antis woke up after only a few hours, another nightmare that left him horrified and shaky, though articulating why didn’t make sense in the logic of consciousness, the emotions were still there. Another nightmare about his ex, about feeling cornered and helpless.
At least it was quiet, here—properly quiet, no infrasound from fans or trains or motors of any sort, which usually woke him up or kept him from restful sleep.
He didn’t really know what to do with himself; all his stuff was gone, even his stuffed animal—and that was really the worst part. This was the third time he’d had that stuffed animal ripped from him, and he’d already had to replace her once. At least he knew she was safe, because she’d been in his hotel room. Once they gave him up for dead, they’d send his things back to his friends in New York… possibly?
He wondered about that for a while.
He missed her.
He wanted to cry about it.
Master moved, turning over in his sleep, and his arm moved from where it had been resting on Mantis’ body. Mantis waited, and—carefully, slowly—inched out of the bed. At least it was a firm enough bed to not make his hips subluxate (he normally avoided medical words, but that one was pretty, so it could stay), and a soft enough one to not pinch all his nerves. He hoped his bed in the harem… should he not call it that? He didn’t know of any other words, despite knowing more of what harem meant than he had a few years ago….
Well, he thought fiercely, nobody was really going to care whether he was using all the right words and being Very Correct now, were they?
He sat on the floor by the bed for a while, on the rug, and then, since he was down there, decided he may as well do the few physical therapy exercises he could do without what he always thought of as The Big Rubberband. The room started to get light just as he was finishing the relevés, and he… wondered, about the Mistress.
Mistress had hucows.
Cows got milked in the morning.
He quietly got dressed again in the layers of tunic, and quietly slipped out the French doors. He’d hug the perimeter of the house, not leave the terraces around it, that should help him avoid any Very Large Animals that might very well be in that wood. He hoped there were Very Large Animals in there, anyway; that would mean it was a proper ecosystem in there….
It was warm out, he supposed it was too warm for England, but it was only a bit sticky to him, which meant it was… likely somewhere in the neighbourhood of eighty degrees, with humidity. Hm, so they were having a heatwave. Well, global warming… he listened to the morning chorus, and noted that the birds and (red) squirrels were not afraid of him, came right up to him expectantly. So, they got fed, just like the ones in Central Park. It always made him feel a bit like a Fairytale Princess, when animals did that.
It occurred to him, about when he got to a loggia, that he had no idea if the cows were kept outside the house. What if they were inside? Well, at least he got to have a nice walk outside during his favourite time to walk outside….
There was a person here, they were sitting at a patio table having breakfast. Mantis froze, not sure what to do. He hadn’t even seen them until they’d moved and he’d heard the rustling of someone turning the pages of a newspaper. Had they seen him? Should he back up? But he couldn’t, the paralysis he felt whenever he didn’t have a memorised chain of if-then statements to guide his social behaviour was upon him.
The person was making kissy noises, the type you made when you saw a stray cat and wanted to call it over.
(The cat theme was starting to be sort of fun, actually. Mantis had pretended to be a cat much longer than children usually pretended these things.)
As he got closer, he realised this must be Mistress; she was pretty, wearing a tea-gown of blush pink linen embroidered with thread-of-gold suns and clouds in heraldic style, the fine fabric clinging to every curve—and there were quite a few of them, most comfortingly (to Mantis, from a family of heavy-bosomed women) her tits, which were full and obviously uncorseted, free to move and hanging well down over her soft belly, her nipples large and visible as any woman who had nursed her children. So, either she was dedicated to milking herself in some fashion, or she’d had at least one child she’d nursed herself, Mantis thought. She was wearing slippers of fine, punched leather, likely due to the heat; and her nails were, surprisingly, short and unadorned, and very, very clean. Her long hair was woven into a long thick braid, and obviously as natural a blonde as Master, though Mistress’ hair was warmer in tone, and sun-streaked. Master’s hair was nearly white, it was so ashen a blond.
He did not, he realised, want to get all the way down on the hard stone ground. Master said he shouldn’t hurt himself, he reminded himself, and cast around for somewhere to sit that wasn’t the other chair, that was lower than her. There was a low stone bench that was still in conversation distance; he sat on that.
‘You must be the new boy, aren’t you pretty?’ she said, and Mantis could tell by her tone that she wasn’t talking to him like he’d answer. ‘What pretty eyes you have. What are you doing outside? Did you get lost, poor little darling.’
The problem was, Mantis didn’t like not talking; what would a cat do in this situation? What would a talking cat do?
‘I heard there was milk to be had, somewhere,’ Mantis said, in his best feline voice, ‘I was looking for it.’
The chuckle was plummy and soft and oh, he wanted her to like him so badly, he wanted to be allowed to put his face against her softness…. ‘Does Master know you’re out?’
‘Master knows I am the Cat Who Walks By Himself,’ Mantis said, with confidence. ‘I was only exploring, I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake him,’ he added, more sincerely.
‘I suppose you didn’t get a chance to settle in, last night. Come here,’ she said, and he saw her arm reach out, beckoning.
Narcissa saw him tense up, hesitate; he was still so skittish. Well, her dear husband did enjoy reassuring them, didn’t he? she thought fondly, and waited.
‘I… I shouldn’t kneel on the stone, Mistress. Master said I wasn’t to harm my body, and it’s delicate.’
‘Oh, darling,’ Mistress said, with such softness, ‘we don’t make pets sit on the ground. Come sit in the chair, here, next to me. Are you hungry? Of course you are. Vauquelin,’ she said, turning to the staff member that had been standing quietly nearby. She didn’t need to say more, and he bowed, shimmering off to presumably get more food from the kitchen.
Now that he was closer, Mantis saw there was only a tea set on the table, and Mistress poured him some tea from the green jasperware teapot, placing the matching cup and saucer in front of him, and adding cream until the tea was white.
‘You’re so very thin, precious one,’ she said, as she did, ‘we must feed you up, hmm? Do you like sugar?’
‘Just one, please,’ Mantis said, feeling a little strange—wasn’t he lower than a servant? Why was he sitting with her at the table?—but also a little more familiar—formal table manners for taking tea were something reliable and familiar, comforting in their structure.
She set the creamer down, taking up the ornate silver tongs and plucking one of the rose-shaped lumps of sugar from the bowl, dropping it delicately into his cup. He took up the little demitasse spoon and carefully stirred, trying his best not to clink the spoon on the sides, or scrape it on the bottom. Trying to sit up straight, though that hurt after a while. He lay the spoon down on the saucer and hoped that was the right decision, before lifting the cup, realising that the white figures on it were Greek, though he didn’t let himself linger looking at them, knowing that was bad manners.
It was a gorgeous tea set, from what he could see of the shapes, a rich emerald green he’d never seen jasperware be before, and mercifully not gilded or vermeilled at the rims. The tea was, also, the perfect temperature, just sweet enough—a relief, Mantis had not had formal tea, with plain sugar, in many years. He was aware he was being watched, possibly Judged, and was trying very hard because of it, though inwardly he flailed for what he was supposed to talk about, if anything. He didn’t quite know what to say, though he had a lot of questions, starting with whether the cream for the tea was from a human.
‘How well-trained you are,’ she said. ‘I thought muggles had completely done away with manners.’
‘They have. I’m an oddity,’ Mantis said, looking into his teacup, watching the cornflowers swirl in it.
‘Is that right? What made you learn such things, then?’
‘Socialising was very hard, I didn’t pick up on the invisible rules everyone seemed to know; so I read books from times when everyone was taught them, and… took refuge, there.’ He paused. ‘I’m a changeling, you see.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ she said, but gently.
‘Am I allowed to speak as freely to you as I do to Master, or am I supposed to be quiet and small? I don’t—I don’t want to be rude.’
‘An admirable ambition. As both my boys have already had fascinating conversations with you, I should like to have one as well. Speak freely, but be mindful of your place.’
‘Yes, Mistress. It’s comforting to be around people who understand rank.’ He sipped his tea.
‘Mm, yes, Americans don’t seem to like that sort of thing, do they?’
‘The colonisers pretend they don’t, but they just stopped mentioning it. The indigenous peoples don’t like rank at all, no.’ Mantis was always very specific, these days. He’d found, since getting to England, that people were largely startled by hearing someone separate and specify like that. ‘The northerly ones—north of Mexico, I mean—were never slave societies, as far as I know.’
Vauquelin returned, with a rolling cart of many covered dishes, and a toast rack of shining brass full of toast that was perfectly medium and still hot—given that Mantis’ dinner last night had stayed perfectly hot regardless of how long he took to eat it, he assumed magic was involved. That would certainly be what he’d use magic for.
Mantis wasn’t surprised to have his plate filled for him, Vauquelin obeying the Mistress’ silent orders to put this and that on it; Mantis told himself he needed to try and trust that Evers had already conveyed his limits to the kitchen, since that was kind of his job, and Evers really liked him, and had been kind and respectful to him, and inquisitive about his needs. It helped that Vauquelin set a cup of cut crystal before him, which was full of an appealingly green potion, translucent and beading condensation on the glass.
Notably, it was different from the violet potion Evers had given Mantis last night, and said was to strengthen his collagen. So, this was something else, and Mantis would be lying if he said he wasn’t sort of thrilled to just blindly drink it and trust. He waited to Vauquelin to pull away, and then a little more, unsure if he was meant to wait. But the butler—he had to be the butler, he had that air of power and was too old for a footman—waited, after that, and Mantis gave a little nod as he understood. He was supposed to drink this before Vauquelin would set that plate of his breakfast down.
He picked up the cup, and reminded himself to breathe, and started to drink. It tasted of mint and something appealingly astringent, and despite the tart taste, when he swallowed it seemed to easily slide down his throat, and the coolness was much more than the mere balm of menthol could provide—there was something deeper about it, and for the first time in years, he didn’t hurt, and felt truly hungry—not painfully, not I Need Food But I Still Don’t Want Food; but I Want Food, Food Sounds Nice, Everything Smells Delicious.
He could count on one hand the number of times he’d felt that in the past decade and still have fingers left.
He was careful, because drinking from a cup was difficult to do without getting it everywhere; but over the years he’d had the numbness in roughly a quarter of his lips, he’d figured it out. He still made sure to take the napkin and just make extra sure he didn’t have anything at the corners of his mouth, though; he was deeply self-conscious of how the surgery had made him a messy eater just due to sheer mechanical difficulty.
Vauquelin had pretty movements, Mantis thought as he watched the plate set down in front of him—they were almost balletic. The plate had buttered toast, scrambled eggs that looked well-seasoned with herbs, bacon, some black circles that probably involved blood, slices of tomato, mushrooms, and sausage, as well as a scone with clotted cream.
Gods, he loved how the English did breakfast. He tried a bit of the unfamiliar black circles first, and found it was some kind of meat loaf… thing. It resembled meatloaf, but seasoned very differently, milder and with a smoother texture. He… wasn’t entirely sure he liked it, but he finished the bite of it.
He tried it with some of the egg, and that was a good pairing, but he decided he didn’t much like it and wasn’t going to have more. The eggs were delicious, he was used to them seeming delicious for only the first bite. They were French style, which was the proper way, he’d always thought, and had a lovely velvety texture. He spooned little bits onto the toast.
Narcissa watched him sample everything, then sample combinations of everything; what a methodical creature. But the potion wasn’t the usual one—she wondered why he would need so serious a restructuring of his insides as to use that one, and such a large dose of it. Was he like her, she wondered; that potion had been designed by Severus specifically for her, years ago, when they’d been at school and Narcissa had been sickly from a life of never knowing when a food would make her violently ill. It had been one of the ways he’d endeared himself to Society, was how readily and cleverly he could solve problems that had baffled all the Healers to the Black family for decades.
The boy was fastidious, nervous, tiny bites, left-handed… Narcissa observed this while eating her own plate of the same, though she had two scones rather than any toast.
‘What kinds of fruit do you have here, in England I mean,’ Mantis asked, once the first rush of eating was over. He was just wondering how to ask for more tea when she poured him more, with cream and sugar. ‘Thank you,’ he said, automatically, and sipped.
‘The estate has many fruit and nut trees,’ Narcissa said, ‘everything that has ever grown in England.’
‘What’s in season right now? Currants? Um… elderberries?’
‘Were you one of those poor muggles that lived in the city?’
‘No, it’s the opposite: I lived in a place where everything grows all the time because we have good soil, three hundred days of sunshine every year, and no frost,’ Mantis said, rather proudly.
‘My word, what a paradisical country that must be.’
‘It was,’ Mantis said, quiet again, this time because of sorrow, not fear. ‘It’s gone now. But,’ he said, nervous about being sad without immediately being upbeat and optimistic to show he wasn’t Bringing The Mood Down (unconscionable rudeness), ‘Now I live somewhere with proper trees again. I don’t know these kinda trees, but that’s okay, I will get to know them. Trees are good friends.’
Inwardly, he winced at how he had slid into Small Baby language, something that happened when he was scared and trying desperately to show he was Harmless, and didn’t have messy things like Grief. He started eating again, just to shut himself up, and missed Narcissa’s soft smile.
‘Tell me about your grove,’ Narcissa said, seeing the clear grief, never lanced; too, she was not the one raised up in the Olympian faith, but in the Druidic one. ‘What trees did you have?’
‘My best friends were the avocado and the oldest macadamia tree, but we had eighteen other macadamia trees, and a mango tree, and a strawberry guava bush, and an oak full of spiders…’
He went on for quite a long time, with only a little prompting here and there from Narcissa, and painted a vivid picture of a lost grove, planted before the city was a city, the trees and the house well-loved by him, if no one else. And the grief, the utter devastation, when he said, at the end of painting a detailed picture of his childhood, vivid with love for his grove, It’s gone now. They razed it to the ground and it’s an empty lot.
Groves being razed to the ground was a very real horror the magical world had suffered, and Narcissa’s heart went out to him. By now, Lucius had told her of the new slave’s unorthodox status as Oracle, and she wondered if he knew just how hampered his magic would be, because of this violent tearing of his grove from him.
She wondered how the Malfoy grove would welcome his trees, if they could plant some, perhaps in the warmed part where the olive and laurel trees grew, seeds taken from the islands of Greece, nurtured carefully, protected from England’s harsh cold.
Not that it was very cold, nor had it been, for some time.
She wondered what Lucius’ plans were for him; clearly, he hadn’t Obliviated anything yet, which was unlike him. Then again, the boy was an Oracle. Perhaps he was not to be a slave at all, but merely had been mixed up with a raid by accident.
‘Has he given you your name?’ she asked.
‘Mantis,’ said the boy, looking at the cart as he finished the last bite of his food. ‘May I—may I please have another scone?’
‘You can have a great deal more than that, precious,’ Narcissa chuckled, ‘You’re so very small, we must remedy that—winter is soon.’
As Vauquelin filled his plate again—this time with two scones, and no sausage, and, wow, he’d been paying attention, because he was leaving off all the stuff Mantis hadn’t really liked, and giving extra of the stuff he had enjoyed. Servants were so magical, Mantis thought, and not for the first time. He glowed happily to be in the presence of such competence, even though there was no way for him to convey exactly why he was so delighted and admiring. Vauquelin was everything he’d wanted to be, the short and fleeting months he’d been able to hold a job anywhere—Mantis laughed a little to himself.
‘Is it Fat Bear Week, then?’ he said, knowing she wouldn’t know, and hoping she’d ask him to explain.
‘Fat Bear Week?’
‘It’s a thing where, at the end of summer, the stewards of one of the wilderness areas in America give an accolade to the bear that fattened themself up the most for winter. It’s a way that they get people caring about the wilderness, so they can get more support to care for it. But it’s a fun game, you know, all week people are watching, making bets, encouraging their favourite bears and so forth. It gets people engaged with nature. And um, also! The puns, because “bear” is what we affectionately call a fat hairy fella, in the queer community—do you. Um. Do you call them “queer” here? I don’t know the words… oh! Like, kinaidos, or sapphic. People like that living in Christian states need to band together, since the Christians kind of… kill us a lot. So we have this… sort of secret counterculture.’
‘I am vaguely aware, though the argot was never something I learned, other than “queen” and “lesbian”. My husband and I, respectively,’ she added, chuckling. ‘My cousin taught me those words.’
‘Oooh, Master’s a queen?’ Mantis said, brightening and fairly quivering with delight, his smile incandescent. He put his fork down, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and pushed the chair back a little, before bouncing and fanning his face with both hands. ‘Eeeee—okay I’m fine, I’m fine. I mean, I hoped so, but like, I wasn’t sure. I am too! They’re rare in the muggle world nowadays, so I’ve been very lonely. Can I ask you something?’
‘If you are not impertinent.’
Mantis giggled. ‘Sorry, it’s just—Master says the same thing. Anyway, am I getting a collar? Would that be—would that be weird to ask? Or is the marking more like a tattoo? Or a piercing?’
Narcissa took a moment to parse this, and realised, ‘…We don’t mark our slaves,’ she said, faintly horrified.
‘Oh—oh gods, I said something offensive. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ he rushed, terrified and wanting to sink into the ground.
‘It was an innocent question, but… no,’ she said, and Mantis could tell there was some terrible memory there. He wondered if it had anything to do with the tattoo he’d seen on Master’s arm…. Maybe that was not just a tattoo, Mantis realised. Maybe that was some kind of… forced mark? For some reason?
‘We don’t force a Mark on our slaves,’ Mistress went on, in a very serious voice, and then went right back to her soft, syrupy nonchalance, ‘If you wanted a collar, I suppose you could ask Master for one, he would probably adore picking out collars for his pussy cat.’
‘He could coordinate them with his outfits!’ Mantis said, perhaps too brightly; but when she laughed it was like a gift and a reassurance all at once, and he finally relaxed. ‘He could put little bells on my ankles so he could find me in the dark, even! That would be fun.’
Narcissa actually giggled. ‘Eat, boy,’ she said, but she was still laughing.
‘Yes, Mistress,’ Mantis said cheerfully, obeying. He was so hungry! This was fun! He was just watching as Mistress fed the last of the toast to the birds when he heard the delicious sound of heeled footsteps on stone.
‘Good morning, Mother.’
‘Good morning, Draco, dear.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Mantis, he’s the new oracle your father was gifted by the gods.’
Mantis took note of this—so, his status was kind of weird and ambiguous, which was, if he was honest, sort of where he liked being? Where he felt was right for him to be, anyway, even if it was never exactly Comfortable, nor Safe.
‘I see. Good morning, Mantis. I’m—’
‘Don’t give me your name,’ Mantis said, feeling the familiar terror for other people that he always did. ‘Names have power.’
Draco gave that profound statement the respect of silence—in truth, he was startled for more than one reason.
He recognised that voice, as soon as Mantis opened that rosebud mouth. The voice in the dark. The new slave. He was an oracle? He hadn’t mentioned that. No wonder he spoke so freely, and so readily fell to instruction!
‘Then what shall you call me?’ he asked.
‘Have you a title?’ Mantis asked immediately, stirring his tea. ‘You seem a learnéd man, you surely have a title you earned. Doctor, or Esquire, or something.’
‘Esquire?’ Draco asked.
‘Oh that’s—lawyers have that one, in America. Goes after their name.’
‘How quaint! I’m an Architect, as it happens.’
‘The Architect, then,’ Mantis said, with a grin.
‘…How did you make that sound ominous.’
‘…There are several answers to that question, do you want the serious one, the funny one, or the long one?’
There was a loud wail of a bird-cry, and Mantis looked over at the white peacock that had just emerged from the woods, strutting on the stone of the loggia. ‘Yes, can I help you sir?’
The fan went up, and Mantis sighed, pressing his lips together. For some reason, birds thought he was devastatingly attractive, and always had. The peacock had scared away the other birds, and was displaying specifically for Mantis, getting dangerously close to knocking over the table.
‘Sir—sir—yes that’s very—sir,’ Mantis got up, worried about the bird knocking over the table and wanting to be on his feet in any case. ‘Sir,’ he said again, in his Customer Service voice, backing away from the bird’s advances. ‘I’m gonna have to ask you to leave—sir. Sir our genitals are not compatible—aughfuck—nonodon’tjumponmeAUGH!’
He had no idea how to grab a peacock safely, all the knowledge had was about geese and songbirds and raptors—but he’d tripped and barely kept himself from getting hurt falling down, there was a peacock trying to climb up on him, and he was laughing as much out of nerves as the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually the peacock flew off—or so he thought. Once his attention wasn’t entirely taken up by amorous peacock, he realised the peacock was just sort of… hovering in the air.
‘James,’ Mistress said admonishingly, as the peacock made all manner of loud protests. ‘That is most ungentlemanly behaviour.’
‘Sorry,’ Draco said, helping Mantis up. ‘I’ve never seen him do that to a person, before.’
‘Not my first time,’ Mantis said, dusting himself off and frankly marvelling that he hadn’t sprained or broken anything in the fall. ‘Thanks though, I don’t know how to pick up a peacock and I didn’t want to hurt him.’
‘Your arm is bleeding and you were worried about hurting him?’ Draco was more than a little surprised, as he took out his wand and sang a soft healing spell Snape had taught him years ago.
‘Yeah but consider: he’s just a dumb baby,’ Mantis began, pointedly not looking at the blood, and focussing on the trees, and breathing slowly, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He just thinks I’m a Very Sexy Lady Bird and he’s doing what he was programmed to do when he sees a Very Sexy Lady Bird. It’s okay. Thank you,’ he said, as Draco finished healing his arm. The pain had faded without even itching, that was rather marvellous.
‘I had a teacher like you, once,’ Draco said, with a little huff of a laugh, as they returned to the table, which had gone miraculously unmolested, since Mantis had drawn the bird away from it so immediately. Mother had gently Banished James, as she always did when he got too aggressive, to one of the trees about a hundred yards back from the loggia.
‘So… why is the peacock named James?’ Mantis asked.
‘We had a classmate named James,’ Narcissa said airily, as she tucked her wand away (it was a very elegant wand, made of some sort of pale wood) and settled down in her chair again. ‘He was very much the same.’
‘Oooooh,’ Mantis said, with feeling, and a very theatrical wince, before laughing.
Draco had heard the villainous, surprisingly deep laugh before; but Mother hadn’t, and exchanged a Look with him. Draco merely lifted his brows in agreement; it was the sort of laugh that would seduce people.
Draco chatted with his mother, and Mantis joined in, alternating between telling jokes and being a very enthusiastic audience as Draco told stories about what he’d been up to lately. Spring and summer were the busiest seasons for buildings, as one raced the clock to get work done before the winter halted all construction, so Draco hadn’t been home since March, and a lot had happened.
He noticed Mother kept telling Mantis to eat. She never did that to Draco, never had done; did… she have a feeding kink? Well, Mantis had said it was part of the ‘collection’ he called inflation, and the most common one… it felt rather thrilling, like knowing a secret code, to know that such seemingly innocent comments were clandestinely sexual.
Draco was wondering where Fa was, about the time Fa appeared, dressed in a silk banyan Draco hadn’t seen before; it was loud—the silk had thick purple, orange and fuchsia stripes in satin, alternating with figured cream in between each colour. It looked magnificent on him (Fa looked magnificent in everything) but it was quite a departure from the sombre blacks and dark greens Draco was used to seeing him in. It made him look younger, somehow, his eyes looking more blue than Draco remembered them being.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Fa said to Mantis, coming up and petting his hair, skritching behind his ear and along his jaw as though he really were a cat. ‘Good morning, my Lady Wife.’
‘Good morning, darling. I’ve been feeding your pussycat.’
‘Ah, good. He needs feeding—don’t you, precious? Yes you do,’ he said, in exactly the same voice he used on the peacocks, before turning to Draco. ‘Good morning, Draco.’
‘Good morning, Fa,’ Draco said.
‘Have you any plans for today?’ came the reply, Lucius not quite looking at Draco, as he was loading his plate with mostly scones and various things one put on same. Fa had a sweet tooth, at least in the mornings.
‘I was thinking of writing to friends, you know, saying I’m available for social calls, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, you’ll be staying longer then?’ Lucius said, much delighted by this. ‘How wonderful! Shall we plan a party, then?’
‘Ooh, we haven’t had a party in weeks!’ Narcissa said.
‘Alright,’ Draco said, knowing better than to try and stop them, and not minding; his parents threw good parties. ‘It would be nice to have it out here, it’s so hot inside.’
Mantis hummed in agreement, knowing exactly why it was so hot inside the house, which was built to retain heat, rather than shed it.
‘It’s been beastly hot this summer,’ Lucius agreed.
‘Well,’ Mantis said, not really thinking about it, ‘global warming.’
There was a marked silence, after this, and Mantis realised, with a cold feeling of shock, eyes widening as he slowly lowered his fork. ‘You… does the magical world not know about the global warming? Oh… oh god, I don’t want to be the one to bear this news. Hermes help me,’ he muttered, tenting his hands over his mouth and nose, closing his eyes and taking a steadying breath.
‘Boy,’ Lucius said, but gently. ‘Speak.’
Mantis took a very, very deep breath, let it out slowly. He thought on what this would mean, he thought on the ripples this would make, and decided that it was worse if he didn’t disclose this information, no matter what it led to.
‘So,’ he said, as he often began long explanations, ‘you know all that coal muggles were really into…’
Mantis was very glad he wasn’t wearing his glasses, that he couldn’t see faces even when he did have glasses, that he was sitting in the middle of an ancient forest, as he explained—in gory detail, and as best as he could (he wasn’t a scientist, but he was good at teaching)—what global warming was, being very specific about which muggles were responsible for most of it, and which ones were fighting it.
He was always very specific about that part.
He also, because he was a stubborn and angry optimist, went into the good news, all the things that had already been done to improve things since the seventies, what the world his mother had grown up in was like, compared to what the world he’d grown up in was like, and trying to overall not sound dire and scary about it, because that was Bad Reporting, and he wasn’t a trained journalist, but he was educated enough to have deep-seated ethics on Yellow Journalism.
They were completely silent, which was hard, because Mantis was the sort of American that was used to noisy audiences; but he kept going, knowing that he wasn’t to trail off, until he had truly reached the end of the story. ‘…And so, that’s why every summer has been hotter than the last for decades now,’ he finished.
‘…And all muggles are aware of this, right now?’ Master asked, in a voice Mantis had never heard before—it was soft, and sent chills up his spine. A villain voice, the voice of a dragon contemplating what wine to serve you with at dinner…
‘Yes, I would say everyone knows by now.’
‘I see.’
‘Sorry for being the bearer of bad news,’ Mantis said, aware he was hunching his shoulders and hanging his head, but not able to bring himself to stop. He felt Master’s hand on his back, gentle.
‘A messenger’s burden is that he has to bring the bad news, as well as the good.’
Mantis uncoiled a little. ‘Thank you, Master.’
‘You’re from the desert,’ Draco said, venturing into changing the subject a little.
‘I am, yes. Born and bred.’
‘Houses are built differently then, aren’t they? To shed heat?’
They saw Mantis light up, at that; he smiled again, eyes bright and a little wide with a sort of mad enthusiasm Draco was used to seeing in Fawley. ‘They aaaare,’ he said in a low hum of barely-contained excitement. ‘None better than the atomic futurism of the 1960s. Inverted butterfly rooves, and googie, and Eichler, and Hephaestus help me, if you let me I’ll go on about this for an hour. I love our architecture so much. But if you’re looking for just… elements that shed heat, that’s simpler,’ he added.
‘Perhaps you can tell me about Eichler and googie another time,’ Draco said, and Mantis heard his smile and his mischief. ‘Dinner, perhaps?’ he tried, testing whether Fa would object. Was the oracle a slave, or wasn’t he? It seemed up in the air.
‘After lunch,’ Fa corrected, ‘Mantis, pet, once you’re done eating, Evers is waiting for you in my chambers. Go to him.’
‘Yes, Master,’ Mantis said softly.
‘Good boy.’
Oh, Draco thought, oh that was a very different tone of good boy than Draco got.
‘Narcissa, my beloved wife, might I join you to do the milking? I have things to discuss, before I see Severus today.’
‘Of course, dear. More tea, Draco?’