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Chapter Nineteen—Malfoys Go A-Hunting

Narcissa wound her hair close to her head, and gazed at herself in the mirror. As it was, the hair would bunch and knot, and attract the stares of everyone in hospital who was not utterly insensible because of potions. Of course, she did not intend to go looking like this, though she would have to use subtle glamours in order to evade the watch spells that St. Mungo’s contained. They were not entirely unused to patients trying to slip away from their wards, at least in the case of dangerously insane ones.

She murmured two spells, one that would cast the appropriate glamour and one that would disguise the presence of the glamour. Her hair shimmered and came back a slightly duskier gold, the color of a dark-haired witch who had not perfected the dying spells. Narcissa smiled into the mirror. It was an odd but interesting and helpful fact of life that few people would think their way to a second layer of deception. Rather than assuming she was hiding blonde hair behind dark behind blonde, they would simply accept what their eyes told them about the failed dye.

She cast a few more spells that would smooth out the heavy, ungraceful knots of her hair, caused by the binding, and then changed her impeccable robes for faded but elegant ones in a faint lilac color. Rogers appeared as she was changing and folded his arms, eying her in disapproving silence. He didn’t like anything a Malfoy family member did that affected their appearance negatively, even in the interests of safety.

“Mistress Narcissa is to be returning quickly,” he said. “Tomorrow is Master Harry’s first formal dinner with the family.”

“I know,” Narcissa said. “I was the one who gave you the instructions for its preparation.”

Rogers might have looked abashed then, save that he was never abashed. He sniffed and tilted his ears forwards. “Rogers cannot approve this mission,” he announced gravely. “Mistress Narcissa is leaving the safety of walls and wards. Mistress Narcissa has perhaps not thought this through.”

Narcissa found Rogers’ attitude amusing, but she had never permitted him to interfere in anything she might do. She gazed at him mildly, therefore, and in time his eyes dropped and he gave a long-suffering sigh.

“How are Harry’s lessons in being a Malfoy proceeding?” Narcissa asked, turning around before the mirror once more to admire the effect. Yes, she looked like a witch who had some money and some magic but not much skill at either dressing up to visit a relative. Most people going into St. Mungo’s wouldn’t take a second glance at her.

Of course, her disguise had to be good enough to fool the ones who would.

“Master Harry is learning quickly,” Rogers said, and gladness touched his voice. Narcissa chuckled into her hand and smoothed her hair down again. She wondered if Harry knew that there were few people who managed to impress Rogers within a few days; it had taken her some time, when she married into the Malfoys. Of course, whether Harry would be gratified at the approval was another thing. “He asks intelligent questions and applies his lessons.” He paused in that way that meant he was meditating adding some extra information.

“Rogers,” Narcissa murmured, apparently absorbed in her reflection, “you once received standing orders to tell me anything you noticed immediately, even if I had specifically asked you not to trouble me with news. My eternal rationality is of more importance than my momentary whims.”

“Master Draco has given Master Harry a gift,” Rogers responded obediently. “A large mirror that reflects his body in astounding proportions. Master Harry does not like it. He tries to avoid gazing into it as much as possible, and, when he cannot, he pushes his hair flat over his scar and scuttles like a scuttling thing.”

“Not surprising, perhaps,” Narcissa said, “given his past.” It was sometimes worthwhile thinking aloud in front of house-elves, simply to hear what they would say.

“Master Harry does not only avoid his scar when he can,” said Rogers, and sternness rang in his tone. Rogers did not approve of ignoring power of any kind, especially when the person trying to do the ignoring was a Malfoy. “He avoids the sight of his face. He treats his body as if it were a mere machine for the bearing of his soul.”

“He acts like a house-elf?” Narcissa met Rogers’s eyes in the mirror.

“Mistress Narcissa is pleased to joke,” Rogers said stoically. “House-elves is not having souls. But yes, Master Harry acts like one of us.” He stamped one foot, a sign of incredible agitation for him. “He should not. He is a Master.”

“Give Draco this information,” Narcissa said. “He would like to know.”

Rogers inclined his head humbly and vanished. Narcissa checked herself one more time in the mirror and fixed the memory of the magical signature she had absorbed from Harry’s headache curse in the forefront of her mind. She would have to be careful when she entered the hospital to watch for her enemies, but also to sort that signature from the thousands of floating others that Healers and patients might project.

Of course, she was confident she could do it, or she never would have volunteered.

One does not try to achieve things beyond one’s power—a lesson that neither my husband nor either of my sons has learned yet.

She let her robes swirl behind her as she departed, to test the effect.

*

“Mistress Narcissa is saying to be telling you what Master Harry is doing.”

Draco was glad he hadn’t yet dropped the kelp into the nutrient potion he was brewing; that would have created an expensive and time-consuming mess to clean up. He turned around with a frown and saw Rogers standing behind him, arms folded and ears flopping as he scowled at Draco. Draco wondered idly if it was the message from Narcissa—which he would have had time to think about as he was delivering it—or Harry’s behavior that had upset him.

“And what is Master Harry doing?” Draco let his hand rest on the table again and gave Rogers his full attention.

“Being stupid,” Rogers announced. Draco gave him a tolerant look, and Rogers understood without an order that he would have to be more specific. “Not taking care of himself. But also avoiding the mirror that Master Draco sent as a gift, scowling at his reflection, and acting embarrassed.”

Draco blinked. “Not merely covering his scar?”

“He does that too, to avoid his power and wealth and fame.” Rogers gave a nod of his head, sharp as a bird pecking at seed, so show clearly what he thought of that ridiculous act. “But he also does not seem to realize that someone like Master Draco might value him for his beauty.” He took a step forwards and peered at Draco intently. “You will be sleeping together soon? So that Master Harry might learn better?”

Draco felt his cheeks flush fiercely, and coughed. “It might take more than that to change Harry’s mind, Rogers,” he muttered.

“Your eyes are being his mirror.” Rogers nodded. “You will teach him better.” He paused. “Shall Rogers remove the mirror?”

“No,” said Draco firmly. “Leave it where it is. He’ll get used to his own looks sooner or later, and I intend to spoil him enough that he’ll accept it. Besides, when he spends the night in my rooms, he’ll never sleep well if he’s embarrassed by mirrors.”

Rogers gave him a strong smile and vanished again. Draco sat down in a chair and shook his head.

He’s only had a few years to worry about that scar as a disfigurement alone, and for most of that time, he’s been surrounded by friends who really did love him for himself as well as admirers determined to make him acknowledge their existence. Would that give him such an overwhelming self-consciousness? Or, no, hatred of his looks. Self-consciousness he might have, and it could still be endearing.

But someone taught him to hate the way he looks. Someone to whom it was abnormal. I know he inherited those eyes from his mother, but I would be extremely surprised if anyone in his Muggle family had them. Those are the sort of eyes that belong on a wizard.

Draco rose slowly to his feet. This was the first specific crime that he’d had to charge the Muggles with, and even reminding himself that he might be mistaken and Harry’s home life as a child might have been normal—which was faintly possible—couldn’t calm him down.

They will suffer for this.

*

Narcissa walked through the hospital corridors with her eyes lowered. It was easy to take on the protective coloring of the atmosphere in St. Mungo’s, the mourning and the impatience, the weariness and the despair. She had only to place a sufficiently melancholy look on her features and move with stately grace, and everyone’s eyes slid away from her as if she weren’t worth considering.

For some of them, I am not, Narcissa thought, leaning against a wall as she watched an elderly female Healer pass her, juggling sheaves of notes and vials of a bright green potion. Her magical signature pulsed against the one in Narcissa’s memory, reassuringly neutral. Those who did not harm my family have nothing to fear from me.

She closed her eyes and sighed, in reality casting a non-verbal spelled that would sharpen her sensitivity to signatures and auras, but to all appearances resting from a tiresome encounter. A few people passing her lowered their voices respectfully.

Narcissa kept her eyes shut and listened; that sometimes revealed more about a context than the sense of sight could, with the anxious human perception darting just behind it, anxious to organize the visions into some coherent whole. And what she heard above all—in the sound of tapping footsteps, in the voices of Healers coaxing patients who needed therapy along or conversing with permanent residents or whispering sad tales to each other, in the moans and sobs of those living with unendurable pain that spells and potions could do little to ease—was the noise of labor.

It was no wonder that Harry had come to them with every self-sacrificing instinct sharpened and with his faculty for appreciating the luxuries of life so dull. He was surrounded by people who lived like that on purpose, and who of course would encourage their comrades to behave the same way. Harry would have an extra factor weighing on him, too; he would be anxious to show that he had not been hired merely because of his fame, and that he did have the strength to be someone other than a killer of Dark Lords.

He had chosen the career on his own. Narcissa knew that. But she thought now that it was probably the worst thing he could have done when it came to giving himself mental stability.

“Are you lost?”

The alarms in Narcissa’s mind exploded into shining sparks. She blinked her eyes open as if dazed, and found herself gazing at the man whose signature pulsed with the magic that had cast the headache curse on Harry.

“My name is Virgo Emptyweed,” he said, with a small bow, as if he had realized just now that she might like an introduction. “Healer Emptyweed.” He laid a faint emphasis on the title, and puffed out a little as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Do you need a Calming Draught? You look as if you’ve received bad news.”

Narcissa sniffed and wiped a hand across her face. She never would have performed such a gesture in her own features, but she did not mind destroying the beauty of a borrowed mask. “My nephew,” she whispered. “The Healers have confirmed that they can do nothing for him, and he’s going home this afternoon. Probably to die.” She was an expert at giving what sounded like plausible details, but if Healer Emptyweed had tried to trace her story, he would have run into so many individual stories that could be hers that he’d give up soon enough. There must be many young male patients in the last short while who had been sent home, and grief could exaggerate the seriousness of their situations.

“I’m sorry.” The Healer hesitated in a way that was probably his trying to make himself gracious. Narcissa thought it pathetic. The reason Harry fit so well into their family was that his graciousness was real, a product of the sympathy he reached out to everyone with. “Are you sure that you don’t need a Calming Draught?” he repeated, insistently.

You would probably try to take advantage of me whilst I labored under its influence, Narcissa thought, and then scolded herself. As angry as she was with the man, as eager to get revenge on him for hurting Harry, still she had to see things clearly. That was the best means of getting her revenge on him, after all. She sniffed once more and straightened. “I should move on,” she said. “My husband will be fetching me soon.”

“Your husband.” Sure enough, Healer Emptyweed’s voice had cooled. He shifted backwards a step, but kept his eyes fixed on her face. “Of course. Forgive me if I can’t offer more than a Calming Draught. We lost a Healer recently, and we’re overworking ourselves trying to make up for his neglect of his duty.” His voice had frozen.

You brought him up yourself, was Narcissa’s first thought.

You have turned him into a Healer in your stories? How very predictable of you, and not as a recognition of his skill, was her second.

And of course you would call it neglect of his duties, rather than his following where his heart led him, was her third.

She was glad that she did not need to remain long with Healer Emptyweed, because she would perhaps do something hasty and ill-advised. She lowered her eyelids demurely instead. “Would that be Harry Potter?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to pry, but I knew he left the hospital recently to attend the Malfoys.” She flavored her voice with some eagerness, as if she wished to discuss anything but the grief she would carry away from hospital with her.

“Yes.” Healer Emptyweed was hissing now. “He always thought he was greater than he was, simply because of his past.”

You are not a good observer, or you are a good liar, Narcissa thought clinically. I have not decided which yet. “I had thought he was a mediwizard, though, and not a Healer,” she said in confusion. “I remember remaking to my husband how unusual it was that he wouldn’t take the highest career available.”

“He was.” The Healer had stiffened his spine, and he had hooked his hands together behind his back the way Lucius did when he was trying to avoid drawing his wand and destroying something. Narcissa watched the Healer’s wand, the way she never watched Lucius’s. There was a chance that Emptyweed might know spells that could do her bodily harm, unlike her husband. “Forgive me for misspeaking. The place he took—the privileges he demanded and the pride with which he asserted himself—sometimes made me think of him as of higher rank. And of course the hospital administrators sometimes demanded that we refer to him as a Healer, so that no one would think we were prejudiced and deliberately denying him his rights because of envy.”

That is your problem and your explanation, not that of the hospital administrators. Narcissa could only conclude that Emptyweed must be a talented Healer, or else he had encouraged Harry’s ridiculous modesty complex until Harry thought protesting his treatment would be equivalent to clamoring for more privileges. There was no other reason for Harry to have put up with this load of bollocks.

A pulse of self-pity briefly traveled through her. The damage Emptyweed has inflicted on Harry will make healing him more difficult for me.

Then she shook her head. No, she would not regret that. They had Harry now, and they didn’t plan on letting him go—and if Narcissa read her son’s eyes clearly, Harry would soon have a reason besides Lucius’s healing and her own kindness to stay in the Manor. His strengths were mixed up with his weaknesses. If he had been prouder of himself, stronger than the flaws that plagued him, he would perhaps not have agreed to leave his position and come with them, or to heal Lucius without regarding the past.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Emptyweed had thought the shake of her head was directed at him. Narcissa gave him a cool smile, the only way she had of saying, at the moment, that he would never occupy such a large portion of her feelings. “No,” she said. “Only that I am glad I have never met the Chosen One, if he is so arrogant.”

Emptyweed shot a glance over his shoulder, perhaps looking for one of the Healers who had made Harry’s time here tolerable, and then leaned towards her and lowered his voice. “He’s much more conceited than anyone will ever have told you. The reporters won’t bring it up to his face, because they want continued legal access to him, and he could pressure the Minister into forbidding that. He and the Minister are friends, you know. And as for those companions of his in the war, the Weasleys—“ His mouth pursed, and he shook his head. “I really do believe they encourage him in it. They’re not very respectful to the Healers when they visit the hospital.”

Blind, Narcissa decided. He must know Harry well enough to realize that he wouldn’t think to seek a magical reason for the headache curse, but he does not know me. He has not even troubled to ask me for my name. Perhaps I am someone from the Ministry who is also Harry’s friend. A poor observer, and that must impact his work as a Healer.

She toyed with a fantasy of getting Emptyweed sacked and giving his post to Harry. But that was neither a vicious enough revenge for her nor something she particularly wanted to happen. Harry should have as little encouragement as possible to leave the Manor for some months, until he had settled in and begun to believe he deserved what they were giving him.

She would find a vengeance subtle and complicated enough to satisfy her and vicious enough to punish him yet. There was no need to hurry. She gave Emptyweed a meaningless smile that nevertheless puffed him up and began to walk down the corridor, her head lifted, as if the conversation had elevated her spirits.

“Wait!”

Narcissa turned around, her head cocked slightly and her nostrils flared. The expression had the effect she had hoped it would have on Emptyweed, who backed away a step before he could help himself. Even when Narcissa said, “Yes?” in as mild and encouraging a tone as possible, he had to clear his throat a few times before he could continue.

“I was wondering—you never told me your name.”

“Oh, but Virgo.” Narcissa purred the name, and watched his face turn a dusky red. “Why let the mystery that consumes you end? It’s all very well to tell yourself that you would rather know the truth, but you were disappointed even when you found out that I had a husband. Why disappoint yourself further with my true name, which surely is not equal to the beauty that you’ve built up in your head?”

Emptyweed stared at her in wonder. “How do you know so perfectly what I’m thinking?” he whispered.

It was time to depart, before he either accused her of Legilimency or began to think more deeply about her than he should. So Narcissa gave him yet another mysterious smile and managed to whisk away before he could think to ask any more questions.

*

Lucius:

To say that I was surprised to hear from you is an understatement, and your particular request startled me still more. The rumors have been saying that you are on the brink of death for weeks. And then there is the news that you have adopted Harry Potter into your family…

Oh, you may object to the phrasing. But it will end that way, whether or not Potter knows that yet, now that you have him within your home. I am interested in how you will do it, you clever bastard. The greater objection would be his honor and ideals, I should think, rather than his fame and his friends. Rumor has it that he does not particularly like the former, and the latter do not lead him so much as follow.

Of course, we all know that rumor may be wrong.

If what your careful hints reveal is true—and you have never been that good at hinting, Lucius, you may as well know that—then I ought to help you out of a sheer sense of obligation to my sense of the fitness of things. It is not seemly that a wizarding child was raised by abusive Muggles. And to have it be one we all owe so much to…well, perhaps this is a chance to repay the debt, in a fashion that his friends and the general public would not be able to manage.

But I am not what I ought to be, and never was. Therefore, if I take up the investigation of Potter’s student records, your offer is most appreciated. I find myself in need of a vial of Jason’s Draught.

Good luck, my friend, save of course in those efforts where I should be inevitably led to oppose you.

Edward Leeds.

Lucius folded the letter and put it down on the bed next to him with a smile he knew would be thin. Dear Edward. He had always been that mixture of flattery, humor, and gentle threats. Even the mention of Jason’s Draught was impressive in its own way. Edward was doubtless intending to pursue a course of vengeance against another man who had become too emphatic in his objections when he found Edward trying to seduce his wife.

Lucius shut his eyes and gloried for a moment in the sensation of power that had rushed through him when he read the letter. Part of it was the strength that had always touched him when he realized other people—in this case, Edward—were acting as he had told them to act. It made him feel like one of the great predators, the dragons or the killer whales, whose mere motions sent warning vibrations through the air and the water ahead of them. Lucius had always seen himself as a predator not because he particularly liked the thought of destroying others, but because he liked the effect he produced on others better than he liked being forced to act.

But part of the power was new. And he mouthed the new taste carefully, moving it around on his tongue like a glob of the sweet golden syrup that had been his special treat for telling a particularly clever lie as a child.

The power of being Harry Potter’s adoptive father.

Oh, yes, they would need to alter their stance towards the Malfoys, the former Death Eaters and the politically aware Gryffindors and the Ministry officials and the Aurors and those who had remained carefully neutral or in other countries during the war. Harry himself would probably never notice some of the effects. He was not that kind of person.

Lucius was.

And both to preserve Harry’s life and innocence and to use the power he gave them as it should be used—both for a good motive and a bad one, as Harry would put it—then Lucius would become a force in politics again as he had not been since before the war.

Lucius smiled. It was good to return to the kind of mental and emotional world in which he felt most at home.

Chapter 20.