𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆

Part 13

Decisions and Revisions

Those creatures jumped the barricades
And headed for the sea.
She began to breathe,
breathe,
at the thought of this freedom,
stood and whispered to her child,
belong.
She held the child and whispered with calm, calm,
belong.

-- R.E.M., Belong

When Draco Malfoy was particularly nervous, he adopted an elegant, lazy, demure sort of pose, his chin raised just enough to make him seem slightly taller than he actually was, as well as giving the impression that he was likely to flounce haughtily out of the room at any moment. He pressed his lips together primly, cocked an eyebrow, and, if he were standing still for a long enough time, as he had been just now, he would run his index finger along the inner hem of his robes, tucking that thin material under his fingernail. If you didn't know better, you might mistake this pose for disdain, nonchalance, or boredom. Harry Potter knew better.

They stood in the heart of Muggle London, in the foyer of a rather posh-looking bookstore called 'Waterstone's'. The highly polished counter in front of them housed a large, antique cash register, in gold, a large pile of books, mostly hard covers sans dust jackets. An elderly, balding man with white hair draped haphazardly over his ears sat perched on a stool behind the counter. He was pulling the books, one by one, from one pile to another, making note of each on a pad of yellow lined paper with a scratch-nibbed fountain pen, filling the otherwise quiet foyer with the sounds of canvas rubbing against canvas, and the soft thud of hefty tome falling one upon another, and the delicate scratch of the fountain pen, tallying the long minutes they stood there, unremarked upon, waiting.

Events had proceeded quickly. Dumbledore had informed the Ministry of Hermione's succinct summary of their latest discovery, and within a couple of days there had been several high profile raids. Malfoy manor had been all but sacked; but it had stood empty, the curtains still billowing at windows left half-open. Other than a handful of old potions bottles, there was no evidence of Voldemort, of attempts at freeing him, of bloody knives or goblin magic or anything else to be found there at all. The following day, Ministry officials had found the scene of a minor massacre. In the rear ballroom of a large manor along the coast in Wales, they found the bodies of three known Death Eaters, and those of five goblins. One other body, identified as Lewis Nelson, a wizard from Southampton and long-time suspect, was found in an abandoned upper room, dead for several months. Tucked under his robes was a long, silver knife wrapped in a blank piece of parchment. He had no blood in his body whatsoever. They found the doors to the manor thrown open toward the stony beach, as if its occupants had had to run, madly and half-blind, from the bloodied ballroom and into the ocean. The half-charred bodies of seven unidentified men lay face-first in the shallows, cold water ritually covering and uncovering the pink soles of their feet. When they turned one of them over, they found that he had tentacles protruding from his chest.

Before they finished, they made one last grisly discovery; Marjorie Bloom, a Hogwarts' student and pureblood witch, who had been thought killed in her grandmother's garden some weeks ago, had been shoved into a small closet and locked there. When they opened the door, she had screamed, and clawed out her own eyes, afraid of the men, the noise, the light.

The Daily Prophet had been again filled with accusations, outrage, shock. Horrid, appalling things were taking place, and no one at the Ministry had been prepared to give them any solid information. There were several rumours, reported in the newspaper, about a blonde man seen disappearing around a corner in Malfoy manor, picking up something from the bloodied ballroom in Wales and apparating God knows where. It was whispered in wizarding pubs and taverns across the nation that little Marjorie Bloom had screamed out 'No! Draco! No!' as she tore at her eyes. No one was sure where Draco was hiding, but the building that had formerly housed his flat had been torched, the landlord himself forced out in the middle of the night in his bathrobe to watch his home burn. He raised his fist and damned the Malfoys. "All of them." He muttered, watching his possessions go up in smoke.