Enchant: A Dramione Tale

Six

"He has sworn himself to this... this... cult."

Narcissa's throat was tight and her eyes were nearly bloodshot red as she desperately confided in the only people capable of helping her with this impossible scenario. She looked like a trapped animal- painfully snared and utterly despondent.

Dumbledore quietly motioned for Moody, Potter and Weasley to stand down. Hermione knew it was important that they work this exposed nerve of the usually guarded and ice cold witch. He approached her gently.

"Start from the beginning, spare no details," he softly requested.

Broken down and emotionally raw, she now seemed unable to fight the potion and her honest answers came to the surface without resistance.

"I first received an owl from Bella in 1993, and I have gotten two to three per year since. Do not ask me how she manages it, I do not know so do not ask. But her owl will deliver a scroll, wait while I write out a reply, and then take it and leave."

Moody's already gruesome face was twisted in fury. As head Auror, he was meant to police all high profile criminals that had been arrested and imprisoned in Azkaban. The Ministry-controlled dementors served as his prison wardens, meant to depress and suppress the inmates in lifelong solitary confinement. Especially the worst like Narcissa's sister. The most deadly and dangerous were locked away with the maximum amount of magical wards.

They were not allowed visitors. They were not permitted to interact with other inmates. They were not allowed correspondence with the outside world.

There was a massive flaw in the system.

"I should have assumed..." She sighed. "I did not know that she had been sending so many other owls as well, I did not realize she was reorganizing. She did not make me privy to this, she knows I've never... actively participated in the lifestyle."

"But you've always benefited from it, haven't you?" snapped Molly, unable to contain herself. She shouldn't have been allowed in the room, thought Hermione. "Your parents, your husband, your sister, the Death Eaters. You might not have been out killing with them but you do love spending their gold, reaping the rewards of their crimes. Your kind has no shame."

"My kind? I won't tolerate this from a Prewett, a Weasley, of all people. Blood traitor." The phrase was as foul as any insult, but coming from a Malfoy's mouth it was especially venomous.

"Speak more about this cult," Hermione interjected.

There were so many backstories and interpersonal dramas and interwoven legacies from The War, but she wasn't burdened with any of that distracting history. Her emotions weren't clouding her judgment and she couldn't slow her analytical brain from dissecting the puzzle in front of her.

Narcissa refocused her rage.

"I thought it was just a social club, a group of respectable members from our inner circles. Most of them are the children of Death Eaters and collaborators - the newest generation of the oldest families. I had no idea that Bella's influence had reached so many of them. Including my Draco."

She spoke his name in such a possessive way, as if she couldn't believe anyone would have the audacity of stealing his attention away.

"My sister has, apparently, been ensuring the old ways live on. They hang on every word she sends from prison, they worship The Dark Lord. I... I didn't know he was so involved. I never wanted this for him. Not like Lucius. But now it's too late, they've... they've..." she choked on her words. "They've branded him."

Hermione's thoughts were spinning, flipping through the myriad of pages in her mind as she tried to recall any helpful information at all. Her thoughts immediately went to a textbook from post-grad, when they had a small segment on psychology. Cult behavior was a well documented phenomena.