Be Careful
2: Who You Look At
By Anne B. Walsh
Draco sat halfway down the long dining table, cordially ignored by the chattering siblings grouped at its head. His right hand was curled around the handle of a teacup, but he hadn't lifted it from the saucer yet. He didn't trust his hands.
Strange people who live in my house and call it theirs. Who say it's been their family's home for forty generations. Forty generations… that's ridiculous, that's farther back than any magical family has ever been traced…
He put both hands around the teacup, brought it to his mouth, and took a sip. The liquid inside was barely warm, but the familiar taste helped to get his mind working.
Easy numbers. Say twenty-five years to a generation. He set the teacup back in its saucer absently. That makes four generations every century. So forty generations would be ten—
Cold fear uncoiled down Draco's spine. He knew very well what magical bloodline had been traced back ten centuries.
No. They can't be. They're nothing like—
But the little girl, Abby, she had a snake. A cuddly snake. What kind of family would give their daughter a cuddly snake to take to bed?
His mouth was dry, the lingering taste of the tea bitter on his tongue. Their parents are coming home soon. I have to see their father. Then I'll know.
Thoughts of fathers led him to a long-ago memory. His own father, staring into a wineglass. Words, bitter words, which had meant nothing to a small child hiding in the corner of the library and seemed to mean hardly more now.
"A fool for an ancestor… yes, a fool… if he hadn't been so greedy, he could have twined his blood with the greatest the world has ever seen… but no, he wanted the money and the power, what did he care about blood? Except its spilling." A harsh laugh. "And he took the mark of shame they gave him and wore it like a badge of honor, and I carry it to this day…"
The words were rearranging now, shifting by the moment, mingling with his thoughts and his impossible surroundings, settling into a pattern Draco refused to look at. He reached, instead, for the certainties he'd been taught in his earliest childhood.
I am a Malfoy. Malfoys take what we want and rise by others’ fall. Malfoys bow only to those who command obedience, for that is where true power lies. Malfoys are pureblood, powerful, strong.
But a more recent memory kept intervening.
Last night, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I finally admitted it. I'm not strong. I never have been. The only power I've ever had came from Father, or from the Dark Lord. He pulled at the left sleeve of the robes Beauvoi had lent him, making sure the Mark on his arm was covered. And Abby acted as though being pureblood was something to laugh at…
Come to think of it, Granger has better magic than I've ever had. She's strong, she's fast, she's good. And she's—
No. Draco pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, heedless of the eyes on him from its head. No. It isn't true. It can't be true. I won't let it be true!
"Finished?" Granger asked.
Draco pulled himself back to the moment. "Yes. I think so." He'd only had a sip of tea, not even a piece of toast, but he didn't think he could eat anything now, not with all the fear and shock and strangeness coursing through his mind.
"Then upstairs we go," said Beauvoi, setting aside his plate. "Ladies, if you will?" He offered his arms to his sisters, though he had to bend a bit for Abby to get hold. Three abreast, they proceeded towards the stairs, Draco following in a divided frame of mind.
They're not even looking at me. I could run out the door. Get off our—their—lands, Apparate to London or Edinburgh or Hogsmeade—
And then what? Ask for the nearest reality merchant? No. Whatever's happening here, is happening here. I have to stay and find out what changed, and change it back so I can get home!
Draco started up the stairs, looking at the carpet. If he concentrated on that, only on that, he could imagine that he was home already, headed up to his bedroom for some practice in the N.E.W.T.-level spells he wouldn't be able to learn in the seventh year he wouldn't have, or to the roof with his broomstick to go flying alone, only on the family's land and only at night…
He shook his head firmly and kept climbing. He was alive, he was free, and he was still a Malfoy. Those were the most important things in his life. Nothing else could be allowed to matter.
Nothing except making sure our side wins.
It would have been so much easier if he were still sure which side was his.
When he reached the roof, the Beauvois had already separated and were peering eagerly into the distance. It was a sunny morning, bright enough that Draco had to shade his eyes, but none of them seemed to have trouble with the light.
"What's your family like, Malfoy?" Beauvoi asked without turning around. "Brothers or sisters?"
"None. I'm the only one." Draco tried to put a quelling tone into his voice.
"Isn't that boring?" Abby asked.
I don't think it's working. "I wouldn't know. I've never had it any other way."
"Oh." Abby thought a moment. "I'm sorry."
Draco nodded, satisfied. "Apology accepted."
The little girl giggled. "I didn't mean that kind of sorry! I meant I was sorry you didn't have brothers and sisters!"
"Er," Draco said.
Granger snickered, then turned her head to look at him. "Do you have parents, then?" she said. "Since you obviously disdain such lowly creatures as siblings."
Why don't you go sell your vocabulary and buy a few social graces? "Yes, I have parents. Who will be worried about me, and looking for me."
"And if they can find you here, they're good," Beauvoi said, still with his back to Draco. "We certainly won't try to keep you. They show up, go with them and blessings on you."
"How generous of you."
"Yes, isn't it?" The lines of Beauvoi's shoulders seemed to indicate the smirk Draco was sure the other boy was wearing at this very moment. "I'm well known for it among my friends. A model of generosity, that's what they call me."
"A model of pomposity, more like," Granger cut in. "If I prick you with a pin, do you blow up from all that hot air?"
Abby giggled again, backing away, as Beauvoi pivoted slowly to face his sister. "Hermione, dearest," he drawled. "Do you know what today is?"
"No, Reynard love, I'm afraid I don't."
"Today…" Beauvoi took a step closer to Granger. "Today, my darling…" Another step. "Is a marvelous holiday…" A third. They were practically touching. "Known as Throw Your Sister Off the Roof Day!"
He seized her arm and flung her forward. She yelped in surprise as she vanished below the level of the roof.
Draco gaped for an instant, then dashed across the roof. "Are you insane?" he shouted, grabbing Beauvoi by the shoulders—they were exactly the same height, a free corner of his mind noted in passing. "What did you do that for?"
"You know, you're right," Beauvoi said, frowning thoughtfully. "I really ought to have done it a few minutes ago. Still, better late than never."
Draco opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, just in time to have it shut by Abby's rising squeal. "Oooooh, oooooh, look! Look! Look!"
Both boys turned to look over the edge of the roof. There, sitting on a broomstick about ten feet below, were two very familiar forms, the exceptionally long one topped with red half-obscured by the brunette one Draco had seen fall not thirty seconds before.
"You know, Weasley," Beauvoi shouted down towards them, "the point of throwing one's sister off the roof is to have her actually hit the ground!"
A hand detached itself from Granger's hair, displayed one finger for a moment, then returned to its former place.
"What does that mean?" Abby asked brightly.
"Ask Mother when she gets home," Beauvoi said. "And stay close. I don't want to take any chances of—"
"Snatch!" bellowed a gleeful voice, and a black blur shot across the roof with a rush of wind that disarranged Draco's hair completely and whipped Beauvoi's robes around his legs. Abby, shrieking joyfully, vanished as the blur passed her by.
"Potter!" Beauvoi yelled after it. "Give me back my sister!"
"Not a chance!" shouted back the now-familiar voice, and the blur resolved itself several yards from the house. Abby sat sidesaddle on the broom handle of a black-haired boy with glasses, grinning cheekily at Beauvoi. His eyes, visible even at this distance in the blazing sunlight, were the green of the fields all around the house.
There was no scar on his forehead.
"You're going to go throwing perfectly good sisters off roofs, I'm going to get one while the getting is good," Harry Potter went on, patting Abby on the head proprietarily. "How about it, little love? Want to come home with me?"
"Ooh, yes!" Abby bounced up and down, making the broom wobble precariously.
"I'd think you had enough already," Beauvoi said, crossing his arms. "Isn't your mum ever going to stop having kids?"
"You should talk—what'll this be for your family? Six?"
"Seven. We're trying to beat them out." Beauvoi jerked a thumb down towards the still-snogging Weasley and Granger. "Mother says this is the last for her, though, so unless it's twins again we're not going to make it."
Potter shrugged. "Your dad could always try to find someone else to have the last one."
"Him?" Beauvoi gave a short laugh. "Not bloody likely! Speaking of which…"
A sound like a bottle being uncorked, and a second broomstick rose into easy view. "They're coming," Ron Weasley said, brushing Granger's hair out of his face. "We flew on ahead to say hello."
"Translation, his mum told him to get a move on and work off a few hormones before they all get here," Potter said. "And I came with him, because Ginny's riding with your family on the big carpet, so she can talk shop with Meghan and Aunt Andy and Aunt Sissy…"
Draco took an involuntary step back at the third name. It had the secondary, highly unwanted, effect of drawing everyone's eyes to him.
"Who's this?" Weasley asked, bringing his broom in for a landing.
"We don't really know," Granger answered. "He got into the house during the night, but he seems to be harmless. His name's Draco. Draco Malfoy."
"Malfoy?" Potter maneuvered his broom in beside Weasley's, Abby sliding off its front to land with a small thud. "Wasn't that what they called that weird cousin of yours way back when? The one who—"
"Yes," Beauvoi said shortly. "We'll discuss it when Father and Mother get here, if you don't mind." He glanced outward. "Which is right now. Clear the deck!"
The force of the shout sent Draco backwards three steps, and the content of the conversation he'd just witnessed kept him going until he was leaning against the small shelter of the door they'd used for access onto the roof. Brickwork rough under his hands, he watched the sky fill with broomsticks and magic carpets, all the occupants calling cheerful greetings to those standing below.
The first carpet to land held a man whose face Draco had seen in the newspapers, half-mad then, sane and laughing now, but still recognizable. Sirius Black dismounted from the right side of the thickly woven rug, then lifted down a dark-skinned girl a year or two younger than Abby, to whose side she immediately ran when set on her feet. Two similarly-complected boys, a fourth and a first year by Draco's estimation, scrambled off without any help, as did the sturdy woman who must be their mother, and Black snapped his fingers at the carpet, which promptly dropped to the surface of the roof.
Has an awful lot of kids for a dead man, hasn't he?
The next carpet in was being steered by a capable-looking woman with a round, familiar face, as the dark-blond man beside her seemed totally lost in thought. Behind them, chatting animatedly, sat two people whom Draco knew perfectly well, or at least he thought he did.
Longbottom and Lovegood, and what looks like her dad and his mum—but she's supposed to be crazy, locked up in St. Mungo's, and I know he's crazy, he puts out that Quibbler thing…
He snorted to himself. Sounds like a perfect match.
Longbottom slid off the carpet and helped his mother down, and Beauvoi was at its other side in a heartbeat, holding out his hand to Lovegood. She smiled and took it. Draco couldn't repress a shudder.
Who in their right mind would want a bug-eyed Ravenclaw for a girlfriend?
Of course, this is a bloke who shoved his own sister off the roof and trusted Ron Weasley to catch her. I think we can rule out his being in his right mind.
A flotilla of broomsticks landed next, seven in all, each carrying a familiar redhead, most of whom were whooping or shouting to the people below. The roof was starting to get crowded, and Draco was catching curious looks directed his way. He kept his gaze on the new arrivals, looking quickly away if anyone tried to make eye contact. His memories of the elder Weasleys were not pleasant ones.
There were only two carpets left in the sky, and one swooped in to hover over the others now. Its pilot could easily have been Potter under Aging Potion, and the woman beside him had hair befitting a Weasley and the eyes Draco could never stare down, not even from the other end of the Quidditch pitch. A red-haired girl who looked like a fifth year and a pair of black-haired boys, one about ten and the other six, clambered off, and the girl turned back to scoop up a toddler who could have been mistaken for her daughter.
If they were Muggles. If they did the crazy things Muggles do. Which they might. I don't know. Draco leaned his head back against the brick wall as a wave of dizziness washed over him. The noise, the bright sun, and the constant fear at his core were starting to affect him. All right. Here comes the last one.
Now I see if I was right or not.
This carpet was discernibly bigger than the others, and definitely more heavily laden. A boy in his mid-teens sat in the center, a small brother cuddled beside him and a smaller sister on his lap sucking her thumb. All had the same brown-on-brown look as Beauvoi and Abby and Granger.
And I suppose she's not really Granger at all, is she? She said it was her mother's maiden name, though…
The woman sitting at the front of the carpet bore that out. Hair, eyes, smile, "I know a million useless things and I'm going to share them all with you" attitude, everything about her shouted Granger to Draco's eyes. Everything, perhaps, except her obviously pregnant belly.
Even Granger's not quite that much of a slut. Not yet.
Finally, Draco turned his head enough to see the man who had flown the carpet, now helping the woman to the ground. All he could see at the moment was a back, but that was enough to start with. Sandy-brown hair streaked with white, a confident carriage, narrow shoulders but strong—
The man put an arm around his wife and turned to face his friends, and Draco blanched, another wave of dizziness assaulting him.
Not quite what I was afraid of. But not much better, either.
And it sure as hell doesn't make sense!
"Welcome, everyone, to our humble abode," said the voice of the man who looked like, but was obviously not, Professor Remus Lupin. "Shall we go down?"
Laughter and affirmative answers rippled through the crowd on the roof. Draco shrank away from the sound. People were starting to turn towards the door, any second they'd see him and want to know who he was, he had to hide—
Movement near the back of the carpet drew his attention before he could move himself. Ginny Weasley was climbing down, followed by a girl who had the look of the Black children but was at least as old as Potter or Draco himself, and then—
He took a step forward without meaning to. "Aunt Bella?" he whispered. "Mother?"
He had just time to see the shock and incomprehension on the two women's faces before the world spun around him and went black.