Year Three — Chapter 9: Britain's Blind Spot (Expanded ~1,800+ words)
The news didn't break so much as seep. Britain had a talent for deciding what it already believed and then finding paragraphs to clothe it. After the Prophet's coy column about a "Durmstrang prodigy," London began to hum with the nonsense music of polite alarm. But even alarm wants a center, and Britain had chosen one years ago: a scar and a boy beneath it.
Harry remained the prophecy child. Everything else was weather.
Ivar liked weather. He was very good at it.
---
The Ministry Meeting Where Nothing Was Decided (And That Decided Everything)
Amelia Bones called her staff to a meeting and brought the kind of tea that could politely remove paint. She didn't shout. She didn't need to. People who worked for her learned how to hear emphasis without volume.
"Two topics," she said, settling those keen eyes behind square spectacles that made nonsense nervous. "Quirinus Quirrell's sudden fondness for turbans, and a boy in the north who keeps making older students rethink their life choices."
A junior aide coughed, grateful for a safer target. "Reports from Hogwarts indicate Professor Quirrell has returned from a sabbatical with a… renewed interest in Defense." He avoided saying smells like garlic and dread. "The Headmaster is monitoring." Which meant the Headmaster had said "trust me," and most people did.
Amelia let that sit, then pointed at the second stack. "And our northern weather?"
A witch with a quill behind her ear cleared her throat. "Durmstrang sources—some reliable, some drunk—report that Ivar Malfoy has led students in mid-year war exercises with success. He's… efficient. Also theatrical."
Another wizard, older, wearing the permanent expression of a man who thinks some things were better when they were worse, huffed. "A Black heir, with Black money and Black lore. Of course he looks large in the north. But the prophecy is the prophecy. The Boy Who Lived is at Hogwarts. That ends the conversation."
Amelia tapped the rim of her cup. "Prophecies are useful until they're not. Let's be honest without putting our heads in ovens: whether or not he's destined, the Malfoy boy is happening. We will have to live near whatever he becomes."
A younger Auror leaned forward, eager and not yet jaded. "Should we try to recruit him?"
The older wizard scoffed. "Recruit? A Malfoy?"
"Lucius is not Ivar," the younger Auror shot back, surprising himself. "And I'd rather have the boy on a broom we can see than in a fortress we can't."
Amelia let them spar for three useful minutes, caught the arguments midair, and filed them neatly. Then she closed the folder.
"Here's the truth," she said. "Potter fits the words on the tin. He survived the night that broke the country. Nothing in these pages changes that. But if Ivar Malfoy walks into Britain in the next three years, he won't be background. He will be gravity. Plan accordingly."
"What does 'plan accordingly' mean, Director?" someone asked, brave and doomed.
"It means," Amelia said, "don't be surprised by the weather when you've already checked the forecast."
The meeting adjourned with the satisfaction of having said reasonable things about unreasonable futures. That was London's specialty.
On her way back to her office, she scribbled a private note and sent it via her personal owl—a compact, determined bird that delivered truth like a subpoena.
To: Minerva McGonagall. Subject: Courtesy.
If the Headmaster decides to write to the Malfoy boy, please advise me in parallel. I prefer storms on the same map. —A.B.
She added a second line after a heartbeat: Potter is still my first bet. But I'm not so arrogant as to ignore other numbers on the dice.
---
Dumbledore's Map (And McGonagall's Patience)
High in the Headmaster's office, the instruments hummed and the portraits took diplomatic naps. Albus Dumbledore poured tea that had learned to taste like wisdom. Minerva McGonagall did not drink it. She preferred her wisdom unflavored.
"They're talking about the Malfoy boy," she said without prologue. "Bones. The Prophet. Every corridor with a whisper. And some of those whispers are flattering."
Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles, the way a river looks at a rock and decides whether to move it or move around it. "Compelling children arise every decade, Minerva. He has good teachers. He has… an ambitious family."
"Ambition isn't inheritable," McGonagall snapped, then moderated it to a tone more like a politely sharpened quill. "He's not his father."
"No," Dumbledore agreed. "He may be more dangerous for that reason."
Minerva folded her arms. "You think he could be the child in the prophecy."
"I think," Dumbledore said gently, "that the prophecy pointed convincingly at one child who is here, under our roof, and that we owe him every protection and every lesson courage can teach. I also think that power attracts narrative like honey attracts attention. The Malfoy boy has power. Narratives will find him."
"And what will you do?" she asked.
He set his cup down. "Write to him. Soon. With courtesy, not summons. Extend the hand we offer all children we hope to influence before the world decides they are beyond influence."
Minerva exhaled the sigh she allowed herself when he said something that was both wise and impossible. "And if he is too proud to take it?"
"Then we will watch," Dumbledore said, and the note of steel beneath the music of his voice reminded her why he had survived several wars. "And be ready to act when watching isn't enough."
He turned to a different set of instruments—the ones that told him about a boy with a lightning-bolt scar and a teacher with a turban. His eyes cooled, then warmed, then hardened into the blue that had convinced monsters to choose smaller rooms.
"Potter first," he said, to the room, to the map, to himself.
"Potter first," Minerva echoed. She didn't add but not only, because he already knew, and because saying it out loud would turn it into a cliff they would eventually have to jump from.
She left his office and penned two notes: one to Amelia Bones, acknowledging the courtesy with a respect very few ministries earned; one to an address in Wiltshire, careful, curt, and topped with a layer of civility thick enough to skate on.
---
Knockturn's Consensus (Which Is To Say, The Coward's)
In a room that smelled of counterfeit courage, three former Death Eaters argued themselves into ignorance.
"Potter," said the first—small eyes, smaller soul—"scarred our Lord and lived. The old magics have his name written into them now. He is the prophecy's tooth."
"Black's brat," said the second—long fingers, longer memory—"is only loud because he's far away. Durmstrang makes boys believe they matter. England will teach him scale."
"The Malfoy blood," said the third—more snake than man in the way he stretched the sibilants—"is old. And the Black name is older. If the boy is anything like the rumors say, he could be—"
"Useful?" the first sneered. "The Malfoys were always useful."
"Dangerous," the second countered. "The Malfoys were always expensive."
"But the prophecy—" the third began.
"—belongs to Potter," said the first and the second together, because cowards love consensus. "Let the headmaster fatten him up with kindness. We'll carve the rest out later."
They toasted the ruin of a country they had already failed to own and congratulated themselves on being clever enough to repeat mistakes in fresh hats.
A boy with good ears and a bad job carried the report to a woman who sold information as if it were soap—harmless, everyday, and getting everywhere. She edited the stupid out of it and sent a distilled version to a buyer in the Ministry and another to a buyer who paid in heavier coin. She did not bother sending any of it north. The north would know already, because the north paid attention.
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Durmstrang: Gossip, Gravity, and a Joke That Was A Plan
At Durmstrang, you could feel the rumor front move through a room. The air changed temperature; benches scraped as people rotated to better angles; the old stone listened without pretending it didn't.
"He's just talented because he's a Black," a third-year announced confidently in the dining hall, loud enough to be overheard and careful enough to pretend it was accidental. "Put him at Hogwarts and he'd be ordinary."
"Ordinary like their staircases?" someone muttered. Laughter flicked up like sparks, then died because people liked living.
Ivar didn't take the bait. He fed Mila a better cut of meat without looking and nicked a slice of Jannik's cheese so casually that theft looked like friendship. He sat back, balanced on two legs of the bench the way a man balances on a decision, and let the noise wash until it became the kind of silence that begged to be shaped.
He rapped the pewter cup once—a habit now; the room indulged it. "Announcements," he said, and the word drew smiles before the content arrived. "One: the wind and I remain married; please stop flirting with my spouse on the parapets. Two: if you find a glove with delusions of grandeur behind the eastern buttress, it's a trophy; turn it in for bragging rights and a truly mediocre sweet. Three: to the gentleman who thinks I shine only because my name was polished before I arrived—thank you. My parents will be thrilled to hear I finally used the fancy monogram stationary."
That got the laugh he wanted—wide, warm, and edged. He didn't wait for the echo to die.
"Truth," he said, the smile still in place, the tone different: "Blood is a door, not a house. I walked through it. I built the rest myself, with the people at this table and a few hammers borrowed from professors who like pretending they're not proud."
The laughter shifted into something else—agreement, admission, surrender, he never pressed too hard on the labels. He hopped off the bench and caught the boy who'd made the initial jab with a look that wasn't hostile, just inevitable. "If you want to test the theory," he offered, bright as noon, "meet me at second bell in the yard. Bring your best friend. You'll need him."
The boy came. Of course he did. They always came, because avoiding humiliation today just meant getting it mailed to you tomorrow.
The duel lasted longer than the ones with Anton because Ivar let it. He parried at the last moment instead of the first; he complimented a clean hinge in the boy's shoulder as he blocked a clumsy bind; he ended it with a tweaked Disarming that let the wand arc high and land neatly in the boy's hand again. Then he bowed, slow and sincere, in front of everyone.
"Thank you," he said. "You gave the room a lesson."
"What lesson?" the boy asked, pink and proud and a little bit better than he'd been five minutes earlier.
"That names are doors," Ivar said. "Houses you still have to build."
He left the yard with his usual retinue—Klara's gravity, Jannik's running commentary, Mila's delighted, terrified, competent questions—and made a game of stealing everyone's gloves and returning them precisely one minute later to the wrong hands. Chaos for friends: harmless, hilarious, a magic trick that said stay close, you're safe here. A nightmare for enemies: even the jokes landed like strategy.
By late afternoon, Volkov stole ten minutes of his time and Mila's to adjust the brace again. "Pain lies," the professor told her. "Let physics be your honesty." He said nothing to Ivar and said everything by placing his chalk in the boy's palm and walking away.
---
Two Letters and a Door
McGonagall's note arrived in tidy script that made lies trip over their hems.
Mr. Malfoy, she wrote, purely as a courtesy: the Headmaster may write to you before term's end. If he does, it will be an invitation, not a summons. I add my voice only to say that if you come under our roof, you will be treated as a student first. You will also be watched. This is not malice. It is prudence. Pottery cracks if you pretend it is iron. We intend to keep all our children whole. —M. McGonagall
Ivar read it twice and handed it to Klara. "She tells the truth for a living," he said.
"Then she's trustworthy until someone asks her to lie," Klara replied, practical as snow. "Let's hope no one does."
An hour later a second envelope arrived, bearing the Hogwarts crest embossed with the confidence of a place that knew it was legend even in rooms that disliked legends.
Mr. Malfoy, wrote Albus Dumbledore in a hand that could have been grandfatherly if not for the angles, you are spoken of highly by instructors I respect. Durmstrang has done well by you, and you by it. I write not to entice you from a school that suits you, but to say that when you are ready to visit Hogwarts—at any time—you would be welcome to walk our halls as a guest. I try to meet every child who will shape the world my school serves. Consider this an open door. —A. Dumbledore
Jannik blew out a theatrical breath. "That's… nice? Is it nice? It feels like a very polite hand extended from across a river."
"It's a door," Ivar said. "And a measuring stick being slid across the threshold to see if I trip."
"Will you write back?" Mila asked, then flushed, as if she'd overstepped.
"Yes," Ivar said, immediate. "I respect open doors. I also respect rooms that admit what they're trying to do. He did both."
He answered cleanly: Headmaster—thank you for the courtesy. I won't leave my forge mid-heat. But I recognize a school that takes itself seriously, and I do intend to set foot on your stone. When I do, I'll bring the weather with me and go where it's invited. —Ivar Malfoy (Black)
He included the parenthetical as a gentle, gleaming threat and a truth. Blood is a door. You sign both names when you mean to walk through the right one.
---
The Chamber, and the Joke About Blindness
Night fell like someone had decided the sky needed discipline. The lake went from mirror to mouth; the wind negotiated nothing. Ivar found the ritual chamber as if it had been waiting and—as usual—it had. The stones liked him. He never apologized for it.
"Good evening," he said in Parseltongue, because politeness has a tone.
The pressure that meant attention settled around his boots and calves, not heavy, just sure.
"They think I'm talented because I'm a Black," he said, amused. "They think I shine because someone polished the family silver and sat me next to a candle. They think Potter is the prophecy and everything else is weather."
The dark angled toward him—approval shaped into space. Shadows are strongest when the lamp points elsewhere, the room implied.
"Exactly," he said. "Let them point it at the scar, for now. He can have the spotlight. I'll take the backstage keys."
He shut his eyes without meaning to and caught, just barely, the smell of wax and old books from very far away—Gryffindor Tower's cousin or maybe the Great Hall's breath. A boy laughed there, awkward and kind in the way only first-years manage while still learning where to put their hands. Harry. Not an enemy. Not a friend. A noun on a line that would eventually need a verb.
"When we meet," Ivar said to the dark, "I will not compete with him for prophecy. I will compete with myself to be the person who can walk into the room and not be a question."
The chamber accepted that like a tithe. The air warmed—not by degrees, but by intention.
He opened his eyes and laughed softly, because he'd remembered a line he wanted to try at breakfast.
"Blindness," he said on his way up the stair, "is only funny when it's voluntary."
He slept light, like a general who trusted the watch he'd set. Across the sea, a headmaster folded his reply and considered timing. In the Ministry, a director added a new index to an old file. In a broken alley, three men declared their safety to each other and were wrong in chorus.
And in the north, a boy wrote three more names on the table in his head and set one extra chair for whoever fate decided to send him next—not because he believed in fate, but because it kept showing up early and asking for soup.