The Death Eater

Draco Flooed into the offices of his lawyers with Harry tucked safely in his arms. The boy was far too pale and shaking under his hands, but he was awake and upright. He’d woken up as Draco had taken him off Manor grounds for the first time in weeks, and looked up at his face with wide, scared eyes. He’d then promptly broken down in tears, sobbing his thanks to anyone that would listen as he clung tightly to Draco.

“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d save me.” He’d whispered quietly, not thinking any more of the man who had hurt, humiliated and raped him over the last weeks; but instead of the man who had touched him with a tenderness that was almost painful, the man who had sat quietly and read to him, the Angel who had rescued him from a dark cell and kept him safe from his nightmares. The man who had painstakingly cleaned and fed and supported him through his illness afterwards. He’d fallen back asleep fairly quickly in Draco’s arms, seeming not to care about the fact that they were standing in a barren hallway in an unfamiliar house, far away from anything he knew. To his ill mind, he knew only what he needed to know; that Draco Malfoy had him, and Draco Malfoy would take care of him.

Draco had wanted desperately to put Harry to bed in the safe house and leave him there. He’d wanted to surround Harry in the most powerful wards he could and let him sleep and heal in peace, but Harry needed to be here for this meeting, ill or not. Draco had only a few more hours to find Dumbledore and beg his protection before he came under serious danger of being hunted down by the two most powerful and terrifying forces in Wizarding Britain. But first, there were certain things that needed to be done, for the sake of Harry and their daughter, and it needed to be done now.

“Master Malfoy, what a pleasant surprise! And who is your friend?” A silky, obsequious voice announced behind him. Draco bared his teeth, but was smiling charmingly when he turned around.

“Mister Drippe, that’s Lord Malfoy now, thank you. This is my Consort. I need your best work done, I need it done within the next two hours and I need it to be forgotten afterwards. If you don’t feel up to that, I will be very happy to take my custom elsewhere.” The sleek, salesman smile on the Wizard’s face dropped, and he stepped out from the doorway he had been filling quickly. He took Draco’s hands in his, careful of the Wizard in his arms, and performed a bowed gesture of apology and promise. Draco would get whatever he needed.

“Come this way, Lord Malfoy, I’m certain my clients won’t mind coming back some other time.” Drippe lead him through to the well-appointed office he kept, and sat only after Draco had seated himself, Harry draped over his lap in a way that appeared affectionate but would, most importantly, keep the weight off the more damaged areas. “I had not heard of your Father’s death, Lord Malfoy, I am sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t be, and you haven’t heard of it yet because I only killed him a few hours ago.” Draco replied, ignoring the sickly wash to the other man’s face. “I need all the Malfoy documents you have, everything on file, and any notes you may have. You need to wipe the Malfoys off your appointment book and client list and try very, very hard to forget we were ever your clients. I will, of course, still come to you, but it cannot be documented any longer. For now, I need to see my Father’s Will, and I need to make one up of my own.”

“Yes, Lord Malfoy.” Drippe replied faintly, looking quite firmly anywhere but at Draco as he summoned an Office Elf to gather the files. He summoned Lucius Malfoy’s Will himself and handed it to Draco.

“So it all comes to me, there’s nothing in here that allows anyone else a claim?”

“No, not now your Mother is dead. You are the only beneficiary.”

“Does he have any other properties, do his accounts finance anything?”

“He has three properties listed as Malfoy property, and one apartment in the Wizarding sector in Liverpool. Listed to a Mister Walburt Verling. His accounts do not appear to be financing anything at the moment, although he has made donations. He has seven companies on his list.”

“I need you to look into them, and Owl me the details. Also, I need this Mister Verling’s address.”

“You are aware that Lords usually install... Well...”

“You think my Father was fucking Verling. That’s probably true, and as long as he doesn’t expect anything else, I’m happy to leave him the apartment, so long as he is my Father’s lover; and not something far worse.”

“Like what, a Mudblood?”

“No, like Lord Voldemort himself.” Drippe sat back in his chair slowly, his eyes sweeping Draco suspiciously.

“When you told me to rid myself of any sign of you here, it wasn’t to protect my Offices from the Aurors, was it?”

“No, it was not. I need everything you have on my family to ensure that Voldemort does not rip you and your Offices apart looking for me. I defected, by default, when I murdered my Father.”

“In that case, I can tell you that two of these businesses are ruses to feed money to Voldemort, I’ll have the paperwork drawn up to have all the monies stopped and returned to your account. I can also tell you that Verling is not your Father’s lover. He’s your brother; Lucius raped and impregnated his Mother, a Muggle-born, during the first War. She approached him after He died and told Lucius that unless he wanted his son to be announced to the world, he was going to take responsibility. Lucius set her up in an apartment in her home-town, and the lease transferred to Verling after his Mother’s death three years ago.”

“I hadn’t heard anything about him. Is he older or younger than me?”

“Younger, but only by a few months. One of the stipulations Lucius made for his support was that the boy was sent to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts, he’s in his Sixth Year there. He’s the only one.”

“Good. I suppose I’ll have to meet with him at some point.” Draco sighed angrily. “He has no way to claim?”

“Actually, he has the right to claim if you violate the inheritance clauses, but only if he marries a Pureblood, and he could only inherit until his son came of age.” Draco scanned the Will in his hands, but couldn’t see any inheritance clauses, only the basic stipulations.

“What are the inheritance clauses?”

“You must be married within three years of your Father’s death, or by your twenty-first birthday, to an acceptable mate from a long-standing family. You must have produced one child by their body within two years, and at least one son within five years, or three daughters; if your partner is incapable of carrying children to term, that is if they miscarry more than twice in the first two years, you will be expected to divorce them and find another partner within two years of your divorce, and the stipulations about children would be reinstated. That means, most importantly, that unless you expect to make Mr Potter carry your children, you should stop introducing him as your consort and find someone more appropriate.”

“And if I did decide to get him pregnant?” Draco asked pointedly, one hand rubbing Harry’s back gently. Harry was blinking slowly, obviously tired. Drippe stared at him for a long moment, before sitting back slowly, breathing out a long shocked breath.

“Merlin, you’re being serious.” He murmured quietly, staring at them both.

“Perfectly serious.” Draco replied calmly, holding Drippe’s gaze.

“Well, there’s nothing to stop you. His mother was Muggle-born, but his father was from a long-standing pureblood family, and your father made no stipulations about purity of blood in his will. You will have to make sure Mr Potter is willing to carry at least the first child.”

“Only the first?”

“The stipulations are that the first child be produced from his body, the rest of the children have no such stipulations. Your father likely assumed that would be how it went anyway, so he wouldn’t have thought about it. But according to the letter of his will you would be perfectly capable of carrying any of the other required children.” Drippe told him calmly, but the way he refused to look Draco in the eye as he spoke proved his anxiety about suggesting such a thing to Draco.

“You are capable of performing the marriage?” Draco asked him, pointedly ignoring the other conversation. Drippe was looking at him incredulously again, but after a few moments nodded.

“Of course, I have blank marriage certificates here...” He pulled the necessary parchment out and unrolled it on the desk. He picked up a quill and began to scratch out the names. “I’m required by law to check you both for mind-altering potions, curses and charms, to make sure neither of you are being forced into this.” Drippe told him hesitantly. Draco smiled unpleasantly.

“Of course you can check him, but I can assure you he’s under no magical force.” Drippe’s smile was pained as he performed the necessary spell and daubed Harry with the potion, and he didn’t look particularly relieved, nor surprised, when they both came back clean. He repeated the procedure by rote on Draco, and barely waited for the potion to absorb before handing Draco to quill and parchment.

“It’s the standard contract; all of your assets are shared, should you divorce your estates are separated again, etcetera. The children clause has been filled based on your Father’s will, and any other issues are left to you both to sort out. Unless there’s anything you want to add, you merely sign there, Mr Potter signs here, and you’re done. As Mr Potter is the last of the Potter heirs, but your family has several cousins who can pass on the Malfoy name, you will be expected to take his surname and pass it to your children. Anything else?”

“The first son should carry the Malfoy name, and inherit the estate. The Potters have no estate and Seat to worry about.”

“Not so, Lord Malfoy, the Potters do have a Seat, and their estate rivals the Malfoys, but Adalbert Potter refused to take his Seat back with all that trouble with the Goblins in the 1890s, and the Potters haven’t taken up their Seats since. And Adalbert’s son was one of those Stricts, you know the ones who don’t believe in money and comforts. He only used a percentage of the income of the Potter estates, bought the cottage in Godric’s Hollow with it and established the Potters there. I don’t even think the Potters since knew about their estates.”

Draco was wide-eyed himself now, but lowered his eyes to the contract in his lap to hide his surprise. He began scribbling on it, before signing it with a flourish. He nudged Harry gently and handed him the quill. Harry signed with a weak hand, not even bothering to read it. Draco passed the parchment to the other man and held Harry as he waited for the lawyer to finish processing their marriage and collecting their documents. He had a lot to think about.