That evening, Lys clutched a bottle, staring at Gabon's head sprawled across the table:
"Gabon, tell me—oh right, you can't talk. Just listen to me then. You think after all these years of not fighting, not competing, am I doing well or badly now?"
"Look, Thomas, Burns, St. Mungo's, Black, and all those little families with Dark Marks floating over their houses—I think our family's doing alright, don't you?"
Lys choked on her drink, violently coughing the alcohol from her windpipe before continuing:
"But, but look, there are good ones too! As long as they obediently listen, their families stay safe and sound. So why is it that when it comes to me, we nearly got wiped out entirely?"
"You know... Ow! Don't smack me with your tail..." Lys leaned against the wall. "I thought about it after discovering what happened to the Thomas family, but I had no strength, no feasible plan. I only dared keep my distance. Now I've grown stronger but still can't leave—he can come back! He actually came back! He's so annoying, Gabon. Sometimes I worry that man's snake will eat you!"
Lys opened both hands like claws toward Gabon, baring her teeth like she was scaring a child, only to get smacked again.
"I can't let him have things so smooth... Doesn't he think I'm an idiot? Doesn't he want to use my brother as decoration after everything's done?"
"Maybe I can't accomplish much, but making things less smooth for him would make me very happy. Just like those bad people I killed—yes! Bad people! And those I threw out of the country..."
Lys shook her head. "Hey! You've never seen the Dark Lord angry. So funny, Gabon—he sends people to capture me, and I'm sitting right behind him! Hahaha!"
"What did Grindelwald actually say? He said nothing! He was just telling me: stop dreaming! Endure! Hahahaha wuwu hahaha wu... Crucio on my freedom..."
"I'll keep watching the realm of souls until I can grasp the threads of clues and glimpse the bottom line of madness..."
Lys confessed to the snake things she dared not tell anyone else. The next day she woke up regretting it!
"Gabon, you can't repeat these words! I drank too much and forgot he speaks Parseltongue. You can't tell!"
Gabon seemed uninterested in acknowledging Lys, turning and slithering away.
While eating her sticky, half-hearted breakfast, Lys thought: she wasn't someone favored by fate, but someone was—little Potter!
Even if he wasn't, his survival could buy more time for herself, for her brother...
...And cause the Dark Lord more trouble!
Lys remembered the prophecy about Harry Potter and the Dark Lord: "The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, and one must die at the hand of the other."
Grindelwald's words: "You must know that fate is a very magical thing. You're not someone favored by fate, but someone is. Everything will end."
And her Divination professor's words:
"Discarded prophecies are countless. Are the futures we glimpse truly futures that exist in this world?"
"So Professor, you're saying that once complete prophecies begin coming true, they won't stop?"
"I wanted to tell you when you were young—you should be happier. Don't always look so tense and guarded... because everything has an ending."
"Remember, child, as long as people are still alive, beginnings will have endings. Come! Cheers!"
And that foreign wizard saying the problem wasn't serious...
The Dark Lord's return wasn't a big problem—that came true. So she would have freedom—that prophecy probably wasn't a big problem either...
She wanted to lay some groundwork, slow down Lucius who was most desperately trying to catch Potter and occupied an awkward position among the Death Eaters.
She returned to Malfoy Manor and slipped into Lucius's room, where Narcissa was tending to the wounds that ran from his left ear to his right hip.
Those were whip marks from the Dark Lord's magic—punishment for little Potter's escape. Narcissa had no way to ease Lucius's pain.
Seeing Lys, Narcissa looked surprised. After all, this was their house—outsiders couldn't just enter their room without permission.
She didn't remember that two years ago, when Lys destroyed that diary, she'd given Lys access privileges.
Lys raised her finger for silence, then pressed her wand to Lucius's whip marks, healing them bit by bit from head to tail.
"Senior, look at me."
Clearly feeling the deep torment of his injuries lessening, Lucius looked back at Lys in confusion. In that one glance, he saw his own altered memories in those narrow gray eyes.
"Abraxas Malfoy's death was arranged by old Thomas,"
"At the Dark Lord's request."
"I'm very sorry, Lucius."
"Do you think that knowing this, you'll continue being as respectfully obedient in future actions? The Dark Lord is already suspicious, and neither you nor I have the capital to resist."
"You're right, Starlys. At least now, I don't have the capital to verify facts or resist. I can't even handle you..."
"We have no choice. We must look forward. Any glimpse into past events could land us in the same situation as them. Cissy, we're about to have a son. This absolutely cannot happen! We must give him the best, remember?"
Lys pressed down Narcissa's hand reaching for her wand and asked the seemingly about-to-collapse Malfoy: "Remember now?"
"You're lying," Lucius's voice trembled. "Yes, you're lying."
Lys smiled. "Right, you can consider me lying. But even if I'm lying," Lys's eyes meeting Lucius's held thick mockery, "every wish spoken by Lucius Malfoy's child must be fulfilled! Then what?"
"Are you really prepared to let Draco repeat your path? Because of your avoidance? In some ways he's not even as good as my brother—he even cried holding my brother."
Lys straightened up, hesitating before deciding not to restore Narcissa's memory of that diary nearly killing Draco.
She wasn't confident that if her destruction of a Horcrux was exposed, the Dark Lord wouldn't immediately drop everything to personally hunt her down.
Revealing old Malfoy's death twenty years ago would have cost the Dark Lord a capable subordinate, but now?
With the Malfoys fallen so far, Lucius having botched so many things, the Dark Lord wouldn't care—as long as the Malfoy name remained as his ornament...
He only needed those aristocrats to display their names.
Just like...
Just like those white peacocks hiding in the hedges by the front gate.
Lucius was no longer that important.
Lys retreated to the doorway, glancing at Lucius.
The first time he'd learned this, he'd wanted to resist! And now?
Where was that triumphant look the man on the bed had worn at graduation? He looked worse even than when the Dark Lord had fallen and he'd been surrounded by attackers. Look at that tangled hair, those gray, sunken eye sockets, even wrinkles on his face.
"Does the Dark Lord really think Draco can kill Dumbledore? Will the Dark Lord really forgive anyone?"
"Senior, guess—when will Draco become you? When will my brother become me?" Lys's smile made Narcissa's heart race.
She glanced at her husband writhing on the bed with terrified, complex expressions, then at the sinister gleam in Starlys's eyes.
Her son... when would he become like her husband?
Narcissa's neck made a crisp sound as it turned stiffly.
Lys didn't even look at Narcissa, but stared at Lucius's trembling pupils with a cold smile before leaving.
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