Harry Potter - a few changes in Malfoy Manor
Summary: All Malfoys were sensitive to the leanings of the Manor, knew that it changed to fit its owner and tried to compliment his or her moods...
Author's Notes: I read Beech Hall by Aucta Sinistra and started wondering about the personalities of old wizard houses. Was going to try tigging this but it got away. The title is still funky.
***
As with all old houses passed along generations of purebloods, Malfoy Manor operated itself quite independently of the wills and wishes of wizards. Thus when Lucius Malfoy, one of the last surviving Death Eaters of Voldemort's era, fell to Auror wands, the Manor bequeathed itself to Draco Malfoy and did its utmost to serve and protect him beginning the moment his father died. The young man could not have known that at that very moment Aurors were in his drawing room, tracking blood and dirt all over the rich wine-colored carpet and panting smugly over the mangled body of the once-proud aristocrat. He did, however, sense a serious change in the house.
All Malfoys were sensitive to the leanings of the Manor, knew that it changed to fit its owner and tried to compliment his or her moods. When Lucius hid there the summer of Draco's fifth year, Draco and Narcissa knew he'd arrived when curtains spontaneously swept shut and house elves couldn't access certain rooms. When Regulus Black showed his first signs of disloyalty to the Dark Lord, his tea cups would break and drafts no one else felt would chill him in empty hallways and crowded rooms. The secret chamber under the drawing room floor had not existed for Draco's grandfather, and he'd been told his great-grandfather had a library in the East wing that vanished when his heart stopped beating.
Although Draco knew this and more about the Manor, and also knew his father would never have freed him had he been alive, the young man wasn't entirely cognizant when the manacle chaining his left wrist to the wall suddenly disappeared with a crack! and his deadened arm flopped down, smacking against his discheveled blond hair and bloody forehead. His bare flesh slapped obscenely against the cold stone floor, and Draco distantly worried that all his bones had shattered, shards of them perhaps splintering through his numb skin and slicing through the locked door--
There was light in his cell. Draco felt magic tingling through the floor, peaceful as burbling water or snow carried on the wind; so faint and subtle it took him minutes to notice, or perhaps he lived lifetimes in that prison staring at the doorway with the slowly-widening crack spilling light into the darkness. He wondered why it wasn't blinding him, why it didn't hurt his sensitive eyes as much as it should. Instead it felt like dawn was just beyond the threshold, like the sun was below the floor and reaching through to cradle him.
That was when Draco realized his father was dead. He sat up slowly, joints creaking and muscles straining, but he could do it. The magic tingling through his veins felt stronger underneath his wired skin, lighter than the cloying molasses of darkness that had suffused every pore of his being since he could remember; that had pressed down heavier whenever he came home.
He was a Malfoy, despite what his father said--had tried to do--and the house was his. Its moods reflected his desires now, and its strength was his strength. Draco scratched crusted blood off the side of his mouth with a dirty fingernail, absently wondering how sallow his skin looked after Merlin-knew how long trapped beneath his own house, and whether it was futile to try to clean himself off before making his way out of his father's dark little dungeon.
"Accio wand," he muttered, forcing himself to look at the brightness beyond the door. He needed to get used to it. I wonder where he died.
And in a tendril of thought, thin as a whisper, the Manor told him. Above his head and some paces to the left lay his father's corpse. Also, they had some unwelcome visitors. The Manor was indignant about this especially, and with a nudge Draco found out about the filthy boots all over the once-immaculate floors and priceless heirloom rugs. The intruders were clumsily searching for dark artifacts in the upper rooms even as Draco's wand zoomed past their startled faces, down the stairs, through the trapdoor in the drawing room (a muffled shout--someone wasn't watching the when the floor came up), flew round the short corridor and into the open cell and Draco's waiting hand.
The Lord of Malfoy Manor smiled. And politely asked his house to get the intruders the fuck off the grounds. If they wanted in, they could bloody well make an appointment. And clean their boots in the entrance hall rather than tramping through his house like rampaging hippogriffs.
The Manor was pleased to obey him; Draco could almost hear their screams.
He didn't need to house to alert him when one of the intruders wasn't sent flying like the rest, however. Draco could feel the foreign presence still within the wards. It was a powerful wizard that slipped through the trap door and crept through the not-so-secret chamber, and his magic was all too familiar. Draco snarled and quickly set about making himself presentable without erasing all proof that he'd been captured and tortured by his own father. He thought he did rather admirably, considering he had less than a minute before the door to his cell was shoved open completely and that damnable wand was pointed at Draco Malfoy's innocent blond head.
Draco frowned at the man in the doorway, though the light was such that Potter was a haloed silhouette with no discernible features. The wand pointed at Draco lowered a fraction. "Malfoy?"
"Well, well--the cavalry is here," Draco drawled, affecting nonchalance and trying not to squint. "Took you long enough."
"Malfoy, you're--you're here? All this time you've been here?" Draco shrugged and tried to look both pathetic and completely in control of what had a short time ago been a hopeless situation. "The Minister of Magic was going to declare you dead! You've been gone almost four months!"
"I thought they had to wait six years to make that declaration. Or was it seven?" Not that it mattered to the Ministry, obviously--a dead, heir-less Malfoy meant money confiscated without strong opposition, as most of his relatives were purebloods under suspicion or on trial. There'd have been bonuses all around for that band of bumbling, thieving officials pretending they were helping wizardkind. Draco hoped his glare wasn't scaring the wand-happy Auror, but Potter, too, worked for the thrice-blasted Ministry, so perhaps Draco hoped it was. "Help me, would you? I can only absorb so much energy before I pass out to assimilate it all. I need to get to a mediwitch."
"Absorb energy? What are you on about?"
"None of your business, Potter...and no, it's not illegal--save that look for the Weasel."
Harry Potter was a prat, an uncultured hothead, and a fool; he was an affection-starved halfblood, entirely too tactile for Draco's tastes, and more muggle than wizard in many important ways; but he was also trustworthy, useful in a pinch, and had an uncanny knack for being in the wrong place at just the right time to save someone in need of saving.
Or perhaps months of no human contact to speak of but his father's made Draco more receptive than usual to Potter's methods.
Whatever the reason, Draco didn't complain when an arm wrapped around his waist instead of a simple levitation charm, and Potter half-carried, half-dragged him up the steps and into the drawing room. He manfully ignored the shiver of breath on his face whispering spells and checking for curses after Potter finally got him settled (the mother hen!) on the stiff-backed red couch by the fire. He didn't even wince when Potter's hands pressed into his wounds, binding them with field magic while they waited for a mediwitch and what Ministry officials would be falling out of their chairs to find out where Draco had been while MIA. Potter even rolled the mud-soiled carpet over Lucius's body--probably in some Gryffindorish attempt to protect Draco's sensibilities, though instead he'd ruined a perfectly good carpet which, Draco supposed, he'd have burned anyway since his father'd had the bad form to die on it. They were sipping tea a bold house elf had brought when Draco remembered to tell Potter to close the trap door before some bumbling Ministry fool--likely Potter himself--tripped over it.
But when they looked, the floor boards were innocently sealed together, pristine and polished. And for all the Boy Wonder's revealing charms and depth spells, the Manor gave no evidence of a trap door or a room beneath their feet. Of course Potter rounded on him, red in the face, wand shaking in his fist. "What's the meaning of this, Malfoy?"
Draco just stared at the place where the door had been, an enigmatic smile stretching his chapped, bloody lips; the dark store room was gone from Malfoy Manor and would be gone even if the Ministry tore the drawing room floor apart. Aloud he just said, "I wonder if I have a library in the East wing?"
Author's Notes: I read Beech Hall by Aucta Sinistra and started wondering about the personalities of old wizard houses. Was going to try tigging this but it got away. The title is still funky.
***
As with all old houses passed along generations of purebloods, Malfoy Manor operated itself quite independently of the wills and wishes of wizards. Thus when Lucius Malfoy, one of the last surviving Death Eaters of Voldemort's era, fell to Auror wands, the Manor bequeathed itself to Draco Malfoy and did its utmost to serve and protect him beginning the moment his father died. The young man could not have known that at that very moment Aurors were in his drawing room, tracking blood and dirt all over the rich wine-colored carpet and panting smugly over the mangled body of the once-proud aristocrat. He did, however, sense a serious change in the house.
All Malfoys were sensitive to the leanings of the Manor, knew that it changed to fit its owner and tried to compliment his or her moods. When Lucius hid there the summer of Draco's fifth year, Draco and Narcissa knew he'd arrived when curtains spontaneously swept shut and house elves couldn't access certain rooms. When Regulus Black showed his first signs of disloyalty to the Dark Lord, his tea cups would break and drafts no one else felt would chill him in empty hallways and crowded rooms. The secret chamber under the drawing room floor had not existed for Draco's grandfather, and he'd been told his great-grandfather had a library in the East wing that vanished when his heart stopped beating.
Although Draco knew this and more about the Manor, and also knew his father would never have freed him had he been alive, the young man wasn't entirely cognizant when the manacle chaining his left wrist to the wall suddenly disappeared with a crack! and his deadened arm flopped down, smacking against his discheveled blond hair and bloody forehead. His bare flesh slapped obscenely against the cold stone floor, and Draco distantly worried that all his bones had shattered, shards of them perhaps splintering through his numb skin and slicing through the locked door--
There was light in his cell. Draco felt magic tingling through the floor, peaceful as burbling water or snow carried on the wind; so faint and subtle it took him minutes to notice, or perhaps he lived lifetimes in that prison staring at the doorway with the slowly-widening crack spilling light into the darkness. He wondered why it wasn't blinding him, why it didn't hurt his sensitive eyes as much as it should. Instead it felt like dawn was just beyond the threshold, like the sun was below the floor and reaching through to cradle him.
That was when Draco realized his father was dead. He sat up slowly, joints creaking and muscles straining, but he could do it. The magic tingling through his veins felt stronger underneath his wired skin, lighter than the cloying molasses of darkness that had suffused every pore of his being since he could remember; that had pressed down heavier whenever he came home.
He was a Malfoy, despite what his father said--had tried to do--and the house was his. Its moods reflected his desires now, and its strength was his strength. Draco scratched crusted blood off the side of his mouth with a dirty fingernail, absently wondering how sallow his skin looked after Merlin-knew how long trapped beneath his own house, and whether it was futile to try to clean himself off before making his way out of his father's dark little dungeon.
"Accio wand," he muttered, forcing himself to look at the brightness beyond the door. He needed to get used to it. I wonder where he died.
And in a tendril of thought, thin as a whisper, the Manor told him. Above his head and some paces to the left lay his father's corpse. Also, they had some unwelcome visitors. The Manor was indignant about this especially, and with a nudge Draco found out about the filthy boots all over the once-immaculate floors and priceless heirloom rugs. The intruders were clumsily searching for dark artifacts in the upper rooms even as Draco's wand zoomed past their startled faces, down the stairs, through the trapdoor in the drawing room (a muffled shout--someone wasn't watching the when the floor came up), flew round the short corridor and into the open cell and Draco's waiting hand.
The Lord of Malfoy Manor smiled. And politely asked his house to get the intruders the fuck off the grounds. If they wanted in, they could bloody well make an appointment. And clean their boots in the entrance hall rather than tramping through his house like rampaging hippogriffs.
The Manor was pleased to obey him; Draco could almost hear their screams.
He didn't need to house to alert him when one of the intruders wasn't sent flying like the rest, however. Draco could feel the foreign presence still within the wards. It was a powerful wizard that slipped through the trap door and crept through the not-so-secret chamber, and his magic was all too familiar. Draco snarled and quickly set about making himself presentable without erasing all proof that he'd been captured and tortured by his own father. He thought he did rather admirably, considering he had less than a minute before the door to his cell was shoved open completely and that damnable wand was pointed at Draco Malfoy's innocent blond head.
Draco frowned at the man in the doorway, though the light was such that Potter was a haloed silhouette with no discernible features. The wand pointed at Draco lowered a fraction. "Malfoy?"
"Well, well--the cavalry is here," Draco drawled, affecting nonchalance and trying not to squint. "Took you long enough."
"Malfoy, you're--you're here? All this time you've been here?" Draco shrugged and tried to look both pathetic and completely in control of what had a short time ago been a hopeless situation. "The Minister of Magic was going to declare you dead! You've been gone almost four months!"
"I thought they had to wait six years to make that declaration. Or was it seven?" Not that it mattered to the Ministry, obviously--a dead, heir-less Malfoy meant money confiscated without strong opposition, as most of his relatives were purebloods under suspicion or on trial. There'd have been bonuses all around for that band of bumbling, thieving officials pretending they were helping wizardkind. Draco hoped his glare wasn't scaring the wand-happy Auror, but Potter, too, worked for the thrice-blasted Ministry, so perhaps Draco hoped it was. "Help me, would you? I can only absorb so much energy before I pass out to assimilate it all. I need to get to a mediwitch."
"Absorb energy? What are you on about?"
"None of your business, Potter...and no, it's not illegal--save that look for the Weasel."
Harry Potter was a prat, an uncultured hothead, and a fool; he was an affection-starved halfblood, entirely too tactile for Draco's tastes, and more muggle than wizard in many important ways; but he was also trustworthy, useful in a pinch, and had an uncanny knack for being in the wrong place at just the right time to save someone in need of saving.
Or perhaps months of no human contact to speak of but his father's made Draco more receptive than usual to Potter's methods.
Whatever the reason, Draco didn't complain when an arm wrapped around his waist instead of a simple levitation charm, and Potter half-carried, half-dragged him up the steps and into the drawing room. He manfully ignored the shiver of breath on his face whispering spells and checking for curses after Potter finally got him settled (the mother hen!) on the stiff-backed red couch by the fire. He didn't even wince when Potter's hands pressed into his wounds, binding them with field magic while they waited for a mediwitch and what Ministry officials would be falling out of their chairs to find out where Draco had been while MIA. Potter even rolled the mud-soiled carpet over Lucius's body--probably in some Gryffindorish attempt to protect Draco's sensibilities, though instead he'd ruined a perfectly good carpet which, Draco supposed, he'd have burned anyway since his father'd had the bad form to die on it. They were sipping tea a bold house elf had brought when Draco remembered to tell Potter to close the trap door before some bumbling Ministry fool--likely Potter himself--tripped over it.
But when they looked, the floor boards were innocently sealed together, pristine and polished. And for all the Boy Wonder's revealing charms and depth spells, the Manor gave no evidence of a trap door or a room beneath their feet. Of course Potter rounded on him, red in the face, wand shaking in his fist. "What's the meaning of this, Malfoy?"
Draco just stared at the place where the door had been, an enigmatic smile stretching his chapped, bloody lips; the dark store room was gone from Malfoy Manor and would be gone even if the Ministry tore the drawing room floor apart. Aloud he just said, "I wonder if I have a library in the East wing?"