Chapter Text
In a visitors’ room in Azkaban, Draco watched his father emerge from behind the rear wall strapped to a chair. Outside the door, cousin Dora waited along with Mr. Proctor, who had only let Lucius see them tonight so soon after his last family visit on the condition that they not appear again for months.
“It’s in everyone's best interest that Malfoy not attract too much attention to himself in here,” Proctor had explained, casting his eyes toward the ceiling.
Lucius's chair creaked beneath him as it settled onto the ground behind a table. He attempted a warm, fatherly smile but there was uneasiness in it – maybe fear. “Draco. What a joy it is to see you.”
Draco wouldn’t meet his eye, and only laid a scroll of parchment on the table between them. “Good evening, Father. Destroy this document.”
Lucius frowned. “That? I have no idea what that is.”
“You do,” Draco said. “These are the unfiled divorce documents for my mother and my step-father.”
Malfoy’s chin lifted as his lip curled. “Then they have nothing whatsoever to do with me.”
“What are you playing at, Father?” Draco burst. “These were in your personal lockbox in the prison vault. As your next of kin, I have full access to what little property you have left while you’re incarcerated. The box’s contents were turned over to me as soon as I asked the guards for them. But all I cared to take from the box was this.” He shoved the parchment closer to Lucius. “Tear it up.”
Lucius leaned over the table as far as he could. “I cannot do that, Draco. Your mother is clearly bewitched by that creature. You know her. She is a virtuous woman of pure blood. She cannot have any real feelings for a bloody werewolf. He may have cursed her, but with these documents, I have freed her.”
Draco sat back, already exasperated.
Lucius pressed on. “In my present state, there is nothing I can do to disenchant her and restore our family to how it was. But when she came to me with her plan to insulate you from the Dark Lord so you could better complete your mission, I saw an opportunity to strike a bargain with her – something to help her escape the beast in spite of his curses. Yes, I forced them to separate, but only to save our family, Draco. Surely you see that.”
“Save our family?” Draco said.
“Yes,” Lucius said, his hand outstretched on the table between them, inviting Draco to take it. “Yes, when your mission is done, and the Dark Lord has grown in power, he shall free me from this place, and we’ll all be back together at home: your mother, me, and you – our joy, our hope.”
Draco sat in silence, his shoulders rounded, his head hung so low Lucius couldn’t see his face.
“Come, Draco,” Lucius said. “Our troubles are momentary. They will pass and fade away. Until then, what matters is that we remain united, loyal to one another. Nothing else will bring you happiness. Only this parchment preserves the three of us.”
Draco’s head began to rise, slowly, heavily. “The three of us?” he said. “What about our fourth?”
Lucius sneered again. “Hang the werewolf. He's nothing to us. He's –”
“I don't mean Lupin. I mean my sibling.”
Lucius recoiled, his open hand clawing itself closed.
“My sibling,” Draco repeated, louder now. “Mum and Lupin, they’re expecting a baby.”
Beyond sneering, Lucius gaped, speechless.
“It’s poorly timed, yes,” Draco said. “I’m still quite shocked myself. But that isn’t the baby’s fault. I take my responsibility as the elder brother of this innocent child extremely seriously. I’ve been waiting for them for almost seventeen years. And I will not let anyone tear my sibling’s family apart before they’re even born.”
“Draco, it’s not a real family – “
“It is,” he said, on his feet, both palms planted on the tabletop, bent at the waist to speak into Lucius’s face. “There was nothing I could do to stop you from destroying my first family. Mum and I – we loved you as hard as we could and it was never enough for you. We lost everything trying to please and protect you. But today, I am going to stop you from destroying our second family – my sibling’s only family. Now rip this parchment to shreds.”
Lucius grit his teeth. “You will sit down and lower your voice. I will deal with your unfortunate mother. And as for you – this insolence – this ingratitude from a boy wrapped in his real father's protection by the red ribbon on his arm – “
Draco twisted open the clasp on his cloak, letting it fall to his feet as he pulled his jumper over his head, unclipping his cufflink, baring his arm from its sleeve and uncoiling the red satin wound around his white skin. “This ribbon? Take it back then. If this ribbon is how you claim and control me, it isn’t worth it and it won't save me for long. Mum never told me what this protection cost us. It’s too much. Take it back.”
Lucius was sputtering, fighting to rise from his chair. “Draco – no. You must keep it. The prison itself produced a replacement for me – you see? The power of this building – no one understands it. The Dark Lord himself is kept out of here. Nothing else in this world holds him back.”
“We don't know that,” Draco said. “Not for certain. It’s what he tells us, but then the likes of that idiot Potter manages to set him back, over and over. The Dark Lord has power. Yes. But how much of his power comes from us just believing in it?”
“Silence,” Lucius hissed. “You must never say such things, and you must put that ribbon back on your arm. Quickly.”
“Then tear up the parchment!” Draco shouted. “Otherwise, I leave this ribbon here in Azkaban for the next Death Eater they convict. I’ll do it. You force me to do it if you prefer keeping my mother’s divorce contract intact over keeping me safe.”
Lucius spat out a sound like a choking cough as he lunged forward and tore the Lupins’ divorce agreement into pieces, letting them scatter onto the floor. Draco stooped to gather the shreds, stuffing them into his pockets.
“There, you brat,” Lucius hissed, knowing by now not to call the Dementors with his shouting. “Yes, collect that rubbish. And now show me that you’ve tied the ribbon back on.”
Draco began his hopeless one-handed attempt to re-tie the ribbon.
“Here,” Lucius said, his hand outstretched again. “Allow me.”
The room was quiet as Lucius wound the ribbon around his son’s arm, tucking and smoothing it with his fingers as he finished. He held Draco’s hand in his, something desperate in his grip. Draco curled his freehand around the back of Lucius’s head and pulled his face into his chest.
“Thank you, Father.”
Lucius patted him hard on the back. “My boy,” he said. “I’m so very sorry…”
Tonks pounced on Draco as he stepped back into the anteroom. “So?”
“He did it. There’s no divorce, filed or unfiled.”
“Thank the stars,” Tonks said, doubling over in relief. “Well done, our brilliant boy.”
She tousled his hair before nodding her thanks to Proctor and striding back to the Floo. “No rest for the witches. I’ve got to get back to the school. Now listen carefully. Your mum is staying at Severus’s house but if you try to Floo there without his personal clearance, the wards will turn you inside out. So you’ll need to apparate outside the house and knock on the door. The address is ‘Spinners End.’”
He whispered the words back to her as she stepped up to the hearth. “Thanks,” he said. “Oh, and don’t think I failed to notice that you let Snape call you ‘Dora.’”
Grinning, she only shrugged, turning in a loose, almost giddy pirouette. “Well-spotted.”
***
Draco twisted out his Apparation to find himself halfway into a hedge on a wet, grey street. It wasn’t just the pavement that was grey but the rough late winter twigs, the rows of drab houses, the very light itself. So many houses, all of them the same – which one was Spinners End?
He scanned the street, looking for some tell of which house was Snape’s. He pulled his cloak closer, and was about to lift its hood to cover his head when a voice hailed him from the other side of the street.
It was a woman about his mother’s age with an empty soup tureen under her arm. “Hello! Are you looking for someone?” she asked with an air of already knowing.
“Well – yes,” he said, speaking polite words directly to a Muggle for the first time. “Can you tell me which house is Spinners End?”
“They all are,” the woman said. “That’s the name of the street, not one house in particular. If you don’t have a house number, is there a name for who you’re looking for?” She flashed a wink at him. “Enough said, deary. You’re Nancy’s boy. I can tell by…” She drew a circle in the air around his face. “By everything about you.”
Draco blinked hard. “Nancy?”
“Oh, right. She’s Nancy around here but her real name is something much more posh. Narcestia? Any road, you’re Draco, aren’t you?”
“Why – yes.”
“Knew it,” the woman said, smiling broadly. “I’m Maudie. And your mum doesn’t have a better friend than me in all of Cokeworth.”
Draco let his eyes pan over the distance where a cold, sooty smokestack towered over the town. “Cokeworth…”
“Lovely to finally meet you, Draco. The house you want is the one on the very end, with the iron gate and the thorny holly bush about to eat up the doorstep. Their landlord isn’t much for gardening. Get a move on before your mum goes back to sleep. She’s terribly tired these days.” Maudie winked again, patted his arm, and hurried on her way as the drizzle began to chill to sleet.
Draco donned his hood and trotted beneath the shelter of the doorstep’s awning. He rapped at the door.
“Maudie? Are you back – “
There in the open doorway stood his mother. He’d never seen her pregnant before and though he knew it was too early for her size to have changed, he had expected her to look different anyway. Her cheeks were ever so slightly more flushed than usual, but if anything, she looked thinner than usual, and so tired, shadows beneath her eyes.
With a gasp, she pulled him inside. “Remus, he's here already,” she called over her shoulder.
At a brisk pace, Lupin came to meet them in the vestibule between the front door and the bottom on the stairs. It was a small space, and with them standing so close, they fit into it almost perfectly. Narcissa was much shorter than either of them, standing between her husband and her nearly grown son. Though the expression on her face was still one of tension, of waiting to hear about Draco’s visit to Azkaban, her position between himself and Lupin suggested something besides tension.
It took Draco a silent moment to remember the word that best described how his mother looked, there in the vestibule. He hadn’t seen it in her for years. It was rare, precious. In spite of everything, right now, his mother looked safe.
It was something to be celebrated. Draco delved his hands into his pockets and tossed out handfuls of shredded parchment like a shower of confetti over Narcissa’s head.
“What in the stars, Draco?” Narcissa laughed up at him.
Draco had never seen Lupin move so fast, snatching a scrap of torn parchment out of the air, and then another, holding them together to try to read them. “Matrimonial covenant…” he read aloud. “This is the divorce agreement?”
“It was,” Draco said. “Not anymore.”
Narcissa let out a cry of joy and held Draco around the neck.
Lupin couldn’t contain himself. As Narcissa pulled Draco’s head down to her shoulder, Lupin palmed the top of the boy’s head with a vigorous tousling of his hair. “Yes, Draco. Excellent.”
For the first time, Draco accepted a kind word from Remus Lupin as more fatherly than teacherly.
Narcissa was feeling for his left arm.
“Don’t fuss, Mum. I’ve still got the blasted ribbon on.”
“Good,” she said. “Now you must return to the safety of the school. Much as I wish you could stay, it isn’t wise.”
Draco nodded sternly in Lupin’s direction. “I’ll go back if you promise to stay with her. There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”
Lupin sighed and raked his fingers through his own hair. “Well, there is one reason, and it’s a beast of one. I can stay here only until the morning of the full moon. Since we’re no longer able to brew the Wolfsbane potion, I’ll need to return to the Glencoe Werewolf Colony to weather the transformation with them, where no one will be hurt.”
Narcissa scoffed, tossing her head as she moved to the sofa.
“Now Cissa, we talked about this, and…” Remus changed his tack, addressing Draco. “On such short notice, it can’t be helped. But it will give me a chance to deliver a book the werewolves might be willing to accept in exchange for helping us defend ourselves should we ever need to call on them.”
Draco took a step back. “No. No more werewolves. Not in Glencoe, not here, not anywhere. Just because Snape said no, it doesn’t mean getting the potion in time is hopeless.”
“I agree,” Lupin said. “And we will find someone for future transformations. But not by tomorrow at sunset when the next measure of aconite needs to be distilled.”
“Honestly, Remus. All it will take is for me to go to Severus and ask him myself,” Narcissa said. “Of course he said ‘no’ to you. He takes every opportunity to do so.”
Draco paced about the front room, so rapt in his planning he hardly gave a glance to the flying fox on the mantle. “There’ve got to be more people in Hogwarts who could keep this family in that potion.”
Narcissa frowned. “You mean Horace Slughorn? I hardly think he would let himself be pulled into this.”
“No, not teachers,” Draco said. “Everyone knows the strongest at potions in our year is me – Don’t start, Mum. I know you won’t let me spend so much time away from Hogwarts while this bloody mission is ongoing. But what about the second strongest potions student in our year?”
Lupin raised an eyebrow. “Hermione.”
Draco waved a hand at him. “Obviously. With Mum here to coach her through the tricky bits, she’d have no trouble at all.” Without waiting for anyone else to raise an objection, he brushed past both of them, letting himself back outside. “I’ll send her to you tomorrow morning. Bye.”
“Goodnight!” Narcissa called after him, her hand touching the wood of the door as it slammed shut. Fragments of torn parchment still lay scattered on the rug at her feet.
“Well,” Remus hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her into his side. He wasn’t looking at her yet, but was gathering up the shreds of parchment with a tiny, swirling whirlwind conjured from his wand. “We were terrible at being divorced anyway.”
Narcissa smirked as she softened herself into the contours of his frame, all sorts of misery melting away. “Seventeen days. I counted. That was the longest we went without seeing one another while ostensibly separated.”
Remus gave a laugh, still not looking at the face turned up to his, watching the whirlwind of torn parchment twisted across the front room, guiding it with his wand. “It's the longest you went without seeing me, perhaps.”
“Remus Lupin,” she chided, her arm around his waist now. “Do you mean to say that, all that time, were you stalking me?”
“Relentlessly.” He admitted it freely. “Ask Andromeda.”
Narcissa had risen to her tip-toes. “Shameful,” she whispered into his ear.
“More like shameless,” he said, turning at last to find her with his kiss.
Neither of them was watching as the whirlwind made its way into the fire. With a final gust and a flash the divorce contract was gone.
***
Severus Snape was tall enough that when he stood, he could see out the small, high window of his dungeon office. There was still a little light left in the dusk when Dora found him there, his arms folded over his chest, his brows drawn together in spectacular misery. Even as she entered the room, he kept his eyes on the window, lifting a hand to acknowledge her but saying nothing.
Dora drew a deep breath. The meeting with Dumbledore – the one Severus had just been returning from when Remus came flaming into the school frantic about Narcissa’s pregnancy – it had not gone as Severus had hoped. That much was clear from the gloom about him, though she didn’t know what exactly that meant.
Without any questions, she came to him, her arms closing around his stiff frame, her fingers linked behind his back, her face upturned. “Draco’s back safe. Lucius surrendered. All’s well on that end.”
She couldn’t tell if Severus was nodding or merely letting his head wobble as she swayed with him. “What can I do, Sev?”
Severus’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He knew she wouldn’t leave him to fret alone. There was no good in asking her to. He unfolded his arms and held her, standing in the rectangle of dim light on the stone floor.
Dora’s hands opened and flattened against his back, rolling out the tautness of his spine. “What did Dumbledore say to you? I can’t help until I know.”
Severus took her face in his hands. “Listen to me. Whatever happens, you must know that I was loyal to Albus – to the school and the entire Order. And most of all, I was loyal to you. I loved you.”
She looked up from between his hands, her face open and shocked. He loved her – she believed it. After their months together, it made perfect sense. But the rest of what he’d said sounded completely wrong. “Loved?” she said. “Sev, why the past tense? What in the super nova-ing stars did that man tell you?”
He dropped his hands from her face. She reached for him but he’d turned his back, his robes swirling over her empty hand.
“What did Dumbledore say?” she said, her voice rising. “Please, Sev. I’m terrified.”
He stood before the door to his private quarters, a space he’d never taken her into. It was a door that could be shut to keep her out. He considered it, his head bowed, his fingertips tented on his forehead.
“You listen to me then,” she said. “I love you more than you love me. Don’t pull that face. It’s true. So believe me, there isn’t anything you can’t tell me. Not when –”
“Let them come,” he said, nearly shouting as he interrupted. “When I told Albus Death Eaters and werewolves would infiltrate the castle through the Vanishing Cabinet, that is what he said in reply. Let them come.”
Dora’s reaction was to startle. It couldn’t be as mad as it sounded – not coming from Dumbledore. There must be some brilliant silver lining – a miraculous twist. She began with a slow nod. “Alright,” she said, taking Severus’s hand and drawing herself close again. “So we let them come – and then what?”
Severus only bowed his face into her shoulder. She caressed his cheek, brushing his hair away and lifting his head so she could better read his expression.
He sighed, whispering even in the privacy of his office. “Dumbledore is currently in possession of the legendary Elder Wand. The Dark Lord, however, is obsessed with obtaining it for himself.”
“So he’s setting up Draco to challenge Dumbledore for it in his place? An underaged student? Is he that mad?”
“Not at all,” Severus went on. “Bellatrix is privy to the Unbreakable Vow between Narcissa and myself over the protection of Draco. They know that in the moment before Albus would need to defend himself against Draco to keep the Elder Wand, I would have to intercede and counter attack in defense of Draco. The Elder Wand would be mine, and I am one of the few the Dark Lord believes he can trust to deliver it to him without a fight.”
Dora was speechless, her hand still on Severus’s face.
“Dumbledore knows all of this,” Severus said. “He has planned for it. All year a grievous magical injury has plagued him and his time is now short. I’ve seen the injury myself. It’s certainly terminal and its progress is rampant. He has decided to exchange the few months he has left for all of Draco’s future or mine. When the time comes, Albus will not resist either of us should we challenge him for the wand.”
Dora’s hand fell away, her eyes wide, the colour drained from her hair, leaving it grey. “Sev – tell me – tell me what the length of Dumbledore’s life has got to do with you.”
He sank to the floor, Dora following him down, leaning close to hear what he could hardly bring himself to say. “On the night Hogwarts is invaded, Albus shall give me a signal, speaking words I will recognize as an invitation to cast a killing curse in his direction. There is no way in all the world I will be able to mean to kill him enough for it to be effective. But that won’t matter. He will be waiting in the Astronomy Tower for all of this to happen, and as my useless curse hits him, he will…” Severus’s speech halted. “He will throw himself from the tower. He will let himself die.”
Dora flung her arms about him. “And everyone will believe it was you who took his life.”
Severus clung to her. “Not everyone, Dora. Please, promise me you’ll never believe I did this, no matter what you witness or what anyone else says.”
She shook her head. “Yes, never. But where will you go? You won’t be able to stay among us. How will I ever see you again?”
“I’ll go to him – to the Dark Lord. I’ll fight him from deeper within his inner circle than I ever have. Draco will escape his suicide mission with his life. I won’t have to forfeit my own to a broken Unbreakable Vow. By Dumbledore’s calculations, it is more than a fair exchange. In this, he will not be dissuaded. Stars know how I’ve tried.”
In tears, Dora said nothing, quaking in his arms.
“If anyone wins the Elder Wand from Dumbledore, their power will be too great. If he dies voluntarily, even if someone takes the wand off him afterwards, the Elder Wand will not come to full potency. May the Dark Lord not realize this. In this is our hope.”
***
After Draco’s visit, the kiss as their divorce burned, a meal of Maudie’s soup, and then the washing up, Narcissa had been exhausted enough for Remus to insist that she have a quick nap. He must not have had the heart to wake her. When she finally stirred, it was not morning but it was fully dark and late enough that Remus was sleeping deeply, not a trace of a snore, at her side where he belonged. She smiled against her pillow and rolled toward him before she remembered she was still dressed in the Muggle clothes she’d worn to receive Maudie earlier that night – a pair of black trousers and a jumper.
In the dark, she crossed the bedroom to the cupboard, lighting her wand to find her latest sewing project. It was a nightgown made from some of the yards of silk leftover from Madam Olympe’s donated gown. It was a simple shift, loose enough that it would still fit her as the child grew. There were no sleeves, only a thin strap over each shoulder. She’d meant to wear it to stay cool in the summertime, but with Remus now home, she reckoned she’d be able to wear it even in the winter.
Still, she was cold as she skipped back to the bed, burrowing under the covers and fitting herself to Remus’s back. He smelled heavenly, fresh from the bath he’d been drawing when he sent her off to sleep. He said he’d been getting by Scourgifying himself and his clothes. It would do, but his warm, soaked, cozy smell was better. He had slept rough while away – the Glencoe Werewolf Colony never slept otherwise. Clearly he was exhausted, still as a stone though her arm was around his waist, her hand on his stomach, her foot on his shin.
Ah well, even if she couldn’t enjoy him the way she’d hoped to when she put on the nightgown, she could still stay close, sharing his heat, breathing him in. She smoothed the rumpled leg of his pajamas with her foot and settled in to sleep.
But now he was moving, reaching behind himself to hold her thigh, humming as his fingers slid over the silk of the nightgown. “Wedding dress?” he mumbled.
She laughed into his shoulder blade. “Not quite. Do you like it anyway?”
“Mmhm,” he said, rolling to bring them face to face. He looked her over, his hand gliding over her bare shoulder, beneath the silk of the strap. Then he seemed to remember something that made him stop, withdrawing his hand and easing the strap back into place.
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, sliding the strap back down herself, closing in to bring them chest to chest. “You’ve never been with a pregnant person. You’re afraid we might break if we’re loved up too ardently. I’d be happy to assure you that is not at all the case.”
He gave that maddening low growling laugh she only ever heard from him in bed. “I’m sure you would be. But you’ve never been loved up while pregnant by a werewolf well into a Waxing Gibbous phase before.”
She laughed and curved her arm around his neck, not at all scared off. “You know I’m not afraid of any of your phases. And if you knew more about pregnant people, you’d know that, though we are not always receptive to our partners, when we are receptive, no one is more receptive. So I recommend you avail yourself to whatever desire you can muster for me.”
“Muster,” he said, scoffing, his hand finding her hip, intending to slow her down but slipping over the silk and hurrying her along instead.
She turned again, her back against his front, his resistance collapsing as his voice sounded and his mouth opened at her throat. “Yes, darling. You’ve been a very tender gentleman all evening. Now come all the way back to me.”