Be Careful
76: What Truth You Hear
By Anne B. Walsh
Lucius found it hard to keep a foolish grin off his face as his son escorted Hermione Granger into the front room with mockingly precise courtesy. He couldn’t remember when he’d been prouder of Draco, not even when the boy had shown early aptitude for flying or brought home glowing reports from his teachers.
Less than a year ago, I despaired of him. I thought he would never fulfill the potential I had once seen. And look at him now...
"Here, have a seat." Draco whisked one of the couches which lined the walls into the center of the room and shoved Granger down onto it. "Make yourself... comfortable." His wand twitched towards the raw, red flesh covering the end of Granger’s right wrist.
The Mudblood girl shrieked and clutched her arm to her. "Why are you doing this?" she wailed. "I’ve already told you I don’t know where Harry is!"
"Oh, I know you have. But you could be lying. Though you might consider that beneath your precious Gryffindor honor." Draco pulled up a chair for himself and straddled it, leaning on the back to consider Granger with a lazy smile. "Or it’s always possible Weasley knows, even if you don’t. My room isn’t soundproofed... not from the outside, anyway. He can hear everything that’s happening down here. So I think I’ll let him listen to us for a while, and give my precious Loony a chance to tell him what she’s..." He swiveled his hips, making Granger shudder and turn aside. "...experienced. Who knows? He might decide to speak up after all."
"Ron doesn’t know any more than I do." Granger pushed herself upright, her breath coming in short gasps but her voice determined. "You won’t get anything from either of us. And Harry knows better than to come here after us."
Draco scoffed. "Now that I greatly doubt. Harry Potter, the Chosen One, who goes running off to save anyone who’s ever caught his fancy, not try to help his two best friends in the world? Not that he’ll succeed. Anyone who tries to Apparate in or out of these grounds gets automatically splinched, right here." He jabbed a hand against his breastbone. "And the only way past the wards at the boundaries is to be Marked or a Malfoy, or be let past by someone who is."
"We have to help them," Harry muttered, staring through the trees at the forbidding walls surrounding Malfoy Manor. "We have to do something." He held tightly to his fear for Ron and Hermione, to the unseen presence of Ginny by his side, to all the things that made him Harry Potter and not Lord Voldemort, flying around a fortress-like building far away, seeking a particular window and a particular man...
"We have to get in first," Ginny answered, keeping her voice as low as Harry had. "And I don’t like the look of those gates."
"Nor do I, but we can’t just stand here—" A flutter above his head caught Harry’s eye, and he looked up. His heart contracted at the sight of the snowy owl perched on a branch. Hedwig, I’m sorry, you deserved so much better than me—
The owl preened her breast feathers for a second, then dropped from the tree and silently exploded. Harry heard Ginny gasp, and barely stopped himself from doing the same.
"Thank you for not getting caught too," said Luna Lovegood, a smile flashing across her face. "It’ll make everything much easier. Come on, I think I can let you in."
Lucius frowned, unsure he liked the Mudblood knowing so much about Malfoy Manor’s security. But why should I worry? She is our prisoner...
"I got away from you once already, didn’t I?" said Granger, her lips twitching into the briefest of smiles. "Aren’t you afraid I’ll do it again?"
And that is why I should worry. For her to be so confident, she must have something hidden on her person, or some skill she has learned that will enable her to escape once more. We must neutralize her immediately!
Lucius started forward to take control of the interrogation, but Draco held up a hand, his eyes still fixed on the girl. "No," he said thoughtfully. "No, I don’t believe I am. Not when I know how you did it that first time." He chuckled, the sound echoing through his next words. "Or so I’ll tell you, at any rate."
"So you’ll tell me?" Granger echoed, her face showing the same bewilderment Lucius knew his own harbored, as well as the rest of the audience—Narcissa, Bellatrix, Greyback, and the other three Snatchers who had brought the two fugitives in. "But you’ve just told me..."
Draco plucked his wand from his pocket with a sigh. "You’re such a Muggle sometimes, Granger," he said, twirling it between two fingers. "Ever heard of Memory Charms? Once I’ve finished telling you all about what I’ve got planned for you, I’ll wipe it right out of your frizzy little head and you’ll never know the difference." His smile reappeared, and he got up from the chair and pushed it aside, padding silently in his bare feet around the couch where Granger sat, watching him warily. "But I want you to know about it first. And not just you." He glanced up at the ceiling, his smile now a predator’s grin. "Weasley should hear what’s going to happen to the love of his life, don’t you think?"
As though in response, there was a thump from the corridor. Lucius half-turned to investigate, but stopped before he had gone more than a step. If it were Weasley escaping his captivity, or Potter rushing to the rescue, we would already know it. Wormtail has tripped and fallen, or dropped something he was carrying, and he can deal with the aftermath himself. I will watch every second of my son’s triumph over this upstart Mudblood brat, and enjoy it to the fullest.
The man known even to himself as Wormtail hurried through the hallways of Malfoy Manor, hoping Amycus Carrow didn’t simply "forget" to tell Snape he was wanted here, and then later claim he’d never received the message to begin with.
It isn’t disloyalty, he salved his conscience. The Dark Lord would want Snape to know how well the war is going, how thorough his revenge on James Potter is finally going to be. That’s the only reason I Flooed the school, the only reason at all.
He ran into the front hallway and froze with shock. It lasted only an instant, but it was enough. The tall, red-haired boy who’d just come through the front door leapt at him, catching him around the throat, and they went down together.
The voices from the side room cut off abruptly as they rolled on the floor, grappling at each other’s faces and arms, the boy (he couldn’t let himself use the name, Wormtail knew, not even in his thoughts, or he’d be lost) snatching at the wand tucked into Wormtail’s pocket, Wormtail squirming ever more frantically away, and their rasping breaths the only sound left in the world...
"What’s going to happen to me?" Granger rolled her eyes. "You’ll hurt me. I’ll tell you I don’t know where Harry is. You’ll hurt me more. I’ll tell you again I don’t know where Harry is. Ron will tell you the same, if you bother to ask him. When you’re finally convinced I’m telling the truth, you’ll either kill me yourself or hand me over to that." Her glare stabbed at Greyback, who licked his lips and sniggered. "Either way, I end up dead."
"Is that really what you think of me?" Draco pressed his hands to his chest, a look of shock on his face. "That I’d kill you? How... inartistic. Anyone can kill Mudbloods. Even Scabior there’s done for one of them." He nodded towards a Snatcher. "Haven’t you, man? Little Gryffindor girlie, about fourteen, gingery blonde?"
Scabior nodded eagerly, beaming. "Didn’t know you’d ‘eard of that," he said. "Cor, but she screamed pretty."
"Natalie," Granger breathed. "Natalie Macdonald."
Draco wiped an imagined smudge from his wand with the sleeve of his robes. "Did you know her, then?" he asked in an unconcerned tone.
Granger sucked air through her teeth and did not reply.
"I’ll take that as a yes." Draco pulled a long face. "So sorry for your loss."
"Drat," said Luna, pressing her hands against the wall. "I was wrong. I can’t open them."
"Open what?" said Ginny, watching her friend examine the stone blocks. "The walls?"
"No, the wards in the walls. If they were just walls, we could knock them down. But they’re filled with magic, because magical people have lived here for so many years. They know their masters and obey them, and they know me a little bit, enough to let me out, but not enough to let me back in with you." Luna laid her forehead against the wall as well. "They’re so smart. It’s almost like they’re alive."
"So what are we supposed to do?" Harry asked, repressing his urge to kick at the thing separating him from his friends. It would only hurt his foot. "Kill them?"
Both girls turned to stare at him. It was Ginny who spoke first. "Can we?"
"Maybe." Luna cocked her head as if listening to something. "Yes."
"I was joking," Harry protested feebly. "We can’t actually—"
"If it’s going to get us in there to rescue Ron and Hermione?" Ginny broke in. "Yes, we can. Where’s a weak point, Luna?"
Draco returned to his pacing, returning Granger’s stare of hatred with one of tolerant amusement. "As I was saying, anyone can just kill Mudbloods. Two words, one spell, and you’ve got a dead body on your hands. But what good is that? No, I want to try something a little different with you, Hermione." His voice caressed the name, making Granger shiver. "That’s right, I know your given name. It’s what set me thinking. Awfully strange thing for a pair of Muggle tooth-bashers to name their one and only daughter, isn’t it?"
"My father loves Shakespeare," Granger said, her voice beginning to tremble. "He named me for the queen in The Winter’s Tale."
"So he says, I’m sure." Draco leaned on the back of the couch, forcing the girl to crane her neck awkwardly to look up at him. "And how do your parents explain your magic? This sudden, stunning power that no one else in your family ever had before?"
"They don’t try to explain it." Granger dug her fingers into the fabric of the couch. "They just accept it, as part of who I am."
"So they say." Draco’s gaze flickered up to Lucius. Granger’s followed. "Father used to shame me by you, did you know that?" His voice shifted into the precise tones Lucius used himself, and Lucius nearly touched his own throat to be sure he wasn’t speaking. "‘My son, the heir to the House of Malfoy, outdone by a Mudblood. Disgusting. Why couldn’t she have been born my daughter, and you to the Muggles?’"
Granger wrinkled her nose, as though Draco smelled bad. "I wouldn’t wish you on my parents," she said. "Not for all the gold in Gringotts."
"Touché," said Draco with a grin, using his own voice. "But that isn’t what I’m getting at, Hermione." Again the coaxing tone in the name, making it sound like a song. "Or haven’t you worked it out yet? You with your clever, clever mind?"
Slowly, Granger shook her head.
"No? What a shame. Let me try again. Your birthday’s 19 September, isn’t it?" Draco waited only long enough for Granger’s startled nod before continuing. "And mine is 5 June. Count with me..." He held up his hands, loosely fisted, raising his fingers as he spoke. "October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June." Hands with only the thumb of the left still tucked under waggled at Granger. "A week or two shy of the full nine, but I was a sickly baby. Or that’s what I’ll give you to understand, once I have you properly Obliviated and locked away."
The fullness of his son’s plan made itself clear to Lucius suddenly, and he could not repress a soft sigh of pleasure. Twisted and subtle. What a marvelous child I have raised.
"Yes, you’re getting it now." Draco’s smile brightened as Granger pressed the knuckles of her remaining hand to her mouth, stifling a cry. "I won’t tell you anything, you see. I’ll simply be your protector, your shield against the horrors befalling your dear friends, until you come to trust me. Then I’ll start letting you find things out, a bit at a time, until you’re quite sure of your conclusion." He leaned over her, twirling a strand of brown hair possessively about his finger. "I’ve always wanted a sister. I think you’ll do nicely."
All clear so far? Hang in there, it’s just getting started! Next chapter: Harry uses an Unforgivable, Ron uses guilt, and Hermione uses her voice. Encouragement very welcome!