A War at the End of the World

I own the computer I wrote this on, but not Harry Potter.

Sorry this took so long to write but I’m starting up grad school soon and have adult things to take care such as apartment and classes. Sigh. I hate school. Why am I going again?


Chapter 9: An Ill Feeling

Narcissa Malfoy lived a privileged life. She was used to a certain kind of treatment and deference from those who were not a fortunate as she was. Mrs. Malfoy was more than a little aware that she lived a spoiled life style. In fact she relished the knowledge. And she did not make apologies for it. Why should she? She didn’t ask to be born into wealth. She hadn’t sought Lucius when they were in school—though she would never give him now that she had him. Life had fallen at Narcissa Malfoy’s feet and she hadn’t bothered to ask why, she had simply accepted it. Narcissa also accepted that life, her life, would have a price to be paid for it.

A missed spell split a tree to the right of the Lady Malfoy, felling two other trees that were caught in its path as it fell, forcing the woman to dive for the ground or be crushed.

A price she felt she was paying at the moment.

“Cissa!” A voice called from beyond the tangle of tree limbs and smoldering leaves. “Cissa, are you okay?”

The petite blonde picked herself up from the wreckage and pointed her wand back in the general direction of where the near-miss spell had flown from. She didn’t bother to think, she had dueled with Lucius enough times, and released a complicated hex that split off in several directions. The woman didn’t bother to wait and see what happened, but turned and leaped over the trees to Alana Zanbini’s side.

“We should run very fast now.” She looked back, feeling the hex bullets she had fired approach a target. “Very fast indeed.” And with that Narcissa took off, picking up the path they had been on before they had to stop and fight the ministry’s dogs.

“Cissa? Tell me you didn’t.” Alana ran after her friend. Her best friend, and if the woman had done what Alana thought she had, the next victim of being kicked out of their group’s weekly tea socials. “Tell me you didn’t do that wretched spell.”

“I didn’t do that wretched spell Alana.”

There was a quick vacuum of air behind them and then both women stumbled slightly as they felt a concussive blast push them forward. The sound of an incredibly large explosion followed behind the blast and neither woman bothered to stop running, though Alana did turn her head enough to see a cloud of purple-ish sparkling smoke eating its way into the sky, devouring everything in its way.

“Oh, you’re a terrible liar,” Alana said, a bit annoyed and a little worried that the cloud would head their way.

“Absolutely dreadful,” Narcissa agreed. “Now pick it up. We have somewhere to be and,” she checked over her shoulder, “I’d say about just a few minutes to be there.”

The two ran on, very aware that there was something behind them that was slowly eating the forest. This situation and ones like it were the very reason that Alana hated being on any team with Narcissa. She may love the woman to death, but she had certainly married into the Malfoy idea of winning. Sometimes going to such extremes that she almost seemed insane. Which was a very real possibility, Alana decided. No sane person unleashed a hex like Narcissa had and thought it was a good idea. Not even the Darklord. And he was crazy.

At least so Alana believed.

“I see the port key up ahead,” Narcissa yelled over her shoulder.

Alana took a few more running steps and then came into sight of the port key as well. It was a small tea table with two chairs and an elegant yet simple tea service prepared and ready. It was so obvious that Lucius had made the port key that it almost made Alana giggle even as the two women fled towards it. He was such a stickler for appearances sometimes. The two women slammed into the chairs at the same moment and had just enough time to look up and see the fog billowing towards them just as the uncomfortable sensation of the port key activating took hold and pulled them out of the forest.

The walls of Zanbini manner appeared around them and Alana let out a sigh of relief and sagged ungraciously in her chair. She looked over at her companion and saw her sipping from one of the steaming teacups as if they hadn’t just sprinted for their lives. Narcissa looked composed on her side of the table, her hair out of place, and stains ruining her dress; but still she looked as if she had woken up intending to look like a refugee.

She looked like a Malfoy.

Alana rolled her eyes.

Sometimes she hated Malfoys.

“You two look terrible,” said a soothing tenor from the sitting room doorway.

Alana tilted her head to see the source of the voice and rolled her eyes again. Her husband stood in the doorway next to Lucius and both looked like they had spent all day doing nothing more strenuous than work in the arboretum. She was supposed to be working in the arboretum. Alana thought about casting Cissa’s hex. Not seriously, at least not seriously for very long.

Narcissa didn’t say anything right away, instead she continued sipping at her tea, putting it down when the dry parched feeling in her throat had pulled to a sand paper ache and then put down her teacup with a soft click.

“When a woman comes harrowing home after a job well done all she wants to hear is how beautiful she is and how lucky you are to have her. Especially from you,” Narcissa narrowed her eyes, “Armus.”

“I thought all that went without saying,” Lucius said moving forward to the table and trailing his hand down the side of his wife’s face. “Men hate to be redundant and stating the obvious would only take time away from us enjoying your company.”

Armus and Alana exchanged a look and then both rolled their eyes. Sometimes their friends made them both sick to their stomachs.

Armus walked to his wife’s side, dropping a handkerchief that he pulled from his robe to the floor and transfiguring it into a chair.

“You are well aren’t you?” He asked placing a worried hand on her arm.

Alana smiled at her husband/mate and winked. He was no Lucius Malfoy with words, but then again he never needed to be.

“We’re fine. Just ran into the ministry and it caused a bit of problem.” Alana glanced over at Narcissa. “Didn’t help that someone set off the life eater charm.”

Armus’s face lost a bit of its color and he looked to the Malfoy’s. “You didn’t Narcissa, did you?”

“Of course she did,” Lucius said, sitting down on a char he had transfigured out of a sugar cube. “It is the perfect spell to cover ones retreat. Well done, dear.”

Narcissa glowed at the praise and lifted her cup for another sip. “It was the most expedient way to rid ourselves of the Aurora problem, Alana. You will have to admit that.”

Alana took one of the teacups up and sighed. “Sometimes you two are so bloody minded I don’t know what to do with you.”

Lucius laughed once and then gave Alana a meaningful smirk. “Says the woman who ate an Aurora last year for snooping around her home.”

“I did not eat that Aurora, Lucius,” Alana said sounding a bit disturbed by the idea. “I just gave him a bit of a fright.”

“Bit of a bite more like it,” Armus said, not helping.

Alana glared at him before returning to the conversation. “Anyway it’s not my fault if something else decide to make a meal of him in the forest. We tell people all the time not to run around the forest around the manor without a guide. It’s dangerous.”

“And I’m sure you had nothing to do with that pack of Hounds knowing exactly where to find him,” Lucius went on.

Alana had the grace to blush slightly. And then changed the topic.

“We did run into a bit more of a problem then just a few feisty Aurors.”

“Oh? What was it then?” Armus asked as he poured himself some tea a picked up a tiny sandwich.

“The Aurors decided to start a little early with the students. They killed one and injured another before we could do anything,” Narcissa said.

“Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected,” Lucius said smoothly. “What of the injured student.”

“Alana,” Narcissa said with a gesture in her direction. “Grabbed the girl. She was alive when we rescued her.”

“And she’ll be alive now,” Alana said removing a locket from around her neck and opening it. A bright flare a light erupted from the locket and little particles of blue and white streamed from it coalescing into the shape of a redheaded girl on the sitting room floor.

“A Weasely? Really?” Armus asked of no on in particular. “The ministry must have gone off if it’s trying to kill that horde.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Alana nodded. “That lot would have gone down with the ship, but now…”

Lucius sighed. “I suppose the Darklord will want to hear of this. Dumbledore as well.”

“They probably already know,” Armus chimed in, but got up from his seat and headed to the floo powder.

“Alana, Narcissa. Please take care of our guest and rest. We’ll report this and be back. Tomorrow the ministry is supposed to move against the school, but after this they may move up their time table.”

“I doubt it,” Narcissa said to her husband’s back as he followed Armus to the already green flames. “This is our ministry we’re talking about. I’m sure they’ll do nothing at best and at worst move back their time table.”

“Possibly,” Lucius said. “But let’s be safe, just in case.”

Narcissa nodded and watched Lucius and Armus disappear in the fire. She turned back to Alana who was already levitating the Weasely girl over to a couch.

“I’ll call a doctor,” Narcissa said.

“Already done dear.” Alana spared a glance over her shoulder at the other woman.

“Well then I suppose we should finish our tea then,” Narcissa said and picked up her cup again, not sure when she had put it down again.

Alana deposited the unconscious girl on the couch and moved back to the table where she picked up her own tea. The two women sat in silence a moment, drinking their tea.

“Would it be silly of me to say that I’m worried about them?” Narcissa asked.

“Draco and Blaise? No.” Alana glanced over to the youngest Weasely. “No. It wouldn’t be silly at all.”

“I was afraid you would say that,” Narcissa sighed and finished drinking her tea.



Armus Zanbini followed his oldest friend through the dark, the walls of the Darklords manor making shadows where shadows shouldn’t be. It was an old spell; one put in place to make visitors uncomfortable and keep intruders wary until they tired of jumping at shadows, and relaxed their guard. That was when the final piece of the spell would be cast and the shadows would stop being merely for show.

It was a good spell. One that Alana had cast in the foyer of their home though not constantly and never without reason, the Darklord had gotten a little to use to thinking himself frightening. It was one of the reasons that Armus disliked the Lord Voldemort. The man was all pomp, all circumstance, a fine thespian, but none of the real darkness that he pretended too. Not that Armus minded that. Actually he preferred it. It was much better to follow a man who pretended to be a monster than a monster who pretended to be a man.

At least in his opinion.

So it wasn’t the impending meeting that had Armus uncomfortable enough that the tips of his ears began to become a little pointed and his teeth just a bit too sharp to fit well in a human mouth. Armus always had problems controlling his shape shifting when he was nervous. Like all Walkers he was more comfortable in his other form when he felt threatened than his human form. Easier to hunt in his other form and he was harder to kill, magic having less of an affect on him, it was only natural that he would want to change. He was scared. Not that it bothered him to admit such to himself. Fear was natural, a part of life, just as his instinctive reaction to it was also natural. There was only one problem.

He didn’t know why he was scared.

Since before he had seen his wife off to her shift at guard duty, Armus had felt a sense of something threatening hovering behind him. At first he had only believed it to be worry for Alana, worry that had been well founded from the way she had Narcissa had looked after their escape from the ministry. But even after seeing her home and safe, the sensation had not left, lingering like a nightmare that he could not remember except to say that it had been frightening.

It had been years—not since his childhood—that Armus had experienced anything close to what he was feeling now. He found the experience, if anything, far more unsettling than he ever had as a child. Especially now that he knew that not all monsters were just figments of his imagination like his mother had once told him.

Though it was comforting to know that none of them lived under his bed.

“What’s on your mind Armus?” Lucius asked, glancing back at the slightly shorter man.

Armus quirked an eye at Lucius and frowned. “What makes you think something is wrong?”

Lucius didn’t respond right away. “Nothing I suppose.”

They walked a bit further, neither man saying anything. A shadow skittered up the side Armus’s robe and sat companionably on his shoulder.

“Something is wrong though, correct?” Lucius asked again picking up the conversation again.

Armus sighed. Lucius didn’t say much. He never had. And Armus knew that the only reason that Lucius was saying anything at all was because he was concerned. Armus also knew that if he didn’t say anything Lucius would drop the subject. The elder Malfoy was not one to pry. It was probably one of the most annoying things about Lucius. Even if Lucius went the rest of the trip without saying anything, Armus was bound to tell him what he was worried about anyway, the blonde’s silence drawing out answers to questions that had been asked and even some that hadn’t. Armus wasn’t quite sure if it was a veela trait or not, but he did know that Lucius was well aware of the effect of his silence, and used it to the fullest of his ability.

“There might be something wrong,” Armus conceded.

Lucius made a noncommittal noise that sounded an awful lot like ‘I thought so’ to the other man. “Would you care to expand?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

The two men stopped in front of the door that lead to the Darklord’s office. Lucius turned to look at Armus directly in the eye.

“Well when you are ready, I’ll be waiting,” Lucius said, actually trying to be a good friend and not realizing that in some way he was interrogating the other man. Without waiting for a reply Lucius opened the door and strode in.

Armus stood outside the office for a moment and then followed the other man into the room, muttering under his breath: “Sometimes Lucius you are such a bloody git.”

“Lucius, Armus, a pleasure to see you,” said Dumbledore from a chair in front of the fire.

“Albus,” Lucius said a bit surprised though trying not to let it show. He bowed his head slightly to the figure sitting in the chair directly across from Dumbledore. “My Lord.”

“Lucius. Unexpected as usual,” Lord Voldemort said in manner that said the man’s arrival was anything but. “How is your wife?”

“She is fine my Lord,” Lucius answered a bit perplexed.

“Hasn’t blown up another part of the world has she?”

Lucius didn’t say anything, though he did turn a bit pink. Armus suddenly had a slight coughing fit.

“Yes. Yes. Lucius,” The Headmaster began. “It may be prudent to let your wife know that there are easier ways of escaping that don’t require melting a sizeable portion of a forest.”

Lucius remained silent, the pink deepened to a light red, and Armus was going to make himself sick if he kept coughing so hard.

“That was part of the reason we came here,” Armus said a little out of breath.

Lucius turned an annoyed glare on him.

“Ah, well then, please continue,” the headmaster said congenially.

“Since you know that our wives encountered some Aurors, I assume you know what they found them doing.”

Dumbledore’s eyes clouded over a bit and the look on his face was something dark and menacing, a look that would have been at home on Voldemort’s face, but on the headmaster seemed…misplaced.

Terrifying.

“We know. Mr. Creevy’s body has already been retrieved and his parent’s body will be notified soon.” Albus’s tone was business like, but for some reason seemed off, too business like. But Armus couldn’t quite figure it out. He never could read normal wizards as well as his wife could. Not that Albus was normal, but still…

“The boy was not the only student to be attacked by the Aurors,” Lucius said, his earlier embarrassment replaced with his usual cool professionalism. “A Weasely had also been targeted. The youngest one, I believe her name was Winny.”

The storm that had started in Albus’s eyes spread out over his face. “Is she alright?”

Both men took a step back from the headmaster; the shadow that had seated itself upon Armus’s shoulder flew off his shoulder and retreated back under the door.

“She’s alive,” Armus stated after he found his voice. “We don’t know if she is alright or not? She was still unconscious when Alana brought her back to the manor. We sent for a doctor. He should be there by now.”

Albus stood up from his seat and walked over to the fire. “Tom, we will continue later,” he turned to the two men, “Gentlemen, thank you for your assistance.”

Without another word Dumbledore stepped into the fire and was gone, which was strange since he hadn’t used any floo powder at all.

A tsking sound drew Armus’s attention back to the Darklord who was still watching the fireplace. “He is in a mood now. I hope your wives have enough sense to stay out of his way.”

“Narcissa and Alana are more than capable of handling one wizard in a poor mood,” Lucius said without much worry.

“You think so, eh?” Lord Voldemort asked. “It would be a bad idea to try and handle Albus right now Lucius. A very bad idea indeed. This situation hasn’t exactly brought out the best in him.”

“Had he not be so stubborn this situation would have never occurred in the first place.”

Red eyes turned to Lucius thoughtfully. “You may be right Lucius, though the same thing could possibly be said for myself. Let’s hope Albus never has reason to come to the same conclusion. I do not fore see that ending well. Not for any of us.”

“Surely you don’t fear him, my Lord?”

“Careful Lucius,” Voldemort cautioned. “Only a fool wouldn’t fear the Headmaster.”

Lucius, closed his mouth, no longer sure if his Lord was cautioning him against speaking against the headmaster or was cautioning him against the man himself. Dumbledore had been the headmaster for three generations of Malfoy’s, his own father telling him stories of the doddering old fool who over saw the education of the wizarding world, cautioning him against taking anything the man said too seriously since it was obvious that age had more than likely addled his mind. It was a judgment that Lucius had not once in all his time at Hogwarts, nor in the time that his own son had been attending, seen proven wrong. The idea that the Darklord was seemed almost like joke.

Not that the Darklord’s face looked like he was joking. If anything it was the complete opposite.

It was not something that was settling well with him.

Voldemort glanced away from Lucius to Armus, the hint of a question in his eyes.

“You’re bothered by something Zanbini. Why?”

“I’m not bother Lord Voldemort,” Armus said, calling the man Lord only out of respect since no matter how powerful the man became he would never be any kind of Lord to Armus, his family, or any of those of his clan. “I am simply thinking.”

Voldemort sat back in his chair and let out a breath. “It’s funny how often those two things are often the same. It would be better if you told me now, instead of waiting until it was too late, don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m not sure I even understand it myself.”

“Try,” the Darklord said softly, his voice sounding close enough to a command that Armus’s eyes flashed blue quickly, brightening his face for a moment before returning back to their natural brown.

Voldemort held his hand up slightly in a calming gesture, more than aware of the strange and fragile nature of his alliance with the Walker clans. “Just try, Armus. That is all I ask.”

Slightly mollified Armus shifted a little, a bit uncomfortable now that he didn’t have his anger to hide behind.

“I feel something. A tension. Something that isn’t right. A dark chill. Fear. I feel fear, but I’m not afraid.”

Both Lucius and the Darklord stared at Armus, making the man feel rather dull and silly like a child.

“As I told you. I don’t really know what is bothering me. That was the best I could do. I really shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

“I don’t think keeping quiet about a warning is the best idea ever, do you?” Voldemort asked with a quirk of his eyebrow. He stood up and turned away from the two men and walked to the fire. “And a warning is what you have just given us.”

Armus, more than Lucius, was surprised by the Darklord’s words.

“I don’t see how you got a warning out of that Darklord.”

“The trouble you sense… is it something you know or feel?”

“Feel. I said that.”

“Yes, of course you did,” Voldemort said with a nod. It was obvious that man was even really paying any attention to the room he was in, the men he was talking to, or how close the fire was to his hand. “And you don’t know what it is you feel? What is causing it?”

“No,” Armus answered puzzled.

“Then we have our warning.” Voldemort turned from the fire and walked past the men and out of the room. “And all we have to do is find out what it’s a warning for.”


The library was deserted. No one wanted to be there when they didn’t have work to do. No one except Hermione. And even she wasn’t there. A deserted library with tucked away corners, comfortable places to read, and hide. The kind of corner that offered privacy and freedom to relax.

An opportunity that Draco was taking full advantage of.

Harry was leaning against the blonde, Draco’s legs on either side of his body, his back pressed firmly to the other boy’s chest. The two were comfortable. Comfortable and busy, Draco reading from a book that he had pulled from a shelf after more than a little searching. Harry hadn’t gotten a good look at the cover, but he had to assume that the topic was magical creatures, fae in particular since that was the main reason they had come to the library in the first place. Harry would have just been contented to relax with Draco as the other boy read, but had found a slightly small book shoved into his hands.

It was a book on mating rituals and courting practices of veelas. It was an academic book, to be read more for scholarly purposes than for any practical uses.

And it was so painfully, boringly, dreadfully obvious.

Harry had just finished the section on mating season and the different positions used by the dominant veela used to attempt to impregnate the submissive when it was a female. There were pictures. And Harry had almost fallen asleep through half of it. It was a colossal feat that the author had managed to make sex so uninteresting as to put a seventeen-year-old newly mated male to sleep with detailed descriptions about the possibilities of his future sex life. It was also a crime.

“Draco, you couldn’t find a better book than this?”

Draco flipped a page leisurely. “I picked that one specifically for you,” he said, Draco sounding like he was only giving Harry part of his attention. “It has pictures.”

Harry almost blushed at that, but then realized what his mate meant.

“I read books without pictures,” he snarled.

“Class books don’t count.”

“I—“

“Neither does anything Granger made you read,” Draco said, flipping another page, and still only giving the conversation half his attention.

Harry shut his mouth and fumed quietly to himself. He wanted to say something frightening like ‘no sex for the Malfoy prat,’ but realized that he’d be punishing himself more than anything else. Draco was an amazing shag and Harry wanted him. He wanted to touch him, kiss him, he wanted to do unspeakably naughty things to him in the corner of the library, but didn’t. (Draco wouldn’t let him.)

“Besides,” Draco intoned. “I thought you might like that book since it talks about same-sex mated pairings and answers the debate on whether or not the submissive in a same-sex mating can bear children or not.”

?!?

“I thought you might want to know about that since it affected you mainly.”

Draco read on in his book, leaving Harry to stare at the annoyingly small print, and boring phrasing. He thought about skimming the book quickly, but realized quickly that with text so boring he would more than likely skim right over the text and never even realize that he had.

Harry sighed, let out a groan, snuggled into Draco a little deeper, and started to read.

His only thought: ‘I better not be able to get pregnant.’