The next morning began with the same half-light that always lingered in the Manor, a dim, chilled haze that seemed to seep into every corner like damp through cloth. It was a light that never quite warmed, pooling in the high ceilings and catching in the thin dust motes that drifted lazily in the still air. The boy moved through it quietly, his breath faint in the cold, each step measured.
He had been careful — careful the way one learns in places where being seen is a risk. Every movement was deliberate, measured against the Manor's moods. He took the narrowest servant passages, their walls close enough for his shoulders to brush the cool, slightly sweating stone, the air thick with the faint scent of damp mortar and the ghost of old ash long settled into the cracks.
His fingertips skimmed the wall as he walked, feeling the small imperfections in the stone — a chip here, a faint groove there — markers that told him where he was even in darkness. The floor beneath his bare feet was uneven in places, worn by decades of quiet steps, and he knew without looking which boards were safe, which would betray him with a single treacherous groan.
The light in these corridors was thin and tired, filtering down from narrow, dust-filmed windows high above. It caught in the drifting motes that hung in the air, each particle turning slowly, weightless, like tiny secrets suspended in time.
He timed his movements to the rhythm of the house itself — the muffled echo of distant doors closing, the faint rush of a draft curling around a corner. When he heard the dull click of heels or the sharper strike of polished boots on marble, he stopped without hesitation, pressing himself into the shallow shelter of an alcove.
There, he waited in stillness, listening to the whisper of long robes sweeping past, their fabric carrying the faint smell of cold air and expensive cologne. Only when the sound faded into the distance did he move again, slipping forward as if the air itself might close behind him and erase his passage.
In his hands, the bucket of warm water sloshed softly, steam curling faintly upward to brush his chin. He delivered it to the laundry, where the stone sinks were already cold despite the hour. Then, without a word, he turned to fetch firewood for the lower hearths — a bundle of dry logs and kindling that scratched against his arms and left faint dust clinging to his shirt. These were small tasks, unremarkable ones, and that was the point. They kept him in the shadows. And in this house, the shadows were the safest place to be.
IIt didn't matter.
Turning down the west hall, he nearly collided with Lucius Malfoy. The man stood perfectly still, framed in the pale spill of winter light pouring through a tall window. The cold illumination clung to him, catching on the sleek fall of his silver hair so that it glowed like spun frost. His black robes, trimmed with thread as fine as spider silk, seemed to drink in the dimness around them. In one hand he held his cane — not for support, but for the quiet statement of power it made, the serpent's head at its top gleaming with a metallic snarl.
"You are far from where you belong," Lucius said at last. His voice was even, unhurried, the kind of mildness that held far more weight than a shout. It landed with the force of a verdict, and the boy's feet rooted themselves to the polished marble.
"I was—" he began, his voice low, but Lucius raised one gloved hand. The motion was small, almost lazy, yet it cut through his words like the downward edge of a blade.
"Follow."
The single word was not loud. It didn't need to be.
The boy obeyed.
They moved in silence, the sound of Lucius's boots striking the stone floor setting the pace. Downward they went, deeper into the belly of the Manor — a part of the house where no sunlight ever reached. The air thickened the further they descended, carrying with it the scent of damp stone and something older, sharper, almost metallic. Each breath tasted faintly of it, as if the walls themselves exhaled the residue of long-forgotten work.
The torches here burned with a strange, green-tinged flame, their light bending shadows in unnatural ways. Every flicker seemed to make the narrow corridors shift and breathe. The walls were lined with shelves so burdened they bowed beneath their contents. Dust lay thick on the wood, but the jars and flasks gleamed faintly, their glass surfaces catching the ghostly light. Inside them floated preserved things — claws curled like they were still gripping at the moment they were taken, roots twisted into the shapes of shriveled hands, feathers blackened at the edges as though they had been scorched mid-flight.
At the center of the chamber waited a table of heavy oak, its surface scarred and pitted by heat and time. Upon it was arranged the precise anatomy of a ritual. A black iron cauldron sat at its heart, its mouth wide and waiting like an open wound. Beside it lay a mortar, half-filled with fine, pale ash. There were fragments scattered across the wood, bone-white and sharp enough to catch the light — not quite stone, not quite bone, but somewhere between. And at the far end, a small bundle of blackened herbs rested on dark cloth, their brittle sprigs crumbling to dust at the lightest touch.
But it was the vial at the centre that drew the eye — a slender, elegant thing that seemed almost too delicate to exist in a place like this. Its glass was so fine it looked as though a single careless touch might fracture it, scattering shards across the table. The liquid within was not still. It shifted and rolled in slow, deliberate currents, glowing faintly gold-green as if lit from within. Every ripple caught the torchlight differently, bending it, breaking it apart into strange, fractured glimmers.
It gave off heat — not the comforting warmth of a hearth, but something sharper, more invasive. Even from a step away, the boy could feel it bleeding into the air, a steady throb against his skin, as though the thing itself had a pulse. The longer he looked at it, the more it seemed to watch him back.
Lucius's gloved hand lifted in the smallest of gestures toward it. "You will hold this," he said, his voice measured, leaving no room for hesitation. "Steady. Do not drop it." The cane in his other hand tapped once against the floor — not a warning, not quite, but the sound of a line being drawn.
The boy stepped forward, the shadows from the green torches swaying across his face. He reached out, careful, deliberate — but the moment his fingers brushed the glass, a sharp breath escaped between his teeth. The heat was wrong. Not the soft, seeping warmth of tea, nor the honest burn of sun-warmed stone. This was the biting, hungry kind of heat, the kind that seemed to sink through skin and muscle in search of bone.
It pressed into him like it wanted to claim something — not just scorch him, but leave its mark somewhere deeper, somewhere unseen. The glass trembled faintly between his palms, though he couldn't tell if it was the vial or his own hands that shook.
Lucius did not so much as glance at him. The man turned away as if the boy's discomfort were expected, even necessary, and began to measure pale, powder-fine ingredients into a silver spoon. Each movement was precise, deliberate, the spoon tapping once against the rim of a black porcelain dish before he moved on to the next.
Draco appeared in the doorway, framed in the flicker of green torchlight. His Slytherin-green-trimmed robes looked as though they had just been unwrapped from tissue paper, the creases still sharp, the black fabric untouched by dust or ash. He did not step fully inside at first, his pale eyes sweeping the room as though measuring its worth — and the worth of everyone in it.
"Watch closely," Lucius said, his tone carrying the weight of a lesson disguised as casual conversation. He didn't look at the boy holding the vial; his gaze rested entirely on Draco, as if this scene existed solely for his son's education.
"Purity, Draco, is the foundation of strength." He held the silver spoon over the cauldron, the pale powder shifting softly with the movement. "One impure element—" His wrist turned with precise elegance, letting the contents fall. They hit the black surface with a hiss that curled into the air like steam from a forge, releasing a sharp, metallic scent that stung the nose.
"—and the whole is corrupted."
The liquid within the cauldron darkened fractionally, light glinting off its surface like the gleam of a blade. Draco stepped closer now, his expression one of polite interest, but there was a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, as though the true subject of the lesson was not the potion at all.
The boy's palms screamed under the heat of the vial, every heartbeat pumping fresh pain into his fingers. The glass felt alive — not in any gentle way, but with a vicious, steady pulse, as though it meant to burrow into his skin and stay there. He forced himself not to shift his grip. Even the smallest tremor would draw Lucius's eye, and Lucius's notice was never a gift.
"Contamination cannot be ignored," Lucius said, his voice rolling through the chamber like the slow turning of a blade. "It must be removed before it spreads." The silver spoon moved again, this time sprinkling a fine black dust that vanished on contact with the liquid. The cauldron hissed once more, a low, almost serpentine sound.
"A single flaw in the chain weakens the whole."
His pale gaze slid toward the boy for the briefest moment — not truly seeing him, not granting him the dignity of acknowledgment. It was the look a man gave to an object, a tool to be measured for usefulness and discarded when it wore thin. The meaning hung between them, unspoken but sharp enough to cut: you are the flaw.
Draco's lips curved faintly, a smirk that never reached his eyes, content to watch his father's words cut without raising a voice.
Minutes dragged like hours, each one marked by the slow swirl of the cauldron's contents and the steady throb of heat through the boy's blistering palms. The air thickened, layered with the acrid bite of bitter smoke and the syrupy sweetness of crushed herbs that clung to the back of his throat. Breathing felt like swallowing something that wanted to choke him.
Sweat collected at his hairline, tracing thin, salty lines down his temples. It stung his eyes, but he dared not blink too long. His arms had begun to ache — not from weight, but from the rigid stillness he was forcing them into, every muscle locked tight to keep the vial steady.
The green-tinged torchlight caught in the gold of the liquid, making it flicker like a captive flame. Every second that passed, it seemed to burn hotter, as if the vial was feeding on his endurance, waiting for the moment he would break.
When Lucius finally reached for the vial, his fingers closed over it with the same casual precision he might have used to lift a quill. There was no glance upward, no nod of recognition, not even the faintest flicker of approval in his pale eyes — as though the boy's endurance had been inevitable, or worse, irrelevant. He simply turned back to the black iron cauldron, tipping the vial's contents in with the rest, the liquid hissing as it struck the mixture.
The boy stood there for a heartbeat longer, waiting for something — a word, a gesture, anything that would mark the end of the task. Nothing came. The rustle of Lucius's robes was already moving on to the next ingredient, his voice low as he named the measurements for Draco's benefit.
So the boy left. Not hurried enough to draw attention, but faster than caution usually allowed. The narrow back staircase closed around him, the damp stone pressing in, the smell of old dust and polish catching in his throat. Each step upward sent a pulse of pain through his hands. The flesh was angry red, the heat still trapped beneath the skin, the shape of the vial's curve ghosted into his palms like a brand.
That night, in the dim safety of the servants' quarters, he sat at the table with a strip of torn linen and a small pot of salve stolen from the laundry. The single lamp on the wall guttered faintly, its light pooling in uneven shadows across the rough wooden surface. Slowly, methodically, he wound the bandages around each palm, pulling the cloth tight enough to press against the sting but not so tight that it would cut the skin further. The linen rasped faintly as it slid over itself, the sound small but sharp in the stillness.
The door opened, letting in a thread of colder air from the corridor, and Evelyn Thorne stepped inside. Her boots made no sound on the worn floorboards. She paused when she saw him, her eyes narrowing, the flicker of the lamplight catching in them like a blade catching light.
"Let me see."
He shook his head without looking up, his fingers moving with stubborn care, the soft thup of the linen knotting the only answer he gave.
Her lips parted slightly, as if to speak, but no sound came. The name lingered between them like a forbidden spell uttered aloud for the first time, fragile yet defiant. It was not just a word — it was a reclamation, a reminder of who she had been before the Manor had swallowed her whole.
The flame's glow deepened, stretching across the narrow table in molten gold. It painted her face in uneven light, catching on the faint creases at the corners of her eyes, glinting off the sheen of unshed moisture that she blinked away before it could fall. The shadows it cast on the walls seemed to lean inward, as though the house itself were straining to listen.
The boy sat perfectly still, the rough linen tight around his hands, the faint sting of raw skin grounding him in the moment. The warmth from the candle brushed his face, mingling with the ache in his palms, and for the first time that day the cold of the Manor felt held at bay.
Evelyn lowered herself into the chair opposite him with slow, deliberate care, as though any sudden movement might break whatever fragile thread now hung between them. Her gaze did not waver. There was no softening in her expression, no indulgent smile, only the sharp, unwavering focus of someone who recognized a line had just been crossed — and could never be uncrossed.
The candle's flame did not flicker as it should have; it burned as if fed by something more than wax, more than wick. In that small pool of light, the air seemed thicker, the silence heavier, until even the faint crackle of the wick felt like a heartbeat between them.
Neither spoke. Neither looked away. And somewhere, beyond the thin walls of the servants' quarters, the great house shifted and settled — as if taking note.