rowle's crumpled form and the accusations which had been hurled. "You understand."
"Perfectly, my lord." Lucius did kneel this time, and remained on his knees until Voldemort had left the room. "Echo," he called out once the door was closed, pitching his voice to reach barely to the opposite wall. "Echo, come here."
With a loud snap, a house-elf in a neat dress of dark brown appeared, her blue eyes wide and startled at the unexpected summons. "Master called?" she said timidly, then gasped as she caught sight of Rowle's body.
"Clean that up," Lucius ordered, waving his hand in the direction of the corpse. "And then tell Starwing that I want her, and fetch tea. To my rooms, not here. I will be resting."
"Yes, Master." Echo curtsied, then scurried to Rowle's side and gingerly reached for his hand. Lucius turned away from this in favor of rising to his feet, and spent a few moments regarding the paintings on the wall of the library, until another, louder crack announced Echo's Disapparition with the body.
"Did you ever deal with such troubles as this?" he asked his ancestors' likenesses whimsically. "Assassins in the library of one's own home, children denying and betraying their parents…" He shook his head. "What am I saying, of course you did. You lived in the time of Salazar Slytherin, or only a little later than he." His eyes rested momentarily on the smiling face of a red-haired witch. "And if Draco's fanciful tale about our descent were the truth, you, my lady," he said with the slightest smile of his own, "would be much closer to him than my Master would care to hear about."
Thus, I shall not tell him. Why should I brand myself the descendant of a Mudblood murderer, on no better authority than the defiance of a foolish boy?
With a bow only a little less deep than the one he had granted to Voldemort, Lucius turned and left the library. A pot of tea and one of Starwing's near-magical massages would help him regain his balance after a decidedly difficult morning.
"Are you ever going to do anything with that?" said Ginny to Hermione, nodding to the silver dagger with its blue stone in its hilt, riding easily against Hermione's hip as the two Warriors stripped and remade the beds in the dormitory alcove they shared with Meghan. "I mean, about putting something inside it. Harry has Sangre's venom, and Meghan has Fawkes's tears…"
"I already have." Hermione patted her dagger affectionately. "And it's part of a whole plan I've worked out. Do you want to hear?"
"Yes, please." Ginny turned a pillowcase inside out, thrust one arm inside it, and caught the corner of her pillow, turning the case to the correct orientation with the other hand. "Dare I hope it's something bloody and awful for Death Eaters?"
"That's actually closer than you might think." Hermione chuckled, a sound which resounded oddly to Ginny's Lynx-ears. After a moment, she realized why. She was more used to hearing those particular undertones from someone like Fred or Selena Moon, someone who'd been deeply hurt by the horror of the war and was coping in ways which could generously be called unusual.
Have we missed something about our Neenie? I can't imagine we have—but she did lose her twin, and that might have taken a while to really sink in to her…
"It's the twinning potion, the one Lucius used on Draco and me," Hermione was continuing over Ginny's thoughts. "It doesn't take very long to make, once you know how, and my dagger absorbed it right up. And when it's finally my turn to go out and fight, when I get my chance to catch up with some Death Eaters, I'm going to nick them with it, just the tiniest bit. The potion will get into their body, and I'll be able to take a single drop of their blood. And then…" She traced a finger along one of the dagger's quillons. "I'm going to mix it with blood from a Muggle."
"Taking away what they care about the most, their precious purity, without actually hurting them hardly at all." Ginny tossed the pillow into place at the head of her bed and unfolded the top sheet, snapping it up and down once or twice to enjoy the crisp scent of freshly laundered linen before starting to tuck it in. "I like it. But are you going to be able to get any Muggles to give you some of their blood for that?"
Hermione's smile would not have looked out of place on her feline form, surrounded by pitchers of cream. "Top drawer of the wardrobe," she said, shaking out a hand-crocheted afghan of marvelously varied coloring and laying it across her own bed. "Go and have a look."
Ginny crossed the alcove to the wardrobe which served all three remaining female Warriors (not without some grumbling by Meghan about the curtailing of her clothing choices) and opened first the door, then the top drawer inside.
Five rows of neatly capped and labeled beakers, each holding a few drops of red liquid, met her eyes.
"It's amazing how many of them want to do something." Hermione spoke with her head down over her work, removing the blankets from Meghan's bed. "The Muggles, I mean. To get back at the people who've threatened their families, made them run away like this. They understand that it probably wouldn't be wise for too many of them to go out and fight, but this is something that they can do. Not very many of the ones I asked said no, not when I explained why I wanted it." Her finger caressed her cheek, where her own scar had healed over the day of Draco's funeral. "Though I may need more eventually."
"I hope you do." Ginny shut drawer and door, and started unfolding a fresh bottom sheet for Meghan's bed. "I hope you need twice and three times that much. If I never have to hear the word 'pureblood' again, it'll be too soon."
"Really?" Hermione laughed, more truly this time. "Think about that a little bit, Ginny. What are your and Harry's children going to be?"
"Witches and wizards," said Ginny promptly. "Nothing more nor less. And so will all their schoolmates be, and that's what we'll teach them from the beginning. Bring them up in both worlds, the way you and the rest of the cubs were." She grimaced a little. "Though of course that doesn't solve the Muggleborn problem. Why our ancestors ever thought it was a good idea to keep everything so secret until only a few months before the eleventh birthday…"
"Be fair, some Muggleborns get contacted sooner." Hermione caught the end of the sheet Ginny tossed her, and together they tucked it around the mattress. "But usually it's only after they do some enormous public feat of accidental magic, and they're in danger of being locked up because people think they're dangerous or mad or freakish. Which isn't any better." She paused, looking thoughtful. "Do you know, Ron and I were talking about something that might help with that before the school year ended. An educational center, where Muggleborns and their families could come to learn about the magical world, and where children who're magic-born can learn about Muggles."
"Magic-born." Ginny nodded. "I like that better than pureblood or halfblood. It's descriptive and truthful, but it doesn't set up any stupid ideas about things like breeding and bloodlines."
"So…" Hermione smoothed a wrinkle in the sheet. "We'll start using it and wait for other people to catch on?"
"Sounds like a plan."
Severus Snape paused in his careful cutting of tiny snippets of green from the ground of the woods surrounding Malfoy Manor to listen. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing a pipe, and someone else was laughing.
And if I were wise, I would avoid them on principle. Forest-elves do exist, and though we trade peaceably with them for small luxury items such as wines, they take poorly to having their fastnesses violated.
Still, he had a suspicion that the sounds had a more plebeian explanation, even if the first one to his mind could not have been the true one. The person about whom he'd thought, after all, was dead.
But he was not the only person of my acquaintance who played a wind instrument. Merely the most likely to have been playing one in the middle of the woods, in the middle of a summer afternoon. Though these woods are hardly his natural habitat…
Setting aside his unhelpful thoughts, Severus Disillusioned himself and went on the stalk. The Dark Lord, he reasoned, would want to know if someone had managed to slip through the protections laid around Malfoy Manor to enter its grounds without permission, and Severus himself had an interest in finding out who among his current colleagues might be carefree enough to indulge in music and laughter.
Since they are either so hardened to what goes on here that they are effectively irredeemable, or they are clever enough to know that they must find time for simple pleasures or they will become precisely that hardened.
Moving with the care he had learned from bitter necessity in his childhood and pausing every few moments to listen again, Severus located the source of the sound with ease.
Keeping his disbelief under control, as he stared at the scene before him, was more difficult.
Did I perhaps think the explanation might be simpler than that of forest-elves?
The fair young man sitting in a tree, his arm hooked companionably around an upthrust branch, his suntanned fingers dancing playfully across the holes of his wooden pipe, wore robes of a cut so antique that Severus had seen them in only a few pictures before this, and never in reality.
And in one of those pictures, he himself was dressed in them.
Unmistakably, the piper wore one of the faces uncovered on the library wall of Malfoy Manor, that of the second son of the ancient House of Beauvoi.
Which makes it all the more fitting that the other person here present wears the face of his companion. Severus watched the young woman as she twirled in place, her flaming hair and chiming laughter striking dull, painful chords within his heart. With a name which means 'beloved one'. An irony only to me, perhaps, but an irony all the same.
Still, this encounter was one he did not think he would be reporting.
What would I tell the Dark Lord? That his headquarters has been invaded by revenants? That spies are wearing faces out of the distant past to walk among us? If either of these young people appears anywhere inside the Manor, then I will speak. Until then, it is only a moment in the woods.
Inclining his head silently to the young couple, Severus returned to his duties. The potions Lucius had sent to him would require careful tending for the first several days.
And though I may not like the purpose to which they will be put, I must admit I enjoy the prospect of a challenge. Brewing endless doses of antidotes and healing potions, with only the Wolfsbane as a break from the monotony, had me nearly ready to throw my cauldron from the window. Though the occasional visit of little Starwing, with her unusual outlook on life, certainly has kept my days from becoming boring…
You have a visitor, Danger announced in the back of Remus's mind, a moment before a hesitant knock on the door of their suite.
I have one? How can you be so sure? Remus tucked away the three scrolls he'd been comparing and got up from his chair.
Because he saw me chatting with Letha as he was coming across the cavern, and he nodded but didn't stop. And he smells scared to death, so whatever he wants, be gentle?
Curse you, woman. You've piqued my curiosity. Who on earth—Remus swung the door open.
"Hello, Ron," he said. "Come inside?"
"Thank you. Sir." Ron had his hands shoved into his pockets, and Remus would have laid several Galleons on his fingers tapping out complicated rhythms against his robes' inner lining. "I wanted to—I mean, I thought I should—" He stopped and deliberately took a breath, in, then out. "I'm not making a very good showing, am I?" he said with a rueful smile.
"Why don't we start by getting comfortable." Remus closed the door and swirled his wand at the small living room, bringing its two armchairs into conversational distance beside the fireplace. "And then you can tell me what this is about. Nothing's wrong, I hope?"
"No! No, nothing's wrong. Except—well, something could be. I suppose. If I muck this up." Ron seated himself. "Which is why I thought I ought to start with you. So I don't muck it up. Because if I do, well…" He shrugged. "Doesn't matter much what happens after that."
Now he's piquing my curiosity. Remus sat down in his turn, watching the youngest son of the Weasleys closely. Whatever is he talking about?
And this, my dear, is how we know that you, for all your intuition, are still a man. Danger was chuckling through her mental words. Letha and I worked out what he's up to four sentences ago. But I won't spoil the surprise for you. Besides, if he can't get up the guts to say it to you, then it's just as well he doesn't try for it when the reality's on the line.
Remus's reply was brief and pungent, suggesting precisely the sort of revenge he was likely to take on his wife for leaving him hanging like this. Danger made a suggestion of her own in return, equally cheerful and just as vulgar, and the link closed with a blown kiss on either side.
"Go ahead, Ron," he said aloud, settling back in his chair. "I'm listening."
Nearly an hour later, Ron let himself out, still with a whiff of worry about his scent but with a new confidence infused into it. Remus, left alone again, blew out his breath and stared into the fire, feeling all at once very old.
If he were still the same impulsive, blundering child he used to be—
But he's not, Danger finished in time with Remus's own thought. None of them are children any longer, say the calendar what it may. And as much as I wish we could have protected them and sheltered them from some of the blows they've taken, would they have grown as strong as they are today if they hadn't had to fight?
I know. Remus called a tendril of fire to his hand, and shaped it into a tall, stately pine. "Good timber does not grow with ease…"
"The stronger wind, the stronger trees." Exactly. Danger's mental voice hitched once. Now if only that knowledge stopped it from hurting so terribly that they've been robbed of some of the carefree time they ought to have…
"But should they?" Remus spoke aloud without taking his eyes from the flames as the door opened behind him. "Carefree time is wonderful, but can't it also be seen as careless time? Time that could have been spent better if they did care for something, as now they do? It's a terrible shame that they have to live in fear, to fight and hurt and even die. But no living thing is entirely free of care. And even if we'd managed to keep them totally sheltered from the world, sooner or later that shelter would break, and they'd be so horribly unprepared for what came pouring in on them."
"So, as ever, it's the fine line we have to walk." Danger seated herself on the arm of Remus's chair and passed her hand over his fiery tree, decking it out momentarily for Christmas before it vanished into the air. "Giving them as much love and joy as we can, and supporting them as they face the difficulties of the world around them, without either smothering them or leaving them out in the cold." She sighed. "And here we are, hoping and praying to have a blood child of our own, to start this process all over again. Does parenthood come with a built-in Memory Charm, do you think?"
"Possibly." Remus reached around to pull his wife down into his lap. "Or perhaps we've simply made up our minds that the joys outweigh the pains."
"Not to mention how much fun the process of baby-making can be. Though it's a difficult art to master. One must keep in training." Danger pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. "Come to think of it, I don't have to be anywhere for a while. Would you care for a practice session?"
Remus chuckled. "I thought you'd never ask."
A flick of his wand conjured a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the doorknob, and the follow-on wave shut the door with a solid thump.
Harry sat on a ledge halfway up one of the rock pillars of Sanctuary, surveying his small kingdom and finding it good.
Well, not really mine. But I can at least claim fairy godfather to it. He sketched an image of himself in the air before him with fire and added frivolous little wings, such as might be found in a Muggle fairytale book. And it's nice to see things working like they should. For once.
Indeed, Sanctuary hummed with activity on this sunny summer afternoon. On a flat patch of grass out of the way of traffic, Neville and some of his best artillerists were holding a potion piece practice for Muggle adults, some of whom were interestingly good with such items already. In the open-air arena, Beedle the Bard was being creatively reinterpreted for a giggling audience of intermixed Muggle and magical children (Harry's ear had caught a familiar-sounding list of euphemisms for death being applied to Babbity Rabbity's Cackling Stump, winding up with "This! Is an Ex! TREE!"). Fang was drowsing under the sunlit Gryffindor crest, his fur patterned in red and gold, making him look like Padfoot in Harry's hazy baby memory.
From the direction of the kitchens, Harry could smell a most savory odor, and wondered who was in charge of dinner today. A large number of the Muggles who'd sought shelter in Sanctuary cooked either for their own families or for restaurants, and had shown a great deal of interest in keeping themselves busy in their accustomed manner, with the result that the house-elves' workload had been reduced quite a bit (not that the house-elves were terribly happy about this, the workaholic race being what it was) and meals in Sanctuary had expanded from the usual Hogwarts fare to incorporate a number of dishes not often seen on the tables in the Great Hall.
I hope they're sharing the recipes. That curry last night was fantastic, and the pasta dish the night before was just as good. Who'd have thought bacon, eggs, and cheese would go so well with noodles?
Reshaping his fire into a Snitch, Harry caught and released it several times before allowing it to dissipate. He'd have his hands back on the real thing one of these days very soon, since as surely as Hogwarts students were Hogwarts students, there would be pickup Quidditch in Sanctuary, though the Bludgers might be a bad idea when playing in an enclosed space filled partially with Muggles.
I'll ask Padfoot. He'll know the spells to keep them off the spectators if anybody will. Deciding there was no time like the present, Harry scanned Sanctuary's main cavern until he caught sight of his godfather's silver-laced black hair, then began to descend from his perch.
Wonder what the other side is doing on a pretty day like this?
Alecto Carrow giggled to herself as she finished yet another preliminary sketch for the maze she was designing for the proper punishment of naughty children at Hogwarts. It was a shame that the Dark Lord's plan to unseat Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress hadn't worked out, but his control of the Ministry had done something almost as good.
And who'd have thought that fool Fudge would put anything in place that would be useful for us? But he did, oh yes, he did. She set her quill down in its holder to pick up and gloat over the gleaming badge sitting to one side of her desk, her fingers stroking lovingly across its engravings. Hogwarts High Inquisitors. That's what we'll be this fall, Amycus and I, Hogwarts High Inquisitors. Which means we have the power to punish anyone, at any time, for any reason, and not even the mighty Headmistress herself can stop us!
Being Inquisitors might even work out better than being the true power at Hogwarts, Alecto reflected, picking up her badge and crossing to the outside door of the suite she shared with her brother (slob that he was, though the house-elves managed to keep up with the worst of the clutter). All the precious parents would think, because Mealy-Mouthed McGonagall was still supposedly in charge, that their dear little lambies would be perfectly safe at Hogwarts.
I'd pay money to see their faces when they realize what they're getting back. Or not getting back, if we decide that's what's needed. Alecto giggled again, turning her badge so that the sunlight glinted off it. We can always call on the Ministry to intervene in cases of unfit parenting, after all! And once we do…
She closed the fingers of her free hand with a broad grin. "Ours," she breathed, imagining she held lives in the palm of her hand rather than nothing but air and sunlight, lives she could allow to continue on sufferance, or snuff out as easily as she had little Pritchard's.
But once we have things going the way we want them, no one'll try to run the way he did. Not once they know it's impossible. Not once we've got all the families properly segregated, held in different spots, and constant communications between them. She squeezed her fist tight, her grin broadening even further. One gets away, the rest die within the hour.
Coming up with these plans, and presenting them to the Dark Lord for review and assignment to the teams of witches and wizards who would make them a reality, was the highlight of her work as a Death Eater, and Alecto didn't see how anything could be expected to top what she was doing now.
"Unless it's overseeing the whole plan as it works, of course," she murmured aloud, staring out into the sunny afternoon but seeing the blackest night, with quiet weeping and groans rising up to her tower window as she read through lists of couplings, births, and adoptive parents by candlelight. "And one generation of forced breeding's all we'll need, really. Once we've raised those children up in the proper pureblood way, given them a taste of what real power's like, how good it is, they'll never even think of straying from what we tell them's true, and there we are." She began to giggle again, and couldn't stop herself. "There we are! With the world we ought to have, the world we deserve—the world where we're on the top, and they're on the bottom, and it'll stay that way, for good!"
"So sure?" asked a light, teasing tenor.
Alecto whirled, her hand going to her wand pocket—
Which was empty.
"Looking for this?" asked the young man standing in the center of her sitting room, twirling her wand between his fingers. "You might want to invest in a bit of security. An alarm spell, perhaps. I understand there's a shop in Diagon Alley which sells quite a good line."
"Who are you?" Alecto advanced on the stranger, glaring at him. "How did you get in here?"
The young man chuckled and dodged nimbly to one side, whisking the hem of his dark green robes out of Alecto's clumsy grasp and landing on his toes beyond her reach. "Magic," he said, beaming all over his face. "Along with the fact that I have, let us say, a certain affinity for this house."
"Yes, I can see as much." Alecto scowled. "Not like you've got 'Malfoy' written all over your face or anything."
"I do?" The stranger affected an astonished look. "However can that have happened? Perhaps that trick quill my lady slipped me the other day…no, that only exploded. Rather messily, yes, but I don't think it wrote anything in particular on my face."
"That's not what I mean and you know it!" Alecto shouted, making another grab, which her unwanted visitor eluded as easily as he had the first. "What are you, some bastard brat of Lucius's? Or are you Lucius, having a little game with me, hmm?"
"My dear Miss Carrow." Balancing on the balls of his feet, the young man looked down his nose at her, quite unaffected by her bellowing. "Do you really believe Lucius Malfoy could do this?" Tucking her wand up his sleeve, he performed three cartwheels in place, then sprang upright breathing barely faster than when he'd started. "Or this?" Leaping straight up into the air, he spread his legs out as wide as they would go and touched his toes with his fingertips. "Or—this."
A brilliant flash of light erupted where he stood, and Alecto yelped and threw up her hands to cover her eyes. When she had finished blinking furiously to clear her tears away, her strange visitor was gone. Only her wand remained, lying askew on a slightly scorched section of floor, along with a small slip of parchment.
Alecto had to count to ten several times, once backwards and once in French, before she could trust herself to advance to where her property awaited and pick it up, along with her bizarre visitor's parting gift.
You may call me Dafydd, it read, in old-fashioned flowing handwriting. Expect your next visit at whatever time seems good to me.
Evanie Pettigrew seated herself a bit awkwardly on the window seat, turning her face into the light and breathing deeply of the soft summer breeze. Peter had laid a Safety Charm over the window, so she wouldn't fall, and fresh air and sunshine were good for both her and the baby.
I need to enjoy it while it lasts. It won't be summer forever. She closed her eyes against the glare, leaning back into sun-warmed stone. The long days do mean Peter gets back here to me before it's quite dark, but they also mean a lot of the higher-ranked Death Eaters go out to enjoy the grounds as well, and we don't dare go anywhere they might see us, so mostly we stay in. Which is lovely in its own way, and I do have the house-elves to talk with when Peter's not here, including the shy new one who wears clothes, but sometimes I think I'd be willing to do something desperate for a chance to talk to another human…
A brush of wind past her face made her exclaim and open her eyes.
"Will I do?" asked the young woman now standing in the center of the room.
Evanie didn't quite gasp, but that was only because sheer surprise had taken her breath away entirely. Who—and how—
Mastering herself, she laid an arm protectively across her stomach, hoping the movement would distract the stranger from her slow reach for her potion piece with her other hand. "Who are you?" she asked, once she had enough air in her lungs to do any such thing. "What do you want with me?"
"I want to be your friend." The young woman, no older than twenty if Evanie was any judge and with a full head of striking red hair, smiled charmingly. "Your thoughts sound like you need one. And I promise, I don't bite, except when people deserve it."
"My thoughts?" Evanie's fingers wrapped around the potion piece's handle, then released it. Anything that could read her mind would probably not be vulnerable to a squirt of sleeping potion in the face. "But—where did you come from?"
The young woman pivoted on one foot, her arms spread for balance, her diaphanous pale blue robes fluttering around her. "Out of the everywhere, into the here," she chanted, coming to rest facing Evanie once again, then sobered. "Truly, how I come and go is something I'm not permitted to tell you. But I am here, and as real and human as you are. And if it's talking you want, that's one of the things I do best." Perfectly at home, she sank into a tailor's seat on the floor and rested her elbows on her knees, gazing up at Evanie. "So. Where should we start?"
Evanie laughed shakily. My teachers always did tell me to be careful what I wished for—and I suppose when there's magic involved, that's doubly and triply true!
"We should start with the most important thing, of course," she said, letting go of her potion piece and stroking her hand instead along the drowsing form of little Annette Selene Pettigrew, for whom Brekky, Levvy, and their new friend Echo had tentatively predicted a birthdate of the fourteenth of September. "What is your name?"
The young woman smiled again, her green eyes softening as at a happy memory.
"Call me Amanda," she said.
Sleeping in Remus's arms, Danger dreamed of a laughing voice calling out words to her.
My kin have found new games to play,
Your enemies to disarray;
Be glad in those whose hearts you hold,
And to the end, fight brave and bold.
And as I stated on the blog, this is the last filler-ish chapter that I shall be writing. The 'ish' comes in because if you're reading carefully, there is a lot of information here, though all of it may not mean what you think it means at first glance.
The lines Remus and Danger quote in the middle of the chapter come from a poem by Douglas Malloch. Look it up. It's good reading.
So I'm a bit behind the schedule I'd postulated to finish the DV on the tenth anniversary of its original posting… how do more frequent chapters in February sound? Say, one a week or so, with a highly romantic Chapter 50 being posted on or around Valentine's Day? (Or rather, Singles Awareness Day. Welcome to my life.)
Hope you're still enjoying, thanks for still reading, and please don't forget to review! Coming soon: Chapter 49, "His Wife's Husband", in which it is finally Ginny's sixteenth birthday!