“I cannot celebrate that he had to do it, Lucius.”

Lucius smiled at his wife as he pressed a glass of wine into her hand. “We are not celebrating the fact that he had to kill his own cousin, my dear. We are celebrating the fact that this will be almost the last thing he has to do under threat of death.”

Narcissa’s hand shook a little as she picked up the wine. “You believe that?”

“We will make it so. He might have no choice about facing the Dark Lord,” although Lucius had an idea of his own about that, “or killing Sirius, because the man was obsessed with him. But after this, we will make sure he has time just to be a child.”

Narcissa swallowed half her wine and then stepped towards him, her eyes bright and fierce. “Swear that, Lucius. Make it so.”

“I will make it so,” Lucius said, and took her hand to kiss it. “I swear it by my blood, by my magic, all that I am.”

Narcissa relaxed with a little shudder as the ancient oath brushed past her and hovered in the air around them, exuding its own magic. Then she leaned up to kiss him, balancing for a moment with her palm on his shoulder. “I look forward to that day.”

“And it should not be long now. I will Apparate Henry to the Horcrux’s hiding place on the morrow.”

“You believe it will truly be done before Henry and Draco need to return to school?”

“It will be done.”

Lucius didn’t make an oath as he had with the last promise, but he smiled as Narcissa stepped forwards and leaned her head against his chest.

He would see it done. He would be happy to retrieve or kill the Horcrux if it was too difficult for Henry to do.

And he would see their younger son walk free, the scar on his forehead no longer a chain.

*

Albus came out of the Apparition and stood for a moment in front of Malfoy Manor, regarding it as he shook his head.

The invitation to come had been beyond surprising, but of course he was not surprised that Lucius wanted to meet in the place of his power, where the ancient wards would obey all of his commands and none of Albus’s.

Albus also expected to have to wait a while, and was just about to conjure a chair, when he saw Lucius walking quickly towards him from beyond the wrought-iron gates. Albus stayed his wand and inclined his head when Lucius got close to him.

“Thank you for inviting me, Lucius.”

“Thank you for coming, Headmaster.”

Lucius’s voice was brisk, his manner formal. That disappointed Albus a little, but he still stepped through the gates when they opened for him and walked as briskly after Lucius. If he wanted to speak with Albus badly enough, it made sense that he would not want to waste time with empty courtesies.

And they would be empty, whatever necessities bound them to each other as allies now. Albus would never truly be friends with someone of Lucius’s temperament, who had expressed no regrets for his past actions.

Lucius led him to a sea-green sitting room deep enough inside the house that Albus was a little surprised, again. But then he felt the press of the wards against his skin as they stepped into it, and smiled grimly. This was a supposedly welcoming place that Lucius’s ancestors had set up specifically to handle their enemies.

Lucius turned to face him. “We have destroyed all but one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.”

Albus stared at him, mouth a little open. Yes, the surprises continued.

“We require your help with the last one.”

“Why is that?” Albus asked. “If you could overcome the defenses of all the others…” His mind was still reeling with the notion that Voldemort had created Horcruxes, and multiple ones at that. Albus had taught the boy, and knew he was a genius, but this was the work of a madman.

Surely he was one now, after all the Horcruxes, but what about before the first one?

Albus put that aside as a question he would probably never have the answer to, while Lucius looked at him with mild impatience. “This particular Horcrux is protected by a curse that I believe to be of the Dark Lord’s own design.”

“How did you learn that?”

“From certain sources,” Lucius said, at his most bland. “At any rate, I understand that you are accomplished in both Alchemy and Arithmancy. It seemed to both me and my wife that you are our best choice to unravel the curse.”

“And if it falls upon me, you would not be risking a member of your family?”

“You said it, Headmaster, not I.”

Albus sighed as he thought about it. If the Malfoy family had truly destroyed several other Horcruxes, then they had done more work than he could imagine. And it cast the report that Miss Granger had made to him about Harry being “possessed” by something a few weeks back in a new light.

“I will at least be pleased to take a look at it.”

*

“I am astonished that your father allowed you to come at all.”

“Really? I’m not.”

Mother turned a frown on Henry that would have made Draco quail. But he knew what his twin would say, and agreed with it, so he just stood by quietly while they watched Father and Dumbledore walk towards the shack that stood by itself in the middle of the overgrown clearing. So far, Henry had said that the details matched the vision that the Great Serpent had given him.

“Tell me why you are not surprised, Henry,” Mother ordered, after a moment of silence. Well, silence except for the flash of spells and incantations around the doors of the shack.

“Because we began this, and we should see it through to the end.” Henry seemed to stand taller and straighter since he had become a priest of the Great Serpent, although Draco was well-aware that some of that just might be his own imagination. Henry’s eyes were locked on the shack’s front door. “And we’re not directly confronting the ring.”

“I do think that your father hopes Dumbledore will fall victim to the ring.”

Henry laughed and glanced at Draco. “And what do you hope?”

“That we all come out of this unscathed.”

Henry’s face cooled in an instant, and he nodded soberly. “Yes, we should hope for that,” he said, and he faced the door of the shack again.

Father and Dumbledore were inside now. Draco linked his hands behind his back and did his best to focus on the most interesting thing to him currently.

Namely, the possibility he had seen in worshipping the Great Serpent.

He hadn’t known why he was so fascinated with the notion at first, and had wondered if it was hidden jealousy of Henry after all, or a desire to become a Parselmouth. But the more he had thought about it, the more he had been certain that it was just that this was something important about their family that he hadn’t known, and wanted to take part in. That meant he might want to become a researcher, someone who discovered secrets.

Not the kind of secrets that lurked in ordinary schoolwork and the like. But ones that were buried in the past of families, ones that might explain things like why certain people had certain magic, and where Muggleborns’ ancestors came from, and how important the purity of blood was, really.

Draco was starting to suspect the answer to that was “not at all,” but he wanted some proof.

There was an abrupt scuffle and bouncing, jouncing sound from inside the shack. Mother drew her wand and raised a ward that would contain flying objects spiritual in nature. Draco recognized it, since she’d made him and Henry drill it for hours yesterday.

Father backed out without any sign of a curse on him, which made Draco breathe a sigh of relief. But he was followed by a Headmaster who looked desperate, and had his wand aimed at Father.

“Do you know what kind of curse it is that was supposed to be on the ring?” Draco breathed, leaning towards Henry.

“It attacked the flesh, not the mind.”

Draco nodded. So Henry had seen what he had. There was no glazed sign of Imperius or possession in Dumbledore’s eyes, just that desperation that Draco didn’t understand.

“You cannot destroy that Horcrux. You have no idea of what you have!”

“Then tell me.” Father’s voice was cold, and he kept his wand aimed at Dumbledore. His eyes darted for one moment back to Mother and the two of them, and he visibly relaxed. Draco supposed that he had thought Dumbledore or the curse might have harmed them somehow. “As long as you keep it a secret, I have no reason to think you are anything but possessed.”

Dumbledore stood still for a moment, his face strained. Draco thought uncharitably that it was likely the face he wore when straining to pass feces.

Then the Headmaster sighed and lowered his wand. “The stone in the ring is the Resurrection Stone.”

Draco frowned. The what? He glanced instinctively at Henry, who just shook his head.

But Mother and Father reacted to the announcement with statue-like stillness, and then snarls. Father shifted so that his wand was pointed at the ring instead of Dumbledore. “That is a children’s story.”

“I assure you, it is quite real. One of the things Grindelwald was seeking when I defeated him was to unite the Hallows.”

“That does not make it real. It only means that the Dark Lord you fought was a madman as well.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes, and then turned his wand over in his hands with the air of someone about to step off a cliff. Draco tensed, but all Dumbledore said was, “Behold the Elder Wand.”

By now, Draco was starting to remember where he had heard of these objects before, from a children’s story in Beedle the Bard. He leaned forwards and peered at the wand, but it didn’t look special to him. Rather plain and dark brown wood, with carvings of berries on it, nothing like the most powerful wand in existence.

“Why do you have it?”

“Because this was the wand Gellert was using when I defeated him, and the Elder Wand goes to the conqueror, always.”

I wonder why he calls him “Gellert?” Draco thought. Harry doesn’t call Voldemort by his first name.

“That still doesn’t explain why you think keeping the Horcrux around would be a good idea,” Henry said, and his eyes had shifted from the wand, earlier than Draco’s, back to Dumbledore.

Draco stood up behind his brother and gave a supportive nod. “Unless you secretly want to keep the Dark Lord around.”

Dumbledore looked at them over his glasses, that telltale, piercing glance that said, You are children, and I have nothing to say to you, and turned to face Mother and Father while Draco was still gasping in indignation. “It is not the Horcrux I wish to preserve. But you cannot destroy the Resurrection Stone. You cannot.”

“Strange,” Father said, and he was at his most cold and cutting, the mood that Draco wanted to learn how to imitate someday. “Because I do not think you would be so panicked if you honestly thought me incapable of it.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes and stood there for a moment, as though he were fighting against the temptation to yell. Then he said, “I mean that you should not. The Resurrection Stone is a treasure that should be preserved.”

“You want it.”

Draco didn’t know the words were going to come out of his mouth until they did. At his side, Henry gave a little jerk. Mother made a soft startled sound, and Father turned to look.

At the moment, Draco didn’t care. He kept his eyes on Dumbledore, and he felt the startled pleasure of discovery that made him even surer he wanted to go into the kind of career where he would be able to find secrets.

But right now, his focus was Dumbledore, who simply pursed his lips and shook his head. “That is none of your business, young man.”

“It is if you’re trying to convince my family to spare our greatest enemy. And, I thought, your greatest enemy.”

Dumbledore gave him a considerably more scathing glance that Draco recoiled from despite himself, and turned back to Father. “Give me the Stone.”

“Why?”

“I have not charged you any Galleons or more insubstantial debts for being part of this expedition. The Stone can be my payment.”

Father laughed like a winter wolf, his jaw slightly open and his breath a hiss more threatening than Henry’s Parseltongue. “I was the one who invited you, and getting rid of the Dark Lord should be enough payment.”

“You cannot damage the Resurrection Stone.”

While Father and Dumbledore argued, Henry leaned towards Draco. “What is the Resurrection Stone?” he whispered.

“A stone from an old story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” Draco said softly, not taking his eyes off the confrontation. “One of three gifts that Death gave to the Peverell family. Supposedly, it summons the spirits of the dead.”

“Why is Dumbledore so sure that this is the same one?’

That was a good question. Draco raised his eyebrows and broke in to the confrontation at a moment when both Father and the Headmaster were drawing a breath. “What exactly makes you think this is the Resurrection Stone, sir?”

Dumbledore paused and looked at them, sweeping his eyes over them with a piercing gaze that made Draco wonder if he should have asked the question. But maybe Dumbledore thought Draco and Henry would be more sympathetic to him, because he smiled a little and said, “The symbol of the Deathly Hallows is carved into the top of the stone.”

Draco blinked. “That’s it? How do you know that it’s not just an ordinary stone someone carved the symbol into?”

“What is the symbol, even?” Henry broke in.

Dumbledore turned to face Henry completely, and Draco didn’t think it was his imagination that the Headmaster’s smile softened. He still thought of Henry as different from other Malfoys.

“A circle inside a triangle, bisected by a line. Representing the Resurrection Stone, the Elder Wand, and the…” Dumbledore’s eyes widened.

“The Invisibility Cloak,” Draco finished. He turned and stared at Henry, wondering about the Cloak that he had sometimes talked about and used. He hadn’t used it often, probably because he felt awkward about the fact that it was the Potter Cloak and he wasn’t a Potter. But now that Draco thought about it, it did seem odd that the Cloak had lasted for so long, through multiple generations, and worked so well.

“You still have the Cloak?” Dumbledore asked.

“Of course I do,” said Henry.

“It is a Potter inheritance…”

“And there are no more Potters left.” Henry folded his arms. “Even if you think that I shouldn’t have it, you have no right to it, either. Sir.”

Dumbledore kept looking at Henry with the disappointed expression that Draco supposed was meant to make him fall on the ground and grovel to the Headmaster. Henry just stood there and looked at him.

“So we may have all three of the Hallows in close proximity,” Dumbledore finished, and then turned back to Father. “You cannot destroy the Stone.”

“You want to use it?”

Dumbledore’s eyes flickered obviously. Draco thought it was obvious enough that he had allowed them to see it, but he didn’t have to wonder for long, because Dumbledore gave a strained smile and said, “I think that most people would wish to use it.”

“But you have a specific reason.” Mother now, watching Dumbledore as if she wanted to tear him apart on her nails.

“I do.”

“This is a Horcrux, and it has to be destroyed.”

“But the Stone.”

Father shook his head slowly. “Even if the stone is the real thing, it might be entirely corrupted by the Horcrux, and useless. Have you thought of that, Dumbledore? Either that, or it is possibly powerful enough to survive corruption by the Horcrux, and you may use it after we have destroyed the Dark Lord’s soul container.”

“Or it may not be damaged, but will be when you use whatever method you have been using to destroy the Horcruxes on it.”

“I cannot take the chance.”

“Please,” Dumbledore whispered, his hand shaking. “Please, give it to me. Let me hold it and turn it, once. I have to apologize.”

“The Horcrux bears a curse. Have you forgotten? We managed to disarm the wards protecting it and float it out of the space without touching it thanks to your help, but all of that effort will be wasted if you touch it.”

“Please.”

Draco found that it was a more distressing sight than he’d thought it would be, to see the Headmaster of Hogwarts begging like that. He glanced at Henry, who just stared at Dumbledore with his arms folded. His expression was an almost perfect imitation of Father’s.

“No.”

Dumbledore cast something complicated and nonverbal, which arched towards Father and coiled around the Horcrux, tugging it out of Father’s hands as slick as water. Father snarled something and raised his wand, but the ring had already crossed the distance to Dumbledore, who held out a trembling hand to receive it.

At least he seemed to have coated his skin with a protective charm, because nothing happened when the ring landed on his palm. Dumbledore held it up and turned the stone, one, two, three times.

There was a long shudder, and a screech that, to Draco, sounded as though it came from an invisible and evil bird of prey. The Stone shook in Dumbledore’s hands and then burst into smokeless flames. Dumbledore dropped it with a cry that sounded nearly as mournful as that screech—presumably from the Horcrux—had, and it went on burning as it landed on the ground.

Mother cast a charm that scooped the thing up and tugged it up to hang in the air in a shimmering cage of wards, far above Dumbledore’s reach. “That is enough, Headmaster,” she said flatly. “The Stone is corrupted. Cursed. As you saw.”

Dumbledore turned to her, his face devastated. Draco once more had to look away. “I need to apologize,” he whispered.

“You will have to come up with some other way to convey your regrets to the dead, the way that all of us have always had to,” Mother said crisply.

Father was the one who disrupted the wards around the floating Horcrux and called it back down to him. “I think we should discuss this at the Manor, behind defenses that will not reveal anything we might say to enemies,” he announced firmly.

Draco dropped back to walk beside Mother as they formed a procession to the Apparition point. She smoothed a hand down his hair without taking her eyes from Dumbledore’s back.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Draco murmured.

Mother gave him a sweet smile of the kind that Draco knew had caused so many people to underestimate her. “I don’t know what you mean, dear.”

“You caused the screech and the fire when he touched the Horcrux. You wanted him to think it was corrupted and nothing he did could fix it.” Draco didn’t bother keeping his voice low, since Dumbledore had already Apparated away.

Mother smiled even more sweetly at him. “I have no idea what you mean, Draco.”

Of course you don’t, Draco thought, and made sure to lean on her a little as they vanished.

*

Albus found it difficult to keep his gaze away from the Horcrux as he sat on the couch on the other side of the room from the Malfoys. The Resurrection Stone had been mere inches from him. He’d had the chance to call Ariana and apologize, to speak to his mother and ask her all the questions he’d never got to ask while she was alive, to ask his father what he had been thinking when he’d tormented those Muggles…

But Lucius Malfoy had taken the chance away. He was going to destroy it.

Albus stared at his hands clasped in his lap and ignored the conversation swirling around him until young Harry spoke his name. He looked up, blinking. “Yes, Harry?”

There was a pause, cold enough that Albus knew something was wrong, but not long enough for him to be sure what it was. Then Harry shook his head a little, eyes locked on Albus as if he were disappointed in his Headmaster, and he said, “Please call me Mr. Malfoy, sir.”

Albus breathed in, then out. There was no way that Harry could be expected to know what the Resurrection Stone meant to him, or what it would mean to him to be able to apologize to Ariana. He sat up. “I apologize, Mr. Malfoy. You were saying?”

Harry cocked his head, eyes as grey and glittery as quartz, exactly like every other Malfoy. “I want to know if you were trying to become Master of the Hallows.”

“What?” Albus’s mind tumbled to a stop. Then he shook his head. “That was always Gellert’s ambition, not mine.”

“Do you always call your nemeses by their first names?”

“Of course,” Albus said lightly, heart beating faster than it had in years at what he’d unwittingly revealed. “I refer to Tom the same way.”

Harry took a breath and frowned, but in the end, he turned back around to face the Stone. “So you don’t want the Hallows to become Master of Death.”

“No. I took the Elder Wand so that its power couldn’t be misused. It is my hope that if I die a peaceful death and am still its master, its power will be broken. And I kept the Cloak in trust for you when I thought you—James’s child.”

Harry just nodded. His face was a stern mask that gave little away. Albus wondered, grieved, when he had learned to hide his emotions so well. “If anything of the Stone remains after we’ve cleansed the Horcrux, then maybe you can have it.”

Maybe was better than never. Albus nodded. “Thank you, my dear boy.”

Harry just cast him a glance, and then stood up. “You’ll want to stay upstairs for this, Headmaster.”

“Your destruction of the Horcrux?”

“Yes.”

“I would prefer to witness this, to know that Tom is completely gone.”

Harry gave a smile and shook his head before his parents or brother could say anything. “That’s not possible, Headmaster. I hope that you’ll be able to use the Resurrection Stone afterwards, but you can’t witness the ritual.”

“Are you afraid of what I might say?”

“Yes.”

Albus paused. He hadn’t expected such a blunt answer. Was part of Harry ashamed of what he had become? Of using Dark Arts?

“Then perhaps you should question whether this ritual is the best answer, if you are unsure about having a member of the public witness it,” he said as gently as he could.

Harry laughed, and the sound was somewhere halfway between the one Albus had always associated with him and the cold laughter of his father. “I would be a fool to let you into the room, Headmaster, given how much you didn’t want us to destroy the Horcrux. Even your intention could interfere. And the ritual room is open to family only, so it’s not a wish I can grant you anyway.”

“If I could make a difference…”

“Not a positive one.”

Albus studied his face and finally sighed and said, “Very well, my dear boy. Then I will remain upstairs and enjoy some more of this excellent mead.”

“Thank you, Headmaster.”

Harry turned away without any attempt to compromise, leading the rest of the family out of the room. Young Draco gave Albus a distrustful look, and didn’t soften at all when Albus smiled at him. Albus shook his head.

Then he reached for another glass of the mead, because it really was excellent, and tried not to let his mind dwell on the priceless treasure that was undoubtedly being lost in whatever ritual room the Malfoys had created.

If only I could see her one more time. Just to apologize.