Life in an Alien Land 1: In the Land of My Enemy

Life in an Alien Land

Chapter 7

Snape fell on his arse, his legs splayed before him tangled in his black robes. He looked dazedly at both women before he uttered, "What the fuck?"

"I suppose that means we were wrong about the bracelets." Ginny said mournfully.

Hermione rushed to her former professor's side assisting him to his feet as a sinking feeling of dread settled over her. They had wasted almost a week on the wrong supposition because of her. She was too numb to cry. "I'm sorry. I thought you were going to kill yourself and I just reacted.

"Don't be daft." Severus snapped as he brushed off his robes and pulled a phial of silver liquid out of his pocket. "I was merely going to remove the memory and store it away. I'm sick of being haunted by events beyond my control."

"Idiot." Ginny said derisively. "You let things bother you too much."

Snape scowled at the redhead, and then turned to Hermione. "Miss Granger, try my wand. See if you can cast a spell now."

Hermione concentrated for only a moment and then cast the first spell that came to her mind, "Expecto Patronum!"

A silver whisp of smoke issued from the tip of the wand then formed into an otter, which gambolled around the room until Hermione ended the spell. Snape held out his hand for his wand his expression sour. "Bloody show-off."

Hermione handed the wand back to him, still thrumming with the magic in her arms and chest. It was a feeling much like the times she had done accidental magic when she was a child and nearly astounded her with its intensity. "What does this mean?"

"I suspect..." Snape turned on his heel. "Come with me. I believe we may need to hear what Mr. Weasley has to say."

&*&*&

Draco enacted the first series of spells to destroy the Dark Lord just outside the wards of Malfoy Manor. He knew Ronald Weasley had followed him and was watching from the shadows. He would make it easy for the weasel to follow him to bear witness that the Dark Lord was actually dead.

As the Dark Magic coursed through him into the wand he held, he invoked the Ancient Magic of the Old Gods. The second part of the spell required a small amount of his blood and as he cast, he flicked a silver knife against his forearm. The Dark Magic lapped at it like a cat on cream. The third spell was incanted and Draco sank to his knees, weakened by the loss of blood and the cleansing quality of the magic. The last and final spell needed to be invoked when he was in the Dark Lord's presence, preferably after he despatched Aunt Bella. Draco Disapparated as he felt another surge of magic from the combined spells.

Once at The Dark Lord's lair, he preformed the final spell, which released the Protean charm that linked the bracelets to Lord Voldemort. As the Charm fell, Draco felt a tangled pulse of magic from the mansion before it dissipated into the night. Draco made his way into the derelict house, a steady flow of blood now dripping from his wrist. He entered the room most often occupied by Him.

The Dark Lord, weakened by the loss of leeched magic leaned heavily on Aunt Bella, his face contorted in rage. A blank-faced child-woman sat at his feet, playing with blocks. The child-woman, no doubt Doholov's daughter, whimpered. The Dark Lord hissed, "Young Malfoy, thissss issss your doing?"

"He doesn't have the stones for this. Do you nephew?" Aunt Bella cackled. "Ickle cwazy Dwaco, his daddy's ickle boy couldn't even kill the Old Fool. He had to have the traitor do it for him."

Draco's eyes fell to the child-woman who had stopped her play to watch the wizards speak. The Dark Lord followed his gaze. "Ah, you're concerned for your Mudblood's brat. What I will do to your half-sister won't hurt her... Much."

"You will never have another child at your mercy." Draco shouted, a feeling of rightness suffusing him. He felt a Dark glow around Aunt Bella as she raised her wand. Draco responded. Without need to incant or raise his wand, he held out his hand and both wizard’s and witch’s wands flew to him. The Elder Wand slid into Draco's palm as if it belonged there, Aunt Bella's shattered against his wrist.

Draco spoke the last of the four spells over the howling of his Aunt and the hissed commands of the Dark Lord. The final incantation would yank all of their souls from their bodies and cast them across the plains of the dead throughout all time and space. He vaguely heard a feminine scream and watched in fascination as the magic danced over all present, flaying skin from muscle, muscle from bone and finally consuming them in a fire so intense that the Mansion imploded. Through it all, Draco was aware, exultant and then finally free as the fire of pure, ancient and Dark magic ripped through him, burning his body and soul clean.

&*&*&

As the three crossed the atrium to the library, Snape doubled over his left arm in agony. Ginny shrieked for her mother and Hermione stuttered to a halt. Snape ground out, "Lucius. Go...help...him."

Hermione ran into Tonks in the doorway, colliding with such force that she reeled against the doorjamb. Tonks grabbed Hermione's arm. "Look at me! Can you see it?"

The Metamorphmagus' face and hair were in flux, shifting fluidly from one form to another. Accidental magic flowed around the former Auror in crackling sheets. Hermione opened her mouth several times before she grabbed Tonks' hand and dragged her to Lucius' study. She said, as she shoved the door open, "You see to Lucius, I'll get Percy."

Percy intoned priggishly from his position beside Malfoy, apparently pain-free, "I did not take the Dark Mark, Miss Granger."

Tonks flopped to the floor beside Lucius and held his head in her lap awkwardly rubbing his brow as her nails grew and receded repeatedly at an alarming rate. Lucius Malfoy writhed in agony as the Dark Mark on his arm smouldered. Hermione fetched some Dittany from the downstairs bath and summoned house elves to aid in their efforts to ease both former Death Eaters pain. The oily odour of burning flesh made Hermione slightly nauseous and so she excused herself to vomit in the hallway. She brought up bile, bitter and viscous. Once she returned, she turned her attention to the burning Dark Mark on Lucius' flesh. His face covered in a fine sheen of perspiration, through whitened lips, Lucius asked, "Has my son returned?"

&*&*&

Hermione paced in front of the Floo as Percy informed the assembled conspirators why he had come to the Manor in such a panicked state. He waited until the Death Eaters were relatively pain-free before imparting, "The Muggles have rallied and are on the move. Their military has re-taken London. Bath and Manchester will fall soon. The Americans have moved in from Germany into East Anglia, and NATO forces have been sighted as far north as Scotland. We must surrender."

"The Dark Lord will never allow it." Snape said from his vantage on the divan. Ginny nodded adamantly.

Molly entered the room, her face stricken. "Lucius, I n-need a word with you."

Malfoy eased away from Tonks whose morphing abilities had settled into her more usual bubblegum-pink hair and softer features. She rose to follow, but stalled as Lucius gave her a cutting look.

Hermione went to the window. Draco had been gone since that afternoon, and apparently, so had Ron. The redhead had not answered their summons, and Ginny was unable to find him on the grounds. Hermione's sense of dread deepened as the minutes ticked by on the antique mantel clock. Molly returned her eyes red from obvious weeping she walked to Hermione, and put her arms around the younger woman. "I'm so sorry, Hermione."

Hermione moaned, "No. No, no, no."

Lucius leaned heavily on his cane as he followed Ron into the room. The youngest Weasley male stood before the group, his face looking almost scalded with its shiny skin and ruddy tone. He raised his eyes to Hermione, giving her the same sorrowful look he had bestowed only a year and some months before as she lost their child. "I'm sorry, 'Mione. He's... Malfoy's dead. I-I followed him because he was... acting susp... strange. He went into the Riddle Mansion and it kind of... fell. I don't know what spell he used, but it just crumpled in on itself. There was nothing left but dust."

"No." Hermione shook her head violently. "He's not dead. I could feel it if he were."

"Hermione." Lucius' voice broke and he turned from her, his grip on the cane tightening until his knuckles were white. Suddenly, he stood and heaved the cane against the mantel, crashing it down on the clock that ticked past the hours of his son's death. With a discordant jangle, it stopped as the cane smashed again. Repeatedly he brought down the wood until the timepiece was shattered spilling its works over the carpet, mantel and inlaid wooden floor. Silence descended on the group as only Lucius' heavy breathing could be heard. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. Tonks gathered him to her, as he fought her efforts to ease him. He finally sank onto her chest, his shoulders shaking violently as he sobbed. When the first of his grief passed and he was able to compose his features, he announced regally, "We shall make our plans for surrender. The Dark Lord is dead. We must carve out a place for ourselves in this new world. It is time to bring the others into the fold. Mr. Weasley, you know whom to call."

&*&*&

A dark-haired young man was the first to arrive at the Manor, his pale countenance severe against the inky black of his Death Eater robes. The young Hufflepuff concubine that followed him through the Floo identified him to Hermione as one of the Doholov sons. Hermione was relieved to see the girl's physical and mental condition much improved and heartened to see the care with which the young Doholov saw to her comfort.

Next came the Lestrange brothers with their black concubine. Rabastan held up the gravid Hufflepuff they had been given. Rodolphus sneered at his brother as Rabastan seated the girl in the library next to Doholov's concubine. He whispered to the chocolate-skinned girl, softly and sincerely as she nodded a smile playing on her lips. Hermione started as the dark-skinned girl said in a gentle voice, "I know you. You're Hermione Granger, aren't you?"

"Yes, she is," the other Hufflepuff answered. "You're Natalie Harrington, aren't you? We were in the same year."

"You're Dacia Portman?"

The other girl nodded her blond head enthusiastically in response. "Yes, but it's Dacia Dolohov now. Sergei insisted we marry when... our daughte was born."

"Oh, I heard about your little girl. I'm sorry." the black girl answered, her eyes troubled. "Have they treated you well otherwise?"

"Sergei's father gave our daughter to Him." Dacia said fiercely. "He's dead now along with the others. Serge killed them when their Dark Marks burned. My Sergei never took it, you know." An uncomfortable silence fell, before Dacia asked, too brightly, "What about you two? You look well."

Hermione stood, watching the flames of the Floo, willing them to flare green again. Natalie answered absently, "The older one's a bit of a bastard. But I like Mas... erm, Rabastan all right."

"And Malfoy?" Dacia pushed. "He looks to be a cool one."

Hermione made no answer as the Floo flared again, bringing a group of young men Hermione only vaguely knew from school. Several other women joined their small group, a mixed bag of pureblood, half-blood and Mugglborns. Hermione recognised a much-changed Pansy Parkinson. Gone were the Slytherin's haughty sneers and affected airs. It seemed as if the Dark Lord's choice for Pansy had been quite detrimental to the girl's well-being. Millicent Bulstrode entered next with Dean Thomas. The Slytherin woman bade Dean to join the other women with a smirk as she cupped his crotch with her thick palm. Thomas scowled and retreated to the far corner of the room. Blaise Zabini and Luna Lovegood were the last to Floo into the Manor. Luna said something to Zabini and he chortled before kissing her passionately and then making his exit. The sight of their obvious bond was too much for Hermione to bear and so she paced to the hallway, not wanting to hear any of the women's stories.

Molly entered the room. "Ladies, Mr. Malfoy has asked me to see you to your rooms. You will be staying here until other arrangements can be made. If you have family that you would like to contact, owls will be made available to each of you tomorrow morning. Please, follow me."

The older woman gave Hermione a small, tired smile as the women stood as a group and filed out of the room. "Dear, shouldn't you try to get some rest, at least for the baby?"

Hermione shook her head, unable to use her voice over the tension and pain of waiting for Draco to return. Molly patted her hand and escorted the last of the women from the room. "You'll send the others to me in my suite as they arrive?"

"Yes." Hermione answered finally, her voice tight and small.

She watched the rest of the night, her eyes gritty from unshed tears, as the scattered Death Eaters and their families took residence in the Manor. Fiona Addair was the last to arrive with a grim-faced Vincent Crabbe. She was in labour and he followed her to her suite, his blunt and brutish countenance ashen.

&*&*&

"It's been three days, dear," Molly began. "Please, at least eat something if you won't go to bed. Delphine and the child you carry need you to keep your strength up."

Hermione shoved Molly's intrusive voice to the back of her mind, trying to grasp at the memories of the dream she had been having. It shifted like sand and water through her mind, the tendrils of it swirling away the more Molly spoke. Hermione pushed her hands away, tears clogging her voice. "Just leave me alone."

Hours later, Hermione felt Lucius pick up her limp body from the divan that she had dragged in front of the Floo. As he laid her in her bed, he said softly, "I know he's alive too, my dear. Please, just try to hang on for him. He's going to need you when he returns."

Hermione rolled to her side, drawing her knees to her chest as tears fell onto Lucius' hand. "I miss him so much."

"I do too." Malfoy kissed her forehead as a father to a daughter. "Get some rest, Hermione. He'll return. I promise."

&*&*&

Little Hangleton was in ruins after a strange storm had swept the village a few days before. The residents were allowed to return by the Provisional government set up by the New British Prime Minister who had taken office when the Yanks, NATO and the Germans stepped in to end the banditry by the strangely dressed anarchists that had taken over a little over two years before. As the group sifted through what was left of their houses, a young, golden-haired girl came upon what she thought was an angel from a Nativity display, the soft spray of silver hair and alabaster skin-tone of the brow drawing her to move more of the debris from the figure.

"Mum!" Niamh* Avery shouted as she uncovered the waxy body. "Mum! I've found a statue or somethin' from the church!"

A harried woman in her mid-forties with greying, brown hair and a sturdy body came to the girl's side and gasped as she looked down on the waxy features of the young man, a thin flow of blood from a cut on his head the only thing to belie life in his death-like figure. "Dear, fetch the vicar and Doctor Baldwin. Be quick about it, now."

Maeve Avery bent to move more debris off the figure. Any moment she expected his eyes to open and a nightmare from some horror film to take hold of her. The past year, living in Little Hangleton had conditioned her to expect unbelievable events. She moved her hand to his face. He was warm, but now that he was uncovered to the winter chill, beginning to shiver. Maeve removed her coat, really her husband's old Bridge coat that hung to her calves, and placed it on the pale figure's bare chest. Other than the blood coming from the wound on his head and his lack of movement, he seemed fine. Maeve heaved at the debris, scooping away handfuls of gritty, black ash from his body. His leg was at a strange angle, so she left that for the doctor, but he seemed to be breathing easier. She cleared an area around his hand and saw that he held an oddly smooth stick of ash or some wood. Maeve tried to pry it from his fingers, which were clamped around it tightly and suddenly, her horror film moment happened.

He convulsed once and opened fathomless grey eyes. Maeve jerked away as he croaked, "No... Mine."

"Who are your people?" Maeve asked, after collecting herself, thinking the lad would have a mother who cared where he was, or a father who yearned for him. "Your family, lad, they must be worried fierce. What's your name?"

The poor lad looked at her with his steely eyes and his face fell, almost crumpled, like the town had three days ago. He said after a moment, his voice little more than a whisper, "I don't know. Do you?"

&*&*&

For three weeks, the poor daft lad had stayed in Dr. Baldwin's surgery with no one coming forward to claim him, even after the village took out adverts in the Doncaster Free Press, the Yorkshire Evening Post and even the Dalesman Magazine. Maeve, her husband, Felix, and their four children visited him daily, at first more at the insistence of young Niamh than out of real Christian concern. They had enough of strangers and strange doings in the last year to last a lifetime. Of course, as time dragged on for the waif and no one came for his poor self, the Avery's pitied him. He seemed so lost, with his posh manners and his lack of memory.

After three weeks, Dr. Baldwin declared him fit enough to live outside the surgery, and had phoned the Avery's to tell them so before Maeve visited that day. The lad sat on the edge of the exam table, his bed since he got there, his leg in a bulky cast, and the stick up his shirtsleeve, the plaid one donated by Maeve's oldest son Harold. He greeted her blankly as he always did; barely acknowledging her presence, so lost was he in his chase after a memory that would not come. Maeve sat on the bed next to him, her feet swinging where his good foot was on the floor. There was some Viking in the lad's ancestry, no doubt about it. "Lad, the doctor says you can leave here."

The boy nodded in a defeated way, and Maeve wanted to hug him to her. After minutes of silence that stretched out like the moors, alive but still-like, the boy said, "I think I was married."

"Don't be daft, you're too young." Maeve laughed and patted his hand. "You've barely left the schoolroom likely. My own Harold can't be a year ahead of you, and he's still leadin' a merry chase for all the girls. Mayhap he'll catch 'un"

"No, she had brown hair that was crazy and alive, and brown eyes and she was pregnant... I think." He let his gaze, which had been focused on Maeve, and breathtaking in its intensity, fall inward. After some time he laughed, a hollow sound against the steel of the cabinets in the room. "Maybe you're right. I am young, I think."

But as Maeve watched him, with his vacant eyes, sad, Saint's face, and scarred arm, she thought him ancient. She stirred out of her own melancholy with her brisk, Northern manner as a disguise. "Well, the family has decided to adopt you. I've come to collect you and take you to the farm. It's where we're living since the storm. There's plenty of work, so you won't be a burden. That and you can keep young Niamh out of the boy's hair during lambing."

"Thank you, Madam." The boy, her boy, bowed slightly from the waist with a curt, practiced movement. "I should like that very much."

"Now, we can't keep callin' you 'Boy' or 'That Man,'" Maeve laughed. "You must settle on a name that we can say."

"My name is... D-d-d..." He let out his breath frustration etched in the lines around his mouth.

Maeve supplied, "David... Denny... Drew... Dylan?"

"Drew." He smiled a shy one that reached his eyes for the first time since she had met him. "I like Drew. It seems right somehow."

Maeve hugged him, a swift gesture and fleeting. "Come now, Drew. I've got somethin' baking for tea. I don't want it to burn, and that Delia of mine just hasn't got a brain in her head that isn't focused on herself."

Drew laughed, and allowed Maeve to help him to the wheelchair he would be using until he got to the beat-up farm lorry.

&*&*&

*Niamh: Pronounced Nee-iv or Neev. It's an Irish name, but listed amongst one of the fifty most popular names in Britain. Niamh means radiance, brightness and lustre. Niamh of the Golden Hair was a princess of Tir na nOg (Land of the Young) who fell in love with Fionn's son Osin and took him back with her. They lived in Tir na nOg for three hundred years before Osin returned to the land of the living, where he promptly died because he was an idiot who could not follow instructions. (Okay, the idiot part is my interpretation.)

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