lomonaaeren

Thank you again for all the reviews! I apologize for the shortness of the chapter, but I am sick; it was a short chapter or none at all.

Chapter Twenty-Two—Guards and Wards

“Thank you for meeting with me, sir.”

Andromeda seemed to have chosen that title as the most possible respectful one. Tom approved. “Mr. Peverell” might have made this conversation seem too informal, “my lord” wasn’t something he was ready to have Andromeda use with him or hear her use, and if she thought he was the Master of Death, it still wouldn’t be the most diplomatic to bring it up right now.

“One thing that I must do before we begin speaking, Mrs. Tonks,” Tom said, drawing his wand. “While your blood relation is not your fault, I must check you for tracking and monitoring charms cast by the Malfoys before we begin speaking.”

Andromeda jerked her chin up a little, eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “I would have been worried about the state of your paranoia if you hadn’t,” she said, although her eyes were narrow as she watched Tom begin to move his wand through the patterns of the charm.

Tom made what he was doing big and obvious. In truth, his wards had stripped any magic except the Warming Charms on her cloak and boots from her the minute Andromeda had walked through them. It had taken time to set up those wards around this safehouse, but not as much as to set up the illusions that would make it look like a stately, well-lived-in place. Tom had no intention of showing Andromeda Riddle House until he knew he could trust her.

The magic drifted across Andromeda, and she relaxed a little as nothing appeared except a slight white glow that told Tom about the Warming Charms. Tom smiled and tucked his wand away. “I am glad you understand the necessity,” he said, and sat down across from Andromeda at the small oak table, which was real. “And now, I’d like to know your feelings towards your sister, Narcissa Malfoy.”

Andromeda had been opening her mouth. She closed it now and blinked. “Not towards my brother-in-law?”

“I know your feelings towards him, from the letters you wrote me,” Tom said dryly, and ignored the way that Andromeda flinched. “No, I want to know more about how you feel about your sister.”

Andromeda twisted her hands in her lap for a moment, her gaze drifting off towards the walls decorated in heavy green tapestries, or at least apparently decorated that way. “I hate her for marrying him,” she whispered. “Narcissa was selfish and vain when we were growing up; Mother and Father named her well. But she wasn’t a fanatic for blood purity until she married Malfoy. She would have just gone on being an ordinary selfish, vain person if not for that.”

“What would you do if we get involved in a battle and I have to kill your sister?”

Andromeda stared at him. Tom raised an eyebrow back, something his disguise as Roland Peverell made look like a gesture he did all the time. “Come, come, Mrs. Tonks. Surely you know it’s a possibility if we go to war.”

“I—yes, but I didn’t think Narcissa would fight.” Andromeda spoke slowly, her fingers opening and closing in her lap, and her fierce, open expression had dimmed. “And I didn’t think it was a war. I thought it was revenge.”

Tom gave an elegant half-snort that was nothing like any sound he would have made in his own body. “If you think that we would get cleanly away from pureblood supremacy if we merely killed Lucius Malfoy, I have cause to doubt your intelligence.”

Andromeda sat up at once, her cheeks flushing. “I didn’t think that! I just thought that—that you had some kind of personal grudge against Lucius, since you took his ability to harvest magic away from him.”

“That is a corrupt practice that should never have been allowed to exist,” Tom said. That was his real opinion, but he made sure to keep his voice flat and less enthusiastic than he would have otherwise. He wouldn’t have Andromeda presuming on what she knew, or thought she knew, of his motives to try and manipulate him. “But there are others who will keep on doing it even if Malfoy dies or is replaced as Minister.”

“Yes, fine.” Andromeda folded her arms. “I think Narcissa would fight to defend her child or her life. Or Lucius’s life, if she was pushed into a corner. But her belief in pureblood supremacy is shallow compared to Lucius’s. She would give it up to survive if she had to.”

That matched his perception of Narcissa, and Tom allowed himself to relax a little. His Imperius Curse control over Narcissa was as close to complete as it could be, but he did not want to put her in a position where she had to choose between what she held dearest and obeying him. Andromeda could give him useful information on that.

“Are you planning to kill her?”

“If she tries to harvest magic on her own, or continues opposing me even when it becomes obvious her husband must lose,” Tom murmured. “Why? Do you want to spare her even though she colluded in the actions that cost you your family?”

“She’s not…for years she’s been the only family I have left.”

“Not true. There was your cousin Sirius Black in prison.”

Andromeda’s eyes flashed for a moment before she looked down. “And I told you the reasons that I didn’t decide to help him before now. Are you going to turn on me for those? Were they not sufficient?”

In truth, they had been sufficient for Tom. He nodded. “I merely wanted to make sure that you would not hesitate if you found yourself facing your sister in battle, or reporting on her secrets.”

“I don’t think she has any secrets of her own that aren’t shared with Lucius.”

Tom shrugged. “But Lucius is unlikely to talk to you about them, while he would share them with Narcissa. Tell me. What is the truth of these wards that are supposedly keeping Muggleborns and everyone except purebloods out of some Diagon Alley restaurants? I know there is no literal difference in blood between different magical people, so the wards can’t be functioning based on that, but they must be doing something for so many of the fools to think they work.”

Andromeda settled back in the chair and blinked at him. “I have no knowledge of wards like that. She hasn’t talked to me about them.”

“Ah, well.” Tom had tried to command Narcissa to bring him some explanation of how these wards worked, but it hadn’t helped because she was so convinced that the explanation was based on purity of blood. “In that case, I’ll put you on them as a separate research project. I don’t want our enemies surprising us with something like this.”

“But if there’s no literal difference based on blood, why do they matter?”

“They may have stumbled into something practically new with the wrong theory. I am cautious, Mrs. Tonks. I’d like to keep a watch on all fronts and make sure that our enemies will never see us coming.”

“You’re talking about revolution, then,” Andromeda whispered. “Real war. Not just vengeance for a few private wrongs.”

“Yes.” Tom held her eyes. “Does that bother you?” Andromeda hadn’t seemed bothered by Tom’s goals so far, but she was a pureblood, and that sometimes ended up mattering to people in the strangest of ways. It was one reason that Tom hadn’t reached out to some more purebloods whom he’d thought might be disaffected. He couldn’t take the chance.

Andromeda didn’t seem to be like that, but then again, she might be so devoted to her own personal vengeance that she wouldn’t care about other people suffering under the yoke of the Ministry or the purebloods.

Andromeda exhaled slowly. “I think it’s the best bloody news I’ve heard since Dora and Ted died.”

Tom smiled at her. “Then let’s talk about the research and spying you can do for me, and the oaths you’re going to swear.”

*

Narcissa smiled a little as she entered West of the Moon, the newest restaurant to be built off Diagon Alley. The wards hummed and sang around her, the ones that forbade entrance to Mudbloods and most half-bloods. The owners could tune them to accept half-bloods raised in the magical world if they wished.

Frankly, Narcissa didn’t think they would bother unless they found themselves short of Galleons. It was so comforting to spend at least some time not surrounded by one’s inferiors.

The wards kept singing softly in the back of her mind as she inclined her head to Edwina Greengrass, who had invited her. “You said that the owners have made the wards even more powerful, Edwina?”

“Yes.” Edwina was a tall, graceful woman who knew her place around Narcissa and bowed back more deeply, as befit a pureblood woman in front of the Minister’s wife. “Come and see.” She led Narcissa towards the back of the restaurant.

The windows and tapestries on the walls showed constantly moving images, including ones of waterfalls, oceans, rising and setting moons and suns, and blowing leaves. Narcissa smiled. It would also be pleasant to eat without the gossip of portraits, which could become trying at times.

When they reached the back of the restaurant, the woman waiting for them nearly folded herself in half as she bowed. “Madam Malfoy, we are honored.”

Narcissa smiled. “I’m sure. Please explain to me how the wards work, Madam, ah, Selwyn.” This branch of the family probably weren’t related closely to the real Selwyns, who would never have sunk to become restaurant owners. But considering that they were undoubtedly purebloods and had invented the wards, Narcissa and Lucius were both inclined to let them have some freedom.

Madam Selwyn beamed at Narcissa in a way that said she was grateful for Narcissa’s forbearance, and then raised her wand and quickly moved it in a circle. The wards came into view, glittering lines of silver and red, crisscrossing each other. Narcissa drifted closer, staring in fascination. She had seen wards before, of course, and even ones of the same colors, but none that crossed over each other like this.

“Some of their strength comes from the way that they’re knotted together,” Madam Selwyn explained, twining her fingers together like the wards as she cast a glance at Narcissa from the corner of her eye. “They can bear weights and give alarms that ordinary wards can’t.”

“And the theory behind them? Why have we not invented wards before that that could keep out Mudbloods?”

Madam Selwyn brightened. “We didn’t have the skill to lock in on thought patterns, Madam Malfoy. Now we do. So we focus on the thought patterns that Mudbloods and some half-bloods have about their own inferiority, or their hatred of us pure wizards and witches. The wards can bounce them out.”

Narcissa nodded slowly. “So it can be used to seek out our political enemies as well?”

Edwina and Madam Selwyn blinked at each other. Madam Selwyn cleared her throat delicately and pushed her dark hair away from her face. “Well, perhaps, Madam Malfoy. The problem is that it reacts to all the thought patterns I mentioned. So Mudbloods who do know their place would be forbidden entrance as much as people who hate the Minister and the Ministry.”

Narcissa nodded, a little sadly. She should have known her first thought was too good to be true. But it was a nice fantasy to dream of weeding out the Mudbloods and separating them into two tiers, one that would need to be eliminated immediately and one that could be left in place until it was time to harvest them.

“Most impressive, Madam Selwyn,” she said. “Would you mind drawing the patterns for me? I need to take them with me. It’s important.”

Very, very important. Narcissa didn’t know for sure where the certainty welling up inside her came from, but she knew it was true.

*

Lucius stared down at the golden key in his hand for a long moment. The Unspeakables had promised him it would work the way he had wanted, and he had the Unspeakables under complete control, he knew that, but…

Lucius shook his head and set off down the corridor that stretched in front of him.

It had been an ordinary corridor in the Ministry, but the magic of the key was already transforming it, as he had been promised. The Unspeakable who had given him the thing had explained that Lucius had to set off on a quest, of sorts, to reach the right door. The magic would generate the path and the door. He wouldn’t know which one the key would fit until he got there.

But when he reached the door, he would have the power to defeat Peverell.

Lucius set his shoulders back and walked the corridor with quiet confidence, ignoring the way that it seemed to warp and stretch longer and longer, and the way the black stone on the walls was steadily turning a midnight blue. Yes, this wasn’t ideal, especially not knowing what he would find at the end of his walk. But it was bearable. Far more bearable than seeing Peverell destroy all Lucius and his kind had built.

The midnight blue slid down into densest black again. For a moment, Lucius let his shoulders relax.

Then he heard the rumbling roar from up ahead.

Lucius managed not to freeze, even though he wanted to. That had been the sound of a dragon. But if he quit walking at any time during the quest, the Unspeakables had told him gravely, the key wouldn’t fit the door, or the stones would snap back to normal. Either way would mean he’d lose this chance and the Unspeakables might have to work for another year to construct a key that would get him what and where he wanted.

Enormous golden eyes opened in the darkness ahead of him.

Lucius took a deep breath and kept walking. He would not flinch away or back down. He was a pureblood wizard, in any case, and that made him the superior of any dragon who had ever lived. Magical creatures like dragons produced the hide that lined his boots, the heartstring that rode within his wand. He was their better.

Jaws struck out of the darkness at him. Lucius made himself march into the teeth, not even ducking or flinching aside, just in case that counted as trying to leave the path that the corridor had become.

The teeth brushed over him—and vanished, harmless. Lucius smiled grimly and continued his walk, his shoulders back and loose, his chin lifted as he walked, and walked, and walked.

The corridor next narrowed to a long line of darkness with only a pinprick of light at the end. It occurred to Lucius that he didn’t know how long he had been walking. It felt like only a few minutes, but what was feeling? What if he had been doing it for years? Narcissa could be dead. Draco could be dead.

That feeling grew in seconds to a near-certainty. Lucius gritted his teeth, and remembered what the Unspeakables had told him, and kept walking.

The pinprick of light suddenly doubled in size, and Lucius saw that he was walking towards roaring flames. He would have liked to pause and assess the situation, but he remembered the words of the cloaked figure who had pressed the key into his hand.

When you begin to feel physical sensations, then you are close to your destination.

The words would have stuck in Lucius’s head even without their inadvertent rhyme, but as it was, he couldn’t stop them from rattling around in his skull. He grimaced and hurried towards the heat.

The flames swayed and danced about him, with no sign of fading into nothingness as the dragon’s jaws had done. Lucius gritted his teeth and sprinted down the narrow path he could see forming in the heart of the flames, the one that would lead him to safety, or death.

For a few long minutes, he thought it would be death. Sparks were surrounding him, catching on his robes, on his hair. The heat was close enough that he was flinching from it as if he held a cup of scalding water to his skin. And he had to keep going, and keep going, and he was sure that he would start coughing in a moment from the superheated air that had begun to force itself into his lungs.

And then it was gone.

Lucius blinked and looked around. He stood in a plain room entirely paneled in dark wood, one he was sure he had never seen in the Ministry before. A little unnerved, Lucius paused, then moved forwards to the only thing the room contained, a white wooden door on the far end.

He didn’t look behind him. From what the Unspeakables had said, it would not have been…wise.

Instead, Lucius stepped up to the white door and bent down a little to fit the key into the golden lock, which was located halfway down the door instead of in the usual place. Lucius wondered at the reason and then shook his head impatiently. It wasn’t as if it mattered.

The door opened with a crack that sounded as if it might have echoed through the Ministry. Lucius started at the chill wind that blew his hair back. He was staring at the shore of a vast sea, with blue waves curling in and falling on the marble-like sand. He blinked and shook his head.

“You have called me?”

Lucius barely bit back a yelp as he spun. There was a wizard standing on the beach, nearer to the door than the waves. Lucius could give himself no excuse for missing him.

He straightened up, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes, I have. Will you come and help me spare our world from the Mudblood scourge infecting it?”

The wizard’s eyes lit up, and he took a step forwards. He was a handsome man, Lucius thought, probably a little younger than Lucius himself. He had golden hair and bright eyes and a dimple in one cheek when he smiled. His robes were long and white, with a grey symbol traced on the breast, too faint for Lucius to make out.

“You are singing my song,” he said, his voice holding the slight trace of an accent.

“May I have your name?” Lucius asked. The Unspeakables had said that the door would call the needed person with the strength to defend purebloods through time and space, and he wondered if he might be looking at a Malfoy ancestor.

“Of course, how remiss of me.” The wizard swept a long bow, his golden hair almost touching the sand of the beach before he straightened. “My name is Gellert Grindelwald.”