"Thank you," said Lucius Malfoy, looking at the ground.
He was standing at the entrance of the striped silk tent, and Arthur Weasley was in front of him — the man who had brought Draco back. A faint colour had risen on Lucius's pale, stiff face, which was not an expression anyone who knew him would have expected to see.
"You're welcome," said Mr. Weasley, also looking at the ground, with the air of a man unsure where to put himself.
Lucius coughed. He looked up. He looked at Arthur.
Expressing gratitude to someone he considered an enemy in every meaningful sense — a pure-blood traitor, a man whose politics were everything his weren't — was neither something Lucius Malfoy was good at nor something he had any intention of making a habit of. If anyone in his usual circles had witnessed this moment, he would be hearing about it for years.
"Well," said Mr. Weasley, with a smile Lucius found difficult to parse, "I'll be off, then." He glanced, briefly and with an expression that was still difficult to parse, at Draco.
"Yes," said Lucius. "Quite." He watched Arthur Weasley turn and walk away with the precise bearing of a man who has won something without appearing to try, and stood there for a moment with his cane in both hands, wondering what it was.
Then he turned and gave his son a thorough looking-over.
All limbs accounted for. Good. The rest of the assessment was less satisfying: hair in disarray, face pale, clothes wrinkled, shoes covered in mud, the general appearance of someone who had spent several hours on the ground in a wood.
"Inside," said Lucius, and went through the doorway first.
Narcissa had been waiting in the living room. The moment Draco stepped through the entrance she crossed to him and pulled him into her arms with a tightness that made clear she had spent the past several hours in a particular kind of fear.
"Little Dragon — finally—" She kissed his forehead, held him at arm's length to look at him, kissed him again. Her updo had come partly loose. Her gown was creased. She ran both hands down his arms, checking. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Mum." He let her check him over and gave her a small smile. "Honestly."
"It's fine, it's fine, it's fine." The words were as much for herself as for him. When she'd established that he was merely dirty, not injured, she sat him down firmly on the sofa beside her, one hand still holding his arm.
"Explain." Lucius was in the armchair across from them, his expression cold.
"Lucius, stop—"
"He's been missing half the night and arrived home with Arthur Weasley. I want an explanation."
Narcissa glared at her husband. Lucius looked at his son.
Draco looked down at his shoes, arranged his expression into something appropriately younger-seeming than he felt, and said, "I heard screaming from outside and got frightened. I ran into the woods with everyone else."
"Frightened," Lucius repeated, with all the warmth of a January stone floor.
"He's fourteen years old!" Narcissa said sharply. She stroked Draco's hair, her hand warm and sure. "He's been running around out there alone all night, and he came home safely — that's what matters."
And that was the thing that did it. He had been holding himself together since the clearing — through the Ministry officials and Crouch's wand in his face and the long walk back with Mr. Weasley making careful conversation — and his mother's hand on his hair was the one thing that found a crack. His eyes stung. He blinked once and looked at the floor.
"Don't be pathetic," said Lucius, though his voice had dropped a register. "Tell me why Arthur Weasley was the one to bring you back."
Draco steadied himself. "I ran into some classmates in the woods. Then someone nearby cast the Dark Mark. Ministry officials arrived — Mr. Weasley was among them. After it was resolved, he walked me back."
Lucius sat forward. The temperature in the room shifted. "You saw someone cast the Dark Mark? Who?"
"No. It was too dark, and they'd gone by the time the officials arrived."
"Which Ministry officials gave you trouble?"
"Barty Crouch," Draco said flatly. "He decided I'd cast it myself."
Narcissa stopped moving. She took Draco's hand and found it cold.
"Ina," she said quietly. A house-elf appeared. "Hot cocoa for your young master, please. Now." The elf bowed and vanished.
Lucius had sat up very straight. "He dares."
"He pointed his wand at my face," Draco said, with no particular emotion.
"On what basis?"
"On the basis of my surname."
The armchair creaked as Lucius stood.
"Don't, Lucius." Narcissa held up a hand. "Let him finish."
Draco continued: Mr. Weasley had vouched for him; so had a Ministry witch in a wool dressing gown — square jaw, monocle, thick eyebrows — who had spoken with apparent familiarity to Crouch, called him by his first name, and noted she had a niece in his year. The matter had been resolved when Amos Diggory found a house-elf named Winky holding Harry's wand at the edge of the thicket where the spell had been cast.
At the name Winky, something moved behind Lucius's eyes that Draco filed away and didn't comment on.
"Winky," Lucius said. "The Crouch elf."
"Apparently."
"Amelia Bones," Narcissa said, from her end of the sofa, thinking back. "Square jaw, monocle — that's who she is. Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Her niece is Susan Bones." She looked thoughtful. "I should write and thank her."
"Leave it," said Lucius. "You know perfectly well how the Bones family feels about ours." But he said it without much force, still occupied with other calculations. He began to pace.
"That petty, vindictive man," Narcissa said, with a clarity of feeling she made no effort to moderate. "Using his position because he has a grudge against your father. And he himself has a mountain of things to answer for — his family's history is considerably murkier than ours." She accepted the cocoa from Ina and handed it to Draco. "Drink that."
Lucius had stopped pacing.
"Crouch," he said, in the tone he used when something had presented itself as an opportunity. "He's always been so protective of his reputation." He looked at Narcissa. "A Ministry official's house-elf, running loose at a public event, holding a wand that cast the Dark Mark. A violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry — a violation of his own department's regulations — and rather suggestive questions about who exactly she was keeping watch for in that Top Box corner—"
"I know a journalist," Narcissa said, with a trace of satisfaction. "Rita Skeeter. She's thorough."
Lucius nodded once.
Draco drank his cocoa and let his parents plot and watched his father from the corner of his eye.
When Lucius had mentioned the Death Eater march — drunken idiots, don't they know what kind of occasion this is — his indignation had the particular quality of someone who had not been among them. He was still in his banquet clothes. His cane was clean.
His father had not participated.
Draco had half-expected otherwise. But the relief was genuine, and somewhat complicated by what followed from it: if the Dark Lord's resurrection could be prevented, if no mark ever called again from a forearm, would Lucius go back? He had spent the twelve years since You-Know-Who's fall living very well — cultivating Ministry contacts, managing the family's interests, conducting himself as a man who had been temporarily confused during the war and had long since recovered his good judgement. Would a man who had so efficiently rebuilt a comfortable life willingly demolish it for a master who might or might not return?
Draco didn't know. He had not stopped trying to work it out.
"Stop looking at me like that," Lucius said, without turning around.
Draco looked at his cocoa.
"The classmates." Lucius turned now, folding his arms. "I'm going to assume one of them was Potter."
"He was there."
"And Weasley children."
"They were with him, yes."
"Then why," said Lucius, with a precision that suggested he had been sitting on this question, "did Arthur Weasley personally escort you back?"
"Because Mr. Weasley is the sort of person who does that," Draco said pleasantly. "I couldn't have predicted it."
Lucius's expression suggested this answer was both technically adequate and deeply unsatisfying. He sat back down. "I watched Potter in the Top Box tonight."
Draco hadn't known this. He waited.
"He struck me as mediocre. Nothing particularly to distinguish him from any Weasley boy."
"He defeated the Dark Lord at age one," Draco said. "And Dumbledore has been paying him significant personal attention ever since he arrived at Hogwarts. Dumbledore doesn't expend effort without reason."
"Dumbledore also protected a werewolf for a decade and filled a professorship with a fraud for three years running." Lucius examined his cane. "His judgement is not infallible."
"Lucius." Narcissa's voice was composed and had the quality of having won this particular argument before. "Draco is at Hogwarts, not you. He knows what's happening there better than either of us, and he has clearly managed the Potter acquaintance with discretion. It's done us no harm, and it may do us some good. I don't see why we're still discussing it."
Lucius looked at his wife. He looked at his son. He made a sound that was not quite agreement and not quite concession.
"You still need to be disciplined," he said, falling back to a position he clearly felt more certain of. "Running off. Making me stand in front of Arthur Weasley and be grateful."
"You left him alone in the tent," Narcissa said.
"The tent is perfectly safe—"
"We should go home," Narcissa said, in the tone that ended discussions. "He needs a bath and sleep, and I've had quite enough of this place." She looked at Lucius. "You know people in the Portkey office."
He did. They were on their way within the hour.
The following morning at Malfoy Manor, over a breakfast of Angus steak and toast, Lucius dropped the Daily Prophet onto the table in front of Draco with a satisfaction he was not entirely bothering to conceal.
Draco read the headline without picking it up.
Ministry in Chaos — Dark Wizards Roam Free — Senior Official Under Scrutiny — Security Failures Bring Shame—
He looked at his father.
"Read it aloud," said Lucius.
Draco picked up the paper. He found the relevant passage and read:
"A senior Ministry official may find himself under scrutiny following last night's events. According to sources, the Dark Mark conjured above the campsite may be closely connected to this official's house-elf. While this official has long presented himself as a staunch opponent of the Dark Arts, questions surrounding his family cannot be ignored. The Ministry faces mounting pressure to conduct an internal review—"
He folded the paper and set it down.
Lucius was cutting Narcissa's steak — an old habit, automatic — and watching his son with the particular attention of a man who expected a specific reaction and had not yet received it.
Draco said, after a moment, "I expect Mr. Crouch is having some difficulty sleeping."
Lucius settled back in his chair, satisfied.
"Good." The resolute glint in his grey eyes was very like Draco's own. "Remember this. No one makes a false accusation against a Malfoy without consequences."
Draco reached for his knife and fork.
"Yes, Father," he said. "I know."