Chapter Text
“They band together against the life of the righteous and condemn innocent blood as if it were guilty.”
— Psalm 94:21
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
They weren’t just marking time—they were driving it into his chest, every tick of the clock like a nail pounded between his ribs. Draco sat directly beneath it—in the very heart of the Wizengamot, under the eternal, motionless stares of stone figures gazing down from the carved reliefs along the chamber walls. The ceiling vanished into shadows like the throat of some vast leviathan, and only at the base of this oppressive funnel did the light stab down—not from windows, no, those had long since been boarded up. The light came from the system itself. Harsh. Merciless. Bloodless.
Even the magic here seemed ill. It didn’t hum or pulse—it dragged itself across the space like a dying beast. Spells didn’t spark to life; they oozed into the air, thick and slow, as if each incantation had to claw its way through slime. The air wasn’t just stale—it had soured, heavy with the mold of old robes and the sweat of cowards who had survived the war only to hand over their brothers for a taste of safety.
Even silence felt like a curse.
And in that silence—the rustle of robes, the click of claws, the scratch of quills against parchment. A faint crunch, as if someone were chewing their own opinion into pulp.
The judges sat in a semicircle, like butchers at a ceremonial feast. Some whispered. Some stared directly at him. Some looked right through him. Only one figure wept at the long table to the side, silently dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief: his mother. Narcissa Malfoy, pale as a statue, her hair pulled so tightly it seemed she was holding her face together by force of will.
And he... he sat on the edge of a blade. Dressed in black, no family crest, no ring on his hand—as if he were already disowned, already condemned. And perhaps, he thought, he was.
“Mr. Malfoy,” came a voice as piercing as a cold blade. “Are you aware of where your ‘cooperation’ has led you? Do you acknowledge that by remaining at the Manor and opening it to the Death Eaters, you became an accomplice?”
“I was a child,” he replied. His voice was steady, almost devoid of emotion. He was surprised at how calmly it sounded. “And I became a hostage, as did my entire household. You know that perfectly well.”
“And yet…” the woman in the robe with the red trim slowly rose. “Still, you had a choice. Your choice caused the suffering of many.”
One of the judges looked as if he had fed on sour resentment his entire life, his lips thin as a cut, eyes cloudy, malicious, perpetually dissatisfied. Another resembled a fat toad in a robe—with bulging eyes that never blinked, as if waiting for the moment to devour him whole. The third, silver-haired with a sharp, beak-like face, had lips trembling with anticipation, as if she enjoyed this trial more than her morning tea.
And he—he sat there, and at some point realized he was speaking calmly. Excessively calmly. Even restrained. As if he wasn’t the one being led to slaughter, but an observer, indifferent and cold, like water in a stagnant pond. For a moment, this unsettled him. Who the hell are you to sound like that? Why aren’t you screaming, shaking, vomiting bile in response? He wanted to be afraid, but instead—he smirked slightly, watching the toad-judge’s second chin quiver with rage.
“Protocol number three hundred ninety-seven,” the chief magistrate began monotonously, without lifting his eyes. His voice was like a brush scraping glass—dry, precise, sterile. “Testimonies have been heard, including that of Mr. Harry James Potter, who confirmed under oath that the defendant, Draco Lucius Malfoy, did not participate in active combat on the side of the Dark Lord in the final months of the war and, at a critical moment, took actions that contributed to saving lives, including those of minors.”
He paused briefly, flipping through papers with emphasized academic importance, as if reading the results of some graduation exam rather than determining a person’s fate. Then, without lifting his gaze: “The testimony of Mr. Potter, as well as a certified recording from Hogwarts provided by the school’s headmaster, have been added to the case and deemed valid.”
He paused again, smiling with one corner of his desiccated, corpse-like lips. Draco nearly gagged.
“Additionally, the case materials include the testimony of Hermione Jean Granger,” the judge continued, still not lifting his gaze, as if rereading a list of burns. “From a legal standpoint, they do not contain direct accusations, but in several aspects point to aggravating circumstances, particularly the defendant’s involvement with the Death Eaters, his inaction in certain incidents, and, I quote, ‘conscious avoidance of resistance to Voldemort’s regime within the walls of Malfoy Manor.’”
Pause. Someone in the hall coughed—it sounded like spitting on stone.
“Notably,” the judge added, flipping the page with restraint, “Ms. Granger declined the right to provide oral clarifications. Only a written statement was submitted to the court.”
The paper, written in her hand, still smelled of ink and disappointment.
Narcissa sat hunched at the edge of the visitors’ bench, as if she were trying to disappear into the folds of her elegant but now dignityless robes. Her shoulders trembled in rhythm with the muffled sobs pressed into a handkerchief clenched in bony fingers—so tightly the knuckles had turned white. The sound of her crying grated on Draco’s nerves more than the crunch of gravel under an Auror’s boot or the smoke-ravaged voice of a Council elder: it was too familiar. Too domestic. Too much like the past he no longer had. Like a kindness that now came with a price.
Those sobs were like broken notes in an aria after the orchestra had long fallen silent.
He wanted her to stop. Because each cry sounded like an accusation. Because each breath reminded him she still waited for a miracle that would never come. Because he, too, wanted to cry—but couldn’t afford that kind of weakness. She wept like things could still be undone. As if it wasn’t him, but someone else sitting in that chair beneath the enchanted chandeliers, branded in blood, judged by every pair of eyes in a courtroom full of robes and righteous fury.
“Harry Potter can say whatever he likes,” he said, his voice bouncing off the marble walls with a hint of contempt. “But I’m not here because he said ‘spare him’ . I’m here because you decided you’d rather see repentance than hear the truth.”
He paused, gaze unwavering, though his fingers clutched the edge of the chair as if it were gravity—not law—holding him in place.
“I repent,” he exhaled at last. Dry. Emotionless. Without performance. “I repent, as required. So you can tick the box and let your conscience, if any of you still have one, sleep through the night.”
He raised his eyes—no plea in them, no submission. Only exhaustion. Only a kind of anger, sun-bleached and bone-dry.
“But if you asked me whether I would do it differently,” he said, voice like ash, “the answer is no. Not because I liked it. Not because I believed in it. But because I was a sixteen-year-old boy given a choice between two ropes—one tighter, the other longer.”
He leaned forward slightly, fingers laced over his knees.
“You’re not really listening. Because the verdict was written long before I opened my mouth. It’s easier to close the case than admit that what you see in my hands isn’t ideology — it’s survival. You want repentance? Fine. Here it is. Take it. And keep the truth for yourselves. I don’t need it anymore.”
The circle of judges stirred like someone had kicked a rotting log in a stagnant swamp. Faces soured, contorted, pale with fury and outrage. One old man with a crest pinned to his robe hissed like a seagull who’d lost the shore — his lips quivered as if he was about to shit himself with indignation. A woman in crimson robes pursed her thin lips like she was sucking on a lemon, then looked at Draco as if someone had let a dead rat into the opera house. Someone in the gallery let out a loud snort, like they were choking on laughter and nausea at once.
And Malfoy? He sat there like a spectator at a filthy circus. Tilted his head a little, let his gaze glide over their faces, and gave them that slow, nauseatingly calm smirk.
The presiding judge — clipped hair, clipped voice, clipped soul — unrolled the scroll before him and, without so much as glancing at Draco, began:
“Given the testimony submitted, including the account of Mr. Potter, and taking into consideration the defendant’s age at the time of most alleged actions, the Wizengamot agrees to an alternative measure.”
He paused — slicing the silence like a knife.
“In lieu of incarceration in Azkaban, you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, are offered conditional release for a period of five years. During this time, you are to cooperate with the Department of Magical Regulation. Your assignment will be to locate and apprehend individuals affected by residual magic connected to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. These subjects pose a threat to themselves and to others. Given your heritage, knowledge, and heightened sensitivity to dark magic, you are deemed… suitable.”
His eyes finally rose.
“Refusal to cooperate will trigger full enforcement of your original sentence. Your choice?”
Draco tilted his head slightly to the side, his gaze calm, almost lazy — like a predator wearied by the hunt, but not yet ready to drop the chase.
“I accept,” he said hoarsely, almost a whisper — but it fell into the chamber like a shout.
The judge gave a curt nod—dry, emotionless, like an automaton completing its final command.
“In that case,” he began, rolling up the parchment, “in accordance with the Wizengamot’s decision and under the provisions of Postwar Accord No. 148-Ω, an Unbreakable Vow shall be sealed between you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, and an observer appointed by the Ministry.”
He tapped his knuckles against the thick folder before him.
“This Vow, enforced both magically and legally, will serve as a guarantee of your cooperation. Any violation will result in immediate death. Magic of this nature allows no leniency.”
The judge finally looked up.
“Your assigned observer will be confirmed shortly. Until then, you are under temporary supervision and are prohibited from leaving the territory of the United Kingdom without approval from the Postwar Regulation Council.”
He sighed — for the first time, something informal in his voice.
“That is all. Court adjourned.”
Draco stepped out of the courtroom as if it had spat him out—like vomit from the festering gut of the court, where the air stank of old quills, human sweat, and the stale breath of ancient magic. The corridor met him with cold and echoing footsteps, as if the walls chewed up each sound and refused to give any of them back.
Wizards in robes flinched away, turned their backs, some purposefully stood with their shoulders squared in silence, and some stared at him with that peculiar mix of fear and disdain war always left behind. The place smelled of damp wool, scorched wood, cheap ink.
He had no idea where to go, and no one rushed to tell him—somewhere near a column stood an auror with a face like an underripe peach, clearly new, far too clean for this building. The observer, they’d said, would be selected later. Until then— roam free, Malfoy. But don’t go too far.
He felt like a chained dog—wearing a gilded collar that bit into the vertebrae, but tethered to a chain so short it barely let him take a step. Freedom handed down by judicial grace stank of falsehood. It felt like all of it—every inch of space—was still screaming his name as a curse. He could breathe, blink, walk—but each step echoed like a clank of metal, as if someone behind him still held the leash, waiting for the first wrong turn. Then they’d yank it. Not with spells—but with rules. Paperwork. A life sentence tattooed under his skin in invisible ink.
“Draco,” Narcissa whispered when he approached. Her voice trembled like a tightened string, unsure whether to play a dirge or scream. “You… you’re either brave. Or stupid. I honestly don’t know.”
She looked up at him—small, almost shrunken beneath the weight of her own shadows. In her hands was a handkerchief, crumpled into a meaningless scrap of cloth.
“But you’re still my son,” she added, louder now, her voice catching in a rasp. “Even if they make a dog out of you. Just… please. Stay alive. If nothing else, Draco. Just that.”
He didn’t answer. Only looked at her—heavy, worn, a gaze rubbed raw by time—then gave the faintest nod and walked on.
The thought of returning to Malfoy Manor made him nauseous. So sharply, so physically, that just picturing it sent bile crawling up his throat. The house that once stood proud, with spires that scraped the sky and marble corridors that whispered wealth, now reeked of damp, of old blood, of hope long since extinguished. The Death Eaters had soaked into everything—not just the walls, but the air, the light, the very shadows, stretched in corners like ghosts too bitter to die.
Every chair, every hearth, every goddamn doorknob whispered reminders of what had happened. Of what he had allowed. What he had been. Malfoy Manor was no longer a home—it was a mausoleum. A twisted echo chamber of footsteps that weren’t his, of screams that never faded. And the worst part? It was his history. His guilt. His prison.
***
“My child, if you choose to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing.”
— Sirach 2:1 (Ecclesiasticus)
The house was crooked, as if it had turned its back on the world. It stood on the outskirts of Hounslow — a Muggle-gray sinkhole peppered with pockets of magical rot the Ministry pretended not to notice. The roof had caved in, the walls breathed mildew, and the nails groaned with every gust of wind, as though the house were complaining about its own existence. Outside — not a soul. Only skeletal trees and the ragged cries of crows no one feared anymore.
Inside wasn’t much better. It smelled of mice, soot, and spent spells. The ceiling hung low, as if trying to crush anyone beneath it, and the floor was uneven, like time itself was trying to shove the shack back into the earth. The potions on the shelves had long since dried up, the parchments cracked like the skin of a dying man. On the table — a dust-covered map with bleeding ink, the marks still pulsing with fading magic, trembling as they began to dissolve. The air wasn’t cold — it was indifferent. There was no life in it, but no death either. Just emptiness.
She sat on a wobbly wooden chair by a long-dead fireplace, back to a window covered in smoke-blackened parchment instead of glass. Her spine ached, her legs were numb, but she didn’t move — just scratched at her palms like something had nested under the skin, and the only way to rip it out was to tear herself open.
Her nails left crimson welts, her skin burned, and beneath it — something throbbed, pulsed, like a heart that wasn’t hers. Magic. Uninvited. Incomprehensible. Unwanted. It didn’t hum — it slithered, thick like oil, smelling of burnt herbs and blood. No one had taught her this kind of magic. She hadn’t asked for it. But it churned under the surface, festering, ready to burst.
Her godmother sat in the corner, wrapped in a worn but clean shawl, cradling a cup of herbal brew in her gnarled hands as if the room weren’t half-rotted but rather the waiting chamber of some old Ministry office. Her face was a map of creases, but her eyes were sharp — warm, attentive, with the kind of gentleness that clings to those who’ve survived too much without losing their humanity. She was one of those who knew how to hold a wand right, and how to stay silent when silence meant salvation.
Once a respected employee of the Department of Magical Incidents, exiled after an operation she herself had uncovered — the very same case the Ministry quietly buried once the names involved proved too pure for punishment. What remained in her wasn’t just resentment, but iron resolve. She knew all too well that justice did not always live in the law.
“Stop clawing at yourself like some damned possessed girl,” her godmother rasped without lifting her gaze from the cup, though her voice rang with steel. “Next time I see blood on your hands, I’ll hit you with a body-bind — just like the good old days. You’ll have plenty of time to tear yourself apart when you’re dead. Until then, sit still and breathe.”
Lilith flinched, as if someone had doused her in cold water. Her godmother’s voice, though brittle with age, still cut like a rusted blade — not loud, but sharp, carrying the weight of decades and an unspoken authority to be obeyed. Her shoulders tensed instinctively, as if the woman’s shadow had fallen over her, and she quickly hid her hands in her sleeves, pressing her palms to her sides like she could silence the storm beneath her skin simply by not looking at it.
This life didn’t suit her — not because it was hard, but because it felt borrowed, foreign. Once, she had stood behind a lectern, solving advanced charm theory and debating professors with calm confidence, citing ancient texts like second nature. Smart, calculated, poised — she’d worn her uniform with pride, believing her knowledge would mean something.
Now, with tangled hair, a stained robe, and hand-stitched gloves tossed on a windowsill that barely resembled a window, she looked more like a runaway than a witch. Her eyes were still sharp, but behind them lived an exhaustion — the kind that comes from being forced to stay strong for too long. Not pain, not magic, but meaninglessness — that was what scraped her down to the bone.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she finally whispered, staring not at her godmother but at a crack between the floorboards. Her voice was dry, hoarse with weariness. “But I can feel it shifting inside me. Flowing, boiling, pounding beneath my skin like it’s alive. I don’t want to admit it, but I think it’s too late — someone felt it. Someone stronger. Someone who knows.”
She dragged a hand down her face and let out a bitter, humorless laugh.
“You really think no one at the Ministry has noticed? That in a whole department full of jackals, not a single one has wondered where that surge of dark energy came from? What are the odds, honestly, that they’re not already looking for me?”
She glanced at her godmother, her eyes flickering with anxiety and a tired defiance.
“We’re just sitting here, guessing when they’ll knock down the door. But I swear… I think they’re already on the threshold.”
“So, you are afraid,” her godmother murmured, watching her closely. Her voice was tired, but there wasn’t a single note of fear in it. “Good. You should be. Fear’s not the enemy — it’s an anchor. If you weren’t scared, I’d have thrown you out myself. Straight into the arms of the Aurors. Only a fool doesn’t feel it when the clouds start gathering overhead.”
She stepped closer, crouched down in front of her, and firmly placed a hand over Lilith’s, ignoring her reflex to pull away.
“But sit your arse down and stop whining about the fate of the world. As long as they’re looking — we’re alive . As long as they haven’t found us — we breathe.” Her eyes narrowed, sharp as a wandtip. “And you, if you really want to know what’s happening to you, stop pitying yourself and start listening . Not to the streets, not to them — to yourself . To the filth crawling under your skin. Because when they come — and they will — they won’t ask questions. One look will be enough.”
Her parents were found dead in their estate on the southern edge of Ottery St. Catchpole — the part where Muggles feared to settle and witches built their homes with charm suppressors embedded in the walls. The Monclairs’ manor had been cut off from the outside world by barriers and blood-bound wards — the kind that respond only to ancient bloodlines — but that night, something tore the protections apart like they were paper, as if time itself had peeled back.
Neighbors swore they’d seen a black cloud above the forest, heard the crack of spells, and the roaring — not human, more like beasts tearing into each other. By morning, silence. The Ministry arrived hours later to find only cold bodies lying in a circle of ash, eyes rolled skyward, and traces of a curse so old they didn’t even teach it anymore — not even in the Department of Curses. The blood splattered on walls and glyphs didn’t belong to her parents — nor to humans at all. The Aurors argued whether it was linked to Voldemort, to the ancient magical houses, or to something older still — something from forgotten cults. The case was closed for lack of evidence.
Lilith, thirteen at the time, had been sent to her godmother — a former Ministry employee, the only one who realized it hadn’t been an attack.
It had been a warning.
Once, Lilith Monclair had worn a Ravenclaw tie with pride, boasted top marks, and scorned anyone who took shortcuts to knowledge. She’d graduated Hogwarts a year before the war began, noted in the register as “a promising theoretical magic scholar” — a title that meant absolutely nothing when the real shit started.
Her diploma, once neatly tucked into a leather folder, now lay somewhere in a drawer — stained with ink, faded like the very concept of education in a world where every other spellcaster was either dead or a weapon. Ironically, she’d never studied under Snape’s regime, never wore the prisoner’s mark, never fought in the battles… and yet she was just as scarred.
Only difference was, her wounds didn’t bleed on the outside.
Now the only thing she had left to boast about was survival — and even that, barely.
She knew it all too well — there weren’t just many like her. There were too many . They weren’t given diagnoses. No one offered them help, no one searched for reasons. They were simply entered into a list — long, dust-covered, crumbling under the weight of too many names. Hers was just one among hundreds, scorched onto parchment by a Ministry quill, neither brighter nor duller than the rest. She wasn’t chosen, wasn’t cursed — just another casualty of the Collapse. Given no scar, no prophetic dreams, only the stench that whispered through her bloodstream, the fractured magic pooling in her palms like oil from a cracked vessel, leaking through the seams of reality itself.
It had been some time since the death of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and everyone liked to believe that with his body had vanished his influence. But magic doesn’t die that easily — especially not his . Twisted, rotting, ripped violently from the natural flow, his magic hadn’t vanished in the smoke of a final spell. It had lingered. It had searched, chosen, whispered — and in the end, it found new vessels. Not cold horcruxes, not relics — but warm, breathing bodies. People it could fill completely. Not by choice, not by design, but by the cruel randomness of the chaos he’d left behind.
And now, with no way to turn back, the consequences were beginning to bleed through — like mold crawling across the walls, like voices stirring in silence, like a sickness long ignored. No one had asked for this — least of all Lilith. No one welcomed it, no one opened a door to the scorched, foreign force that slithered beneath their skin like venom, filling every crack in the soul. It was a form of violence — slow, intimate, insidious. The magic didn’t just enter. It scarred . Not in ways the average eye could see — but anyone who’d ever felt it would recognize the signs. A gaze that didn’t blink long enough. A voice just a fraction too quiet. A motion — small, subtle — that felt inhuman, distorted.
Lilith hadn’t wanted to be a vessel.
She would’ve bartered away her own memories just to peel the ink-stained film off her skin — the thing that moved , that breathed beneath the surface.
But how do you fight what you don’t even understand?
How do you cast out something with no name, no shape — but a home in your body?
Something that lives inside you, slow and hateful, and doesn’t plan on leaving.
***
“And the spirit of the wicked shall fall, and man shall behold that he is clothed in darkness, and he shall walk, not knowing that his steps lead unto destruction.”
— Book of Enoch, apocryphal
His assigned observer was Terence Higgs.
He entered the room like someone who had already died once—quietly, without warning, but with a weight in his stride that left behind the residue of ash in the air. Tall, with a stoop not from age, but from years of moving forward as if his body had long adapted to living one step closer to danger than necessary. His hair—dark, streaked with grey at the temples—was slicked back carelessly, as though he still believed time could be outwitted. His eyes were grey, but not steel—clouded, like swamp water where someone had drowned and no one bothered to look for the body.
A faint scar curved at the corner of his mouth, like an unfinished “you didn’t save them all.” His robes were black, scorched in places—not new, not well kept, but worn like a second skin. On his right wrist, a leather strap with three silver spell rings hung loose, once primed for lifesaving charms, now echoing nothing but the hoarse breath of a war long over.
There was nothing performative about him. Only silence, endurance, and that suffocating aura shared by those who’d outlived too many battles to still speak loudly.
Draco masked his surprise with precision—the one thing he still did well. His expression remained lazily indifferent, as if he’d expected not Terence Higgs, but a tombstone on his chest. His assignment had come down personally—from Shacklebolt, whose face was carved in stone and whose voice no longer carried faith or mercy. The minister had signed the papers and ordered the Unbreakable Vow to be performed immediately.
Draco didn’t flinch. He spoke the vow as if it were no more serious than choosing wine at dinner, and the minister himself bore witness. His voice held steady. So did his gaze. Only his gut twisted into a knot when the spell cracked through the air and sealed silver thread around his wrist, like a lockless chain.
These terms suited him. He had nowhere left to fall. He’d already died once—in the Manor, at Hogwarts, in the shadow of his father. Everything else was paperwork. And now he belonged to the system, same way he once belonged to the family crest—without choice, without hope, but with official documents and magical binding, the breach of which meant death.
He didn’t fully understand his role in this limping, loophole-ridden machine. They told him, “You’ll help track unstable dark magic traces”—but didn’t bother to explain how. By smell? By the shards of fear lodged behind his eyes? By some gut feeling, like a village girl reading sparrow guts?
No instructions. No manual. They just pointed him toward the field in silence, like he was a bloody landmine detector.
Sure, he knew there was something still inside him—leftover from spells, from Cruciatus, from the Mark, from the years when his magic cracked at the seams, desperate not to explode at dinner. But how deep that “something” went, and worse—what it would demand in return—no one had bothered to explain.
Apparently, if you wore the Mark, you were expected to know how hell worked by default. As if he’d spent his life dealing demons on the black market instead of clawing survival from the rubble of family pride.
Where was he even supposed to begin? No one had explained, handed him a list, or pointed at a map marked: “Here, Malfoy, is where your new life starts.” The post-war world resembled a scorched field patched over with bureaucracy—the Ministry scrambling to rebuild itself, gluing the shards of the old order together with a fresh adhesive of fear and aggression. Suspects were identified not through intellect but intuition, denunciations, surges of unstable magic, and “anomalies” that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be merely people who hadn’t yet buried their pain.
The system was cracking but held together—propped up by a fanatical new ethic and old tools like him. And he—he didn’t even know whom he was supposed to be looking for. Those who glowed when casting spells? Or those who remained silent for too long? His mind was so cluttered with questions that nausea rose in his throat—not from fear, but from the impossibility of clearing the rubble of others’ decisions dumped at his feet. Everything around him felt simultaneously sticky-simple and monstrously convoluted: life had become easier because the signposts had died; and more terrifying—because with the dead, as it turned out, things were much clearer.
Unlike Malfoy, Higgs was thoroughly briefed. He moved with that cold confidence found only in those granted access to the upper echelons of panic: he knew where he was going, whom he was seeking, what exactly he might find there—but he named no names, offered no descriptions, not even, damn it, any signs.
No “look for this kind,” “if you see that—react this way,” not even hints. He just walked, silent, eyes forward, while Draco trailed beside him like a dog on a leash, robbed of scent and sight, yet expected to bark at the right moment. How the hell was he supposed to know what to do when his only so-called “ally”—if that word could even apply to someone who regarded him like an expired tool—hadn’t shared a single crumb of information about what was happening? It felt as if he was being kept in the dark deliberately—not out of hostility, but because it was easier that way. The less he knew, the less he thought. The less he thought, the easier he was to control.
He walked slowly, striving not to lag behind the “curator,” though with each step he felt less like a partner and more like an anchor tied to a rope. The boots he’d polished to a shine that morning now squelched in the grey mire, as if the very earth was trying to pull him back—to where he’d emerged after the trial, mistakenly left alive.
Around them reigned a kind of desolate silence: not the resonant kind found in forests, but a dull, resentful hush—as if this quarter had long ceased to be part of the living world, yet no one had bothered to bury it. Houses stood like faded ghosts: crooked shutters, peeling doors, smoke from chimneys—rare, like a mirage. People appeared but quickly vanished around corners, not approaching, not inquiring, not greeting. Here, no one took interest in unfamiliar faces, because everyone feared that an unfamiliar face would bring misfortune. And, judging by the glances from behind tightly drawn curtains, they and Higgs already were that misfortune.
Terence knocked on the door of the dilapidated house, which seemed to have long since sagged under the weight of its own memories. His knock was unhurried yet carried a precise, clipped confidence that brooked no delay. The door was opened by a man in his fifties, his face weathered like the aged leather binding of an enchanted tome, his eyes lurking in the shadows beneath his brow. He said nothing—just looked, as if he already knew who had come but still hoped it might be someone else.
“We need to speak with Agnes Fint,” Terence said calmly, almost delicately, yet with a tone that conveyed command, protocol, and the futility of refusal all at once. “Regarding unstable magical traces in the area. Preferably without unnecessary ears. And preferably now.”
The man hesitated, as if the words were caught in his throat and reluctant to emerge. His gaze flicked from Terence’s face to Draco’s and back again, as though trying to determine which of them resembled trouble more. Then, frowning, he asked in a strained voice, lacking conviction, “You… who are you?”
Terence’s expression remained unchanged—as though he had anticipated the question and prepared his response in advance, like a line rehearsed for an interrogation.
“Terence Higgs. Senior Coordinator for Unstable Magical Zones, Department of Magical Regulation,” he stated clearly, as if laying down tokens on a table. “Acting under direct mandate from the Regulation Council. My companion is a certified conduit. The matter concerns Agnes Fint. I will not repeat myself.”
“Certified conduit.” Draco nearly smirked—the phrase was delivered with such pomp that, had his wand been at the ready, he might have cast a specific spell of disdain upon Higgs for it. A conduit? Him? He barely understood where he was being led or what exactly he was supposed to channel.
If anyone was forging a path through the mire, the unknown, and the silence, it was Higgs—with his measured phrases, icy confidence, and a list of orders likely concealed somewhere beneath his robes. Draco felt more like a flimsy cane stuck in someone else’s muddy rut: standing, swaying, but hardly leading anyone anywhere. Still, as ironic as it sounded, he held his tongue. Because “certified conduit” sounded better than “conditionally permitted by top-level decree,” and certainly better than “the Marked boy now being dragged across strangers’ thresholds like a broken beacon.”
They entered the house, and the air inside was even more stale than outside—not just dusty, but as if saturated with something old, viscous, living in the cracks of the plaster. The man said nothing, merely gestured toward a narrow staircase leading upward, and proceeded ahead, stepping cautiously, as if fearing that the creak of the steps would betray something still concealable.
On the second floor, at the end of the corridor, he stopped at a door, turned, and, lowering his gaze as if ashamed of the question itself, quietly asked, “You… you won’t harm her, will you? She hasn’t done anything… just… sometimes there are oddities. That’s not a crime, right?”
Terence looked at him almost sympathetically, with that same insincere warmth with which one offers a blanket before an interrogation, and gently, almost reassuringly, nodded.
“No, of course not. We just want to talk. Merely a check,” his voice was steady, like a finely honed blade beneath fabric. “The situation is unstable, you understand. We need to ensure everything is under control.”
A girl was sitting on the bed by the wall — barely younger than Malfoy himself, though she looked as if time had treated her far more cruelly than either of them. Her posture was hunched, not in laziness but as if her shoulders bore not an invisible weight, but the constant fear of being seen. Strands of hair fell across her face like shadows she used to hide behind, and beneath her eyes bloomed dark crescents — not signs of sleepless nights, but scars of some private war.
Her hands rested on her knees, fingers twitching with the restless tremor of someone who could no longer tell where pain ended and compulsion began. Her palms were scratched — not metaphorically, but quite literally: jagged, fresh cuts, with dried blood caked under her nails. It looked as if she’d tried to claw something out of herself — something humming beneath the skin, desperate to escape.
She looked up at them without leaning away from the wall — her gaze wide and restless, like a cornered animal that hadn’t yet decided to strike, but had long since forgotten how to trust.
Terence sank silently into a crooked, old chair across from the bed, folding his arms over his knees and fixing his eyes on her with that deliberately neutral stare of his — void of threat or sympathy. Just observation. Predatory. Cold. As if he were studying not a person, but some volatile new category of magical artifact.
He let the silence thicken, like smoke trapped in a locked room, then nodded — barely — in the girl’s direction, without turning his head.
“Look her over. Talk to her,” he said quietly, without a hint of request in his voice. “Your job, Conduit.”
Draco didn’t move.
He glanced at Terence, then at the girl, then back again — and narrowed his eyes, the look he gave sharp and poisonous rather than curious.
“And what exactly do you suggest I talk to her about?” he drawled, like they were discussing lunch plans, not a girl with bloodied hands and a thousand-yard stare. “The weather? How delightful it is to be a suspect in a world where unstable magic doesn’t get you burned at the stake anymore — just something a bit more modern?”
Terence didn’t flinch.
“You tell me,” he said calmly, as though that wasn’t a deflection, but an established protocol.
Draco watched her in silence — longer than was polite. His gaze held no pity, no menace, only that same predatory wariness, as if he were trying to discern whether her magic would strike first — or whether it already had. Dozens of questions flicked through his mind, each one either too blunt or too useless.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. Then finally spoke — calm, even, free of false warmth.
“Have you ever felt a spell get stuck inside you?” he asked, staring straight into her face. “Not outside. Not when your hand trembles with the wand. But inside — somewhere under your ribs, like it wants to get out on its own, even if you don’t say a word.”
He didn’t blink. His voice was nearly a whisper, but each word cut like a blade honed to perfection. The girl flinched, barely perceptibly, as if the question had brushed against something raw beneath her skin. She pressed herself further into the headboard, shoulders curving inward, hands curling into tight, defensive fists as though she were trying to vanish into the fabric, to become part of the brittle, moth-eaten bed.
And yet, despite the fear coiling beneath her ribs, she nodded — briefly, cautiously, like even that tiny movement could splinter something fragile inside her. Draco didn’t look away. He caught the nod the way one would notice a fracture in a protective charm — subtle, but telling — and after a pause that felt deliberate, granting her space to breathe, he spoke again, his tone softened slightly though still carefully contained:
“Tell me about your parents.”
She didn’t answer at once. The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was thick with hesitation, like the words had caught somewhere between memory and throat.
At last, in a voice scarcely louder than a breath, as if afraid to stir something sleeping nearby, she said, “Dad… was a Muggle. Worked at a petrol station. We moved around a lot. Mum… I never knew her. She died when I was born. He said she was a witch. A strong one.” She paused, then added, quieter still, “But no one ever spoke of her. Not once.”
Draco leaned forward slowly, making no sudden movements, and reached for her hands. He could see the tremor in them — not the kind born of cold, but of something more electric, a tension that ran beneath the skin like a trapped current looking for a way out. His fingers brushed hers with clinical care, almost academically, like he was examining a broken magical artifact.
She jerked away instinctively, like a wild animal sensing the snap of a snare, recoiling sharply and pressing back into the headboard, eyes flashing with a fear far deeper than pain — the kind of fear born from being forced, again and again, to give something no one should have to.
Behind them, Terence remained motionless, his voice cutting through the stillness like a shard of glass.
“If necessary, use your wand. We have full clearance to employ any spells required for the apprehension of unstable subjects. Quick. Clean. No consequences.”
Draco didn’t turn. He didn’t move. Only his eyes narrowed, ever so slightly.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said — softly, but with such quiet conviction that the air in the room seemed to tense around the words. “Give her a minute. She’s not an object.”
He didn’t let go of her hands, only loosened his grip, letting her feel she could break away if she wanted to — but she didn’t. His gaze remained cool, his voice even, detached almost to the point of indifference, but beneath every word hummed the distinct, tempered hardness of someone who had learned too early how the world truly worked.
“Listen closely,” he said, without raising his voice. “You might have a gift. Or a curse. Right now, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that your magic is unstable. We can see it. Feel it. Register it. That makes you… of interest. Not just to us. And not just today.”
He leaned in a fraction closer, not to threaten her, but to make sure her gaze couldn’t drift from his.
“You have a choice,” he said, voice low but cutting. “You can stay silent, flinch, hide under a blanket and hope it all goes away. But I promise you — it won’t. Once the smell of blood reaches the Department of Containment, they’ll send others. Not me. Not Higgs. People who don’t care about your trembling, or your father, or your dead mother. They’ll care about one thing only — making sure you’re no longer a problem.”
The words hit Draco harder than he expected — sudden, almost physical, like they’d bounced off the walls and come back to strike his ribs. He was bluffing. The truth was, he didn’t know what happened to people like her. Didn’t know what protocols were triggered when “instability is confirmed,” didn’t know if such protocols even existed or if it all came down to the mood of whoever filled out the paperwork.
Maybe they were thrown into Azkaban, regardless of age. Maybe they were killed — simply, routinely, to avoid setting a precedent. Maybe — and this thought was the worst — maybe they unleashed Dementors on them, like starving hounds, just to skip the bother of a trial. He’d never asked. No one had told him. And now he felt that thin, clinging fear scratching somewhere between his throat and his stomach — not for himself, but for the fact that he might be the voice of a system he didn’t understand, a mouthpiece for something that might eat her whole.
She raised her hands toward him — slowly, visibly shaking, but without a word, as if the gesture itself said everything: Look. Here it is. My proof. My scream. Her palms were open, raw, torn in ways that defied reason — not scratches, not cuts, but ruptures, as though something had tried to claw its way out from within, something beyond magic or logic.
The blood hadn’t dried yet, sliding in thick drops down her wrists, soaking into her sleeves, and smelling of something too alive, too real. Draco realized his own breath had shortened — not out of pity, no, he’d long since stepped past that — but from something deeper: a bitter, twisted recognition. Those hands were a reflection of something he carried inside himself, only he’d never had the courage — or the madness — to tear it out.
“When did it start?” he asked, eyes still on her hands — and yet, looking far beyond them.
His voice no longer held command, no trace of venom, not even the shield of indifference. Just a question. Soft. Human. Maybe the only one of its kind he’d spoken that day. The girl looked away — not from shame, but as if reaching for a memory too raw to name. She was silent for a moment before answering, her voice rough, distant, as though she spoke not to him, but to the emptiness in the room.
“After the war ended,” she said, barely audible. “Not right away. A couple months later. At first it was just… strange. The magic didn’t react the same way. Things started moving on their own, even without a wand. Sometimes things I hadn’t even touched. Sometimes… from another room.”
She paused, frowning, her chin trembling slightly.
“And then it started feeling like… like someone had taken up residence under my skin. Not a parasite — no. Not a sickness. Something of my own. Separate. Like a source of magic I hadn’t called for.”
Her voice tightened.
“My wand started responding with delay — I’d aim for one thing, and something else would come out. I tried ‘Lumos’ once — it cast ‘Confringo’ instead. And it hurt. The spells, when they went through me… it was like holding a live wire with wet hands. Like I wasn’t channeling the magic — I was just the conduit.”
She clenched her hands suddenly, as if she could still feel the jolt.
“And then… the blood. I stopped sleeping. Started seeing dreams that felt like someone was planting memories — memories that weren’t mine. Spells in the dark. Ancient ones. Words no one ever taught me. Sometimes I didn’t even say them aloud — and things still happened. A window cracked. The rats in the cellar caught fire. My father never said anything, but I saw the way he looked at me. He was afraid. I would’ve been afraid of me too.”
The thought hit Draco with a sickening clarity — she’s not going to make it — and settled over him like a heavy, wet shroud. He stopped breathing for a moment, as if his body itself had decided: don’t move. Don’t let it show that you understand. But he did. He looked at her and knew — not guessed, not wondered, knew — that somewhere, in another room, papers were already being prepared.
Maybe not today. Maybe in a week. But they’d come. And when they did, they would be written carefully, clinically: instability. Threat. Probability of irreversible magical breakdown. And even if she walked out of this place alive, with bandaged hands and a fragile heartbeat, they would come for her eventually — not to help, not to heal, but to eliminate the problem. And the worst part wasn’t even that.
The worst part was that he could feel the magic inside her — alien, scorching, like ink spilled across dry parchment. And now, sitting so close, face to face, he understood why he was brought here: he was a beacon. A resonator. His magic responded to bursts like this, the way glass vibrates to the right frequency. He could find people like her in a crowd. Recognize it in a single note of their voice. In the movement of air.
He felt no pity. No compassion. Those words had rotted out inside him back at Hogwarts, under the weight of the Mark, beneath his father’s gaze, crushed by his mother’s silent expectations. He’d been taught that people like Agnes were a mistake, an anomaly, a currency the world paid to preserve bloodlines.
And yet… something inside him clenched. Quietly. Sharply. Almost painfully. Because she hadn’t chosen any of this — just as he hadn’t. He hadn’t chosen his name, hadn’t chosen the Mark, hadn’t chosen to become a scarecrow propped up in someone else’s war. It had happened to him — before he’d ever had a chance to be anything.
Before he’d even been born. When he was still nothing but a name unspoken, a child unborn, and the path had already been carved beneath him. He looked at her now — at a vessel, not of magic but of someone else’s will — and, for the first time, understood the horror of being a bearer of something you never asked to carry.
Worse than what lived inside her was how she spoke of it — without hysteria, without excuses, without any attempt to save herself. This trembling girl with torn hands was more honest than anyone who’d ever signed orders, written laws, worn judge’s robes and declared moral high ground.
She laid her head on the block without fanfare, without drama, as if she knew exactly where this would lead. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was too young, too naïve to understand the cost. But there was no middle ground between “understanding” and “not understanding.” And that was the most terrifying part. Because he could feel it — the magic in her — and it didn’t belong to any ordinary witch. It belonged to the Dark Lord.
Not in name, not in power, but in that rotten, cold energy that clawed at the heart like a fist. Voldemort’s body, mind, and heart had long since rotted into silence — but his magic had survived. Not as power. As sickness. As legacy. As a torn execution order hurled to the wind, now clinging to the first person too sensitive not to hear it. Agnes wasn’t cursed — she was a recipient . She hadn’t wanted this power — but it had come. And worse: it had stayed .
Draco barely registered what happened next — everything blurred into a watery, grey fog, through which Terence’s voice cut like a blade. “Imperius,” said Higgs, tone unchanged. And in the next moment, the light in the girl’s face vanished.
Her eyes remained open, but the fear was gone — all emotion was gone. She rose from the bed obediently, like someone had tugged invisible strings. She walked without stumbling, yet there was something unnatural in the way she moved — that particular, mechanical rhythm of a body no longer its own.
Downstairs, her father screamed — raw, desperate, the sound of a cornered animal — and lunged toward the stairs, but he was stopped with a single flick of a wand. Frozen mid-motion, his fingers gripped the railing, his face twisted in terror.
Terence dragged her out of the house quickly, efficiently, the way one might remove evidence from a crime scene — not a person.
Draco didn’t move. He couldn’t. But the worst part was: it no longer surprised him. His stillness had long since stopped feeling like helplessness. It had become habit.
***
“That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is lacking cannot be numbered.”
— Ecclesiastes 1:15, Old Testament
The Center for Magical Stabilization — that was what they called the places where people like her were taken. It sounded almost noble, even reassuring, as if it were about help, treatment, control… not imprisonment. But in truth, those “centers” were more like improvised asylum-prisons, cobbled together from the ruins left behind by the war, patched up with spells like scars covered in gauze.
Lilith had seen one herself — on a trip to Ravenmuth in the northwest, when her aunt had once again fallen ill and she had to gather rare medicinal herbs that only grew on the coastal cliffs. The building loomed behind a fence of tangled charms and rusted iron, its windows sealed not with shutters but with Silencing Charms, so that neither sound nor sight could breach the walls. A wizard stood at the gates, face blank, as if he’d grown up from the soil along with that cursed place.
Beside him stood a girl in a grey robe, trembling, with a shadow over her face that didn’t speak of madness, but of a quiet understanding — the kind that comes with knowing you’re already lost. Lilith didn’t know what unnerved her more — the building itself, or the sudden, bone-deep fear that one day she might find herself on the other side of that wall.
She left the house only in gloves — not because she hoped no one could guess what lay beneath, but because that thin layer of fabric offered some illusion of a barrier between her and the rest of the world. The skin beneath no longer bled as fiercely as before, but it still throbbed — not from pain, but from a magic that wasn’t her own, embedded in the tissue like a parasite living its own life.
The wounds had quieted, but they hadn’t disappeared. And for Lilith, that was something like a shield — imagined, ephemeral, but just enough to let her breathe among people. The whispers followed her everywhere: in shops, at corners, behind her back. Sometimes they faded, sometimes they sharpened, but they never vanished. And still, there was something strangely comforting in them — she wasn’t alone. There were more like her now.
“Plague-touched,” “spoiled,” “cursed” — the names varied, but despite the revulsion, society had been forced to acknowledge: they had not died. They lived. They ate. They slept. They bought bread. They searched for herbs. And in that — in their undeniable presence in the world — Lilith found a small, almost painful drop of peace.
The shop smelled of stale lavender, damp soil, and something acrid, like death carried in a canvas sack. The merchant stood behind the counter, hunched, cloaked in a robe that might once have been green but now looked more like the color of swamp water. His face was narrow, his cheeks sunken, nose sharp — as though time itself had carved him from a gnarled root.
He didn’t greet her when she entered — simply turned his eyes toward her, and judging by the unmoved crease of his mouth, didn’t even blink. Her gloved hands trembled slightly as she unfolded a crumpled note listing the herbs.
“I need windbane, dried sage, gall-root peel, and kwithnia tincture,” she said evenly, as if reciting the ingredients for poison rather than medicine.
“For whom?” he asked, not out of interest, but with something oily sliding just beneath the words. His voice was rasping, like his vocal cords had long forgotten how to express curiosity.
“For my aunt,” she replied, without meeting his eyes.
He made a short sound — somewhere between a scoff and a gurgle — and began to slowly wrap the herbs in paper. He did it like one might handle ashes — carefully, and with distaste.
“They used to not let your kind out unsupervised,” he muttered, half to himself. “Now I hear even Malfoys get to walk the streets. World’s rotting faster than the roots can grow.”
Lilith said nothing. She simply laid the coins on the counter without looking at him, took the bundle, and as she turned to leave, her voice — when it finally came — was calm, unshaken: “Good thing roots don’t grow by your will.”
She counted out the exact amount in silence, laid the coins on the cracked countertop, careful not to touch his fingers. The rough parchment crinkled softly in her hand, as if it somehow knew it was being held by someone who no longer belonged among the “normal.” The merchant didn’t reach for the payment right away. He stared at her for a long time, eyes narrowed, as if trying to see just how deep the rot began beneath the gloves. Then he sighed — not wearily, but theatrically, like he wasn’t speaking to her at all, but to some invisible presence over her shoulder.
“This is the last time,” he muttered, slowly taking the money. “New law. As of today, we’re no longer allowed to sell to those who…” He didn’t say the word cursed , but it hung in the air like a blade over the throat. “It’s a Ministry ban. Word is, even gathering herbs without permission now counts as a punishable offense. So don’t take it personally. Just… don’t come back.”
Lilith only shrugged — without anger, without surprise, not even bitterness. She had expected this. Law after law, measure after measure — everything related to the “unstable” kept tightening, and what was once done openly was now forbidden even in whispers. It wasn’t news to her — just another nail in the coffin the Ministry was hammering down methodically, on every last one of them.
They were being restricted in everything: where they could go, where they could live, their right to treatment, to work, even to breathe beside others. And if before they could at least hide, scraping by on scraps and shadows, now everything had shifted — the system had stopped searching. It was waiting. The pressure was designed to make the unstable come in on their own — crawl, surrender, present themselves broken and starving, like lambs to slaughter. Not because they believed in mercy. But because death — especially slow, hungry death — was more terrifying than the magic that ate them from the inside out.
“And that Malfoy of yours,” she said as she reached the door, not turning back, “why isn’t he locked up?”
The words fell like a blade slipping off the table — cold, accidental, but sharp. The disgust in her voice was unmistakable, though it didn’t spit — it was older, settled deep in the bones, like mold feeding on memory. The Malfoys — pureblooded, well-groomed, untouched — had survived the war with pressed robes and a home still standing, as if it had all passed them by. People like them were always saved by their name.
The merchant froze for a moment, as if something sharp had clicked in his mind. His hand stayed on the counter, but his fingers curled tight.
“Him…” he started, then cut himself off, glancing toward the window — though nothing waited beyond but fog. “People don’t say much. Not allowed to. But I’ve heard things… rumors, you know?”
Lilith said nothing, but her silence was sharp as command: speak .
“They didn’t imprison him because he’s… useful, supposedly,” the man said at last, lowering his voice. “Word is, the Ministry’s been recruiting some of the former ones. Not all, but… people like him. The ones with ‘a nose for it.’ The ones who still have something left in their blood. They help now. Help track the unstable. People like you.”
He looked up and, for the first time, met her eyes. Not with contempt — but with something closer to understanding. That grim, inevitable kind of understanding where no one is right, and no one is clean.
“You get it,” he said quietly. “They pour new shit over the old. Makes it stink less.”
Lilith knew Draco Malfoy — not personally, but well enough to remember. He’d been a year below her at Hogwarts, wore the uniform, and looked at anyone not pure-blooded like dirt under his nails. A few times, his father had appeared at the school — Lucius, all polish and poison, with that particular way of holding his head as if the entire castle had been built to honor his lineage.
Lilith had graduated before the war broke out in full, and after that, she’d heard nothing of Draco — nor had she cared to. He had always been the kind who believed that his blood alone would shield him — from fear, from pain, from doubt. As if lineage could replace a conscience. Clearly, that had turned out to be a lie. Because now, even those like him didn’t stand on pedestals — they stood on edges. Not among heroes. Not among the cursed. Balanced on a knife-point, where every step was not a choice, but a sentence.
When the Dumbledore incident happened, the Malfoy name surfaced again — loud, grotesquely noble, rising from whispers and headlines like a corpse from a swamp. The talk wasn’t just about him, but about all those who “knew but stayed silent,” about children who’d been handed weapons and then blamed for forging them. Lilith felt no sympathy, no compassion. She was certain: people like him belonged in Azkaban. For their names. For their inheritance. For standing not just nearby — but standing silent, in the right direction.
And yet… she didn’t hate him either — not with the burning fury that feeds revenge. No. She understood the leash he’d been on. Understood that he had been a child grown in a greenhouse of fear, power, and ancestral pride — a place where no was never allowed to bloom. He had done what he was told, because the alternative was worse. And that, perhaps, was the most revolting part: he hadn’t been a monster. He’d been a function. A son. A pawn. Stained — but not the inked hand that wrote the orders.
The truth was, Lilith hadn’t held affection for anyone in a long time. Not for the Order. Not for the Ministry. Not for the Aurors. Not for Hogwarts. They had won — and so what? Voldemort had fallen, but the world hadn’t grown cleaner; it had simply changed its mask. People had died then — they were still dying now.
Then, it had been for blood, for names, for words. Now, it was for magic they hadn’t chosen, for instability, for symptoms they couldn’t control. Lilith was no idealist — she knew that if the Dark Lord had won, everything would have been worse, darker, more terrifying. But now… now wasn’t better. Now was a different kind of broken. And watching the world exile those who had simply survived , she found herself wondering more and more: was this really a victory?
Or just a new kind of defeat — more polished, more official, with a Ministry stamp on the bottom of the page.