Disclaimer – Standard disclaimer applies.
CHAPTER 13 – The Great Binding
Malfoy Manor – also known as the Castle – was an amazing mixture of fortress and palace, strong place and showcase. The original building was an ancient hill fort, erected by the very earliest occupiers of the land, those who had held it even before the Malfoy. Brandon Andenais took it and made it into a fortress that commanded the surrounding countryside for miles around, an impregnable stronghold for the protection of the whole Clan and their people.
It remained a stronghold, fortified and modified as times and technology changed, until in the seventeenth century, Charles Malfoy, a dissolute Restoration dilettante, decided that if he must live in a fortress, it would at least be a comfortable one. Charles’ tastes had run to the magnificent, but luckily for his descendants, they had not verged on the vulgar or ostentatious. The furnishings, smooth marble and rich velvets, polished antiques and elegant embellishments, softened but did not detract from the original lines of the fortress – rather they seemed to sheathe it, like a velvet glove covering the iron fist. The Castle had been its original name, back into the depths of time. Malfoy Manor was what it had become, after Charles had finished with it.
It was, one supposed, rather like the Clan themselves – they had been powerful enough, long ago, to deal with the world on their own terms and public opinion be damned; now, they needed to be a little bit more subtle, a little bit more acceptable. The strength and the power had been covered up, but not buried, beneath a socially acceptable mask. And that, thought Ginny, was the truth of Draco Malfoy.
Walking through the front door, she could feel the Castle’s aura: unlike the Burrow, which radiated love and laughter, Malfoy Manor radiated power – magical, political, social – power of every sort. It did not feel cold, but rather like subliminal pressure, a humming in her eardrums, like a quickening of the heartbeat and a feeling of confidence, of invulnerability… And underneath the power was the faintest taste of blood – the blood that was the source of the Malfoy power; the blood of the Lord, of the people, of the Land and the magic that Brandon Andenais had seized and actually forced to his will and that of his descendants’.
A great and terrifying legacy – that was why the Covenant was so important to him; the land welcomed him and his, yes, but if the Oath was broken, the balance upset, there would be no second chances. The first Malfoy had been given another name for his ill faith, for his treachery in his ruthless search for land; he had used up all his and his family’s second chances long, long ago.
Ginny sensed this, but not in such detail, in such depth – had it been explained to her, there was a chance that she might not believe, not accept the truth of the matter. To a logical, modern daughter of a middle class family, brought up in Gryffindoric straightforwardness and educated in the powers of reason, if not reason as the muggles saw it, the thought of the land retaining memory through faith, through worship and blood sacrifice, was slightly exotic. The thought that the memory could be wiped out, and the blank slate reprinted, stamped with another’s mark, another’s blood, was a bit more out there. The thought that the land, sentient as it was, could actually reject and revoke all former agreements if the Vows were broken, the faith destroyed, was beyond anything she had ever believed of the world.
There was no room for such mysticism in her life, no need for it; it was as Luc had said to her father before – she was not High Clan. But she was bonded to one, or would be soon. So, rather tentatively, not really believing that she would understand, she asked Draco to explain it to her.
He only looked down at her, into her dark eyes, so sincere, so willing to try, so filled with Gryffindoric courage, and smiled twistedly. He trailed a finger down her cheek, placed the pad lightly on her lips, his eyes glinting as he saw hers darken, her pupils expand – and he said, softly, “Truth, Ginevra?”
She nodded slowly, lost in the shadows and undercurrents in his eyes.
“We are the stewards of this land. Long, long ago, when our ancestors came from over the sea and carved out kingdoms for themselves, they turned the wild magic of the land to their will, bound it and forced it to confirm to their desires and their wishes. But,” he turned away to look out over his land, over towards the pulsing heart of dark, tangled power that was the Grove, “in the binding, they in turn bound themselves, and every one of their descendants. Just as the magic is forced to do our will, we are forced to do the magic’s will…”
She looked at him blankly. “The Covenant,” he murmured, softly and almost to himself. “The sacred balance that we dare not, must not overset, lest all the centuries of confined raw, wild magic backlash upon us…”
“But,” she looked puzzled, “but how can magic be wild, or raw, or confined? Magic just is, isn’t it?”
His mouth quirked in what could have been a smile. “Magic, my dear, comes in all shapes and sizes, and yes, usually, in lands that were never claimed, it is free for all to use, free and unconfined and neutral. But what are spells, if not bindings? Instruments with which to shape the wild, unstructured magic to our desires. Even wands – they make it easier to channel the magic; they’re a tangible focus point through which the intangible can be touched. But when the ancient Lords worked their bindings, they sealed and bound the magical field – the entire magical field – that ran through their land, and tied it up in a working that would turn it to their will, and no one else’s.”
Suddenly she began to understand. “The Grove…” she breathed, stunned.
He nodded. “Yes. The Grove. The nexus, the centre, the focus and the lock – the tangible point where the intangible is harnessed and controlled. The Grove is the final lock on the magic – and every time the Lord sheds his blood in the Grove at Midsummer, it adds strength to the working, binding the magic even tighter.”
She let her eyes go unfocused, looked with her magical sight and instinct rather than her physical sight, and saw that the Grove had been planted, had grown, at the intersection of an innumerable number of ley lines. She had seen intersection points before – Stonehenge was at the centre of a number of lines – but this was beyond anything she had ever imagined. “This is the heart,” she said faintly. “The heart of Britain…”
He only looked over towards the Grove with hooded, unreadable eyes.
“Are you saying,” she breathed unsteadily, “that every High Clan has a Grove, and every Grove is a focus for a similar working?”
The grey eyes continued to gaze impassively. “There were thirteen original Lords,” he finally said, his voice distant, as if he recited ancient, long forgotten legends. “The Malfoy, and twelve others. And every one of them took part in the Great Binding; twelve locks, twelve points on the web, all funneling the power towards the Great Lock – the Centre, the Balance Point. And if one lock fails,” he murmured, looking back towards her, “if one strand weakens, then the Binding loses some of its strength. With every failed lock, with every weakened strand, the magic comes just that smallest bit closer to freedom. It strains,” he said in an odd voice, “it seethes for release, after so many years…”
“What…what happens, if it is released?” she asked, suddenly cold.
He closed his eyes. “Something too horrible to even imagine.”
A horrible thought occurred to her, then. “How many of the locks have failed, Draco? How many Clans have lost faith with their Covenants?” Her voice sharpened as she faced an unbelievable thought. “How many were deliberately broken, just to bring the Malfoy down?”
When he looked at her, his eyes were utterly empty – frozen, almost terrifyingly blank. “Crabbe,” he said in a flat monotone. “Goyle. Wilkes. Parkinson. Rosier. Flint.”
“Six out of thirteen?” she whispered, shocked.
He nodded curtly. “Lestrange and Avery hold firm, along with Snape, Andahni and Courtney.”
“And that leaves?”
“Zabini remains neutral.” His voice was oh, so cold…
Oh… Six against, six for. And one neutral. Time was running out for the Malfoy, and for the High Clan, it seemed. How had it all come to such a point, so fast? He laughed bitterly, and she started. She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken out loud.
“This has been brewing for nearly fifty years, Ginevra. We thought Tom Riddle an ignorant half blood, bastard scion of a third rate House, but even in death, he divides us, tears us apart, punishes us for our disdain. Oh, he understood us all too well…”
Of course. It had all started with the Death Eaters. Marcus Malfoy had been forced to join. Luc and Lucius, well, she didn’t know for sure, but she thought they may have joined willingly, and enjoyed all the benefits… Draco had not joined at all, had spurred the Dark Lord’s offer of allegiance.
Three generations. Voldemort had almost destroyed a Clan that had stood for two and a half millennia within three generations. The cold fingers of Tom Riddle’s ghost reached out to her from all those years ago, and she shivered, suddenly chilled all the way to her soul. For the first time, she understood the shadows in Draco’s eyes.
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“And what was the original purpose of this great working, then?” Arthur Weasley was having a hard time accepting what Luc was telling him – but it was just so incredibly…alien to his thinking.
Luc’s smile was tired – he had done quite a lot of talking today, most of it ancient, ambiguous High Clan lore that he had never shared with anyone but his wife. Generally, outsiders weren’t allowed to know the secrets of the High Clan, because the potential for disaster was enormous. But he knew that if he were to stand any chance of turning Arthur Weasley to their side, he would have to tell him everything.
Gryffindors always seemed to think that Slytherins tried to manipulate them by withholding vital information.
“The purpose?” he mused slowly, trying to put into words something he had never had to explain, something he had never been told, something he only understood as gut instinct. The original Lords had left no solid records, other than vague, ambiguous myths…
“I believe,” he said slowly, “that it had but one purpose…” He looked up, his eyes sardonic, self-mocking. “They targeted the built up repositories of magic in all the sacred places of the land – the Groves – erased the magical memory of centuries of worship and faith…”
“Stamped their own mark on it,” Arthur mused. “That seems…”
Luc nodded. “A desecration.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you know? They were invaders, seeking to take over this land, to make it their own. They could kill the original inhabitants easily enough, but the real challenges were the Guardians of Britain – the old spirits, the gods, who protected the land from spiritual invasion, and occasionally, through mortal champions, from physical ones.” He looked at Arthur’s skeptical face. “Yes, I know that’s very, very old mythology from the dawn of time, but they were real, terribly real as they rose up against the physical and spiritual invasion of the High Clan Lords. The Great Binding used the newly neutral sacred places, now turned to their will and their control, and used that same magic to bind the Guardians and anything else that opposed them into sleep, into dreamless sleep so deep that they could never, ever access the waking world again.”
“And once that was done, they made the land their own. They claimed it, once through the sword, twice through their magic, and thrice through their blood, and the willing sacrifice of their descendants’ blood, so long as the line should live, even until the end of time.”
“And you say the Binding is failing?” Luc nodded.
“What happens when it finally breaks?”
Luc shrugged. “I am not sure, but from what we were able to deduce, Lucius and Snape and I, we thought that the magic had been under such tight control for so long, under such exquisite strain, that it would very definitely backlash, as the tight confines of the binding broke. The consequences could be rather unpleasant, not just for the High Clan, but for us all…”
“And?” prompted Arthur. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Luc raised an eyebrow, but nodded slowly. “Yes, there’s more.” He took a slow, thoughtful sip of his tea, as if to gain time to gather his thoughts. “The Guardians will awake, and they will seek to drive out all those they see as invaders…”
“And who will they see in that way?” Arthur asked faintly. “It’s been two and a half thousand years.”
Luc smiled thinly. “And not only that, but I fear, after all that time sleeping, confined and tortured by the Binding, that they may have become a little…twisted.”
Arthur only closed his eyes. “Twisted?” he held up a hand, saying, “No, don’t say it. I don’t want to know.” He looked up to meet emotionless silver eyes, perfectly composed and all too serious. Suddenly he realized the implications of one man’s overweening ambition so many years ago. “Merlin’s Beard! Did the original Malfoy not think about what he was doing? Did he take what he wanted and damn the consequences?”
Lines radiated from the corner of Luc’s eyes as he narrowed them slightly, in sardonic amusement, in acknowledgement of a palpable hit. Perhaps he saw the parallel between Brandon Malfoy and himself, in their ambition, in their determination to do whatever it took to achieve their desires. “Perhaps he thought it an acceptable risk, at the time. Perhaps he thought it worth the price…”
“He must have been a damned fool!”
“No,” Luc said softly. “He was a man with nothing to lose, and everything to gain…” he looked into Arthur Weasley’s eyes, faded blue, kindly, shrewd, and warm, with not a jot of ambition in their depths. There were far greater divisions in this life than the barrier between middle class and High Clan. “They were ruthless conquerors, who burned and slaughtered their way across Britain, destroyed anything and anyone who stood in their way, and would have let nothing, absolutely nothing, stop them from achieving their desires. They weren’t saints and they weren’t particularly good, in any sense of the word, but Brandon and every one of his followers knew exactly what they were doing, knew exactly what the price would be, and thought it more than justified.”
“They were willing to pay it?”
“Eventually, yes, but the Clans stood united for two and a half thousand years and more – it was only in the last fifty years that things began to come undone.”
Arthur hissed softly, in surprise, in understanding. “Voldemort.”
Luc’s eyes were like hammered steel. “Yes, Voldemort.”
Arthur closed his eyes, remembering with far too much clarity everything that Voldemort had done to their world. Then he looked almost sadly at Luc, who had suffered at the Dark Lord’s hands, just as he had, just as countless others had…but somehow, after nearly ten years of freedom, it seemed particularly cruel to see that he was still affecting the world, even in death. “The sins of the fathers,” he murmured, feeling every one of his years. He looked up into Luc’s impassive face. “Are you willing to pay this price, even after so long?”
Luc shook his head. “It is not a matter of willingness or not,” he said softly. “The debt came due, and it must be paid. Else all will be lost.” His smile was almost heartbreaking. “And even if we win, we will tear our world apart in the winning…”
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Towards lunchtime, Arthur’s head came up and he stood up, going over to the window and peering out, tension in every line in his body. Luc watched him, noting that although Weasley didn’t claim to be anything like a Clan Lord, he had the necessary bond with his land and surroundings – something had told him of an intrusion, and his instant wariness could only have come from sharing the land’s instincts. “Who is it?” he asked softly, rising smoothly to stand beside his host. He had been accepted into this house, had broken bread with its master – he would defend it, if it became necessary.
Weasley looked a little embarrassed to be seen dabbling in such mysticism – but it was not the High Clan who would laugh at him for it. In fact, they were the only ones who might accept and even understand it – and knowing this, he spoke of what he rarely acknowledged, even to himself. “I’m not quite sure. It feels like that fellow Tarrant, but somehow twisted; his very footsteps make the land uneasy.”
Luc said nothing, but his face hardened, his eyes cooling. He touched his forefinger to the windowpane in front of him, raised an eyebrow at Arthur in question. Molly came bustling in, wiping her hands on her apron, ignored Luc and said to Arthur, “What’s going on, dear? Have we got visitors?”
Her eyes strayed to Luc’s finger on the windowpane, and she raised alarmed eyes to his. “What are you doing? Don’t touch my house with your magic, you…” she trailed off, warned by the sudden warning in Arthur’s eyes, but Luc promptly retracted his finger. He had only been going to reinforce the wards, pitifully inadequate defences as they were, but he would only ever think of doing so if he had his host’s full permission. Without permission it would be, as he had said, not too long ago, a desecration.
Arthur turned back to the window, looked out. “It’s Gerald Tarrant,” he said in some surprise. “But what’s he doing here?”
Molly beamed. “Oh, that’s all right. I met him in town the other day, and we had a nice chat, catching up on everything… Anyway, he said he wanted to see Ginny again, to see if he could have another chance. So I invited him over here so they could talk.”
Luc had stiffened during this remarkable speech – Arthur was uncomfortably aware of his icy control. Really, he did love his wife, but… He relaxed when Luc caught his eye and smiled fractionally, reassuring him. Luc would not kill Gerald right now, not under his roof. That would be most discourteous.
There was a polite knocking on the door, and Gerald stood framed in the doorway, carrying a bunch of flowers for Mrs Weasley, who cooed and fluttered in delight, but his smooth courtesy faltered when he looked past her into the living room, seeing Arthur Weasley and his other guest. Maliciously, Luc took some pleasure in the expression that fleetingly crossed Gerald’s face – but then it was gone, and the bland smile was back. He was playing respectable executive to the hilt, with neatly combed hair, staid, respectable robes in thick wool (not the more expensive fabrics that characterized aristocrats), and that damned irritating middle class, Gryffindoric amiability. If there was anything Luc hated more…of course, he could be a little prejudiced against Gerald, due to recent events.
“Hello, Malfoy,” came the smooth voice, jocular and far too familiar to Luc’s ears. He smiled easily, falling all too well into his public mask.
“Tarrant,” he murmured, not curtly, but a little distantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur stiffen, a little disconcerted by the reemergence of the aristocrat, when Luc had talked to him as an equal all morning.
“I must say, I am sorry for any offence I may have inadvertently given with my ongoing campaign for equality,” he said to Luc some time later, smiling over a piece of cake. “But you understand that publicity is necessary if I’m to get my message across…”
Luc looked at him, not even bothering to smile back. There was no need for this fencing – they were already irrevocable enemies and both knew it – but he had played the Game all his life, had been brought up within it, and knew better than to show discourtesy or any kind of incivility to anyone under another’s roof. “I quite understand, Tarrant, you needn’t explain it to me.” He took another sip of tea. “I understand that you have found employment with Mr. Wilkes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Does he allow you to run your…campaign while you are working for him?”
“Oh, Mr. Wilkes has been of great assistance and support to the campaign,” Gerald said blandly, smiling. “He has long believed that it is more than time for full social and legal equality; in fact, he has been quite helpful with my research…”
Luc’s brow rose at this description of one of the most rabidly prejudiced, opportunistic turncoats he had ever had the misfortune to meet, but the polite fencing went on, and he had the sense that Gerald was just killing time until he could see Ginny again, try to convince her to take him back. Luc spared a thought to hope that Draco had actually consummated their bond – it would make things much, much easier – but he knew, Draco being much more honourable than he himself, that it was more than likely that he had pulled back, preferring to wait until he had her full permission. And that was where the problems would come in.
And by then it was too late – a knock came on the door, Molly went to open it with a beaming, approving smile on her face. “Ah, here’s Ginny now, Mr Tarrant. Won’t she be surprised to see you?”
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A/N - Regarding Brandon Andenais, the first Malfoy: I realise that ‘Malfoy’ is French, and therefore unlikely to be in use in Brandon’s time. I am assuming that 2500 years ago he would have been given a name with the approximate same meaning, and that the Clan’s name has changed throughout history.
And the idea of the Guardians of Britain, and of wiping out already existing repositories of memory/magic and replacing it in order to claim the land comes from the book “Albion: The Last Companion” by Patrick McCormack.
CHAPTER 13 – The Great Binding
Malfoy Manor – also known as the Castle – was an amazing mixture of fortress and palace, strong place and showcase. The original building was an ancient hill fort, erected by the very earliest occupiers of the land, those who had held it even before the Malfoy. Brandon Andenais took it and made it into a fortress that commanded the surrounding countryside for miles around, an impregnable stronghold for the protection of the whole Clan and their people.
It remained a stronghold, fortified and modified as times and technology changed, until in the seventeenth century, Charles Malfoy, a dissolute Restoration dilettante, decided that if he must live in a fortress, it would at least be a comfortable one. Charles’ tastes had run to the magnificent, but luckily for his descendants, they had not verged on the vulgar or ostentatious. The furnishings, smooth marble and rich velvets, polished antiques and elegant embellishments, softened but did not detract from the original lines of the fortress – rather they seemed to sheathe it, like a velvet glove covering the iron fist. The Castle had been its original name, back into the depths of time. Malfoy Manor was what it had become, after Charles had finished with it.
It was, one supposed, rather like the Clan themselves – they had been powerful enough, long ago, to deal with the world on their own terms and public opinion be damned; now, they needed to be a little bit more subtle, a little bit more acceptable. The strength and the power had been covered up, but not buried, beneath a socially acceptable mask. And that, thought Ginny, was the truth of Draco Malfoy.
Walking through the front door, she could feel the Castle’s aura: unlike the Burrow, which radiated love and laughter, Malfoy Manor radiated power – magical, political, social – power of every sort. It did not feel cold, but rather like subliminal pressure, a humming in her eardrums, like a quickening of the heartbeat and a feeling of confidence, of invulnerability… And underneath the power was the faintest taste of blood – the blood that was the source of the Malfoy power; the blood of the Lord, of the people, of the Land and the magic that Brandon Andenais had seized and actually forced to his will and that of his descendants’.
A great and terrifying legacy – that was why the Covenant was so important to him; the land welcomed him and his, yes, but if the Oath was broken, the balance upset, there would be no second chances. The first Malfoy had been given another name for his ill faith, for his treachery in his ruthless search for land; he had used up all his and his family’s second chances long, long ago.
Ginny sensed this, but not in such detail, in such depth – had it been explained to her, there was a chance that she might not believe, not accept the truth of the matter. To a logical, modern daughter of a middle class family, brought up in Gryffindoric straightforwardness and educated in the powers of reason, if not reason as the muggles saw it, the thought of the land retaining memory through faith, through worship and blood sacrifice, was slightly exotic. The thought that the memory could be wiped out, and the blank slate reprinted, stamped with another’s mark, another’s blood, was a bit more out there. The thought that the land, sentient as it was, could actually reject and revoke all former agreements if the Vows were broken, the faith destroyed, was beyond anything she had ever believed of the world.
There was no room for such mysticism in her life, no need for it; it was as Luc had said to her father before – she was not High Clan. But she was bonded to one, or would be soon. So, rather tentatively, not really believing that she would understand, she asked Draco to explain it to her.
He only looked down at her, into her dark eyes, so sincere, so willing to try, so filled with Gryffindoric courage, and smiled twistedly. He trailed a finger down her cheek, placed the pad lightly on her lips, his eyes glinting as he saw hers darken, her pupils expand – and he said, softly, “Truth, Ginevra?”
She nodded slowly, lost in the shadows and undercurrents in his eyes.
“We are the stewards of this land. Long, long ago, when our ancestors came from over the sea and carved out kingdoms for themselves, they turned the wild magic of the land to their will, bound it and forced it to confirm to their desires and their wishes. But,” he turned away to look out over his land, over towards the pulsing heart of dark, tangled power that was the Grove, “in the binding, they in turn bound themselves, and every one of their descendants. Just as the magic is forced to do our will, we are forced to do the magic’s will…”
She looked at him blankly. “The Covenant,” he murmured, softly and almost to himself. “The sacred balance that we dare not, must not overset, lest all the centuries of confined raw, wild magic backlash upon us…”
“But,” she looked puzzled, “but how can magic be wild, or raw, or confined? Magic just is, isn’t it?”
His mouth quirked in what could have been a smile. “Magic, my dear, comes in all shapes and sizes, and yes, usually, in lands that were never claimed, it is free for all to use, free and unconfined and neutral. But what are spells, if not bindings? Instruments with which to shape the wild, unstructured magic to our desires. Even wands – they make it easier to channel the magic; they’re a tangible focus point through which the intangible can be touched. But when the ancient Lords worked their bindings, they sealed and bound the magical field – the entire magical field – that ran through their land, and tied it up in a working that would turn it to their will, and no one else’s.”
Suddenly she began to understand. “The Grove…” she breathed, stunned.
He nodded. “Yes. The Grove. The nexus, the centre, the focus and the lock – the tangible point where the intangible is harnessed and controlled. The Grove is the final lock on the magic – and every time the Lord sheds his blood in the Grove at Midsummer, it adds strength to the working, binding the magic even tighter.”
She let her eyes go unfocused, looked with her magical sight and instinct rather than her physical sight, and saw that the Grove had been planted, had grown, at the intersection of an innumerable number of ley lines. She had seen intersection points before – Stonehenge was at the centre of a number of lines – but this was beyond anything she had ever imagined. “This is the heart,” she said faintly. “The heart of Britain…”
He only looked over towards the Grove with hooded, unreadable eyes.
“Are you saying,” she breathed unsteadily, “that every High Clan has a Grove, and every Grove is a focus for a similar working?”
The grey eyes continued to gaze impassively. “There were thirteen original Lords,” he finally said, his voice distant, as if he recited ancient, long forgotten legends. “The Malfoy, and twelve others. And every one of them took part in the Great Binding; twelve locks, twelve points on the web, all funneling the power towards the Great Lock – the Centre, the Balance Point. And if one lock fails,” he murmured, looking back towards her, “if one strand weakens, then the Binding loses some of its strength. With every failed lock, with every weakened strand, the magic comes just that smallest bit closer to freedom. It strains,” he said in an odd voice, “it seethes for release, after so many years…”
“What…what happens, if it is released?” she asked, suddenly cold.
He closed his eyes. “Something too horrible to even imagine.”
A horrible thought occurred to her, then. “How many of the locks have failed, Draco? How many Clans have lost faith with their Covenants?” Her voice sharpened as she faced an unbelievable thought. “How many were deliberately broken, just to bring the Malfoy down?”
When he looked at her, his eyes were utterly empty – frozen, almost terrifyingly blank. “Crabbe,” he said in a flat monotone. “Goyle. Wilkes. Parkinson. Rosier. Flint.”
“Six out of thirteen?” she whispered, shocked.
He nodded curtly. “Lestrange and Avery hold firm, along with Snape, Andahni and Courtney.”
“And that leaves?”
“Zabini remains neutral.” His voice was oh, so cold…
Oh… Six against, six for. And one neutral. Time was running out for the Malfoy, and for the High Clan, it seemed. How had it all come to such a point, so fast? He laughed bitterly, and she started. She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken out loud.
“This has been brewing for nearly fifty years, Ginevra. We thought Tom Riddle an ignorant half blood, bastard scion of a third rate House, but even in death, he divides us, tears us apart, punishes us for our disdain. Oh, he understood us all too well…”
Of course. It had all started with the Death Eaters. Marcus Malfoy had been forced to join. Luc and Lucius, well, she didn’t know for sure, but she thought they may have joined willingly, and enjoyed all the benefits… Draco had not joined at all, had spurred the Dark Lord’s offer of allegiance.
Three generations. Voldemort had almost destroyed a Clan that had stood for two and a half millennia within three generations. The cold fingers of Tom Riddle’s ghost reached out to her from all those years ago, and she shivered, suddenly chilled all the way to her soul. For the first time, she understood the shadows in Draco’s eyes.
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“And what was the original purpose of this great working, then?” Arthur Weasley was having a hard time accepting what Luc was telling him – but it was just so incredibly…alien to his thinking.
Luc’s smile was tired – he had done quite a lot of talking today, most of it ancient, ambiguous High Clan lore that he had never shared with anyone but his wife. Generally, outsiders weren’t allowed to know the secrets of the High Clan, because the potential for disaster was enormous. But he knew that if he were to stand any chance of turning Arthur Weasley to their side, he would have to tell him everything.
Gryffindors always seemed to think that Slytherins tried to manipulate them by withholding vital information.
“The purpose?” he mused slowly, trying to put into words something he had never had to explain, something he had never been told, something he only understood as gut instinct. The original Lords had left no solid records, other than vague, ambiguous myths…
“I believe,” he said slowly, “that it had but one purpose…” He looked up, his eyes sardonic, self-mocking. “They targeted the built up repositories of magic in all the sacred places of the land – the Groves – erased the magical memory of centuries of worship and faith…”
“Stamped their own mark on it,” Arthur mused. “That seems…”
Luc nodded. “A desecration.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you know? They were invaders, seeking to take over this land, to make it their own. They could kill the original inhabitants easily enough, but the real challenges were the Guardians of Britain – the old spirits, the gods, who protected the land from spiritual invasion, and occasionally, through mortal champions, from physical ones.” He looked at Arthur’s skeptical face. “Yes, I know that’s very, very old mythology from the dawn of time, but they were real, terribly real as they rose up against the physical and spiritual invasion of the High Clan Lords. The Great Binding used the newly neutral sacred places, now turned to their will and their control, and used that same magic to bind the Guardians and anything else that opposed them into sleep, into dreamless sleep so deep that they could never, ever access the waking world again.”
“And once that was done, they made the land their own. They claimed it, once through the sword, twice through their magic, and thrice through their blood, and the willing sacrifice of their descendants’ blood, so long as the line should live, even until the end of time.”
“And you say the Binding is failing?” Luc nodded.
“What happens when it finally breaks?”
Luc shrugged. “I am not sure, but from what we were able to deduce, Lucius and Snape and I, we thought that the magic had been under such tight control for so long, under such exquisite strain, that it would very definitely backlash, as the tight confines of the binding broke. The consequences could be rather unpleasant, not just for the High Clan, but for us all…”
“And?” prompted Arthur. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Luc raised an eyebrow, but nodded slowly. “Yes, there’s more.” He took a slow, thoughtful sip of his tea, as if to gain time to gather his thoughts. “The Guardians will awake, and they will seek to drive out all those they see as invaders…”
“And who will they see in that way?” Arthur asked faintly. “It’s been two and a half thousand years.”
Luc smiled thinly. “And not only that, but I fear, after all that time sleeping, confined and tortured by the Binding, that they may have become a little…twisted.”
Arthur only closed his eyes. “Twisted?” he held up a hand, saying, “No, don’t say it. I don’t want to know.” He looked up to meet emotionless silver eyes, perfectly composed and all too serious. Suddenly he realized the implications of one man’s overweening ambition so many years ago. “Merlin’s Beard! Did the original Malfoy not think about what he was doing? Did he take what he wanted and damn the consequences?”
Lines radiated from the corner of Luc’s eyes as he narrowed them slightly, in sardonic amusement, in acknowledgement of a palpable hit. Perhaps he saw the parallel between Brandon Malfoy and himself, in their ambition, in their determination to do whatever it took to achieve their desires. “Perhaps he thought it an acceptable risk, at the time. Perhaps he thought it worth the price…”
“He must have been a damned fool!”
“No,” Luc said softly. “He was a man with nothing to lose, and everything to gain…” he looked into Arthur Weasley’s eyes, faded blue, kindly, shrewd, and warm, with not a jot of ambition in their depths. There were far greater divisions in this life than the barrier between middle class and High Clan. “They were ruthless conquerors, who burned and slaughtered their way across Britain, destroyed anything and anyone who stood in their way, and would have let nothing, absolutely nothing, stop them from achieving their desires. They weren’t saints and they weren’t particularly good, in any sense of the word, but Brandon and every one of his followers knew exactly what they were doing, knew exactly what the price would be, and thought it more than justified.”
“They were willing to pay it?”
“Eventually, yes, but the Clans stood united for two and a half thousand years and more – it was only in the last fifty years that things began to come undone.”
Arthur hissed softly, in surprise, in understanding. “Voldemort.”
Luc’s eyes were like hammered steel. “Yes, Voldemort.”
Arthur closed his eyes, remembering with far too much clarity everything that Voldemort had done to their world. Then he looked almost sadly at Luc, who had suffered at the Dark Lord’s hands, just as he had, just as countless others had…but somehow, after nearly ten years of freedom, it seemed particularly cruel to see that he was still affecting the world, even in death. “The sins of the fathers,” he murmured, feeling every one of his years. He looked up into Luc’s impassive face. “Are you willing to pay this price, even after so long?”
Luc shook his head. “It is not a matter of willingness or not,” he said softly. “The debt came due, and it must be paid. Else all will be lost.” His smile was almost heartbreaking. “And even if we win, we will tear our world apart in the winning…”
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Towards lunchtime, Arthur’s head came up and he stood up, going over to the window and peering out, tension in every line in his body. Luc watched him, noting that although Weasley didn’t claim to be anything like a Clan Lord, he had the necessary bond with his land and surroundings – something had told him of an intrusion, and his instant wariness could only have come from sharing the land’s instincts. “Who is it?” he asked softly, rising smoothly to stand beside his host. He had been accepted into this house, had broken bread with its master – he would defend it, if it became necessary.
Weasley looked a little embarrassed to be seen dabbling in such mysticism – but it was not the High Clan who would laugh at him for it. In fact, they were the only ones who might accept and even understand it – and knowing this, he spoke of what he rarely acknowledged, even to himself. “I’m not quite sure. It feels like that fellow Tarrant, but somehow twisted; his very footsteps make the land uneasy.”
Luc said nothing, but his face hardened, his eyes cooling. He touched his forefinger to the windowpane in front of him, raised an eyebrow at Arthur in question. Molly came bustling in, wiping her hands on her apron, ignored Luc and said to Arthur, “What’s going on, dear? Have we got visitors?”
Her eyes strayed to Luc’s finger on the windowpane, and she raised alarmed eyes to his. “What are you doing? Don’t touch my house with your magic, you…” she trailed off, warned by the sudden warning in Arthur’s eyes, but Luc promptly retracted his finger. He had only been going to reinforce the wards, pitifully inadequate defences as they were, but he would only ever think of doing so if he had his host’s full permission. Without permission it would be, as he had said, not too long ago, a desecration.
Arthur turned back to the window, looked out. “It’s Gerald Tarrant,” he said in some surprise. “But what’s he doing here?”
Molly beamed. “Oh, that’s all right. I met him in town the other day, and we had a nice chat, catching up on everything… Anyway, he said he wanted to see Ginny again, to see if he could have another chance. So I invited him over here so they could talk.”
Luc had stiffened during this remarkable speech – Arthur was uncomfortably aware of his icy control. Really, he did love his wife, but… He relaxed when Luc caught his eye and smiled fractionally, reassuring him. Luc would not kill Gerald right now, not under his roof. That would be most discourteous.
There was a polite knocking on the door, and Gerald stood framed in the doorway, carrying a bunch of flowers for Mrs Weasley, who cooed and fluttered in delight, but his smooth courtesy faltered when he looked past her into the living room, seeing Arthur Weasley and his other guest. Maliciously, Luc took some pleasure in the expression that fleetingly crossed Gerald’s face – but then it was gone, and the bland smile was back. He was playing respectable executive to the hilt, with neatly combed hair, staid, respectable robes in thick wool (not the more expensive fabrics that characterized aristocrats), and that damned irritating middle class, Gryffindoric amiability. If there was anything Luc hated more…of course, he could be a little prejudiced against Gerald, due to recent events.
“Hello, Malfoy,” came the smooth voice, jocular and far too familiar to Luc’s ears. He smiled easily, falling all too well into his public mask.
“Tarrant,” he murmured, not curtly, but a little distantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur stiffen, a little disconcerted by the reemergence of the aristocrat, when Luc had talked to him as an equal all morning.
“I must say, I am sorry for any offence I may have inadvertently given with my ongoing campaign for equality,” he said to Luc some time later, smiling over a piece of cake. “But you understand that publicity is necessary if I’m to get my message across…”
Luc looked at him, not even bothering to smile back. There was no need for this fencing – they were already irrevocable enemies and both knew it – but he had played the Game all his life, had been brought up within it, and knew better than to show discourtesy or any kind of incivility to anyone under another’s roof. “I quite understand, Tarrant, you needn’t explain it to me.” He took another sip of tea. “I understand that you have found employment with Mr. Wilkes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Does he allow you to run your…campaign while you are working for him?”
“Oh, Mr. Wilkes has been of great assistance and support to the campaign,” Gerald said blandly, smiling. “He has long believed that it is more than time for full social and legal equality; in fact, he has been quite helpful with my research…”
Luc’s brow rose at this description of one of the most rabidly prejudiced, opportunistic turncoats he had ever had the misfortune to meet, but the polite fencing went on, and he had the sense that Gerald was just killing time until he could see Ginny again, try to convince her to take him back. Luc spared a thought to hope that Draco had actually consummated their bond – it would make things much, much easier – but he knew, Draco being much more honourable than he himself, that it was more than likely that he had pulled back, preferring to wait until he had her full permission. And that was where the problems would come in.
And by then it was too late – a knock came on the door, Molly went to open it with a beaming, approving smile on her face. “Ah, here’s Ginny now, Mr Tarrant. Won’t she be surprised to see you?”
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A/N - Regarding Brandon Andenais, the first Malfoy: I realise that ‘Malfoy’ is French, and therefore unlikely to be in use in Brandon’s time. I am assuming that 2500 years ago he would have been given a name with the approximate same meaning, and that the Clan’s name has changed throughout history.
And the idea of the Guardians of Britain, and of wiping out already existing repositories of memory/magic and replacing it in order to claim the land comes from the book “Albion: The Last Companion” by Patrick McCormack.
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