Before The World Was Made DRARRY

Chapter Four

The story was one that Draco had revisited many times when he was a boy. Growing up in the Manor, mainly isolated from other children except during the social season, Draco spent most of his time living in the multitude of history books available to him. Malfoy history was so long and-he was taught-so glorious that the library in his ancestral home was nearly comparable to the one at Hogwarts. The majority of the books were personal journals and accounts of the various Malfoy heirs and their siblings.

There were stories of Malfoys fighting off hordes of Muggles, escaping unjust and tyrannical foreign laws, wooing royalty and nobility into close friendships and love affairs. One particularly exciting historical account, from his great-great-great-great-granduncle Armel Malfoy, detailed the way in which he bred a new species of dragon for the sole purpose of courting a young woman from the wizarding royal family of Romania.

But the best story was always the mystery of Perseus Malfoy's death on his wedding day. Because what interests young bored boys more than murder and mystery, really?

The accounts were incomplete, unreliable, and mostly lost to the wear of such a long history. Most of Perseus's personal journals were lost in a terrible fire that laid waste to the original structure of Malfoy Manor. The remaining documents were only partially legible and very fragile. Draco had never been allowed to actually hold the journal himself. It was kept behind glass under a reinforced stasis charm at the Manor.

But that was before the war and the Ministry's determined plundering of his family's legacy. He tried hard not to imagine where that book, as precious as it was to him and to their current predicament, might be in this vast storehouse of books.

"A diary," Granger mused to herself, tapping the tip of her wand against her bottom lip. An involuntary echo of his mother's voice played out in Draco's head. She always warned him against habits like that, telling him he would hex his own nose off if he wasn't careful. Wands were not toys. "You say it was badly damaged in a fire? If it really is that old and important enough for your father to keep it under a stasis charm, I don't imagine even the Ministry was foolish enough to cast it off."

A flicker of hope in his chest, Draco shifted next to Potter. The pull between them seemed to wax and wane, but it was growing again. The lulls were shorter now, and he could feel himself itching to close the distance between them.

"Have you found any books like that in your searches of this place?" Potter asked, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the Pure-Blood Directory. Potter was feeling it too. He glanced up at Draco with apparent difficulty, and Draco felt his breath catch.

"There have been a few unique pieces thus far," Granger said more to herself than either of them. "I could use a modified summoning charm to trigger any books under statis in this storehouse." Before either of them could answer her, she flicked her wand and waited.

For a few moments, nothing happened, and Draco felt his heart sink a bit. Granger looked even more disappointed, her bushy hair deflating somewhat, but then the softest hint of a whizzing sound met Draco's ears.

They all strained to hear, and after a second, Potter's eyes widened.

"Duck!" he cried, and Draco and Granger obeyed just in time. Three books, each in increasingly worse condition, zoomed through the air and narrowly missed Granger's head. She had not ducked as far or as fast as Draco and Potter, though her massive belly may have been the cause.

Potter was quick with his shield charms, though, even if he'd shielded her stomach instead of her head. Draco felt a warmth blossoming inside him that he was determined to ignore.

"That's it!" Draco said, spotting the book he'd studied from afar for much of his childhood. He couldn't quite keep the excitement out of his voice.