Hole

Draco didn't get to bed until around lunchtime, with aurors swarming around the Manor and every dog and his boy pitching a fit about the disappearance of Potter and the intruders at 4.45am sharp. The missing slaves barely registered on anyone's radar but their owners' until Narcissa pointed out, with a sharp edge to her voice that showed she was well past her normally high tolerance for fools, that the missing slaves had never come in contact with the intruders, which pointed to a further, unsuspected agent for the mass disappearance.

Manfully ignoring the suspicion which was raining down on him from all sides after his little jaunt with the Weasley girl, Draco had helpfully volunteered that the intruders were actually a break-away group of rank-and-file rebels and that it was posssible that the leaders of the main group had found out their plan and callously used them as a distraction from their own, more successful infiltration plan.

After hours more of interrogation, speculation and frustration this came to be the accepted theory and Draco was finally able to go to bed.

As he wearily shed his purple and gold raiment, Evanescoing it, since he certainly had no wish to ever see it again, a soft knock sounded on his door. It was his mother.

Narcissa looked even more weary than he felt. She crossed the room to kiss him on the cheek as he tied the green silk sash of his dressing gown. "You're a trial but I love you," she said softly. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me how you did it?"

"Did what?" he replied, allowing a puzzled expression to cross his face.

She gave him the look of a mother who isn't fooled in the slightest. "We'll leave it at that then. But I have spent weeks - no, months - creating the perfect occasion and you might as well have let a hurricane rampage through it, leaving nothing but destruction and recriminations in its wake. It is only the fact that I love you that is preventing me from strangling you with my bare hands, Draco. My Christmas present this year will be spectacular, I have no doubt."

She turned to leave, her hand resting on his arm. "How can a slave - any slave - be worth such trouble?" she asked plaintively. "I don't understand you, Draco."

Draco shrugged. "I don't know why they decided to rescue Potter, Mother."

Her mouth flattened into a disappointed line, but she kissed him again before leaving him alone, bright sunlight streaming into his room as he wearily sought his bed.

He lay there, unsleeping despite his bone-deep exhaustion as his mind skittered among the wreckage of the evening. Lucius' face as he returned from viewing the empty altar. MacNair screaming about the loss of one of his precious werewolves. An elderly witch waving her cane at Umbridge as they screeched at each other about the loss of their expensive and prestigous slaves.

Hole... Potter's bewildered flinch as Weasley bit his lip, blood running freely down his chin.

What had the missing people thought when they found themselves abruptly transported to a cellar, Lupin exhausted from multiple transformations and covered in the blood of his victims and Weasley dripping with Draco's and Potter's cum? Draco hadn't counted on five extra people to transport, but he had made beads to spare - all of them single-use portkeys set to the same time. He imagined that the beads in his pocket and his spare bead-embedded sweets had all landed on the floor of the cellar at the same time as the people.

It was impossible to portkey through the Malfoy wards without a Malfoy; everyone knew that. Draco smirked in satisfaction. It would be too dangerous to reveal the method, based on his own blood, that he had invented. Let it die with him - it had served its purpose.

Weasley and her four, Lupin, Potter, Granger, three more Weasleys and McGonagall. Twelve. He'd left enough clothes for that many, and food. Only ten wands, though; they would have to share.

On the table, 'Domestick Spells and Charms' had been bookmarked at the section on Managing Your Household Staff. The bookmark had one word written on it: Arcturus. Draco had utter faith that Granger or Lupin would figure out that it was the password to Hole's collar. Draco remembered the sight of Lupin's werewolf leaping at the crowd, fangs sharp and dripping with the blood of his victim. He remembered the polite man crunching a peanut brittle. The two were irreconcilable. He hoped never to meet the werewolf again.

The portkeys were labelled 'London Underground', 'Adelaide, Australia' and 'Interlaken, Switzerland'. He wondered which one they had picked; which one Potter had picked. Australia, if he had any sense. He never did have any sense, but Granger would talk sense into him.

As he slipped into sleep, Draco wondered what Potter felt when his collar unlocked, the spells were removed and his full self came flooding back. Did he scream as the memories of the nights with Draco warred with his unlocked memories of the Weasley girl? Would he ever touch her without thinking of the nights Draco plundered his mouth and arse? Would the girl ever forgive him - or herself?

Draco Malfoy fell asleep with a smile on his face. In his sleep he reached for a warm body, but he was alone.

* * *
Only the epilogue to go. Whew!