Be Careful
23: What You Hold Onto
By Anne B. Walsh
Draco flattened his hand against the glowing pillar, which felt like cool and vibrating stone. He hoped it didn't mind his palm being slick with sweat. I never did like introductions.
"It has a pulse, like you do," Moony said from behind him. "Try and match yours to it. That will bring you into contact with its mind."
"The Manor has a mind?"
"Of sorts. It knows the difference between family and non-family, it can obey my orders, and sometimes it does things I don't expect. It's not likely to engage you in witty repartee, but it will recognize you and respond to you after this."
Draco nodded. Most of his attention was on finding the pulse in the vibrations under his hand. It just feels like random buzzing… wait, there, that was a pair of them. And another pair. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. Slower than my heart's going right now—no surprise, with all the excitement I've had today so far…
He thought of calming things, of a brook running through a forest, the dappled sunlight sparkling on its surface, the gurgle of the water as it fountained over the stones. He lay on a branch over that brook, watching the patterns in the swirling foam, and felt no need, no desire for anything other than this. Wants and wishes would return in time, but this place and this moment were sufficient unto themselves…
<I see you.>
The voice was slow, ancient, barely a voice at all, but Draco knew he'd been acknowledged somehow.
<You are not like the others. Your blood is different, from far away. Thinned and changed, not always for the best. Still, you are of a line like that which has made me what I am. For their sake and for your own, you are welcome.>
Well, thanks, Draco thought back, not sure if he were being sarcastic or not.
<The fate of many rests with you.> The voice had grown clearer, the words more distinct. <Do not succumb to fear, but treasure joy and rescue love, and all may yet be well…>
The contact cut off. Draco stood again in a cellar, staring at the dark outlines of his fingers against a silvery stone pillar.
"Rescue love," he muttered, taking his hand away. "How'd it get caught in the first place?"
"What?" Abby said. Behind her, Jonathan scooped up his youngest sister as Nicki pattered into the room, babbling away in toddler.
"Nothing." Draco hurried over to the wall to catch little Charlie just in time as he tried to fly off a shelf. "Thinking aloud, that's all." He spun the boy in a complete circle and set him on his feet. "Stay," he said, pointing a finger at a small snub nose.
Charlie folded his arms and pouted. "Dragons don't take orders."
"Yes, they do."
"Do not."
"Do so. From…" Draco had a brainwave. "Other dragons. That's who dragons take orders from."
"Aren't any other dragons here."
"Yes, there is." Ignoring the voice in the back of his head snickering at him, Draco pointed at himself. "What do you think my name means?"
Charlie chewed on his lip as he tried to figure this one out. Then his eyes went very wide, and he nodded hard, planting his feet and facing the center of the room, the very picture of "Stay".
Great. Now they're going to need me to tell him what to do all the time. Maybe I can convince him somebody else is a dragon too…
The door of the room opened, and Professor Riddle entered, carrying his grandson Paul. His daughter, whom Draco hadn't met but whose name he thought was Morgan, was behind him with baby Aurora in her arms and Diana clinging to her robes, the little girl's eyes very wide as she took in the room. Clearly she hadn't been here before.
Of course not, if they only use it for special things like a coming-of-age. She can't be more than four or five.
Professor Riddle set Paul down and went to stand beside the door. Paul started tugging at his mother's arm, whining. "Mummy, up, up…"
Morgan cleared her throat.
Paul looked abashed. "Please, Mummy, I up?" he rephrased.
"Maybe." Morgan looked around. "Yes. Here, you, dream-boy, what's your name." She held out Aurora, stirring in her sleep. "Take her."
"Me?" Draco was appalled to hear his voice try to crack in the middle of the word. He covered with a cough and tried again. "Me? I don't really know how…"
"No better time to learn. Come here." Shifting her daughter into the crook of one arm, Morgan briskly arranged Draco's arms into a semblance of a cradle, then laid Aurora in them. "Keep her head supported," she ordered, bending with a wince to lift Paul onto one hip. "And for God's sake don't look so stiff. She's a baby, not an erumpent horn."
I think I'd rather hold an erumpent horn.
Draco knew better than to say this out loud, but his panic was mounting. What if the baby woke up and screamed? What if she startled him and he dropped her? What if he held her the wrong way and hurt her?
I don't know what I'm doing, this was a bad idea, you really shouldn't trust me with something this important—
Abby laid a hand on his elbow. "Don't be scared," she whispered. "Your body will tell her that you're scared and then she'll be scared too. Just hold her like you would anything you didn't want to lose. Close, but gentle, and relaxed."
Draco avoided commenting on the ease of words as opposed to actions and focused on the content of the advice. I need to relax. What's relaxing to think about?
Well, I'm here, live and in person. He smiled at the mock-announcer tone his thought had taken for those few words. No one's going to hurt me or lock me up anywhere. The people and the magic both accept me. It's almost like—
No, it's not ‘like’. I do belong here.
Aurora turned her head in her sleep and nuzzled against his robes. Without thinking, Draco swayed where he stood, and the baby sighed and settled back into her slumber.
And I'm not too bad at this. I still don't want to deal with her awake and crying, or changing a nappy or anything, but just holding her doesn't seem too hard…
I shouldn't have thought that, should I.
A knock on the door made him jump, and Aurora startled awake. Quickly, Draco made shushing sounds towards her, falling back into the swaying motion he'd used earlier. Aurora's tiny face wrinkled, her mouth opened—
In a huge yawn, and closed again without uttering a sound.
That was close.
Still rocking the baby, he watched as Professor Riddle opened the door. "Who seeks to enter here, and why?" the man asked in a calm, assured tone.
"I am Reynard, son of the house of Beauvoi and the line of Slytherin," Ray answered from outside. "I seek to enter and claim my birthright."
"I am Hermione, daughter of the house of Beauvoi and the line of Slytherin," Neenie seconded. "I too seek to enter and claim my birthright."
"Of whose line within the house of Beauvoi do you come?" Professor Riddle challenged.
"We are the oldest children of Remus, Lord Beauvoi, and of his wife Gertrude," Ray said, his voice ringing clear with pride.
"To this we swear by hand, wand, and life," Neenie added, "for our faces and our hearts both proclaim it for all to know."
Professor Riddle inclined his head, then spoke a few hissing words that filled the whole room with sound. Ray and Neenie replied in chorus, their faces blank as though they were thinking hard.
Or remembering a script. I wonder how often they've practiced this?
When they had finished, Professor Riddle bowed his head again. "You have spoken nothing but the truth," he said. "Enter, then, and claim your birthright, the governing of the magic of this Manor."
He stepped aside. Ray and Neenie joined hands and entered the room side by side, Danger behind them. Moony came forward from where he had been waiting by the wall and held up a hand to stop the twins advancing any farther.
"Today you are man and woman by our law," he said. "I congratulate you." That which the formal words could not say, his eyes did, shining brilliant blue in the silver light of the pillar. "Though it is not the custom for anyone but the direct heir to share in the Lord's control of the Manor-core, in these dangerous times I believe it necessary to bestow this mixed blessing upon you both. Receive it with all due caution, for injudicious use of this power has killed Lords and heirs before their time in years gone by."
Ray and Neenie gave quick nods. Neither of them seemed able to take their eyes from the pillar, which had increased its light until it seemed a full moon had risen in the center of the room.
"Come forward, then, and lay your hands on this pillar, the foundation of our home and the receptacle of our family's magic."
Ray placed his right hand, Neenie her left, on the pillar's surface. The other two hands were still clasped between them. Danger brushed her lips quickly against each child's cheek, then joined the other spectators at the side of the room, lifting Nicki into her arms so that the girl could see what was happening.
Moony walked around the pillar until he reached the opposite side from the twins. Laying both his hands against the stone, he stared into the glow and began to speak in Parseltongue.
"He says, ‘O magic of this home, magic of my ancestors, come to these my children,’" Abby translated in a whisper for Draco. "‘Teach them your use and grant them your power, that they may guard and guide the lives entrusted to them both in union with me and after I am gone. So I speak, so I intend, and so let it be done!’"
The pillar's light began to pulse, and its vibrations grew louder in time with the pulsation, until Draco could have imagined that it was a great silver heart, the core of Fidelus Manor that Abby had named it. With each pulse, a wash of silver rolled over Neenie and Ray, starting at the hands which rested on the pillar, meeting at the hands by which they clung to one another, and rippling back across the two until they could barely be seen for the light which played about them. The rhythm of the giant heart grew louder and faster, the shining silver glowed brighter—
The room plunged into darkness. It would have been silent if not for Nicki, Diana, and Paul all shrieking, Charlie yelling in gleeful terror, and Draco swearing. Aurora, in his arms, woke at the noise and started to cry.
This is what I was afraid of—she's squirming, I'm going to drop her—
Some instinct warned Draco to pull his head back, and he felt the wind generated by the passage of a tiny fist just beyond the end of his nose.
That would have hurt.
But the original problem still stands—
"Here, let me take her," said Danger beside him, and strong hands found his arms, slid under the flailing baby, and lifted her deftly away. "I know, I know, it got all dark and people made noise and you didn't like it, but now it will be all right, just as soon as your silly cousins get their wits about them and turn the lights back on…"
"Yes, Mother," said two voices from the direction of the pillar, and a weak silver light flickered into being.
Ray looked as if he'd been through a four-hour Quidditch match without a break, and Hermione as though she'd been up studying all night, but they were grinning at each other like kneazles who'd found the main entrance to the gnome tunnels. Moony stepped out from behind the pillar to give them both a searching look.
"And just what did you do with all that power you pulled?" he asked in his politest tone.
The twins looked as if they were about to quail, but Neenie squared her shoulders. "We were resetting the wards on the house, Father," she said.
"Resetting the wards on the house." Moony spoke the words delicately, as if he were tasting them. "Why, pray tell? Since we have decided to remain at Hogwarts for the time being, why go to the effort of placing wards on a house we will not occupy?"
"Because someone else might come here, and need a safe place," Ray said. His eyes flicked for the barest instant to Draco. "Someone might not have a choice about being here, and the dementors shouldn't be allowed to get at that person just because we don't want to maintain wards on the Manor when we're not using it."
"Besides, it will be less work when we come home for Christmas," Neenie added. "And less dangerous if we need to pop in for a few minutes to get something."
"Or someone." Moony nodded slowly. "Well done, in that case. Your release was sloppy, but that comes with practice, and we will discuss it at another time. For now, rest and let the Manor help you recover." He held out his arms. The twins embraced him, and he them. "I am proud to be your father."
Draco looked away, feeling a twinge of envy. Stupid of me—after they've practically drained themselves warding this place again on the off chance I might show up, I'm going to go wanting what they have? Great way to say thanks, Draco. Really great.
"Don't be sad," Abby whispered beside him. "You're our family now, remember? He's your father too. If you want him."
"Thanks," Draco whispered back, still watching Moony with the twins.
I do, but I don't, at the same time. I'd be intruding, wouldn't I? He's got enough children to take care of, he doesn't need me barging in. I have Mum. She's enough.
So enough wasting time being sad about things. It's time to party.
And then later, when I go back where I came from, I can see just how closely my two worlds are related…