THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Twenty-Nine: TARTARUS

◤ ❝There are variations of our love that received happy endings. If only we had picked one of those, my love. I'm afraid we chose the wrong one.❞ ― Celicia Erebus◢

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: TARTARUS

March 14, 1997

     "Anything?"

Mia's dark brown eyes flickered up at the soft sound of Theodore's voice, and like so often in the last few weeks, she felt the twinge of guilt. She paused, looking at the exhaustion starting to ring around her cousin's eyes, before shaking her head and looking back at the book in her hands. The Furies cover that she'd received from Andrew was shown to any blind eye in the library, but the contents of the page revealed something different. Slughorn's handwriting, now more clear than it was twenty years into the present, recounted his Slug Club from her parents' time.

"Apparently he cared a lot more for my mother than I thought. She reminded him of his dead sister," she hummed out quietly, her gaze constantly moving around them to make sure that no one was prying on their conversation. She saw Theo's brow quirk in question, and so she continued under her breath. "He had a family, lots of them. All were murdered but a niece, said to be conspiring with Grindelwald back in the twenties. None were mentioned in his later works, but they're mentioned extensively in the earlier years..."

Theodore let out a sound, leaning back in his chair. "Hmph. Explains his fear of 'our kind'. He sees a reflection of his past happening again."

"I'd say there's a bigger reason than history repeating itself, Theo. He mentored him. There's something else that I've missed," she decided to ignore the disgusting way her heart fell at the words 'our kind' coming out of his mouth. "If only that reason would appear in this before I reach my hundreds."

Her lip fell down before she continued to read through the different passages. Slughorn had a habit of writing a considerable amount about his favorite students within the Slug Club, and in his mother's time, her and Lily Evans were the most popular of the sort. As her eyes flickered through the paragraphs, taking note of every little detail and storing on the important pieces in the back of her mind, she ignored the nagging sensation rising on the back of her neck that someone was watching her.

Horace Slughorn, 11 November 1977

Today's Club meeting was a great success! We were able to discuss the growing rise of information being procured in the Experimental Charms section of the Ministry with a widely informative piece of knowledge from Hilberta, whose father works in such a section (Added: fired, perhaps not suited for club meetings next year). Many of my students are showing great promise despite the listenings on the rise, and I have been able to weed out who I believe will remain in close contact with me after Hogwarts. Of these students, Celicia Radnor and Lily Evans are top candidates. Pairing these two witches together in Potions was perhaps my greatest accomplishment in partnerships yet, and I have found that they excel in a level of the arts when working together that could produce even a cure for Dragon Pox! The possibilities!

However, recently I have seen changes in the academic performance of both witches. It seems that Lily has become involved in another Gryffindor, James Potter and his gaggle of friends. While Albus continues to deter me away from any fears about their relationship, I am beginning to grow concerned that perhaps Lily would be better suited with someone of a higher regard for educational practices unlike Mister Potter―