The Malfoy Project

𝟕𝟗 - 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞

     I can feel the heat the moment we Apparated to the ground. 

     The air wavers with an intense and angry warmth, reaching high over the heads of the trees and hedges. Long fingers of heat ripple through the leaves, creeping up my arms and dampening the surface of my skin. In the distance, the windows of Malfoy Manor are aburst with yellow, like a soirée is being held. Thick columns of smoke rise from every crevice of the house, blotting out the stars with its curling, shapeless swirls.  

     The face on the wrought-iron gate isn't there to greet us. In fact, it hangs wide open, mangled and dangling loosely on its hinges, the sturdy bars bent out of shape. We tear up the driveway, our feet pounding in sync with our hearts, and when we come upon the house, my stomach curdles at the sight.

     I have never seen a fire so big, not even during the War.

     The entire East Wing is engulfed in roaring orange tongues. Up close, the heat is nearly unbearable, singeing my skin red with its fury. Every window had been shattered, from the ground floor to the highest turret, and beyond them I can see nothing but the opaque, flickering white. The flames are loud as they are bright, the air filling with the sickening crackle of furniture, wood, and glass being eaten up: the dining area, studies, bedrooms, Andromeda's bedroom.

     The library.

     But it is not a mansion that burns before me. It is a castle.

     Is it shelves of expensive bourbon crumbling, or classrooms? Carrera marble busts smashing onto the ground, or heavy, ancient stone? The creaking and giving of fine, polished wood, or the terrible screams of humans fleeing for their life? The sounds are all the same.

     Stay here and we'll die.

     I skid to a halt, gripped by a sudden fear that if I take another step further I will explode into flames as well. I have to stop, turn back, run.

     We have to move, now, or they'll find us.

     But where is Draco?

     Ains, leave him!

     And I remember the lost boy who had careened into me around the corner and fallen over, his terrified eyes staring up at me from the ground as if I were some ghastly monster. He is not the same boy I had sat with in the garden, who had kept and returned the scarf he'd tossed on the ground, who had shared with me his hurts and joys, and whose smile carried a thousand more I will never know about.

     With a horrifying jolt, I remember that Draco's room is on the same floor as Andromeda's, and the fear of him being hurt — dead — becomes larger than those memories, larger than the bonfire before me. Fiercer. 

     Raising an arm to shield my face, I trudge onward toward the house. On the driveway is the lone figure of Lucius, made merely a dark shadow by the sun-bright glare. He turns, sees us, and shouts my name, his voice hoarse with desperation. The sight of him propels me forward. 

     "What happened?" I have to battle over the fire to be heard. "Where's Draco and Narcissa?"

     He is breathless, panting not with exertion but with a rancid fear that slithers its way through my veins, and I struggle to keep up with the stream of words that pour from his mouth. "Cissy said she forgot something and she went back in to take it and Draco ran in after her. I tried to stop them but they wouldn't listen—"

     II don't hear the rest of it. I am already making my way towards the front door. "Ainsley, wait!" Hannah's voice is blown away by the wind behind me as I march towards the towering inferno.