Searching

Disclaimer: I own nothing, though I wish I did. JKR does.

Part I

Long story short, Draco gets drunk in library. House elf comes to library with letter from dead father. Letter tells Draco to haul his ass to Scotland or risk the extinction of the Malfoy family.

Alright, alright, so it deserves a bit more explanation than that. Back in Hogwarts, Draco had been considered one of the most handsome blokes around.
He'd dated around the first few years after graduation, and even met some girls he'd seriously considered marrying. But something had always gone wrong.

Bizarrely wrong.

Giselle had run off with a circus clown. Rachel had decided to take a trip to the Himalayas and ended up falling in love with her tour guide. None had wounded Draco as sorely has Dana had, however. Dear, darling, desirous Dana had suddenly felt a higher call and decided to join a Muggle nunnery!

Nothing said "I love you" like giving up your worldly possessions and abandoning your handsome boyfriend for a building full of women.

It had hurt, blast them. The horrifying possibility that something might actually be wrong with him had had Draco in quite the emotional state on his birthday.
The thought that all the times he'd tormented girls were coming back to haunt him was chilling. He had even gotten tipsy enough to wonder if he was ever going to have a family. Being the last male Malfoy still alive, he had a heavy responsibility to shoulder and all that, but it was something more.

Was it wrong to want to have a family just to have one? People did it every day, why couldn't he? He rather fancied the thought of having little someones to take care of and teach. Hell, it wasn't like he was ice or anything. He wanted someone to come home to and share with too, damn it to the triple-hottest hell!

That’s when Father dearest decided to poke his damn dead nose into it. A month ago Draco had turned twenty-five. Twenty-five, rich, handsome…and single. Draco growled softly as he continued to search the wall fruitlessly. Every time a witch magazine wrote an article on his unattached state, an associate asked about any of the fabled droves that supposedly pursued him, or his mother so much as gave him that look…..It rubbed salt in the cursed wound!

Anyway, the letter had arrived from the proverbial grave, care of a house elf. In it Lucius expounded on family history for a bit. About six or seven centuries ago their ancestor Aniston Malfoy had captured a castle in a rather devious and bloody power move. He'd solidified the Malfoy position in the wizarding world while the thing had been in its infancy.

He'd also been looking for something.

Let's rephrase. He'd been obsessed with finding something, so much so that when he hadn't found it, he'd cursed his own family. Either find it by the time the last son married, or he would never see the ceremony.

In other words—get it, or die.

Draco would never get married if he didn't drop everything, go to Scotland, and do his damnedest to find Aniston's prize. The Malfoy line would die with Draco.

Hell of a birthday gift.

And it just kept getting better. Draco had done what research he could to find out what the hell Aniston had wanted. He hadn't found that, but he'd discovered several other interesting facts. Not a single Malfoy had resided more than a few weeks at the fortress. Not one. In the centuries since its acquisition it had stayed empty most of the time, yet eerily managed to stay in almost pristine shape.

Alright, pristine was an exaggeration, but the thing wasn't a pile of rubble. Draco had read diary after diary of stalwart Malfoy men who seemed to tremble at the very idea of the place. Many refused to mention it at all after they returned.
Intriguing, to say the least.

For centuries, the Castle of the Dead Ones had been the proclaimed seat of the Malfoy family. Residing in deepest Scotland, it inspired stories of fabulous fortunes and power, of intrigues and alliances, of life and death struggles that always turned out in the Malfoy family favor. From the looks of the blasted gate Draco currently glared at, however, Draco was almost convinced that he'd taken a wrong turn and ended up at somebody else's fortress.

The place was a wreck. One big, creepy wreck. Draco had passed the night hiking up miles of deserted trail, surrounded by the raucous harmonies of every night animal imaginable. Now there was utter silence. Not a single sound made it through the early morning mist. Birds stayed silence in the shadow of the structure. For someone used to the bustle of city life, Draco found the hush thunderous. The walls before him seemed to reach the sky, looking down on him with disdain. The thing actually had a genuine drawbridge, and the old-fashioned portcullis was set against enemies that had died out long ago. Turrets, towers, and indestructible walkways peeked over the stone—and Draco was jiggered if he wasn't going to get inside.

Sighing, Draco heaved the knapsack off his shoulder and flung it with unnecessary force against the ancient barrier. He cursed his father for the millionth time since he'd begun this ridiculous endeavor even as he ran his fingers along the wall. Lucky for him, Malfoys always planned for the unexpected. If Draco remembered his father's letter right, there was a hidden door that would open if one pressed in just the right spot.

"Eureka!" he cried out. The latch had been tripped, and a door of false stone crept open to Draco's left. He wondered briefly at the well-oiled condition of the hinges, but refused to dwell on it. Instead he got his sack and stepped into the musty darkness. He dug out his wand. "Luminos," he muttered. He could see nothing unusual within the close confines. There was a dirt floor and a few feet of space before Malfoy came upon the other door. It had a surprisingly advanced lock system on it, but he managed to get out only after a moment.

So now he stood in a vast empty courtyard. Vines and what looked to be rose bushes had broken out of their designated beds and tried to take over the walls. One got the eerie feeling that everyone had suddenly stopped what they were doing and filed out of the place single file. Everything was just that still, but with a heavy sense of expectation, like something had just been about to happen. If years hadn’t worn away the white wash from the stones, if Draco hadn’t personally witnessed that fact that no footprints but his own existed in the dirt, then he might have suspected that he had just stepped back in time.

In its heyday, the castle had been quite something to see. Stories open stories of stone centered around a gigantic courtyard, where the men and women would have spent most of their time working. The walls held an unusual number of large windows, a health hazard but pleasant to look upon. Draco felt as though the outside world no longer existed. It was cut off by the impossible height of the wall, and this was a new world in which he had to negotiate.

As he crossed the great expanse, Draco noticed that his footsteps echoed off of the long empty walls. He was the only person in the entire castle, with its ancient furniture, its cold aura despite the warm day, and its secrets.

The Castle of the Dead Ones. Morbid, but appropriate.

*****************************************************************

The place was an antique. There were pieces of furniture from literally every era. There were chairs and tables, weapons cases and suits of armor. Clothes, bowls, and various other pieces of daily living littered every available surface. Some were covered in heavy dust. Some looked freshly made thanks to a quick spell or two, no doubt. Everywhere Draco looked, evidence of several generations of occupation stood out. No doubt Granger would have been in the throes of passion over it all, he thought dryly. Wonder what she was doing these days?

Ever since the Great War, Draco had focused solely on his family and their responsibilities. It had been years since he’d talked to anyone but a few Slytherins. Mostly his time was taken up by foreigners with trouble pronouncing their ‘r’s and developed aversions to introducing him to their daughters. If he recalled right, Granger had had a particular interest in history. Draco looked briefly at himself in a dust caked mirror likely from the 17th century. There was plenty of that floating around here. Again the feeling that someone was supposed to show up any moment and simply pick up where they left off assailed him. He looked over his shoulder and shifted the knapsack, ignoring the pain in his shoulders.

Maybe it was the utter quiet of the place, or maybe it was the hodgepodge of artifacts that was doing it, but Draco couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone watching him. It prickled the hair on the back of his neck, making him super aware of his surroundings. Then again, he could be letting his imagination get the best of him. Aniston hadn’t exactly bought the place on a Muggle credit card. He’d killed people, and though the details were sketchy, Draco got the impression that his ancestor was no one to be trifled with. It was the castle’s violent history that lent it it’s creepy vibe, Draco rationalized.

But then the history of the place was why he was here, wasn’t it? Draco had to stay here and put his life on hold to find the things that would tell him what had really happened all those years ago. Then he’d find out what exactly had had Aniston so enthralled, find it, and get the hell back to London and a love life as soon as possible.

He just hoped that the whole thing ended better than it had begun. Reaching the Great Hall, Draco strode immediately to the gigantic fireplace and set to work. As he prepared a fire to make food on, he mentally catalogued all the mental trauma he’d been subjected to because of Aniston’s ridiculous obsession.

First he’d had to put his life on hold. Finding someone to take over your financial interests, especially those as vast as his, was a scary thing. Then he’d had to find the place, which wasn’t on any map. The locals refused to acknowledge it by pointing strangers in its direction. Then he’d found that he couldn’t Apparate because of ancient wards. This forced him to hike mile after forsaken mile through wilderness. Malfoy hated wilderness. He and Nature did not get along by any means.

And now he was being forced to prepare his own food. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had his wand, and therefore an instrument to facilitate daily life, Malfoy would have gone stark raving mad. Or starved to death.

****************************************************************

One week later….

“Stark raving mad” was exactly where he was going!

“Bloody ancestors!” Book after book sailed across the room, propelled by Malfoy fury. Disregarding the fragile nature, not to mention historical value of every single thing in the neglected tower repository, Draco hurled anything he could get his hands on. Journals, memoirs, treatises, diaries, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had spent every waking moment combing through centuries of written material left behind by countless Malfoys…

“And not finding one useful bloody thing!” Draco bellowed. A ledger of rent accounts from 1542 found itself snatched up and thrown into a stack of sheep husbandry records from 1869. The pages scattered helplessly, an innocent sacrifice to the alter of Malfoy temper. Malfoy grabbed his longish blonde hair and pulled. “I’m surrounded by the pontifications of idiots!” Who cared about Melissa Malfoy’s romantic explorations? Well, ok, that had been rather interesting. Or at least until Draco had realized he was reading the intimate details of his great-great-great grandmother’s love life, and been summarily grossed out.

But the information he sought didn’t seem to exist. No one would say why Malfoys never stayed at the fortress. Records and accounts simply stopped in their tracks abruptly. If there were complete records to be found for something like financial status, more often than not the records had been imported and then abandoned. Whatever the reason, it had scared Malfoys bad enough to abandon their portfolios, and that was quite something. Frustrated, Draco stared at the stone wall as if imploring it to open up and reveal to him what he needed.

A first hand account from Aniston’s era.

Without such a thing, Draco had no place to start, which meant that there was no end in sight but his own untimely one. Draco growled in renewed anger. Cursed by his own blinkin’ ancestor! What happened to family loyalty? Was there nothing sacred anymore?!

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to get out, get some air, see some sunshine. With the speed of the desperate Draco rushed out of the confining room. It resided in a smaller tower, one of many on the castle grounds. He hadn’t spent any time on exploring his surroundings. He’d found the supposed treasure trove of written information fairly quickly. After all, every Malfoy for centuries had used much the same method. The third floor had always served as the basis for private family dealings, such as a records room. So the entire week had been spent cooped up in a airtight room searching fruitlessly for hours on end.

Fat lot of good that had done, Draco thought sourly as he barreled out onto the tower’s ground landing. He hurried down the hall, ignoring the priceless junk that seemed to crowd every nook and cranny of the heap. He ignored gold, silver, jewelry, buckets, mirrors, and hundreds of other valuable things that might have drawn a lesser wizard. Correction--a less wealthy wizard. It wasn’t until Draco realized that he’d been walking to no where for several minutes that he slowed down.

The Castle of the Dead Ones really was an interesting find, he thought suddenly. If he wasn’t so pissed off at a relative he hadn’t even met, Draco might have taken the time to give the place a proper look over. Being a fortress, the stone had accumulated a lot of dust over the years. The windows leant a good deal of light most of the time, but it was falling into night now. He supposed that lighting a few torches wouldn’t require too much effort.

It was in the middle of reaching up to light the first torch that it happened. A tingling sensation, so strong and distinct that it sent an shiver down Draco’s spine immediately. His head jerked immediately to the right. His wand was out in duel position without conscious thought. Gray eyes darted back and forth swiftly, trying to discern the threat from the shadows.

There was nothing there.

***************

Who’s there?

The question trembled on the edge of her lips, but she couldn’t seem to make a sound. Fog draped her mind in a heavy curtain, dulling her thoughts and muffling much of her awareness. Instinct told her that she was not alone, but her body wouldn’t response to the garbled commands of her mind. Her limbs felt heavy. Her eyes wouldn’t open…..

She drifted away from conscious thought once more….

***************************************************************

The strange incident from earlier had Draco unusually jumpy. His instincts had never failed him before. He had always been able to rely on himself absolutely, ever since the Great War. The vague feelings of someone watching him, easily disregarded, had abruptly crystallized into a definitive warning. Someone had been standing right behind him. Of that Draco had no doubt.

He was so sure, in fact, that he immediately began casting spells to detect the intruder. So sure, that when the results were devoid of any evidence of trespassing he cast the spells again. So sure, that when the third casting returned the same answer, Draco began to question if his skills were up to standard. So he spent the next two hours patrolling the grounds the old fashioned way. After slinking around countless corners and hexing masses of mice, Draco was exhausted.

Not to mention lost.

“Perfect,” Draco muttered. He found himself in a particularly decrepit area of the fortress. It was devoid of all the stylish trappings that littered the halls near the entrance. There were tattered tapestries adorning the walls every so often, but otherwise bereft of any material occupation. The light of his wand allowed him to see a few feet into the darkness. The sheer whiteness of the glow was beginning to hurt his eyes, however. He was a sitting duck if anyone decided to hop on over and bash him on the head.

What baffled him about the whole thing wasn’t so much the reason why someone would decide to come onto the grounds. Any fool could see that there was wealth here beyond the average imagination. It was how. To get to the castle, one had to know where it was in the first place. The trail made it impossible to drive a Muggle vehicle up and the wards prevented Apparation. So how did whoever it was get there? How would a robber haul enough loot away to make the trip worthwhile?

It didn’t make sense.

Draco came to the end of the corridor. The floor gave way to a set of long, winding stairs that looked like no one had stepped on them for centuries, judging by the undisturbed dirt. Curious, Draco slowly descended. He kept his guard up the entire time just in case. Cold air rose and enveloped his body. The air grew damp, and every time Draco exhaled his breath came out in white puffs. A cellar?

It was. Draco found himself in the biggest, coldest store room he had ever seen. Not that he’d been in all that many, being a Malfoy, but that was beside the point. He spotted a torch to his immediate left and quickly lit it, unable to stand the artificial glow of his wand any longer.

Barrels upon barrels upon sacks of long forgotten foodstuffs cluttered the place. Whatever had been inside had rotted away long ago, but the air had a faint smell of old wood and moldy cheese to it. It left a stale taste in Draco’s mouth. He took a few cautious steps before drawing up short.

That prickly feeling had returned full force, making every hair on Draco’s body stand up. His muscles tensed, his breathing shallowed. Heart pounding, Draco held himself perfectly still. The silence was thunderous, pressing close…

Something shifted.

In a flash Draco acted. He whirled around and flung the torch in the direction of the noise. He ducked to the floor to avoid any unfriendly spells and was in the midst of uttering the stunning charm when something rushed past him with unnatural speed, coming so close Draco would have sworn he had touched him. He tossed the charm at a different angle at the last second but missed. The thing rushed him again, this time from the entirely opposite direction of where it was supposed to have gone. The gust of wind created actually knocked Draco off balance-impossible seconds later whatever he was dealing with came from still another side!

Then all hell broke loose. Wave after wave of energy washed over Draco. It was like hundreds of voices suddenly raised up in raucous discord. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t see! He wanted to vomit. A heavy weight dropped itself onto his chest and sent him to the ground. What magic was this?! He’d never dealt with anything like it before! The voices rose to a feverish pitch, so loud Draco covered his ears to block it. Nothing touched him, but his body screamed at him to make the abuse stop!

And just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. Breathing hard, disoriented, Draco opened bewildered eyes that struggled to focus. What had just happened? What had just happened?

He stared into the eyes of a child.

A boy, no older than eight, stared down at him with teary eyes. He was covered in dirt, his hair was strangely wet, and his tattered old fashioned night shirt was spattered with mud. Draco surged up as quickly as his sapped strength let him. The child backed up, clearly terrified. “Wait,” Draco croaked. “What did you do-”

The boy turned and ran--right through a stack of barrels.

Draco did vomit then. He heaved and sweated for what seemed like eternity before he found the will power to stand himself up. A ghost. He had just been attacked by a ghost. But this ghost wasn’t anything like the ghosts at Hogwarts--not even Moaning Myrtle. They left you with a strange feeling, but nothing like the overwhelming sense that you were….dying. Yes, it had felt like he was dying, hearing the cries of all the others that were dying with him.

As undeniably shaken as Draco was, he found that he could not turn and run as instinct demanded. Instead he found himself lurching in uneven steps toward the barrels the child had gone through. Some unseen force pushed him, guided his steps, demanded that he go forward. Demanded to see exactly what lie behind those strangely arranged barrels. They stood in a perfect square, completely set apart from the stacks that held up the walls. Nothing touched them, and they touched nothing. An island in a vast storeroom with plenty of space.

Hiding something.

A quick muttered spell, a shattering of ancient wood. A door in the floor that creaked open ominously. A set of naturally formed steps. A cave….?

Dear gods, a mass grave.

The smell of dark death besieged Draco, who quickly covered his mouth and nose. The cavern was large, with a small lake of crystal clear water that allowed one to see down several feet to the bottom. The water flowed from a waterfall, creating a background noise that should have soothed him. The skeletons that littered the floor, however, captivated his attention.

Some still wore fragile bits of clothing that told their gender, whose size told Draco that no one had been spared. Men, women, and children intermingled with one another in silent turmoil, curled in obviously protective stances. The arrow shafts that jutted out of their bones told the stories of their gory demise.

What made Draco sick, however, was not the sight of so many murdered people. He had seen death before. It was the way which everyone lay. They were on their backs, hands still bound, knees bent. They had been kneeling before their captors…and executed.

At the edge of the water, in the muddiest part of the cave, Draco could make out the form of a woman lying over a child with scrapes of shirt still clinging to his shoulders.

At the forefront of all of these skeletons, guarding the mouth of a natural corridor that Draco had a feeling led to the outside, sat a chest. Black ebony, the eyes of the snakes carved over the lid glistened triumphantly in the water’s flickering light. The young blonde knew what it was the moment he laid eyes on it. A conqueror gloating in his achievement even in death, Draco thought with sparkling anger. Interesting to know that Lucius’ cruel streak was a family trait.


With heavy steps Draco descended the rest of the way. With heavy heart he approached the malevolent chest that seemed to whisper his name. The call of the Malfoy blood, which named certain traits that Draco had struggled to shed in the years after his school days. Long ago he realized he didn’t want to follow Lucius’ footsteps. Yet this chest mocked his conscious decision for moderation, to treat others as fairly as possible. This chest had been forged for the specific purpose of commending power, to be a symbol of what cruelty and absolutism can gain.

Aniston’s last grab for glory.

*****************************************************************

In the coming years Draco would never be sure what happened next. Perhaps it was a random coagulation of the stars, the time, the day, the place. It could have been anything, so rare that it would not likely be repeated in his lifetime. All he knew was that one second he was reaching for the chest.

The next he was in the cave lake.
It took one solid second for him to realize that he wasn’t actually breathing anymore--which was good, because he was pretty sure he would have drowned. Not the most pleasant way to go, but definitely in keeping with the Aniston cursing him to death thing. But once he realized that he wasn’t floating so much as sinking, Draco quickly propelled himself to the surface and life-giving air.

He heard a woman give a yell of surprise. “Hoppin’ hogs’ toes, lad! Are you alright?!” The thick Scottish accent, coupled with obvious concern, lent her ‘r’s an extra roll.

“What the devil happened?” he sputtered. His hair had flopped over and plastered itself inelegantly over his eyes. “Devil take it,” he growled. Treading water, he quickly swiped a hand to get it out of his way and a good look at his surroundings.

A woman stood on the edge of the cave lake, staring in wide eyed astonishment at the young man who had just plopped into her lake out of mid air. Draco took in the wild brown hair, brown eyes, and stubborn chin in seconds. His jaw dropped. “Hermione Granger?!” he burst out. What in the hell was she doing here?

The girl frowned. In his shock Draco noted the pouty quality of her lips before he could stop himself. She shook her head at him. “You’ve got it wrong, lad. My given name is Hermione, but there’s no Grangers around here.” She looked wary now, casually easing back the closer he treaded. “Are you alright?” she repeated.

What was with the accent? Surely it hadn’t been that long since he’d seen her. “Granger-” he bit out.

“You must have hit your head or something of the sort. I’m not this Granger person ye speak of,” she cut in quickly, sweeping her skirt out of the way a bit. It was then that Draco noticed her dress. It was full, it was tight…..it had a corset.
He looked past her. No skeletons, no arrows….no chest.

As perverse as it sounded, this was not good.

“Umm…” he was starting to feel a little light headed. “What year is it?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re English,” she suddenly stated.

“Yes, I know that,” Draco said with growing exasperation. “What I don’t know is what year it is.”

“I knew it! You hit your-”
“What year is it!” Draco finally shouted. Probably not good, what with him in the water and rapidly loosing strength. But this was getting scary, more so than the child ghost!

“1473!” she shouted back. She quickly clapped her hand over her mouth and glared at him over her fingers. It was clear she hadn’t meant to raise her voice, and equally apparent that she blamed him entirely for it. Draco was a little busy right then, however, digesting incredible pieces of information.

The year 1473. In Scotland. Before Aniston had arrived to conquer the castle.

Oh, bugger.


End of Part I