Okay, everyone. Updates won't be as regular now. I am leaving for college in about two hours, and I don't think I'll have the next one up until the weekend. I'm moving in and starting class and all that. Don't fear though. I have up through sixteen written, so I'm not forgetting about this, or even leaving you hanging for a long time, though this chapter is a bit of a cliffie. Anyway, review, please! I haven't gotten nearly enough reviews on this, especially after the amazing response that KYEC got. I'm a little disappointed. So, let me know what you think!
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Malfoy Manor hadn't been lived in, in more than twenty years. Not since Draco had moved out at eighteen. The house was cavernous, taking up at least three or four acres of land. It was built of stone, and exuded evil. When Carys saw it, she felt both repulsion, and a disconcerting tug toward it. She imagined her father felt the same thing.
Harry whistled softly, took his wife's hand. "I've never been this close to it before."
Draco laughed. "It's much scarier inside than out." He looked around, took in everything. The dead trees, the lack of the grass and the gardens that his mother had loved so much. It was just an empty, evil house. "Let's go. We'd might as well get this over with." He led the way to the door and pushed it open.
The front room was huge. Antique tables covered with dust, a black chandelier, black marble floors that led to a grand staircase, which was, not surprisingly, carpeted in black. Draco swished his wand, and the chandelier lit, revealing what Harry imagined was the living room.
The furniture was all antique. Eighteenth century was Hermione's guess. The cabinets were filled with artifacts that she was itching to get her hands on, but knew that if she touched them, she'd be lucky to remain in possession of her hands. On the walls, the paintings were stirring, and they were granted glimpses of the Malfoy family. What shocked her was the portrait of Voldemort and Lucius and Narcissa.
"Draco."
Draco had already seen them. "My father had them commissioned a couple months before I left. They were for the unlikliness that he and Mum and Voldemort would be killed." He expelled a breath. "Look, let's just get this over with. Be careful when you touch something, because a lot of it will kill you. Carys, you, Sebastian and Noah go down to the basement. Ginny, Hermione, and Ron, upstairs. Harry and I will take the main floor."
Carys nodded, and led the two men to the stairs. Unconsciously, she reached for Sebastian's hand, not entirely sure what she was feeling about being in the house. She needed an anchor. "Let's go, but we have to stay together."
Noah left the basement door open, should they need a quick escape. "What is your father expecting to find in here?"
Carys lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Expecto Lumos." She said, and the candles lining the walls lit, allowing them to see. "He thinks that the Dark Knight may have been using this place as a base while they got the Unplottable and Randomized place ready. Which makes sense, if you think about it. Voldemort himself lived here." She glanced around, shivered at the sight of all the weapons hanging on the walls. She imagined that the basement had been used as a torture chamber, among other things. It didn't even surprise her that her grandfather had had an affection for Muggle devices.
Sebastian dropped her hand and walked across the room to the bookshelves. "Carys, do you know if your grandfather kept journals?"
"Not that I know of, why?"
He held up one of the leather bound novels. "These. They don't look like textbooks, or any books at all. They're all handwritten."
Noah snatched it away. "Don't touch those, mate. Remember, my mom got possessed by Voldemort in her second year through a diary."
Carys took the book. "Yes, but it was blank and she was talking to it. This is decidedly different. This is full of words already." She tapped it with her wand. "Yeah. They're just regular journals. But this writing isn't Lucius'."
"Do you recognize it?"
Carys was flipping through. "Sebastian, these are Lord Voldemort's. Good Merlin, these could be invaluable to us." She was flipping faster. "Spells, potions, curses. Seems he was very talented at development. Oh my."
"What?"
"This is a record of his life. Not just the spells and potions he developed and the people he killed. This is a full list a recruitments, and names, things he did that we were never able to fully prove. This is everything. Do you realize the implications here? This is the biggest discovery in decades when it comes to stuff like this."
Sebastian charmed the journals to box themselves up. "Okay, we'll read later. Let's get going." He led the way into the chamber off to the side. As soon as they entered the room, Sebastian felt smothered by evil. "I think we found where he stayed."
Noah nodded slowly. "So it seems. But the evil would have dissipated from Voldemort. He's been dead over twenty years. She must have stayed here too."
"I think she did." Carys murmured, running a finger down the arm of the throne that sat in the corner. She paused for a second. "Sebastian, Noah, get out of here."
Sebastian touched her shoulder. "What's going on?"
"It's a trap." Carys said matter of factly, her voice betraying the fear that she felt. Sebastian followed her gaze and saw the woman framed in the door leading to another chamber. The door had been hidden unless you stood at the side of the throne, so they hadn't been able to see her.
"Welcome." She crossed the room to them, long black hair cascading down her back. She spread her arms as if to embrace Carys, and the doors slammed shut. "I've been waiting for you. All three of you." She sat down in the throne, crossed her legs. "Sit, please."
As if they'd just been waiting for her to speak, three chairs flew across the room and knocked Sebastian, Carys and Noah into them. "What the bloody hell do you want?" Sebastian demanded.
"Conversation at the moment. In the long run?" she pursed her lips. "To rule the world. Tell me, children, how is it that three recently licensed wizards managed to defeat a team of my best Death Eaters? Death Eaters that have killed and tortured many greater than any of you."
Carys shrugged nonchalantly, trying desperately to ignore the fear that was clawing at her throat. "We wanted it more than they did?" she suggested boredly, crossing her own legs. She tossed her hair over one shoulder.
"Possibly. Maybe not though. I tend to chalk it up to luck." She narrowed silver eyes at Carys. "Tell me, what did you think of your prophecy?"
"Well, the only part appealing was the part where I killed you." She said sweetly. The smile was erased from her face as the woman cursed her with using neither wand nor voice. She writhed uncontrollably for a long minute, struck by the Cruciatus curse.
"That's enough of that. You'll mind your tongue and your manners when you speak to me. I won't tolerate insolence or disrespect."
"You'll tolerate it from me." Carys forced herself to her feet. "I bow to no one. I obey no one. And I will kill you. That part of my prophecy will be fulfilled. You will die at my hand. That I promise you."
With a wave of her hand, Carys flew across the room and slammed into the wall. The Dark Knight smiled, and Sebastian was struck by the evilness of the woman. Noah ran to Carys' side while Sebastian faced the woman. He could vaguely hear his parents trying to get in. He knew though, that they wouldn't be able to.
Sebastian ran his fingers over the wand in his pocket. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but he'd seen a spell in Voldemort's journal as Carys was flipping through it. Before the woman realized what he was doing, he yanked out his wand. "Doleo aduro!" he yelled, and was amazed when she burst into flames.
He watched in terrified horror as the flames engulfed her, and she screamed as her skin was burned. He wasn't stupid enough to think that it would kill her. He didn't think that at all. But it hurt her. And if she could burn, and bleed, as she was, then she could be killed. All they had to do was find a way to accomplish that.
"Foolish boy," she said as the flames flickered out, leaving her hair singed and her skin an angry red. "you have no idea what you have done. For your stupidity, you'll watch your friends die." She pulled out her wand. "I want to do this the old way. Avada Kedavra!"
Sebastian shouted his spell at the same time. "Patronum!"
The Patronus the curse, but did nothing more than slow it down. Not thinking at all, let alone rationally, Sebastian leapt across the room, absorbing the curse into his own body. The last thing he heard before everything went black was Carys' scream.
Sebastian hit the floor with a dull thud, his head lolling back, limbs stiff. Carys couldn't tell if he was dead or not. No one but Harry had survived a killing curse aimed at them, but there had been a few cases of someone doing what Sebastian just had and surviving it.
The woman stood, angered by the three teenagers. "Next time we meet, children, you won't be so lucky. One death is two fewer than I had intended upon today. And Carys? Tell your grandparents hello for me."
Carys was fighting tears and screaming. "Who are you?"
"All you need to know is that I am the Dark Queen. My name? Lamia."
With that, she Apparated and the adults were able to force their way in. Draco slammed the door shut behind them. Ginny was the first to see Sebastian on the floor and Carys sobbing, his head in her lap. She grabbed Hermione as her friend saw her son.
"Oh my God, is he?" Hermione couldn't bring herself to say the word. Noah shook his head.
"He isn't dead. Uncle Harry, he took a killing curse square in the chest. It was aimed at me and Carys. He tried to use his Patronus, but it didn't affect the curse."
Harry crouched, touched his fingertips to Sebastian's throat, let out a sigh of relief when he felt his son's pulse. It was weak and fast, but there. "Ginny, get him out of here. Take him home. We have to deal with this first."
Carys didn't want to let him go, not even to let her mother take him home and take care of him. "Take care of what?"
Draco met his daughter's gaze. "The Inferi in the other room."
And the last thing the Dark Knight had said suddenly made sense. Her eyes flashed. "She raised Lucius and Narcissa."
"She raised our entire family. And Voldemort." Draco corrected, helping his daughter off the floor. "Harry, you and Hermione go too. You should be with him in case-" Draco trailed off, found that he, too, was unable to voice the possibility that his godson might not survive. He gripped Carys' hand firmly. "This is something meant for the two of us, baby girl."
Carys nodded. "I know. Mom, will he be okay?"
Ginny offered her daughter a smile. "I hope so. Take care of her Draco."
Noah stood up himself. "Uncle Draco? It was her. The Dark Knight. And she isn't Desdemona. She's younger than all of you."
"We'll worry about that when we get home. Right now, get out of here."
Draco waited until everyone had Apparated. In some way, they all understood that it wasn't Inferi that father and daughter was facing. It was their past. He dropped Carys' hand, picked her wand up off the floor and handed it to her. She took it, gripped it hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
"How do you kill Inferi?"
Draco grinned. "You blow them up or set them on fire."
Carys nodded. "Let's go."
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Sebastian would live. Ginny was sure of that several hours after she got him back to the house. Whether or not he would wake up? That was a different story. "Look, the best I can do is keep him stable. There is not treatment magic or Muggle that can make someone unconscious or in a coma wake up. It's up to him if he even does." She laid a hand on Hermione's shoulder, near tears herself. "Herms, I love him as much as if I'd given birth to him myself. You know I would do absolutely anything I could to get him to wake up. There just isn't anything that I can do."
Carys looked at her mother, eyes rimmed red from the crying she'd been doing. "It's my fault, Mom."
Ginny hugged her daughter. "It is not. He's alive, you're alive, Noah's alive. That's two more people alive than would he have just stood there. He loves you, Carys. And would you have done the same thing had he been about to be killed?"
Carys nodded. "I would have."
"Then you can't blame yourself. He made his choice, and it saved your life."
"But I was the one who was making her angry."
Hermione looked at Ginny. "Can you give us a minute?"
Ginny nodded, slipped from the room. Carys laughed bitterly. "Want to curse me without an audience? I wouldn't blame you."
Hermione sat down next to Carys on Sebastian's bed. "Carys, when I was seventeen, Harry, Ron and I were in a situation similar to the one you found yourself in today. It was right after our sixth year ended. We had started hunting for the Horcruxes, weren't having any luck, and got ambushed by Death Eaters. God, I loved those boys." She smiled, remembering back. "We were inseparable. Did everything together, went everywhere together. Harry was battling Bellatrix. I took on Crabbe and Goyle's fathers. Pretty good wizards. Strong. And I defeated them. Lucius Apparated in and cursed Harry with Avada Kedavra. I didn't think. I threw myself at him and took the curse myself. I woke up a week later. Harry and Ron hadn't left my bed once since they'd gotten me home. And ya know what?"
Carys looked at her aunt. "What?"
"I'd have done it again that very day is they would have needed me to. Being friends with someone like you are with Sebastian and Noah, and like I was with Harry and Ron means not thinking about yourself. Loving them like you do means being willing to do anything, even die, so that they can live. I was willing to die so that they didn't have to. Harry and Ron, your parents, they've put themselves on the line many times so that I didn't get hurt or killed. That's why Sebastian did what he did for you and Noah. He loves you, and he'll do anything in the world to make sure that you stay safe. And you'd do the same thing for him." Hermione was about to cry. "If he dies, he'll have died doing something worthwhile. And if he dies, it won't be anyone's fault but that of the woman who cast the spell."
Carys slowly nodded, the fact that Sebastian's mother didn't blame her helping immensely. "Thanks, Aunt Hermione." Carys watched Hermione walk to the door. "Her name is Lamia. She told us that. And the box Noah brought with him is full of Voldemort's journals. There are a lot of spells and potions I've never heard of in there."
Hermione nodded. "I'll bring them up. It'll give you something to do while you wait for him to wake up." She stopped, turned. "Can I ask you something totally none of my business?"
Carys nodded. "Sure."
"Do you love him?"
Carys met Hermione's gaze, woman to woman. "I think I might."
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