I settled into a chair in Snape’s office, a place rapidly becoming my home away from home.
“Draco’s dangerous dare-devils?” I suggested. Snape snorted.
“How about ‘Draco’s dangerously dull dimwits'?” he said. I scowled at him.
“It was just my first thought,” I said defensively.
“What, this is the first time you’ve ever thought? That would explain a lot about you.”
“For this I’m skipping breakfast?” I grumbled.
“For this I’m missing sleep?” he countered. “The Freedom Fighters'?”
“'The Secret Rulers of the World'?”
“'The Party'?”
“'Harry Potter’s Bane'?”
“'Dumbledore’s Bane'?”
“'The Bane of England'?”
“'The Conquerors'?”
“'Draco’s Purebloods'?”
“'The Last Chance'?”
“That sounds like a pub. 'Prince Charming and the Fearsome Purebloods'?”
“That sounds like a band from the fifties, Draco.”
“Yours are just as bad.”
“No, not quite.”
“Hello? Sunshine? Honey bun? Can you two hear me?” The voice came from behind me.
I screamed and jumped, twisting around in my chair as I did so. Violet’s head was sitting in Snape’s fire. Her long hair flowed out of the grate and pooled onto the hearth.
“Can you hear me?” she repeated. Snape cleared his throat.
“Yes, we can hear you. Is there something you want?”
“I just had to tell you!” Violet chirped. “I found the perfect place for your meetings! It’ll need some work, but when I’ve gotten through with it, it’ll be to die for!”
“I thought we would just meet at The Hogshead,” Snape said.
“The Hogshead?” I said, “No way! That place is gross! I was thinking that trendy new cafe in Knockturn Alley...”
“But everyone meets in the Hogshead,” Snape argued. “It’s traditional.”
“Neither of those places has the right atmosphere,” Violet said dismissively. “You want something more exclusive, something with a bit more class.”
“And you have something?” I asked, rather skeptically.
“Not just something,” Violet said. “I have it.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, right now it’s nothing. It used to be a London gentlemen’s club-,”
I coughed and choked. “A gentlemen’s club? You think we should meet in a gentlemen’s club?” Violet scowled. “That’s not what it means! God, your mind is so dirty! A gentlemen’s club in a more old-fashioned sense. Gentlemen would go there after dinner or during the day just to hang out, read the paper, play pool, and eat lunch. It was big in the twenties. They were very expensive and exclusive. It needs re-decorating, but that’s not a problem. You want to see it?”
“Not now,” I said. “I have class in half an hour and McGonagall will skin me if I skip. Tonight, around eight?”
Violet brightened. “Okay, I can have it decorated by then. Meet Sunshine here at eight and I’ll bring you to the place. Remember to think up a name. Bye!” Her head popped out of existence. I looked at Snape.
“Do you ever get the feeling that Violet is the one who’s in charge here?” I asked. He nodded grimly.
“Anyway, I’m going to go and get breakfast before it’s gone,” I said. “See you later.” I exited his office and went to meet Crabbe and Goyle in the Great Hall.
I took a seat beside Goyle.
“Pass the toast,” I said.
“Draco!” Oh, damn. I had forgotten about Pansy.
“Draco my love, come sit by me!” she called, smiling in what was probably meant to be inviting but was mostly just scary. I braced myself. This had gone on for far too long.
“Pansy,” I said. “We need to talk.”
“Talk? Talking is boring. We can do so much more than just talk, lover boy.” She smirked. Ugh. Which was worse, I wondered, lover boy or honey bun? Probably honey bun, but that was all academic at the moment.
“Pansy, you know that tattoo?”
“Not personally, but I would very much like to,” she said.
“It’s not a tattoo of a pansy. It’s a violet. And I’m not in love with you.”
“What?” she cried.
“I’m not in love with you,” I repeated. “And I don’t want to date you or anything. Sorry.” Pansy gaped at me for a moment, eyes growing wider and wetter with every second that passed.
“I c-can’t believe you,” she gasped. Then she burst into tears and sprinted out of the hall, absolutely howling. The Slytherin table sat in respectful silence for a moment.
“It’s the passing of an era,” said Terence Higgs, sitting across from me. “That was pretty harsh, man.”
I shrugged. It had been harsh, but I couldn’t think if an easier way to let her down. At least this way it was completely over, and I could revenge myself on Blaise Zabini at my leisure.
“Pass the bacon,” I said.
The doorway was tucked beneath an impressive stone arch. I rather liked it.
“Once you’ve worked out what your name is, you can have it engraved on the arch,” Violet said. “Speaking of which, have you two got any ideas about that?”
I shot a glance at Snape. “No,” I said.
“You need to get to work,” Violet said. She opened the door with a wave of her hand, revealing a lobby-type area. I got a blurred impression of dark wood and deep red velvet, but couldn’t look properly because Violet shooed the two of us through into the vast main room.
The floor was silver-grey. The furniture was low, modern, comfortable, and mostly black, with some silver accents. Although the decoration was dark, the room was very open because the ceiling arched high and was made of tinted glass supported by thin steel struts. One wall was taken up with a large fireplace in which a blue fire was burning. Through the archway in the far wall, another room, perhaps a dining room, could be seen. The real eye catcher, though, was the wall on my right, which was one vast aquarium populated with dark green plants and black fish with gracefully trailing fins. An unusually tall grandfather clock stood in a corner, black wood with intricate carvings and whorled spires. The elegant silver hands ticked ominously.
“Nice,” I said. I was inwardly calculating the bill for all this and wincing. I would be working for Violet until the day I died at this rate.
“It will do,” Snape sniffed.
“About the bill,” I began, but Snape cut in.
“Look at it this way,” he said. “If you manage to overthrow Voldemort, then you’ll have all the money you could want. If you don’t manage to, it won’t matter. So in a few days, you’ll either be fabulously wealthy or dead.”
He was right. I grimaced, but said nothing.
“The ceiling’s reversible,” Violet enthused, “Look, you just point your wand up and say Ateralux.”
I craned my neck upward and watched the dark tint fade and disappear, leaving clear glass. Warm light from the setting sun drifted into the room.
“Nice,” I repeated. “Sinisterly peaceful.”
“The aquarium goes through to the dining room,” Violet said. “I arranged the table so you can look at it while you eat. Library, billiard room, and the small parlour are on the left; rooms for members are back through the lobby on the right.
She took us on a tour of the place; all decorated in much the same style as the main room, with minor variations. At last, we returned to Violet’s masterpiece where, to my horror, the menacing grandfather clock claimed it was eight forty-five.
“I have to get back,” I said. “I have detention with McGonagall in ten minutes.”
“What did you do?” Snape asked.
“Don’t ask,” I said. It had involved Potter, Crabbe, and a rather large spider. Yes, it was immature. Hey, even dark lords have to relax sometimes.
“I’ll send you back in a sec,” Violet said brightly. “When are you two planning to destroy Ravenclaw’s tombstone?” I exchanged a glance with Snape. I hadn’t thought about it at all, and judging by his expressing, neither had he.
“Before I kill Voldemort, I guess,” I said.
“What, at the beginning of the meeting? Right under his nose?”
“Ye-es,” I said slowly, trying to gauge whether or not this would be a good answer by her expression. It was a game I often played in Charms. This time I lost.
“I don’t think that would work out very well, Honey bun,” she said. “You should destroy it first, and create an illusion until you’re ready to depose him. He might try to stop you if he sees you beginning to destroy part of his soul.”
“But won’t he know?” I asked. “I mean, can’t he feel it when one is destroyed?”
“I don’t think so,” Snape said. “I don’t think he knows yet that Dumbledore destroyed the ring. Possibly being stripped of your body, reduced to a wisp of vapour, and reincarnated thirteen years later has a numbing effect on the soul.”
“When should we do it?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” Snape said. “I hear there’s going to be a meeting the day after that. So you can depose Voldemort the day after tomorrow and be the Dark Lord by Saturday.”
“Tomorrow,” I sighed. “I can just fit it in between writing Sprout’s essay and my next detention with McGonagall.”
“Why do you write essays for Sprout and not for me?” Snape asked sulkily.
“Because once I didn’t turn one in, and she gave me detention and made me bottle five pints of undiluted bubotuber pus.”
I had never been to the graveyard except at a DE meeting. I didn’t even know really where it was.
“What if he’s got protections on it?” I asked Snape. “I mean, do you really think he’s going to leave one third of his soul stuck in a lump of rock out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to guard it?
“Yes,” said Snape. “Protections would be far more trouble than they’re worth. Experienced wizards can sense spells on things, it would attract attention from the Death Eaters. It’ll be unprotected. He’s relying on no one knowing or guessing.”
“If you say so,” I said. “Do you have what we need?”
“Yes.” He hefted a bag that jangled and clanked.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go, then.”
We Apparated together to the graveyard, trying to Apparate quietly, if such a thing were possible.
I appeared on the stretch of bare ground where we usually gathered, Snape a few feet to my left. We stood and surveyed the labyrinth of tombstones and monuments that surrounded us on all sides, backlit by the setting sun. For a moment neither of us spoke. I wasted a few moments trying to count the graves, and then gave up.
“Where the hell is it?” Snape asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Violet said it was big, right? And old?”
“Yes,” Snape said.
“Then it’ll probably be towards the back, with the other old graves,” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Malfoy,” Snape said icily, “But which way’s back?”
I groaned. It was cold and damp here in this graveyard, although we were well into April. My nose was running, and even when we got back to the nice warm castle, I still had detention with McGonagall to enjoy. I wanted to get this over with quickly. But he had a point “ there was no way of knowing which side of the cemetery was the oldest.
“You go along the north and east sides,” I said. “I’ll go south and west. Send a messenger if you find it.” I swung on my heel and strode off to the south without waiting for an answer. My cloak swished around my feet and I could feel it floating behind me, supported by a convenient wind. It was probably a very dramatic exit, but I ruined it by tripping over a low tombstone and falling flat on my face. I cursed softly.
“Nice move, HB,” Snape said. I heard his quiet footsteps move off in the opposite direction. I got wearily to my feet.
“Lumos,” I whispered. My wand flared to light as the sun sank below the horizon. I raised it high so I could examine the monuments, but none of them looked very big.
They continued to not look big all the way to the southern end of the graveyard, so I concluded that the old graves were all at the other end of the cemetery, where I had sent Snape. Good, that way he could do all the work.
Something struck my back. I jumped and whirled around, clutching my wand in front of me, thoughts of Voldemort pounding through my head. I saw no one.
“Who’s there?” I whispered.
It struck my shoulder. I looked down slowly, afraid of what I might see.
But it was only a rock, glowing slightly and hovering level with my shoulder. I relaxed. This was obviously Snape’s messenger.
“What is it?” I asked. The rock did not respond, which shouldn’t have surprised me but sort of did. Instead it drifted out in front of me and hovered some more.
“Do I follow you?” I asked. The rock glowed briefly in the gloom. I must have said the right thing.
“All right then,” I said. “Lead on.”
The rock took me back the way I had come, through the meeting area and northward, where the tombstones and monuments grew steadily larger. And creepier, many of them featuring many-headed dragons and triple-tongued snakes. Honestly, if any of my descendants tried to have one of those put on my grave, I’d probably have to come back from the dead and throttle them.
The rock stopped at the extreme northern end of the cemetery, where the gravestones gave way to forest. Snape was standing at the base of the largest one I had seen yet, a marble statue of an angel doing battle with a demon. The angel was female and she was hitting the demon over the head with a hefty book. Deeply carved into the marble beneath this scene was the name ‘Rowena Ravenclaw'. This, then, was Voldemort’s last Horcrux.
Snape didn’t speak, but reached deep into the sack he still held and withdrew two hammers. One he handed to me, the other he kept for himself. The hammers, I knew, had spells for strength and force on them.
“One,” Snape whispered, holding up one long, pale, finger in the gloom.
“Two.” The second finger. I raised my hammer behind my shoulder.
“Three.” I scrunched my eyes shut and swung the hammer with all my strength. Snape was doing the same, our hammers creating matching hisses as they passed through the air.
The impact of the magic hammers with the third Horcrux sent me flying backwards until I struck a statue of an angel with arms upraised. A rain of stone particles hit my face and I raised my arm to ward them off. When I at last dared to lower the arm and glance cautiously towards the final resting-place of Ravenclaw, the monument was almost completely destroyed. Only the figure of the angel, now minus its left hand, remained. I watched as a thin fissure pushed through the marble, like watching a crack move through ice, till the statue collapsed into a pile of dust. Snape, half-lying, half sitting on a dry fountain several yards to my right, wolf-whistled.
“All right then,” I said, after the pressure of the silence grew too much, “old snake-face is vulnerable.”
“If Violet is correct,” Snape said dryly.
“She is,” I said.
Becoming a Dark Lord by FinalCow
Chapter Notes: Thanks eternally to my beta, you are my hero.