Chapter Text
Part I
DRACO
The first five people Draco Malfoy killed were muggles.
In the beginning, he’d thought of those people frequently, even reciting what he remembered about them as he fell asleep at night. The bulgy-eyed bearded man. The woman whose dress had been dripping with mud, like she’d stumbled in the chase. The one who, on closer inspection afterwards, had really been more of a child.
Back then, they were spectres that haunted him through the day, shadows that had to be acknowledged when he was alone in his room at night.
Now he hardly thought of them at all. There had been so much war and so much death and now there were too many to remember.
And here, with yet another unnamed muggle dangling above him in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, screaming and crying, Draco’s wand hand barely twitched. He watched his fellow Death Eaters cast curses that made the body contort and convulse, Dolohov with a kind of lazy indifference, Avery with his shirtsleeves rolled up and an expression of barely concealed disgust. Even Pansy took a turn, slinking by with a fluted glass in one hand and her wand gripped in the other. She wasn’t particularly adept with curses, but she cast with such a sharp edge that Draco was loath to admit it sometimes caused him to flinch anyway. She sent a streak of red flying up toward the body, then sauntered over to Draco, standing beside him and tucking her wand into a pocket of her dress robes.
“Aren’t you going to dazzle us tonight?” she murmured, sipping her champagne.
He shrugged, his fingers around a glass of firewhiskey that he’d barely tasted. “A muggle? I’d rather save my energy.”
“I didn’t take you for such an elitist.”
He glanced over and smirked. “Didn’t you, though?”
Pansy’s crimson lips curved. “Not any more than the rest of us.”
While the room still bore a resemblance to the space from Draco’s childhood, the destruction from the war was evident. Columns that had crumbled under cursefire had been left as debris and the house banners had been replaced with the insignia of the new Ministry. The long tables from their Hogwarts days had been moved to the sides of the room and were laden with food and drinks, the house elves bustling around to restock the refreshments, despite the fact that they didn’t actually need to leave the kitchens to do their jobs—their visibility was a message. Smaller tables had been placed throughout the room, and there was a palpable buzz of energy as dozens of witches and wizards gathered around them. It was no surprise that the event had drawn a crowd. Death Eaters and their families were obviously in attendance, but the room had filled out thanks to a number of individuals who had changed sides after the war. Cormac McLaggen, whose Gryffindor loyalties had perhaps always been rather flexible, now had an arm slung over Tracey Davis’s shoulders, gesturing wildly with the hand that also held his drink. The amber liquid sloshed over the rim as he shouted about something Quidditch-related, and Tracey’s gaze was shifting around the room, as if plotting an escape.
At the head of the room, in the place where Dumbledore had once held court with all of the professors alongside him, was the Dark Lord. He sat in what could only be described as a throne, with serpentine arms and emeralds embedded throughout, and as he leaned back he traced a long, pale finger idly over one glimmering gem. The Dark Lord’s gaze swept around the room and Draco went still as the eyes landed upon him then continued on. He relaxed, but only slightly.
“On edge tonight, are we?” Pansy said.
“Some of us aren’t guaranteed a good placement tonight, Pansy,” he snapped. “You know that I need this to go well.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “You’ll be fine. It’s just a game, Draco. Honestly, I’m just relieved to have something to break up the monotony. It’s been so dull lately.”
The Retribution marked a year since the Dark Lord took power, the first occasion of what would be an annual event to celebrate a new world under his reign. There had been lavish parties, a statue unveiling at the Ministry, the announcement of various government initiatives that clearly aligned with the new vision for society. But the event that carried the greatest weight of anticipation were the newly announced Games of Retribution.
The Games had been imagined as a way to boost morale under the Dark Lord’s reign, but anyone could see they went deeper than that. They were a symbol of the new world, and a threat to anyone who dared show opposition.
A tournament of eighteen young Azkaban prisoners, enemies of the Dark Lord, fighting to the death. And Draco needed his involvement to be a success—to get the right kind of attention, for once—if he wanted to secure his position in this new world. He shifted uneasily in his place as he thought of all that had transpired throughout the war—the shame, the failures, his father —and clutched his glass tighter in his hand. He couldn’t take another day of the mocking, the conversations that stopped as soon as he walked into the room, the predatory stares at his mother.
That final thought made his stomach drop briefly, and he scanned the room with hawk-like focus, eventually spotting her in conversation with Millicent Bulstrode’s mother. She wore plum dress robes and her hair was tied up in an elegant chignon, laughing politely at something Mrs. Bulstrode said. The scene was oddly refined considering the muggle torture happening in the foreground. The last few months had been particularly hard on her and Draco both, but Narcissa Malfoy operated with a calculated ease despite it. She reached over and patted Mrs. Bulstrode’s arm congenially. He took a slow breath and looked back at his glass, swirling the liquid around again but not bringing it to his mouth. He needed to keep his head on straight.
The Games were his way forward. If he was successful, he could undo all the damage his father had done. Gods, the way his father had basically dug the family name a grave. And beyond that, there was the wreckage resulting from Draco’s own failures, an incompetent child given a task he couldn’t handle, putting a blight on their house from the moment he failed to kill Dumbledore.
“Do you think they’re going to start soon?” Pansy asked.
He’d almost forgotten she was there.
“I just want to know which poor fools are mine so I can make my excuses and depart,” she pouted.
Her gaze lingered on Adrian Pucey, who had hit the muggle with some kind of babbling curse and was now twirling his wand through his fingers as he laughed at the woman who was now shrieking, “CATBIRD ICONOCLAST! BIRTHDAY PARTY SWEATSHOP! ” as she twitched in the air.
Draco glanced around the room, scanning the other attendees.
“I haven’t seen my aunt yet,” he replied, “I imagine she’ll be making an entrance before long.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, which had grown out enough in the past year to tickle his shirt collar. He found himself fussing with it more often than he meant to; the feeling was so unfamiliar.
Pansy reached over and squeezed his elbow.
“Stop touching it. It looks fine.” She gave him an appraising look, cocking her head to examine him from head to toe. “Better than fine. Dashing. Roguish . You look like the kind of person who will be gifted with the most exceptional tributes so you may best us all in this ridiculous game.”
He rolled his eyes, but her teasing made him release the grip on his glass ever so slightly.
His fellow mentors didn’t seem nearly as spun up over the Reaping as he was. Soon after the event was announced, he’d found himself up late into the night drafting up possible strategies for a game no one fully understood the scope of. While Blaise and Daphne went out to pubs and Theo’s only concern was practising his jokes —because he’d apparently acquired some kind of absurd ‘hosting’ role— Draco had spent his evenings guessing at the skills of possible Tributes that he had not yet met. Everyone else seemed to truly be taking the Games at face value, as if the name itself was a true indication of what was at stake.
Draco knew better.
“Ugh, don’t look now,” Pansy grumbled, turning sharply toward him.
Over her head, he could see McLaggen swaggering towards them, having apparently abandoned his efforts with Tracey Davis.
“Malfoy, Parkinson,” McLaggen announced as he approached, and Draco didn’t bother hiding his sigh. “Big night tonight, eh?”
Neither of them responded, but McLaggen seemed undeterred by the silence.
“Well, I suppose it’s not really night, is it?” He gave an unnecessarily dramatic groan. “Can’t believe we had to get up early for this.”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon,” Pansy said coldly.
McLaggen nodded. “Exactly! Looked like a perfect day for a bout of quidditch, didn’t it? Conditions were just right coming in.” He gave Draco a nudge with his elbow.
Draco shrugged.
“Just perfect out there, yeah?” he persisted.
“I honestly have no idea,” Draco said dryly.
The hallways of the manor were always dim now, the curtains drawn, as his mother felt that anything more would look ostentatious in their current predicament. In the Great Hall, the ceiling was permanently charmed to look stormy. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d even seen the sun today.
Pansy smirked. “Sounds like you might have apparated outside the gates and walked up, is that right, McLaggen? No floo connection at your home? Most of us,” she glanced around meaningfully, “are able to arrive directly.”
“Ah, it’s not installed yet,” McLaggen mumbled.
Pansy looked up at Draco and rolled her eyes. When the war had shifted in the Dark Lord’s favour, McLaggen had managed to worm his way into their world because his family had just enough old connections to appear relevant. It seemed the Games would be his opportunity to prove his loyalty.
There was a loud crack as the doors of the Great Hall were flung open and Bellatrix Lestrange stalked in. Her robes flapped around her dramatically, and a worn hat was clutched in one hand, a wooden stool in the other. The Sorting Hat, Draco realised with a start. He’d only encountered it briefly, as it barely touched his severely combed locks before declaring him a Slytherin in First Year. It had, of course, reappeared in the Great Hall every year afterward, but he’d hardly paid it any attention. He was already where he was expected to be.
The crowd quieted at the arrival, collectively stepping back as she made her way toward the front of the room. Bellatrix came to a stop in front of the Dark Lord’s throne, setting the wooden stool down with a clatter, and swept into a dramatic curtsy.
“My lord,” she said, the hat pulled close to her chest with one hand. The room went completely silent, even the busy house elves falling still.
“My servant,” the Dark Lord said. It was, Draco realised, the first time he’d heard his voice so far that night. The distant, otherworldly quality of the speech made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Is it time? Are we now prepared?”
“We are, my lord.” She brandished the hat in front of her. “I have the hat.”
The silence seemed to stretch at this peculiar announcement. Pansy glanced over at Draco, raising one dark eyebrow in amusement. He shrugged in response. The hat looked limp and worn, but Bellatrix extended it toward the Dark Lord as if she was holding a long-lost artefact and not a musty old hat that had been collecting dust since the war started.
The Dark Lord’s face contorted slightly, his mouth and eyes widening gruesomely into what Draco determined was meant to be a smile. He stood and accepted the hat by pinching the very point between the tips of his pale fingers and placing it on the stool with a flourish and admiring it on display. There was an appreciative chuckle throughout the room and Draco felt a surge of anticipation.
The Reaping was about to begin.
The Dark Lord turned abruptly toward the front of the room, his robes churning with him. The crowd was very still, and Draco found himself tucking his free hand into his robe pocket to wrap his fingers around his wand. He gripped the familiar handle for security as the strange energy put him on edge.
“My servants,” the Dark Lord said. His voice was high and breathless, but it still carried in the silence of the Great Hall. He raised his hands in front of him, opening his arms as if welcoming them. “I believe it is time we all take our places.”
The crowd drew in closer, but the room remained quiet. Dolores Umbridge, the Minister herself, dressed in a particularly hostile shade of pink, made her way to the front of the room and took a seat beside the Dark Lord’s throne. Bellatrix skipped to his other side, standing behind the hat and swaying slightly on her feet as if the floor undulated beneath her. Draco set his glass on a nearby table and edged closer to the front of the room, crossing beneath the floating muggle who was now mumbling quietly and twitching occasionally.
“It is a glorious day,” the Dark Lord continued. He gave a vague gesture at the Great Hall’s enchanted ceiling, which appeared dismally stormy. “A day that marks a year since we reclaimed our rightful place in the world, after five years of war. A year since the lesser bowed down to us in surrender. It is a day for Retribution. And what better way to celebrate such an occasion than with a game?”
He gave a breath of laughter and swung an arm to one side. A line of chairs shot forward and arranged themselves in rows on the dais.
“We can only grow our power if even our youngest members are beacons of strength for the cause. As you know, nine of you have been hand selected to demonstrate your abilities and your commitment, your talents and your resourcefulness. Mentors, please make your way to your seats.”
It was time.
Draco abandoned his glass on a nearby table, feeling as if his entire body was coiled tight as he strode purposefully to the chairs. There was a susurrus in the audience and Draco couldn’t help but wonder—were they talking about him? Were they angry that he’d managed to get a place here instead of their sons and daughters? That the Malfoy house still managed to carry some influence even after everything that had happened? He caught his mother’s eye as he stepped up to take a seat. She remained poised and still, a very slight lift of an eyebrow her only acknowledgement of him and the precariousness of their situation. The remaining chosen mentors found their seats, Pansy lowering herself into the chair beside him.
“The fun begins,” she murmured, smoothing her dress robes over her knees.
Fun. The word had never crossed his mind when preparing for the Games. Just getting chosen as a Mentor after everything his father had done had taken months of dedication, of showing up at the right moments, of being helpful to the right people. It wasn’t enough for Snape to want to give him the opportunity, and certainly Bellatrix wasn’t going to make any special accommodations for him. No, he’d done grunt work for anyone who might have the Dark Lord’s ear. And it had gotten him this spot.
He would take it and win.
The floor creaked behind him, and Draco resisted the urge to turn when the heavy sliding sound began.
Nagini slithered across the floor beside him, so close that he felt her brushing against his ankle when she passed. He kept his eyes forward and his gaze focused, but even after years of associating with the snake—of having her in his home —her presence still made him uneasy.
“In tonight’s Reaping,” the Dark Lord said, “we will find our Tributes for this event, the useless souls who squandered their opportunities to prove their virtue to me. Those who were too weak-minded to join our cause or whose resistance demonstrated them unworthy will be in the pool of candidates. They await their fate in Azkaban. They will see what it means to rebel in our world, and they will die for it.” He hissed a laugh. “Most of them, anyway. Bellatrix, our Gamemaker , let us begin.”
He returned to his throne and Nagini slid into position around his shoulders.
Bellatrix gave a squeal of delight and Draco sat up straighter.
“The hat is aware of the eligible participants from Azkaban,” she explained breathlessly. “It will name eighteen, selecting the Tributes for the Games. They will be Portkeyed over here to be assigned to the Mentors.” She glanced over in their direction. “Right, Severus?”
“Correct.” Snape’s voice came from somewhere behind him, where the former professor had apparently been clinging to the shadows for most of the evening. “Each of the nine Mentors will be responsible for two Tributes. I will assign them myself.” He had been given the position of overseeing the Mentors, an assignment that he undertook without even a modicum of enthusiasm.
Draco took a steadying breath. He would need to pay close attention to the names that were drawn so he’d be prepared for anything. There wouldn’t be much time before they met their Tributes and he didn’t want to waste a moment of those interviews.
“Excellent,” said the Dark Lord. “Then let’s start so we can bring in our honoured guests to meet their Mentors.”
Bellatrix came to a kneeling position at the Dark Lord’s feet, pushing the stool closer to his throne as she crouched. Draco felt a wave of revulsion at the sight of his aunt, always content to present herself as nothing more than a petty servant to her master.
“My lord,” she said, “the Sorting Hat is prepared for the Reaping.”
The Dark Lord gave an amused wave of his wand over the hat. The silence in the Great Hall became thick with anticipation. The ice rattled in someone’s drink glass and half the room shot annoyed glances in their direction.
But then nothing happened.
A few more seconds passed before the Dark Lord gave a sharp hiss of displeasure. Bellatrix glanced up from the floor and scrambled to her feet.
“Go on now,” she said to the hat, giving it a poke with her wand. She looked up at the Dark Lord, whose mouth was a thin line. “Master, I was assured that it was ready.”
She brandished her wand at the hat but the Dark Lord held up a hand.
“It seems,” he said, with a wheeze of laughter, “that even a hat has to learn its place in this world.”
Bellatrix stepped aside and there was a collective intake of breath throughout the room as the Dark Lord pointed his wand at the hat. A flash of light, then the old hat seized and was lifted up into the air. It convulsed violently several more times, stretching at the seams. Once Draco thought he heard the sound of fabric tearing. The Sorting Hat gave a loud mournful moan that made Pansy recoil in her seat beside Draco, then dropped back to the stool.
“Gods,” Pansy whispered.
“It’s only a hat,” Draco replied, though he found he too was unsettled by the display.
“Now then,” the Dark Lord said, leaning back in his seat and rolling his wand between his fingers. “The names.”
The hesitation was brief and then the hat spoke.
“The Tributes for the first annual Games of Retribution,” it called out, its tone more morose than Draco remembered it being during the annual Sortings. The audience’s attention sharpened. He glanced out over the faces and saw them riveted, eyes on the front of the room as they waited for a hat on an old wooden stool to decide the destiny of young people yet again. Even his mother’s attention was rapt.
When it spoke again, Draco had to lean in to hear it.
“Alicia Spinnet,” the hat said and Bellatrix gave a dramatic gasp, though Draco suspected she didn’t recognize the name in the slightest. She gestured with her wand toward one of the dark banners hanging along the side wall. The insignia faded away and the first name was magically inscribed in its place, the pale text drifting ribbon-like before settling onto the fabric. Draco racked his brain. It had been years now since he’d interacted with many of his former classmates—the war had divided them. Spinnet had been a couple years older, he thought, and athletic. A competitive Gryffindor chaser, which was promising. She had potential to be a good Tribute. If she were assigned to him he would need to be sure to ask about any lingering vulnerabilities from Quidditch injuries.
“Terry Boot,” the hat called next. The smoky script drifted across the banner, adding the name below the first. Boot was someone he didn’t know well. Ravenclaw, he thought, so possibly some brains to work with there. He wondered what advanced courses he’d taken. Some high level Charms or Transfiguration could be instrumental in the arena. Gods forbid he ended up with a Tribute who had specialised in Divination or History of Magic.
Draco felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder as someone from the row behind him leaned forward to speak.
“Is this it?” McLaggen whispered loudly in his ear, and Draco shrugged off the touch in disgust, keeping his eyes to the front as Neville Longbottom’s name was noted.
McLaggen was a parasite.
“Do we really just sit and listen to it recite eighteen names? Couldn’t they have just owled us the results?” He huffed and sat back in his seat, apparently discovering Draco wasn’t going to engage in conversation, and continued to mumble his complaints under his breath.
McLaggen seemed to be in the minority with his boredom, as overall there was an excited restlessness around him as the names continued to be revealed, the hat choosing the fates of more and more Tributes. Cho Chang and Michael Corner appeared on the banner next. He heard some quiet chatter in the audience, and some of the people in the darker corners of the room were moving around and picking up their drinks. He could imagine they were beginning to speculate on the names called so far. He caught his mother’s eye in the audience, and while her face gave nothing away, he knew her anticipation would be growing as well. They were eager to know who he would be matched with.
“I can barely remember who any of these people are,” Pansy commented as Percy Weasley’s name was called, and Draco tried to conjure up a mental image of him. One of the older ones, certainly, but with so many of them he could never be expected to keep track.
As Draco listened to the last few names, he felt the rising heat of suspense in his chest. He clenched his hands tightly, the anticipation threatening to make them shake.
“Gregory Goyle,” the hat recited, and the Dark Lord gave a cruel laugh.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Now isn’t that lovely.”
Bellatrix gave a shriek of glee that made the hair on the back of Draco’s neck prickle, and many in the audience followed her lead. Soon there was an undercurrent of vicious humour throughout the room.
Goyle hadn’t been in Azkaban long, and his errors were still fresh in the minds of the Dark Lord’s followers. Even if he outsized most of the other Tributes, he would still have an uphill battle in the Games. It would be difficult to convince Sponsors to back him, and after all he’d done—intentionally or not—Draco suspected that many people both in and out of the arena would be content to see him die.
When Astoria Greengrass’s name was announced, however, the reaction was quieter. Daphne Greengrass, who was sitting beside Blaise in the front row of Mentor chairs, clapped her hand over her mouth in shock. Draco saw her shoulders begin to shake as she struggled to keep her composure. While Goyle’s errors had placed him firmly as an enemy, Astoria’s situation was much more complicated.
“And finally,” the hat said, and there was something resigned in its tone, “Hermione Granger.”
The name seemed to thrum in Draco’s ears.
He was vaguely aware as Bellatrix waved her wand toward the banner, the volume of conversation in the audience increasing as the final name was written. The list brightened briefly and then dimmed, perhaps being magically sent to Azkaban.
Granger. He had assumed she and most of the Weasleys had both been holed up with any other remaining Order members somewhere since Potter’s death, or that perhaps she’d met her end in one of the many battles. In the beginning, her time in his family’s drawing room had haunted him. It had been his first real brush with torture and the memory of her screams had disrupted his sleep for months. But then the war had gone on and on and soon she was just one of many whose suffering he’d witnessed—or even participated in.
Until this moment he hadn’t thought of her in years.
Would she still be as swotty and abrasive as before? Or would the time in Azkaban have finally broken her? He didn’t envy whoever got her in the Games. She would come with the baggage of being Potter’s sidekick, which was about as close to a snub to the Dark Lord as you could get without a bespeckled ghost of the Chosen One himself showing up. She would never get sponsors. Frankly, people would be thrilled to see someone finally off her.
Bellatrix began clapping loudly and a few of the more inebriated onlookers joined in. There was a wildness in her eyes, and Draco couldn’t help but admit he was feeling a similar anticipation at the reveal to come.
“I think it’s nearly time to meet our guests,” the Dark Lord said, reclining in his chair. “Might we set the mood for them?”
Bellatrix hopped out of her chair once more and gestured grandly around the room with her wand. The candlelight grew dimmer and colder, and the babbling muggle was silenced, still twitching as she rotated above them in the centre of the room. Nagini slid from her master’s shoulders and down to the floor, slithering through the crowd so that they parted to make a natural aisle in the group, then turning back to curl around her master. Dementors, who had likely been patrolling the hallway prior, moved inside and the room seemed to chill.
Draco turned to watch the doors of the Great Hall, waiting to see his fate manifest.