A/N: Ok, here we go, stepping forward into the breach. I always love meeting new people, don't you?
Really, I own nothing, except the approximately 1e6 OC's in this fic... Thanks to Lady Starlight for her work on
this chapter.
Chapter 8: A Reunion in Wales
****************************Godric's Hollow*****************************
August 20, 2015 (Thursday)
10:15 am
Emilia Potter caught a six-foot shaft of English Oak, and spun it into a flashing figure eight, crossing in front of her and spinning into her hand, ending along her right arm, held back, with the excess length along her back, as her left hand extended forward. She flipped it around and leaned on it for a moment, before tossing the staff to Harriet who was sitting under a birch tree that Em's parents had planted along the lake at the Hollow. Harriet caught it almost distractedly with one hand and set it beside her as she continued to run a brush along the white fur of her Familiar. "It's just not me, Harriet," Emilia said, shrugging as she dropped into an easy lotus in front of her friend and scratched Gaheris' ears.
"I have mine," Harriet replied, finishing with the brush and setting it on the ground next to her. She pulled her wand from behind her ear, a carved shaft of purpleheart, and tapped it, vanishing it to her room. She slipped it into a sheath strapped low on her thigh, over the cutoff jeans she had purloined from her 'sister' and stretched out under the tree, resting her head on Gaheris, who rested his head on his paws and seemed to go to sleep. She turned her head to look at Emilia, "Em..." Emilia nodded, Harriet sighed softly and looked almost wistfully up towards the house where she could see a black head of hair bent down, reading a book in a deck chair, "do you think that Sirius likes me?" She looked down her fingers as they absently fiddled with Gaheris' collar.
Emilia glanced up, moving just her eyes, to catch a dark head of hair quickly looking away, "There's a strong possibility," she replied, wryly, though the redhead in front of her did not catch the tone.
"Em?"
"Humm?" Emilia replied, preoccupied with watching as Hermione appeared on the porch and leaned down to say something to Sirius. She looked over and saw Emilia, and waved, before vanishing, presumably since she looked to have had formal robes on, to the Wizengamot session that Emilia knew was taking place this afternoon. Emilia looked back to Harriet, as Sirius stood and marked his place in his book before setting it on his seat and walking into the kitchen to get a drink.
Harriet leaned down and muttered something in her Familiar's ear; he looked up at her with ice-blue eyes then over to Em and seemed to roll them. Emilia shared a smirk with the canine and looked up at Harriet, blanking her face just in time to meet Harriet's eyes. "What's it like?...Sex, that is?"
Emilia coughed suddenly, sputtering just as she took a drink from the bottle of pumpkin juice at her side. Emilia opened her mouth and closed it quickly, she opened it again just in time to hear a soft voice from just beyond the tree ask, "Yes, Emilia..." a tall, blue-eyed girl with ruler-straight, almost waist-length black hair asked, smirking. She was taller than Emilia, Harriet could see immediately, with a light coffee complexion. A bald eagle, of all things, was sitting complacently on her shoulder, his talons carefully not cutting into her shoulder through the short t-shirt she wore over low-riding, worn jeans, that read, "Gryffindor, it's not a house...it's a way of life." The bird pushed off her shoulder, taking flight, and the girls looked at Em expectantly, her hands on her hips, the right resting just above a wand sheathed in a low-riding rig on her thigh. "How is it?"
"RAIN," Emilia exclaimed and jumped from her seat, wrapping her arms around the newcomer. "What are you doing here?"
She shrugged, "Dad had a new client willing to pay a pile of Galleons for a sword of his, demanded that Dad get out here and measure him for it...don't know why he was in such a hurry, Dad's wait list is like three years these days for anyone who's not family. So we hopped a sub-orbital to Heathrow, since Dad hates Portkeys, and here we are." She glanced back up towards the house. "I hope that I can stay here," she asked with a grin, "since I Apparated here with my stuff." She looked at Harriet, and knelt gracefully, extending her hand, "Rain Kincaid."
Harriet looked up at her for a long minute as time seemed to hiccup. Her eyes, always a touch distant, went unfocused, before she refocused on Rain, and beamed. "You are my friend too," Harriet said with utter certainty as she grabbed Rain's hand with both of hers.
Rain froze, as she looked at the unknown girl again and then took a sharp breath. She looked over at Emilia, "She can't be...they didn't live..."
"Rain," Emilia said, "meet Harriet Molly Weasley..."
Rain grinned, and dropped to the ground next to them, crossing her legs in front of her and leaning forward, the three girls forming a rough triangle. "That is going to be a hell of a story, tonight, I assume you are staying here, Harriet?" Harriet nodded and Rain looked over to Emilia, "But, I really need to hear the sordid details of your love life, Em, as I'm young and horny, so spill." She looked back over her shoulder to see Sirius had returned to the porch, he saw her and waved and she waved back, "Or would you rather go to your room?"
"Um," Em said slowly, thinking of who and in what state that person was probably in, in her room, "Xander is sorta in my room right now..."
"Oh, really," Rain replied, smirking and looking back up towards Emilia's bedroom window, "and your parents know? I know they are cool and all, but..."
"We bonded, Rain, like Mum and Dad did," Emilia said softly, cutting her off. Rain's eyes widened, and she reached forward, grabbing Emilia's hands and squeezing them. Rain looked over at Harriet, and she shrugged.
"So you are...married?" Rain asked in a slightly choked voice, her voice rising at least an octave. She swallowed heavily, and looked down, unconsciously at Emilia's hands.
Em smiled, knowing what she was thinking, though the ring she wore was on her right hand. "Not quite...betrothed more like...but honestly, yeah...well sorta...bloody hell...I don't know."
Rain crooked an eyebrow, and laughed softly, "I knew it, I called it third year...There are people who owe me money." Rain glanced over at Harriet, "I honestly can't decide if I want to know if Xander shags as good as he looks or about you...agghhhh."
Emilia looked down, her hair falling in a dark curtain to hide her eyes, her face flushing slightly before she looked up, meeting Rain's eyes determinedly, "He does." Rain raised both eyebrows and Emilia shrugged, looking up toward her brother. She flicked her fingers, establishing a Privacy Ward, not that she thought he would really eavesdrop, but more as general principle. Emilia closed her eyes for a moment, as she twisted her hands in her lap, marshalling her thoughts. "He...he was really...nice. He didn't pressure me into anything..." she snorted, "Hell, I was the one doing the pressuring."
Both of the other girls looked at her with rapt attention, as she went on quietly, "I love him, I've never been sure how long I have, maybe since third year when he asked me to Hogsmeade, or since I was born when Mum and Tonks used to have us sleep in the same crib...I told myself, going in, that it was about time that we 'did it', that it was only a natural progression, but I was fooling myself, and I knew it. I knew, as soon as we got to Grimmauld, I had had Dobby set up my bedroom there for us; it was so much more than that. You were the only one I ever told about that last Quidditch match, Rain, about what I felt, never even told Mum and Dad until the other day...but this was so much stronger, like a pair of Dragons flying head on as fast as they could towards each other."
"So you're saying," Rain shared a small smile with Harriet, who seemed to have immediately fallen in with the other girl, "that he was ok in the sack. That's all I'm asking." Emilia made a soft, indeterminate noise and conjured a foam ball and shot it at Rain. Harriet laughed loudly, and Emilia cocked her head at her, and a slightly malevolent look flitted across her emerald eyes.
"Where do you want to stay for the next week, Rain, I can kick Xander out, make him stay at home, it's...slightly annoying, but I'll manage, or you can bunk with Harriet...or..." she looked directly at Harriet. "We have a project, Rain..."
"What's that," she replied, slightly puzzled at Emilia's change of direction.
"It seems that Harriet here is rather hung up on my brother...now, I'm not totally sure about her taste," Emilia extemporized, though Rain knew what she really meant, "but I suppose we'll help her."
"Why not, I have nothing better to do, really," Rain grinned. Harriet gave both of them slightly timid smiles, afraid, rightly, of what was running through their heads. Her eyes widened as both girls grabbed her and vanished with a soft POP, headed to Harriet's room to-plot-even if Harriet really did not want to.
***************************Ministry of Magic***************************
3:25 pm
Harry Potter moved quickly through the Atrium, a brown paper sack held in one hand. A black badge hanging on a chain around his neck glinted softly in the light from torches and lamps scattered about the vast room. He nodded to the guard, who returned a wave, and ignored the outcries of several reporters stationed in near the lifts as he boarded one, and closed the door.
"POTTER...IS IT TRUE THAT YOU FAKED HE-WHO-CAN'T-BE-NAMED's DEATH?" one particularly bold reporter screamed as the lift started to clank upwards. Harry ignored the call, frowning and looking down as the car slowly, jerkily moved upwards towards the Auror offices. A dozen paper airplanes circled at his head, and shot out in a tree-killing stream, as the door opened, splitting up and heading for the appropriate offices and cubicles.
He passed through the cubicle farm covering a large, open room, heading for the back corridors along the walls of the building, facing rock on the other side of fake windows. He walked past an open conference room where seven robed Aurors were crowded around an animated map. Another open door showed a pair of Aurors tossing darts towards a board with a stylized picture of Voldemort on it.
Harry just shook his head as he continued down the hall, passing Remus and Tonks' empty offices, both of them were currently in Las Vegas of all places, attending a conference on Magical Counter-Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. They would get back this weekend, only just in time for the pair of them, to be locked up for the full moon, falling on the days the kids would return to school. Plus, he would have the happy fun of having Xander and Abby at the house, both of whom, while not forced to transform to a wolf, were often, testy.
He pushed open a heavy oak door set with a lighting bolt on a small brass plaque, a joke that had stayed as such things often do, and slipped in. He smiled fondly as he found Hermione looking up at him with tired eyes, her elbows on her desk and her lip in her teeth. She looked at the brown bag in his hand, and then up at his face, "I love you, Harry."
He just smiled as he came over and sat down on the edge of his desk, bordering hers, and set the bag down next to him. When they had first started in the Ministry, they had tried separate offices, but as they either spent their entire time in the field, or in each other's offices...or occasionally an unoccupied supply closet...getting supplies, of course, their offices were consolidated. It was the same principle that had a connecting door between Remus and Tonks'. "It's only fish and chips, Love," Harry replied seriously. He slipped down to his desk chair, a large, slightly battered black leather one, and ripped open the bag, turning it to a rough plate.
Hermione stood from her seat and shrugged off the formal robes she had worn to the Wizengamot meeting that she had been forced to go to earlier, fighting for warrants to investigate several families that had escaped investigation in the chaos following Voldemort's fall. She slipped over to Harry and sat down in his lap, kicking off the low heels she had had on and pulling her feet under her bum. She sighed softly and let her head flop back onto his shoulder.
She grinned as Harry reached forward, grabbed a chip and fed it to her. She swallowed and kissed his shoulder, "You think I care?" Hermione relaxed back against him and summoned a battered filet from the small pile of food and crunched into it. She swallowed and looked towards the door. She made a small, precise movement with one of her fingers and a white flash lit the walls. "I suppose you heard by now?"
"Yeah," Harry replied, his voice thick with barely controlled frustration, "I stopped by Hogwarts to talk to Albus, got there just as he got back."
Hermione straightened on his lap, almost quivering in sudden anger, "I spent four hours in that damn hearing, and not only did they refuse to even consider that Jerrod and Hamilton and the others we want to investigate could possibly still retain Death Eater ties...After all Jerrod is a fine, upstanding contributor to Society, even holds the annual ball for St. Mungo's, pets baby Krups and such...And Xavier Hamilton...ohh...let's not talk about the fact that twenty separate witnesses placed his brother Gregor at Hogwarts the night Voldemort took it, even though we never identified the body, and that Xavier was quoted in the Prophet expressing anti-Muggle leanings back then, but we should only consider the fact that he started a fund for the rebuilding of Diagon Alley." Hermione's voice was a rather accurate representation of Sophia Tartre's, one of the 'guiding lights' in the Wizengamot over the last ten years, whose liberal leanings had sent Remus from the group's chambers in frustration before, lest he eat her.
Which would have had negative effects on his department's budget.
Harry slowly stoked the part of her thigh not covered by her skirt, and she leaned back, letting her head flop back, "I'm ranting, aren't I?" Harry nodded. "Sorry," Hermione replied, "I'll make it up to you tonight." She looked back at him, smirking at him and he laughed, kissing her nose. Her smile faded as she reached forward again and took another bite of fish, and conjured a butterbeer to wash it down with. She took a drink, "I swear that Malcolm had the right of it sometimes, maybe we should have moved away from Britain..."
"You wouldn't have wanted to," Harry muttered in her ear, "this is home, for all its faults. And its not like we would have had the kids go anywhere else but Hogwarts anyway."
Hermione shrugged, then nodded. She smiled slightly as Harry slowly worked his fingers under the hem of her skirt, "Later, Mr. Potter." She reached down and grabbed the offending hand with hers, "But that isn't the worst of it, Harry." He cocked his head slightly, "I was accused of chasing ghosts, that Bella really couldn't be alive, after all her body was found..." she felt Harry stiffen behind her, and she squeezed his hand, "not all of them, of course, but its almost like some of these idiots are channeling Fudge, we've had peace for seventeen years, we can't have anything disturb that."
"Figures," Harry replied, sighing, "This is all too much, Hermione, all at once, Bella showing up, the rumors of the Vampire attacks, the attack on us could either be some vamp master who doesn't want us looking too close or just thug with enough cash to hire that group on us, I doubt we'll know until months from now, if then..." he made an uneven, throwing away gesture as he trailed off.
"The kids are going back to school," Hermione mentioned after a beat, "at least they'll be at Hogwarts...safer, I suppose, if this is a plot to get at us after all these years."
"I'm more worried about what we aren't seeing, honestly," Harry mused, gazing across the office towards a false window that was currently showing a late afternoon view of the waters of the Hogwarts' lake. Hermione nodded absently, taking another bite of the late lunch that Harry had brought her, it was not as if they needed to actually listen to each other to follow a light conversation...or a complex treatise on Transfiguration for that matter.
"Do you think that we should call Remus and Tonks back early?" Hermione frowned as she pulled back her skirt, enough to scratch at a gaze-covered slice on her leg, right in front of her wand holster.
No, let's leave them there for now, they'll be back by the time the kids head off to school, though Remus will be out of condition for anything for a couple of days after that, Harry replied, his fingers lightly thrumming on her knee as he thought, I would like to get them back here in charge before you and I go hunting again.
Alright, Harry, we'll do that.
***********************Ottery St. Catchpole, The Burrow*********************
8:20 pm
Molly Weasley sat across a worn, but functional kitchen table at a stocky, blonde-haired man, with dark brown eyes and dressed in luridly blue, purple and orange robes. She waited as he stirred a truly excessive amount of sugar into his coffee, before looking up at her, a soft beaming smile on his lips. "Do you know that the woods surrounding your house are truly excellent for observing the mating habits of the Orange-Crested Zeckmark?"
"Um...I am sure that they are, Sebastian," Molly replied, glancing, despite herself, at the window overlooking the woods beyond. "But I am sure that you would agree that we have more important things to discuss," she went on to Sebastian Lovegood, the more than slightly eccentric Editor and major stockholder of the Quibbler, the monthly magazine, that in the last twenty or so years, had added a Daily, and increased its readership to almost the entirety of Wizarding Britain, Ireland and Western Europe, along with many subscribers in the Americas. The Quibbler had, putting aside its more fantastic stories, had earned a reputation for accurate and truthful reporting, even when that reporting did not cast the best light on those it might consider friends.
"Specifically," Molly went on, businesslike, glancing back at her clock and confirming that Arthur was still at work, "Harriet...she should be here...or your place, but she would be more at home here..." She took a breath as Sebastian's gaze sharpened almost imperceptivity, and continued, "Now, I am sure that Harry and Hermione mean well, but Harriet should be with those that love her...that know her best...after all we raised her parents..."
Sebastian smiled, looking vaguely at a point somewhat over Molly's shoulder, "She seemed rather happy when she visited me the other day; she promised to go on a Snorkack expedition next summer."
Molly froze, her mouth gaping for an instant, "Harriet has been to your place?" she asked with a rather flat tone to her voice.
"Yes," he replied with a small smile, as his eyes looked up and to the right for an instant, remembering, "she is a most pleasant young woman...just between you and me, I think she has a touch of a crush on young Mr. Potter. Acts just like her mother did with Ronald."
Molly took a sharp breath, her eyes narrowing as a tainted memory flashed across her mind, "Then it is entirely inappropriate for her to be staying at the Potters, they are often gone. Who knows what those children might get up to." She leaned forward across the table, "I care deeply for Harry and Hermione, but you must admit that they never, through no fault of their own, of course, really had the proper upbringing...I mean poor Harry had those awful Dursleys and Hermione...well Jane is a nice woman and all, but she was, working," Molly's inflection was almost as if the verb was a dirty word, "They let their children get away with far too much..."
"Luna was often alone, Molly," Sebastian mentioned, causally, a slow frown faded into existence on his lips. "I was rather proud of how she turned out." He slowly brought his cup to his lips and took a sip, his motions precise and controlled. "One of the reasons, that I started the Quibbler, along with the need to tell the truth, of course, was that my former career was rather dangerous, and I did not want to leave my daughter without any parents," his voice was hard, any trace of whimsy gone, "but I was still often not there, I trusted her, trust her, and I see no reason not to trust her daughter. Even with the boy who would later become her husband, who she told me would be so when she was twelve mind you, living only a short walk away...who married him a year before she should have rightly graduated Hogwarts."
Molly opened her mouth to speak, but a languidly raised hand cut her off, "I need to be going, Molly, I have a deadline to oversee...We have a special edition on Stubby Boardman, and just where he has been for the last few years, quite a few sightings have put him in Tibet, though confidentially, I think he was working as a Muggle waiter in Chile." He stood and moved quickly towards the door, he turned back as he reached it, "I will not be dragged into a war over my granddaughter...only a few months ago, I thought I was alone...I will not risk it, especially not over an inherently false concern, that I do not share, good night, Madame."
He stepped out onto the lawn without another word to her. Through the open window, she heard his faint greeting to Arthur as the Minister arrived along with a pair of Aurors from his greatly reduced, these days, security detail. They took stations outside as Arthur slipped into the house and closed the door behind him. "Hello, Molly dear." He gave her a hug and looked back towards the lawn. "What was Sebastian doing here?"
"Oh, I invited him over for coffee, he is rather lonely these days," Molly responded with almost nary a pause.
"Good, we should have him over more often," Arthur pronounced with a nod, assuring himself of something. "What is for dinner, dear?"
"Pot roast," Molly said with a small, secretly relieved smile. She busied herself with pulling the food out from the oven, where a Stasis Charm had kept the food hot, even as she seethed inside, her thoughts much further south and to the west along the coast of Wales.
************************Southern Albania*********************************
August 21, 2015
1:15 am
"We are risking much for your master," a tall, pale man said to a black-haired woman. He stood on the
battlements of a truly ancient castle. Several werewolves stood guard in human form about the battlements, a mixture of
Muggle and Wizarding weapons hanging ready in their hands. The battlements looked out over a dark forest, from which
several eerie howls reached their ears.
The man ran his hands over the rough stone of thousand-year-old gargoyles, as the dark woman looked over at him, "You should feel lucky that he...deigns to consort with such as you...You will be rewarded, Vampire."
"So says the woman who has hid from the very forces that she asks me to risk me and mine to attack for a vague, nebulous promise of power," he snapped, his eyes picking up a faint glow as fangs dropped. He MOVED and stood next to her, picking her up with one hand and tossing her back against the wall. He stood over her as she struggled to her feet, scrambling for a wand, she pulled a silver cross out from under his robes and he laughed, "You have to have a soul, Bella, for that to work." He gestured towards her wand, "Put that away, I say a single word and you will not leave this place alive. We will do as you ask, but do not again think that you can treat us as we will, your master will hold to his promises."
Bellatrix slowly slid her wand into her sleeve, "He will give you what you ask. Just make sure your forces are there at the appointed time. He wishes to send a...message to the Blood-Traitors and Mudbloods." The Vampire nodded and waved at Bellatrix. She vanished with a soft CRACK and he turned back to the forest.
"Lucian," the vampire said after a moment, and a tall, bald man dressed in dark leathers slipped to his side, his stride utterly silent on the stones of the castle walls. "Take a hunt group to where that bitch said, and perform the ambush...you are not to participate yourself, Lucian."
"Sire, is that wise?"
"Perhaps not, but it is a very risky game that we are playing, my old friend...if we win, then we can put the old ones to our swords...if we loose, then at least it will be quick." The tall werewolf nodded and flexed huge fists unthinkingly. "And Lucian."
"Yes, Sire?"
"Those who you use, make sure that they can not be traced back to me. It is not yet time to reveal our involvement."
***********************Godric's Hollow**************************
1:20 am
Unlike London, where smog and fog filled the night sky, blocking most of the stars from view, the sky over the Hollow was speckled with twinkling pinpricks of light piercing the velvet blanket of the sky. A partial moon cast down silver light onto a wooden porch and glinted off silvery-grey eyes, like a second pair of moons. She turned at a soft scrape of the sliding door into the kitchen, curiously unthreatened, and watched as her newest friend paced across the porch and slipped to her bum next to her on the wooden stairs leading to the yard below.
Rain scooted on her bum until her back was against a railing and pulled her knees up to her chest. She looked down at her toes peeking out from under a pair of flannel sleep pants, and wiggled them, before looking back up at Harriet. "Why are you still up, Harriet? Am I that annoying a roommate?" She smiled faintly, white teeth glinting in the moonlight, "I don't think I was snoring too much."
Harriet blinked, her eyes focusing on the newcomer, "No, you are just lovely, I wasn't tired....this place, it's such a magically steeped place...I was hoping to catch sight of a Silver Nightsnake...they can be a good omen for..."
"For what, Harriet?" Rain asked, smirking like she already knew the answer.
"For things..."
"It's ok, Harriet, I'm not going to tease you because you like a boy." She reached up, sweeping her hair behind her ears with both hands, revealing ears set with several small, gemmed studs apiece. "I'll even admit that you have pretty good taste," Rain added thoughtfully, "You'd be far from the only Witch at Hogwarts to think that the boy has the potential to be a hottie."
Rain watched as a shocked, panicked look fell over Harriet's face, "They do?" Harriet squeaked, and Rain reached forward, grabbing the other girl's hand for an instant.
"They may," Rain said, glancing up towards the second floor, where the soft light from a reading lamp could be seen from Sirius' window, "but for them to have a chance, he would have to look at them...I've known him for six years, and he hasn't looked at them as much as I've seen him look at you in one day."
"Really?" Harriet asked quietly, and Rain just nodded. The pair of them sat quietly in the dark for a minute, Rain letting go of Harriet's hand, before Harriet spoke softly, "Who else is in our room at Hogwarts, Rain...I already know you and Em, but..."
"Just one other girl, Cassie Ringo, but you won't ever see her...she spends all of her time with her boyfriend, he's in Hufflepuff on the team...Just be glad that neither one of them is smart enough to figure out how to get him up the girls stairs, or none of us would ever get any sleep," Rain shook her head at something, "Though I suppose that Em will be sneaking up to the boys' rooms or something...I admit that even though I knew something was going to happen, this is a surprise."
"I'm scared," Harriet whispered, "back where we were...there were perhaps a hundred kids, and they all hated me, made fun of me...but really, I think they were scared. My parents and Em's, the ones that would have been there, they were revered, like Merlin is here...sacrificed themselves to kill Voldemort, and then my parents showed up...it was like ghosts walking around."
"Well they are alive and well here...at least Harry and Hermione are...what are we planning on doing about you, Harriet? Are we going to keep with what you've let leak or..."
"My parents are Ron and Luna Weasley..." Harriet said, cutting her off, her voice firm, "I'm not going to go about shouting it from the Astronomy Tower, but I'm not lying about that either." Harriet grinned suddenly, "It is rather bad luck to misrepresent one's parentage, Goblins have been known to use that charge higher interest rates."
"Ok..."
**************************Black Manor******************************
August 23, 2015
1:20 pm
Octavius Malfoy, a pirate, a swindler, and definitely a murderer, had founded four hundred years prior, almost to the day, the house that now stood with the name of Black Manor. In those days, the vast commercial empires and investments that had financed, in many ways, at least two Dark Lords, had not existed. There was only the gold stolen from Muggle shipping, from unsuspecting widows, and from what he and his minions had taken from various corpses along the way. Over the next several hundred years, the Malfoys had bought their way into society, gradually increasing their wealth through legal and extra-legal means, until the scions of that line stood as almost the wealthiest and most powerful in all of Wizarding Europe. Their wealth was only eclipsed by the vast Black fortunes, and possibly the Potter ones, though the exact extent of that, never truly came to light.
In fact it had been a ploy, by Lucius' grandfather and father, to arrange the marriage with Narcissa, to scheme of a way to secure part or all of the Black fortune for themselves that had been behind Lucius' marriage as much as any concern for blood purity. It was only in the later years of that family that Blood Purity had been a great concern.
The house now, was not named for the house of Malfoy, but Black, having been purchased at a seizure auction, after the Ministry seized all of the Malfoy assets they could locate after Lucius' second capture. The current owner of the sprawling house walked along a garden path, skirting a pool that he had installed after he collapsed a set of underground chambers installed for his father's...entertainments.
Grey eyes glanced down and a brief, sardonic smirk lit his lips as he found amused brown eyes looking up at him over a pair of dark glasses, from a chaise set next to the pool. He slipped over, sitting on the edge of the chair and slowly running his fingers along her bare belly, before trailing his fingers up along her centerline. Long fingers slipped behind her neck, and slowly pulled at the tie of her top. "Draco...the kids might come along any time," Ginny whispered, though she made no effort to slow him down, in fact raising her neck slightly to allow him to succeed.
"I thought you still wanted a girl," he murmured, kissing her and letting his fingers trail down her sides to play with the ties on each side of her hips. "We can get started on that..."
"I remember getting caught by Hermione's sister and Nate, Draky," Ginny murmured, looking down as she slowly worked at his belt, undoing it and looking back out to catch his smirk, "Our children are scarred enough aren't they?"
"No, not really, besides, maybe Granger's sister will give her some pointers," Draco whispered as he slowly pulled on the knot. "I'm willing to risk it, if you are."
"MUM!" Nathan's voice called from somewhere in the house and Ginny gave Draco a moderately annoyed glare before quickly retying the bottoms and the top of her black bikini. She finished just in time to find Nathan and Anastasia coming out of the house, her son in trunks and a t-shirt, and the brunette witch in seemingly only a long t-shirt. "We were going to go for a swim, Mum, is that alright? Hi, Dad, I didn't know you'd be back early." Nathan's voice was odd as he asked.
"That's fine, honey," Ginny replied, ignoring her son's obvious, unstated implication, "You alright there, Anna?" She called and the brunette nodded as she reached down, peeling off her cover-up to reveal a dark blue bikini that was more or less acceptable on a modern Muggle beach. Anastasia stepped up onto the diving board, hopped twice and dove neatly into the blue pool, with a forward flip. She broke the surface halfway across the pool and swam over, standing in the shallows on the edge and pulling sodden curls back to lie against her spine. She smiled as Nathan yanked off his shirt and sat down on the edge of the pool next to her. He bent forward at the waist and kissed her, and Ginny hit Draco on the arm and motioned towards the house.
He shook his head and she glared, before he rolled his eyes, and stood, holding out a hand for Ginny, "We'll leave you then," he announced, leading her by the hand into the house. The sound of a loud splash and musical laughter came from the area of the pool, cut off as Ginny closed the previously open sliding door.
Ginny stopped on the way to the causal parlor, trailing behind him to grab a bottle of Pumpkin Juice from coldbox in the kitchen. She froze as a loud roar of disbelief edged with a trace of panic came from the parlor. She grabbed for her wand, fortunately she had left it on the kitchen counter earlier, and sprinted towards the sound, her bare feet slapping the inlaid floors of the mansion as she ran past several rooms and tore up a shallow set of stairs.
"What is it, Draco?" Ginny asked, as she slid into the room, her wand coming up in both hands to scan the room. It was comfortably appointed with large, soft couches and chairs, just slightly careworn furniture. The room was not how it would have been in his father's day, in that day, any worn furniture would have been disposed of long since. Any sign of weakness, not tolerated. When they had first moved in, officially, Draco had commented to Ginny in an unguarded moment that the house had never looked lived in when he was growing up, it was oddly only at Hogwarts that he had felt at home. Just like so many of the rest of them.
Ginny shook off the thought as he looked back at her, his normally pale face ashen and pointed towards a small wooden box set on the coffee table in front of a large padded couch.
The small wood box was ash or some other light colored wood, approximately the size and shape of a wand box. An embossed green serpent coiled upon itself on the lid, over an intertwined 'SS'. Ginny gasped slightly and looked over at him, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering in the warm house. "Put something on, Gin," Draco said, preoccupied, as he moved towards the box behind his wand.
Ginny summoned a sweatshirt from their bedroom and shrugged into it, shaking out her fall of red hair automatically. Draco knelt down next to the box, and touched it with his wand. "What is it, Dra..."
She screamed and jumped back, scrambling over a chair and falling to her bum as the box opened and a silvery-blue Pensieve projection, like a Muggle hologram, snapped into existence. The image stood in the middle of her coffee table and through it, like a ghost might, and sneered out at them. She climbed to her feet and moved to Draco, crawling into his arms. He wrapped them around her automatically, even as he stared over her shoulder at the face of a dead man.
"Good Afternoon, Draco," the image of Severus Snape, his former mentor, protector and architect of misery beyond counting said, almost pleasantly. "Now if you would get rid of whatever slag you happen to be fornicating with, I will wait," the image said impatiently. It waited several instants, while Ginny turned and glared at it, and Draco made no effort to obey the image. "Very well, even if you have not, from the normal caliber of your conquests, they will probably forget anyway."
"Fuck you," Ginny hissed and Draco reached up and ran his fingers though her hair, still mostly frozen as the image's dark eyes seemed to bore into his own. Distantly, he thought he felt a burning in his left forearm, where the mark had been before Hermione removed it with modified versions of the spells they had used to destroy the Horcruxes so many years before.
"If you are receiving this, years hence, I am assuming that you have failed in your attempts to kill Scrimgeour, you and that little blood-traitor slag..." the image sneered, "I assume by now that even you have left her in a pit somewhere...yes, Draco, I knew of your little fling and I admit that she has her...attractions, but even you should be ashamed to fornicate with Potter's leavings."
Ginny's eyes narrowed, and Draco tightened his arms around her, keeping her from blasting a hole through the floor into the room below. Snape's image gave another sneer, almost as if he had been saving them up for this moment and paced out from the coffee table, his image passing through the couch as if it were air. "You will do something for me, Draco," Snape said, "You will kill Potter, his little Mudblood Know-It-All and just in case they have managed to spawn, any of their leavings..."
"Get rid of that damn thing, Draco," Ginny snapped, "fucking wanker, thinks he can..."
"For if you do not..." Snape laughed quietly, darkly, "Several events will happen...first proof of both your and the little bitch Weasley's involvement in the attempted murder of a sitting Minister of Magic will be released to the Prophet, and the Auror's office, incompetent fools though they may be, they would love an easy catch such as that...Second, years and years ago, I gave you a potion...by now it would have migrated to whatever little whore you used to carry your spawn..." A silver flash of light filled the house, and Ginny collapsed in his arms, "Her condition will degenerate, Draco, that spell would have found her anywhere on the British Isles, and she die, horribly, painfully...It is a delayed version of the potion you were supposed to give Scrimgeour, but unlike that one..." he shook his head haughtily, "this one can not be flushed."
Draco gently lowered Ginny to the floor, kneeling with her in his lap as he slowly brushed hair from her eyes, his hand trembling slightly. "There are people watching, you have until the end of the school year, appropriate I think somehow, before she dies...and just in case you don't care about the slag, you will die a week later, with that week filled with pain that your tiny mind can not even imagine. If you successfully complete this...final assignment for me...an associate will deliver an antidote to you both, but if you fail, or tell anyone about this, it will be destroyed. Good day, Draco." The image faded away, and the box erupted into flames, charring the wood of the coffee table underneath.
"Draco?" Ginny asked weakly, blinking awake, "wha..."
"Sleep, luv," he bent and kissed her suddenly warm forehead, or maybe it was just his imagination. "Sleep." Draco picked her up, all ninety pounds of her soaking wet, and carried over to the couch, laying down and tightening his arms around her almost painfully.
Dum, de dum..... And next chapter, we try to get them back to school.