The Pureblood Coup

Sorry, it has been two weeks since I updated…Oh, well…I was sort of getting tired of writing this to be honest. Hopefully, I get full steam ahead with this soon!

Sheherazade: We will find out more later why Lucius was auctioning off his treasures.

Blood_red_eyes: I loved your review. Lot of drama and angst, yes. But I believe there's a good chance this party actually happened, at least in my mind it did!


Continuation of…

Chapter Ten: Festival of the Pure-Bloods


Several minutes later Draco and Theodore Nott returned this time not with the old-fashioned radio or their drinks. Draco was rather holding a black, cylindrical can and in his other he held down something squirming inside Draco’s robes, waiting to get free from the inside pocket of his dressrobes.

The weedy-looking sidekick, Theodore, complained, “I’m not sure this is a smart operation, Draco…You don’t even have a plan!”

They went back past the billiard rooms, and then navigated the same sloping maze of short corridors again. They continued onward, going past two wide-open berths within a minute’s distance between each other. They were the archaic broom cupboards Dolohov and Rowle had been placed in for their solitary confinement yesterday.

“Well, here’s the little tykes we past before, remember?,” Draco commented with a careless air.

“Yes, I remember..,” said Theodore, surly in tone. He was recalling their wanderings around the mansion of earlier that evening.

Draco turned the brass doorknob of a door with a painting of young child wizards surrounded by beautiful magical creatures. Inside could be he heard the chattering and jabbering of children.

The door would not budge. “Alohomora…”

Apparently, the youngsters were being locked in for the party.

Inside was a group of children from the tender age of two and all the way to a pair of eleven-year-olds. The ages of the wizarding children ranged everywhere between two and eleven and there was over twenty of them.

Several of them were riding on toy broomsticks, grazing just above knee-length. At the ends of the nursery room were several toy chests, apparently serving as goal posts, in place of the six golden hoops of a real Quidditch match.

Just that moment, a little girl, dumped a Quaffle inside a toy chest at one end, and yelled, “Scored! That’s fifty to ten…to the Wimbourne Wasps in the lead…”

“Yeah, Desiree!,” said another child, beaming victoriously at Desiree from behind. The girl, Desiree, the only one in plain black robes, strangely resembled Bellatrix Lestrange having similar dark, glamorous features.

The other children, mostly the youngest ones were acting as spectators, and the ones for that team cheered, waving plain yellow and black flags, representing that Quidditch team, the Wimborune Wasps. While the others representing the Appleby Arrows were waving blue flags, and booing.

“Hate to break up a mock Qudditch game,” announced Draco, emphasizing the word mock meanly.

“But I have a….true bedtime story to tell you,” he added enticingly.

Hardly any of the children paid mind to Draco, except a few curious glances. After a moment, Draco raced into the middle of the room, caught the slow motion Bludger easily, and threw it at one of the children.

It hit a boy of about eight, walloping him in the chest. And suddenly all eyes were on Draco and Theodore, the children believing they could tattle-tale on the intruders.

The little boy began to cry with loud sobs, clutching his chest where the Bludger had impacted him.

“Now I’ve got your attention…,” Draco said smirking. “I have to warn you that this place is haunted…I would know. I grew up here. So, at midnight every night, some very violent ghosts are going to come into the nursery like they always do. If I were you, I’d leave right now before this place gets rough…”

“Where are the ghosts now?” piped a little girl of six, nervously.

Some of the older kids rolled their eyes, filled with suspicion.

“Right behind the walls of this room actually…Let me show you round the corner outside. Come on!”

The children all hurried to follow the teenager, and Draco suddenly realized that his friend, Theodore had abandoned him. Draco did not feel annoyed though, he was used to this particular Slytherin refusing to join his gang at school.

Draco led them out the nursery, shutting the door. Then they went down the end of the corridor traversing down a ramp, until they came to a tapestry concealing something.

“There behind this tapestry…”

The children sped up, onto Draco’s heels, some of them tugging on his lime green and gold robes, asking if it was safe to go in.

Unceremoniously, Draco unveiled the tapestry.

The oldest kid, Desiree said blankly, “So, what?”

For all they saw was a narrow spiral staircase.

Draco answered hollowly for dramatic effect, “The spirits are down there.” He proceeded down the steps, feigning great trepidation, going slow and cautiously. The children followed, and a few flights later, they had reached an underground claustrophobic chamber.

Surrounding the chamber in shelves were strange catacombs of stuffed, apparently deceased house-elves. It looked and smelled like a morgue, the shelves lining far back, as far the eye could see, stretching out in a single narrow, yet expansive lane. It might have stretched the length of the manor. Thousands of elves packed like sardines, truly a morbid sight for the eyes.

The baneful place was lit only by stone torches. Desiree surmised the room, her curly head shaking. “You know, this is actually a cool place for us to play in. Thanks for trying to scare us!” she scoffed.

“I wasn’t…Well, I had better get out of here, before the spirits are disturbed,” Draco added ominously.

Some of the children were still watching him closely, still not sure whether they believed the story or not. Afterall, they had not explored the room, yet.

“Oh, shit!…Sparks are flying out of my wand, it is the first sign of an evil presence…” Draco said, and he actually sounded scared, raising his hawthorn wand, green and silver sparks shooting out.

Some of the kids shivered. Others, the older ones, were already exploring the depths of the dimly lit expansive, straight labyrinth of catacombs.

When none of them were looking, Draco suddenly threw the cylindical can after opening it into the air. A burst of sprinkled powder shot through the vicinity and dispersed faster than the eye can see. Then the entire place spread into pitch, solid darkness, an unnatural heaviness descending on the atmosphere. He had thrown all the remains of his Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.

Draco began to bang his feet against the first step of the pewter stairs, on the pretense that he was running away up them. All the children began to scream and cried immediately. The loud sobs of panic getting incessantly louder every second.

Draco took the squirming thing out of his pocket. He placed a candle in the center of a shriveled hand and with his wand lit it, making a little fiery flame. He then darted forward, with the object in his hand all the while. It was a hand of glory, which is known to give light only to the holder. The twenty children, meanwhile, were becoming lost inside unable to see a thing.

Some of them were crying. Mixes of “I’m Scared!” “Mum!” “Daddy!” and “Help!” And a few of the youngest toddlers had retreated into the darkness, cowering on the floor screaming high-pitched shrills.

Draco chased after the children for about five minutes, and actually disturbed some of the corpse house-elves from their chambers, and with his wand tried to animate them, but only wound up levitating them. This, unfortunately, convinced the oldest kids, who were now yelling in terror. Some of them calling out their younger siblings name’s, desperate in their search for them.

Finally, after a good five minutes, some of the children started to find their way back up. They ran crashing up the stairs terrified, Draco following them, clambering loudly up the finely-wrought pewter stairs.

Draco emerged into the light, actually purposefully knocking a kid over, in mock fright. Finally, they had reached the summit and the light at the end of the tunnel. Draco looked up from the ground, to see of all people, his teacher, Severus Snape standing there like a dark shadow, crossing his arms furiously over his Death Eater ceremonial robes, which greatly resemble his Hogwarts teaching robes.

“Having fun are we?” he said in a low voice, menacingly, his eyes black flashing dangerously into Draco’s gray ones.

Draco smirked a little and shrugged his shoulders. He could care less, if old Snape knew. They were not at Hogwarts right now. But he saw, flanking Snape several concerned parents, regarding the Malfoy’s son in disgust.

“I just arrived. The portraits having informed us. The portraits had been ranting about a disturbance going on. On how the children had been lured from their nursery by a teenager, and could be heard making a great, insipid racket. The portraits reported that the children were, screaming, terrified. So much so, that they might be in real danger. Clearly that was not accurate….” Obviously, Draco who was never the best planner had not remembered the portraits could report on him.

Snape in his rage, finally noticed the dozen children standing around watching Snape and Draco converse. “Go!,” he motioned to them with his arms wildly, and they ran from him at once, parting through the tapestry.

“Uh- I have to go now too,” Draco said off-handedly.

But Snape was too quick for Draco: he grabbed Draco’s arm, and held him back. “You’re not going anywhere, Draco until we settle this, and I teach you how to act!”

And still, holding Draco’s arm in a vice-like grip, Snape practically dragged him down a different corridor from the one the children had scurried away. Meanwhile, a few more of the children’s parents were making their way up, looking for their children, and to rescue the few left trapped inside the catacombs. Draco got a brief glimpse, of his own mother. Feeling an instinctive urge to call out for help and support against Snape he said, “Mother! Mother!” But it was to no avail. She could not hear him in the midst of all the commotion: children fleeing the catacombs, parents hugging their children, glad they were safe and not hurt.

They continued down the new corridor, and then turned into a different one passing a giant grandfather clock that was displaying the time of a quarter after eleven. They also past the usual daunting statues of mean faces and the suits of armor.

Snape did not say a word as they finally stopped in front of an uninhabited guest bedroom in a deserted corridor. He pulled Draco in it along with himself, not even bothering to shut the door for privacy.

“What about Theodore Nott? He went along with it and he knew!,” Draco broke in, his voice sounding strangely distant and unlike himself, for he was afraid of what Snape would do to him.

“He got cold feet pretty soon though, didn’t he? Don’t try to lay the blame on another,” Snape answered with cool vindictiveness. “Besides - I know Nott. He’s one of my students in Slytherin house, and he is not one to participate in such ridiculous childish antics like you do, Draco!”

Snape’s face was twisted, the colour draining from it until it was sallow in complexion. There could be no doubt he was absolutely livid towards Draco’s prank. Scowling incredulously, Snape released his grip over the young man, wrenching him free roughly.

Draco, backed a few steps away, as Snape descended on him like an over-grown bat again, “What? You can’t do anything to me here…I’m not a child…,” Draco added roughly, then looking haughty and taller he said, “I’m also a Death Eater, you know. I’m in the ranks. We’re on equal ground.”

And for the first time ever, he pulled his sleeve up, showing Snape his tattoo branded under his left fore-arm. Snape hissed, expelling his irritation, and then pushed Draco by the collar of his dressrobes, and threw him against the wall. He roared, “A poor excuse of a Death Eater tonight, if that’s what you want to call yourself, Draco. Death Eater…At a party in honor of Wizarding culture at the top of it’s class, you go and target their children…Children of the pure-blood race…It was foolish beyond reason, Draco!”

Snape lunged for Draco again, where he was in a heap upon the floor. He dragged Draco by the vicar-like collar. Snape looked into Draco’s eyes curiously, doing Legilimency, before Draco could remember his rudimentary Occlumency learnt last year. “So you disturbed the catacombs of an antique ancient burial ground as well?”

“Yes,” Draco grudgingly voiced, trying not to feel guilty. “I’m of age!,” he added a second later, taking great offence.

“Again I say it: I will teach you how to act…,” Snape said, and he started to look Draco over, as if sizing him up, as he was contemplating over what to do. He broke the silent pause, “Regardless of being of age, you certainly don’t act it. Furthermore, it is my right to correct you, as a youth who attends Hogwarts, and I am Headmaster. Did you know that?….Now, I won’t be so brutal to deliver the Cruciatus, although it is recommended to be in use…Nevertheless…You deserve…a good caning…”

And spitefully, before Draco could react, Snape pushed Draco back again, and again, smacking him around, until he launched him onto the four-poster bed in the center of the guest bedroom. Snape looked around, and then found a bar in the closet. He broke free of it with a spell from his wand, and then with another spell, transfigured the rod into a cane. Without a moment’s notice, he sliced it through the air, testing its capabilities.

Draco turned around, his milky-white complexion, turning gray, watching Snape, who in one hand holding the wand, the other a hooked cane.

“Stay there!,” Snape said sharply, as he watched Draco, craning his neck from behind, where he was prone on the plush bed.

“What? You can’t do this!…Sir, what about detention? Give me detentions for when I get back!” Draco argued heatedly.

Snape wrenched back Draco’s lime green robes with the gold edges on them, to reveal the boy’s boxers. He did not remove them. Simultaneously he spoke, “The Dark Lord has set up a very strict routine for the way things will be run, that I must enforce. The kind of behavior you showed tonight, your usual antics is not condoned when I am headmaster….And, detentions, such as line-writing is no longer an option…The Cruciatus Curse is going to be used for those who’ve earned them…So-” and he pulled the cane back, and then it hit Draco’s flesh. “Consider I am doing you a favour, Draco.”

After one stroke, Snape decided the boxers were not enough and pulled them down. “Stop this at once, sir! Father is not going to be too happy to hear you caned me…”

“You don’t know that, Draco. Afterall, you embarrassed them tonight. Furthermore, Lucius has been kicked off the school board,” spoke Snape blandly, as he continued to strike Draco with the cane, loud smacking noises resounding in the room.

Draco moaned in horrible pain, as it seared his skin, throbbing horribly, yet he was listening to the words, which were hurting him as well. Snape did not stop until he had applied a whopping thirteen strokes, what he considered the maximum amount to inflict on a schoolboy.

Snape threw the cane carelessly aside, and then knelt on top of Draco over the bed, pulling him to his feet. “I am making you my head boy, Draco…Yet I shall not tolerate your habit of bullying younger children. Remember all those times you took advantage of being a prefect?…The marks I just gave you had better serve as a reminder to you, as a lesson....For I do not seek to punish the head boy any further….It would be a disgrace!”

Draco, looked up at Snape, tears hiding behind his eyes and mouthed with reverent respect, “Yes, headmaster. I will do as you ask.”

Snape finally looked to be losing his irate fury at Draco, and he relaxed. Draco couldn’t help but rub himself from behind.

“And yet..,” added Draco on a different note suddenly, his voice was positively brittle., “Look what you’ve done to my father, sir! It’s all your fault father is no longer important! You stole all his power, just like I thought you wanted to steal my glory in killing Dumbledore!”

And at that, Draco began to tremble. He wanted to cry so badly. But he wouldn’t in front of Snape, instead his face suddenly showed stress, making him look well beyond his seventeen years.

“It is not to be blamed on me, Draco. The Dark Lord has made it so, not I…”

Then Snape actually patted Draco on the back, as if to comfort him, and putting an arm around him, led him out of the bedroom.


Note: I think this represents exactly the type of childish antic Draco would be up to…mean, but not overly cruel, and lacking a real plan and ultimately harmless. There is tons of evidence in the books that he liked to bully children smaller and younger than him. I’m sorry that once again, caning is in my story…I think I am overly fixated on that, but it works well.