Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

Chapter 16: The Pretender (Part III)

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PLAYING AT?!"

Ginny swung round to peer into the shadowy planes of Draco Malfoy´s scowling face. "You´re barking! Are you out of you mind?" He released Ginny´s wrist and made a grab for her wand. "Nox."

Only after the tiny light had diminished from the wand tip did he hand it back to her.

"Pinpoints of light make Manticores hostile," hissed Malfoy tremulously. "Or did that illiterate oaf forget to tell you to read that chapter?"

With her wand extinguished, Ginny could no longer see. But she could hear. The softening of the growls. The fading sound of scraping tails withdrawing across the gravel. And the quick, relieved breaths of the boy beside her, small tickling puffs past her ear. It was amazing, thought Ginny, how the little tremor in the Slytherin´s voice undermined the force of the sneer she´d seen a moment earlier.

A light gust blew across her shoulder and she swung round to see the pale green of a portable flame hovering by Draco´s head. It roared diminutively and swayed, like wings unfurling to embrace a breeze. The cavern glowed dimly, bathed in a soft emerald glow and the stalactites cast long, flickering shadows that bent and twisted like evangelical mourners. Malfoy shot her a proud smirk, then reined himself in with a scowl, as if he´d suddenly remembered that he was standing in the dark with a Weasley.

Giving his wand a wave, he produced another fiery orb.

"Hold this," he ordered, pocketing his wand. "A flame this size isn´t big enough to frighten, but it isn´t small enough to aggravate them either..."

He paused, peering at her strangely, and frowned. "Can you even speak, Weasley? What´s the matter? Manticore got your tongue?"

A lock of blond hair flopped over one eye as he raised a mocking brow. Ginny fixed him with what she hoped might be a stare to burn an Ashwinder. In the end she suspected it looked more like a pained squint, but she was too outraged at his impertinence to be deterred. Who does he think he is, anyway? Ginny wrenched her wrist from his hand.

"What are you doing here?" she countered. "You´re not down for feeding Phoebe until after lunch." She had secretly been hoping that since she and the Slytherin had been assigned alternating feeding times that she might be spared his company. Well. So much for that.

He didn´t meet her eye, and instead, cast about for something on the ground. "Where´s the pail? Ah, there." He pointed lazily at the bucket lying off to Ginny´s right. "Go on, then, Weasley, fill it up and let´s be done with it," he snapped.

Ginny´s mouth dropped open. Of all the arrogant little--

"You´ve got arms, Malfoy," she spat. "Get it yourself!" With an indignant swish of her robes, she swung round, trailing the portable flame behind her, and stalked back to the trapdoor... until she heard a faint snicker from behind.

Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the Slytherin, sleeves rolled up past his elbows and bending over to ladle up more gruel from Hagrid´s enormous wooden vat. He brushed back his platinum fringe with the back of his arm and paused to look her up and down.

"Wrong way, Weasley," he drawled. Draco´s lips twisted in a delighted smirk.

She felt a damning flush rise to her cheeks. Hitching up her robes, Ginny held her head high and ducked briskly down a walkway weaving maze-like between the cages. But after a few moments, she realised that she had guessed wrong. Again. She was wondering vaguely how she might double back without running into Malfoy when the soft green of the portable flames glinted against the rusty spikes of an old iron gate. It stood slightly ajar. Ginny squinted at something bright wedged in the metalwork. Stretching her hand forward, she plucked at a small piece of white fabric impaled on the sharp edge of the serpentine handle. Barely visible on the gravel, amongst the cast-off bits of bone and a random assortment of feathers, a set of footprints led in and out of the cavern, disappearing into the blackness behind the grate.

Ginny glanced at the flame hovering at her side and rested a hand on the gate, toying with the urge to explore the tunnel beyond. Drawing the gate open with a small creak, she felt a soft wind whistle against her ear. And once again, from that uneasy feeling of being watched sprang a shiver that raced from her hand to her trembling knees.

She jumped at an anguished cry from behind and nearly knocked the flame through the grate. Turning swiftly on her heel, she hurried back down the path to find Draco irritably tossing the contents of the bucket back into the wooden vat.

"You could´ve mentioned it´s already been fed," he spat. He scowled at her puzzled expression. "What? Tell me you didn´t notice." He pointed down the row of cages to where their Manticore, Phoebe, tore happily away at a pile of ossified carcasses. The beast´s entire cage was strewn with dried flesh, bones and owl feathers.

Ginny glanced at the surrounding cages. They all were.

***********

Not a single sound was heard in the staff room that evening, except for the odd rustle of Minerva McGonagall´s Transfiguration Monthly and the occasional soft, wheezing snore from behind Filius Flitwick´s hearthside armchair. At least, Bethany suspected it might be Flitwick. From her chair by the window in the alcove, all she could see was a pint-sized pair of shiny black shoes dangling off the edge of the seat from beneath a makeshift blanket of this morning´s Daily Prophet.

Bethany stifled a yawn and frowned discreetly over the top of her copy of Whiplash´s Wizard Weaponry. Keeping to her bargain with Tom and the Dark Lord, she had decided to bolster her surveillance efforts of the Potions Master. Tailing Snape had led her to the generous wood-panelled room on the seventh floor where she kept a cool eye on her quarry. Apart from the odd meals he took in the Great Hall, she had grown accustomed to seeing the Evil Vicar, as she had privately dubbed him, in the sepulchral gloom of his dungeon milieu. It was therefore rather jolting to see Snape´s gaunt frame slouched comfortably on one end of an old leather couch with his long legs casually crossed as he thumbed through a weather-beaten copy of Eastern European Elixirs. He looked like an oversized collapsible umbrella.

She had hoped that if she could observe him interacting with his colleagues, she might glean something from his behaviour, some hint to show her how to win his confidence.

But why wasn´t anyone talking? Not a single word had been exchanged between the room´s occupants since she´d arrived an hour and four teacups ago. Wasn´t the staff room a place for the staff to mingle and discuss common interests, current events, education or, in Filch´s case, the lamentable demise of corporal punishment in the modern school?

At that moment, the far door swung open, triggering a few twitches of interest from each corner of the room.

Sybil Trelawney´s watery blue eyes, artificially enlarged by the bulbous lenses hanging on the bridge of a thin, beaky nose, blinked round eagerly. The respectful silence of the staff room was broken by the tinny tinkling of bangles on the Divination instructor´s bony wrists and the conspicuous scraping of the heavy beaded skirt dragging in her wake. The spindly fingers of one hand clutched a large, transparent crystal that glittered in the firelight.

"Good evening to you all," she announced in a faint, misty voice. "I was in the process of testing our new Memory Crystal when my Inner Eye revealed that I would find the perfect volunteer here amongst you."

Behind her periodical, Minerva rolled her eyes and sighed crossly. A subtle breeze rustled through the room as newspapers and books flew swiftly to camouflage faces like storm shutters slamming against panes.

"Minerva," coaxed Professor Trelawney, "perhaps you would care to help demonstrate the--"

"I´m terribly sorry, Sybil, but I have a prefects´ meeting to attend to," Professor McGonagall replied briskly. The Head of Gryffindor House pursed her lips, crinkling her forehead into rows of disapproving ridges. Tucking her periodical under her arm, she executed a curt nod and fairly fled the room, followed closely by Professor Sinistra and Madam Hooch.

Professor Flitwick remained curled up in his armchair, although his snores increased conspicuously in volume and frequency as Trelawney approached. Without missing a beat, the wiry woman changed trajectory and turned to Snape.

"Perhaps a look into your past, Severus, might help you glean..." Snape looked up from his book to fix her with a glare to kill an Erumpent at twenty paces. "Er... perhaps not."

Bethany might have laughed if the large bug eyes hadn´t suddenly settled on her corner of the room. Oh, no. The witch´s beaded gown scritched and scratched its way across the stone floor with each tenacious stride.

"Bethany, my dear," she simpered, "this will take but a few minutes of your time, and my Inner Eye has foreseen that good will be done for you as a result of this reading."

Before Bethany could protest, Sybil reached forward and stayed her with a surprisingly strong hand. Bethany wrinkled her nose as the powdery aroma of the witch´s perfume descended upon her like a determined storm cloud.

"Now, it´s really quite simple," said Sybil, drawing the drapes to shield out the moonlight. She pulled up a chair opposite and set the large oblong crystal on the coffee table. "You need only to gaze into the crystal core and tell me what you see--though I feel it my duty to warn you, my dear, that I have sensed from our first meeting that the coming of summer... will bring you the loss of someone dear." With these words, Sybil smiled almost eagerly, folding her gold-encrusted fingers with care and fixing her with an expectant stare.

Bethany, who had grown up nursing a great scepticism for "that farce called Divination", gave an exasperated sigh and wrinkled her brow irritably. Oh, well. The sooner she humoured Trelawney, the sooner she could go back to observing Snape. She bent forward, resting her chin on her hands, and gazed half-heartedly at the reflections in the crystal. At length, she started to feel sheepish.

For a moment, all she could see was the light streaming in through the tall window panes... until she realised that was what she was seeing. The long shadows of trees, dancing in the splendour of bluish moonlight against the walls of her old bibliothèque.

Beauxbatons. Bethany remembered every inch of those rooms as if she´d spent an eternity in them--rooms altogether bereft of the charm of the rough-hewn bookshelves and gothic stone arches at Hogwarts. The Bibli had been all high frescoed ceilings, panels of white and gold leaf, carved cherry wood desks and neat clusters of gilded Louis XV armchairs along great windows opening onto the crescent-shaped Readers´ Terrace and fountains.

Bethany remembered the fountains well. And if she closed her eyes, she could still name all the topiary animals in the garden that she had passed on her daily stroll to the fencing rooms. The little stones that crunched beneath her feet along the path, the enchanted bird baths that whistled a melody as you passed, and the turning by the marble statue of La Belle Dame Sans Merci and her adoring knight... Bethany leaned further forward to peer at the crystal, to capture some of that which she had long since surrendered to a past so distant it may as well have belonged to someone else.

The stray shafts of moonlight assailed her with the long-dormant memory of a moonlit sparring room and the tinny clash of foils...

...The move began with a countertime. She examined her opponent through her mask, intending to give him an opening in quarte to provoke him to attack in that position, which he did. Another clash of foils and she disengaged, only to attack again, forcing her opponent into position. The English boy was crazy, she decided, as the whipping of their foils cut through the stillness of the practice rooms. Her heart had been racing for some time, long before they had snuck out of the dormitories that night. Earlier that afternoon, it had been his idea to meet for a Midnight Duel...

"Right then, let´s see what you´re made of, White," he had said. "That is...unless you´re scared?" He had raised a dark, taunting brow, glancing cautiously around the tables in the Runic Reference Section before dramatically throwing down his dragon-hide gauntlet (still caked with that day´s Potions ingredients) in a mock challenge. The same challenge she had turned down nearly every week without fail since the Ministère de l´Education Internationale des Sorcières initiated the trial student exchange in September.

Holding her chin high, she primly slid her parchment out from under his soiled glove and turned away, hoping he wouldn´t notice the telltale flush creeping across her cheeks. Being a reclusive sixteen-year-old bookworm at a staunchly disciplinarian wizarding academy had its drawbacks. Apart from daily fencing exercises, Bethany had been a virtual inmate of either the lab or the library, and was wholly unaccustomed to weathering anyone´s masculine charms.

"What makes you think I´d ever agree to fence you?" she said, doing her best not to blush.

"Oh, I don´t know..." He straddled the chair opposite and leaned in toward her with a wink. "Because every good swordswoman benefits from the experience of being bested by a good man."

She gasped. "You are incorrigible!" She shook her head. "I don´t know what ever possessed me to tell you that I fence..." She heaved an exaggerated sigh and lanced him a reproachful glare... that only served to widen his crooked grin...and weaken her resolve. Damn him! How could she be expected to revise for Charms with him grinning at her like that?

"All right, fine," she relented. "Foils or sabres?"

The sly mask slipped suddenly from his angular features. "Really?"

She almost laughed. "Yes. Now, choose your weapon," she prompted, "before I change my mind."

He grinned. Fingering his chin in contemplation, he studied her with blue eyes twinkling beneath dark lashes. She was blushing furiously now, she could feel it. A slow smile curved along the contours of his face.

"I think... foils," he said at last. "Until you´ve proved your mettle."

It was a dare this time, and she´d never been one to resist those. In truth, it also didn´t hurt that her challenger was attractive, extremely bright and charming to a fault, and possessed an irreverent disregard for rules. There was something a little untamed about him. Though she knew it would surely vex her mother, he was exactly the kind of boy Bethany found hard to resist. Pity he would only be at Beauxbatons until the end of the holidays.

Although the English boy had been much sought-after by the girls in her year, he had elected to spend most of his time with Bethany--a default which she attributed entirely to his appallingly poor French. Why else? But she, for one, relished his company. She loved the way his eyes danced as she told him of summers at home in Cantal, where the woods were yet unspoilt and she and Claire would leave the manse at night to join the magic and Muggle folk fraternising freely in carnivals and at Yuletide. He listened well, and replied with thoughtfulness and wit. Unlike the dull monotone of some of the boys she knew at Beauxbatons, his voice was rich with varied tones, ebullient highs and melodramatic, dirge-like lows as he spoke animatedly of his own friends´ exploits back home.

His company was addictive and she, admittedly had grown quite dependent upon it ever since he arrived at Beauxbatons at the start of term. She dreaded to think what would happen when he left... After all, what did they have in common? Apart from the same wry sense of humour, talent for Charms, and a passionate aversion to bananas? She had had no real aptitude for Quidditch, nor his taste for it, other than as an indifferent spectator. It was therefore a bonus that he happened to enjoy fencing as much as she did--though he did tend to approach it with an uncommonly savage zeal. It seemed the perfect extension of his personality. Sharp. Playful. Passionate.

In the shadows of the fencing room at midnight, despite a lurking, paranoid fear of their discovery, Bethany was having a marvellous time. She advanced two steps. He retreated two. She thrust in tierce, and he responded with a clean counterparry in quarte, finishing with small deft circles around her blade, easily turning it aside. She glimpsed his maddening grin through the metal grid of his mask. He was a decent swordsman, she mused... impressive enough even for her father.

With that thought, her concentration faltered in mid-lunge and she slipped awkwardly, plunging against his chest. His hands caught her automatically about the waist. As she straightened, her mask turned up toward his. She could feel his breath and see the gleam of his eyes on her. After a pause, he straightened into the on-guard position but seemed so distracted that she was able to thrust her foil against him twice before he recovered enough to parry effectively.

When it was over, flushed and still breathing heavily, she grinned, disengaging herself from the mask, letting her dark hair tumble across her shoulder. He removed his own mask to reveal the short cropped black hair that fell rakishly across his forehead.

"Thank you," came the feral whisper. His voice came between deep, halting breaths, almost a growl. With a single step, he closed the distance between them and his eyes glimmered blue in the moonlight.

She swayed, feeling slightly heady herself, either from the exercise or from his proximity. Possibly both.

"For what?" She blinked up at the shadow of his face..

Without warning, his arms seized her toward him in a fierce embrace. She gasped, not realising until then that she had had any breath left to take away. His eyes rested on her mouth and his lips replied, brushing against hers, a little clumsily at first, but tentatively, with an unexpected tenderness. It was an odd, delicious feeling...rapturous, like breathing in the dawn. Her limbs had gone distinctly weak and she leaned against him, feeling the sinewy warmth and the ragged rise and fall of his chest against hers. His breath gently moved the wisps against her forehead.

Trembling slightly, and still tingling from her first kiss, she was grateful for the arm wrapped about her waist. Bethany bit her lip, too dazed to speak, following his eyes as they lingered over her face. His hand paused gently on her cheek and his lips sought hers again. Her fingers moved instinctively, entwining themselves in the dark curls at the nape of his neck.

"Bethany," he whispered gruffly.

"Mmm?" She tilted her head up, eyes still dreamily hooded.

"Bethany, I--"

"MONSIEUR BLACK!"

They sprang apart, breathless, as Madame Maxime´s voice thundered furiously through the sparring hall.

"GO BACK TO ZE DORMITORY, ZIS INSTANT! Maintenant! Vite! Before I decide to send you back to `Ogwarts!" The Headmistress´s forbidding figure loomed large in the doorframe, her black hair pulled severely into a sturdy bun. She set her hands on her hips, looking scandalised. Her eyes flashed as the boy rested his hand on Bethany´s shoulder. He turned to her with a soft, pleading look, before reluctantly stepping past the Headmistress and down the corridor. An acute emptiness crept upon Bethany as the crunching tread of his footsteps on the garden path faded in the distance.

"Madame Maxime--" Bethany began apologetically, but was cut off by an impatient gesture from the Headmistress. Sheepishly, she dropped her eyes to the floor to hide her embarrassment, feeling certain that Madame Maxime would read the jumble of thoughts and emotions on the tableau of her face. Bethany paused nervously for what seemed like several minutes.

But the fury had fled from the Headmistress´s voice. "Come `ere, my child," she said sadly. Bethany stiffened. Madame Maxime´s young face looked lined and pained.

This was no rebuke. Something was wrong.

The Headmistress took Bethany´s trembling hands into her large palm. "I `ave just received an owl from Tournemire. It... It is your sister..."

Bethany sniffled. She raised a hand to her cheeks to find them wet with fresh tears. Again, after all these years.

"My dear, what have you seen?" The magnified discs of Sybil´s pupils hovered alarmingly into view as Bethany dabbed at her eyes.

"Nothing--"

She stopped short. Over Sybil´s spangled shawl, Bethany caught sight of Snape´s curious stare from the couch. Her stomach lurched as the Potions Master continued to observe her with an inscrutable expression--whether of pity, scorn or perverse amusement, she couldn´t say.

"I´m sorry, Sybil," she muttered. "You must excuse me."

"But, my dear, perhaps my Inner Eye may be of assistance. Tell me," urged Sybil, reaching forward with a bony hand, "what have you--"

"I can´t--"

I can´t. Tearfully springing from her chair, she stalked briskly through the room, nearly tripping over Filius´s outstretched feet. It mattered little to her that Snape´s eyes followed her to the door. All she wanted was escape. Escape from the chokehold of banished memory that made every room a prison cell. She needed air.

She fled. Down the corridor, past the sleeping portraits of fawns and shepherds, across the Northern passage and through the trophy room, before collapsing at the foot of the South Stairs. Bethany grasped the stone newel and rested her forehead against its cool, rounded edges, willing her breath to slow to a normal pace. Lifting her lids, she peered blankly at the empty passage ahead and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. Luckily there were no prefects about, she thought. What would the students think of a Dark Arts instructor who wept in a miserable heap at the bottoms of staircases?

She sniffed, and wiped at her tears, thinking what a sight she must have been. It´s quite lucky, too, that none of the teachers--

"Professor White."

Bethany´s eyes snapped open to find a black linen handkerchief being waved a few inches from her face. Her startled gaze travelled the length of a black-sleeved arm to the high buttoned collar of the Potions Master. She couldn´t decide if she was more mortified or amused as the Evil Vicar regarded her with a mixture of bewilderment and alarm.

"Please, take it," he said, in the tone of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

Reluctantly, Bethany reached forward, slipping the fabric from his hand and dabbing at her eyes. "Thank you."

He appeared to be eyeing her with as much suspicion as she normally accorded him, and she felt some sort of explanation was in order.

"Professor Snape, you must think..." she muttered, sniffling, "I don´t normally--"

"I have no interest in playing your confessor, Miss White," Snape said curtly. "But should you remain where you are, you will pose a hazard to my Slytherin sixth-years on their return from the observation tower. I will not risk their injury. Therefore, I must ask you either to leave or step aside."

She blinked at him in confusion. "Oh... um, of course," she mumbled, standing and sheepishly brushing the back of her robes.

"And this is yours as well, I believe." He held out the copy of Whiplash´s Wizard Weaponrythat she had left behind in the staff room. "Perhaps you would be less absent-minded if you refrained from... late night wanderings in the Dark Forest."

Startled, she recoiled at the sharpness of the eyes glowering like dark stars above the long hooked nose.

His thin lips curled into a sneer. "Someone might think you´ve been... up to something." His eyes narrowed threateningly into slits.

Before she could muster a reply, he was gone, the black hem of his robes whipping behind him as he rounded the corner toward the dungeon stairs.

**********

"Come on! Move it!" cried Ron. "What´s going on up there?"

Hermione might have replied if she hadn´t been suddenly budged up against about seven other people. The Transfiguration class had emptied into the corridor for dinner, only to be swept into the bottleneck of students trying to plough into the Entrance Hall.

"Ow!" Hermione twisted her neck round to see whose elbow had smashed against her spine.

"Ouch. Sorry, Hermione." Dean, whose canary still hadn´t turned back into an inkpot, raised his long arm above the crowd to hold the small, squeaking bird above his head. "I can´t put it in my bag while it´s still like this. It´ll be crushed to death."

"Her-mi-on-e." Harry´s pained voice came from behind her shoulder. "You´re stepping on my foot."

"Oh, sorry, Harry," said Seamus, looking down. "I think that´s me... `Course, I can´t see my feet, so I´m not too sure..."

Crushed on all sides, Hermione concentrated merely on keeping her head up for air. The current of bodies poured through the threshold into the Entrance Hall where they at last spotted the source of the commotion.

Standing on a raised dais in the centre of the octagonal hall, handing out sheafs of official-looking parchment and smiling like a well-fed cat, was Professor van der Witte. The Muggle Studies professor wore dark plum robes of silk damask, with a matching choker and plunging neckline. Even Hermione had to admit it was a traffic-stopping look. Hmmph. And the traffic was definitely stopping to look. Or goggle, as it were. Who ever said boys can´t gawk and drool at the same time?

As far as Hermione could tell, any boy in the vicinity who was tall enough to see had the same dopey, glazed expression on his face. Three or four heads over, Mandy Brocklehurst shared an arch look with Hermione and rolled her eyes in a comforting moment of female solidarity. Only Harry and Eamon Mulroney seemed less affected by the witch´s charms. She threw the Hufflepuff a sympathetic glance. He still seemed too pale and sickly from the weekend to fix his glance upwards, the poor thing. Harry´s view, on the other hand, was impeded by a bunch of burly Ravenclaw seventh-years, whilst Ron was literally head and shoulders above the rest. And gaping like a primate. Hermione might have folded her arms in disgust--if she´d had the room. She settled for knitting her brows and scowling at Ron.

As the crowd jostled about reaching for the pamphlets, Hermione struggled to free an arm to grab one of the floating fliers. But the throng hadn´t thinned much and her arms were still pressed to her sides. At length, she was forced to give up.

Throwing caution--and the inkpot-canary--to the wind, Dean had managed to snag one of the pages.

"Dean," she said, twisting her neck for a better view, "what´s it say?"

He peered at it in his free hand. "It´s about that club Dumbledore made the announcement about last Friday," he said, "the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus. This says that Society membership is open to fourth years and above, and the first formal meetings start in two weeks."

"Really?" Hermione titled her head forward eagerly. "And the first sessions focus on... what?"

Dean squinted at the attached pocket calendar of events. "International dance, it says. The rumba and the cha-cha."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "The what? The cha-cha? Rumba?" He laughed. "Poncey sounding names for dances, if you ask me."

With great forbearance, Hermione ignored his snide chortling long enough to shuffle to the threshold of the Great Hall with the other Gryffindors.

"Hello, Ron." The voice was low, with the texture of rough silk.

Hermione swung her head round to glare at the Muggle Studies instructor, who eyed Ron from beneath unnaturally long dark lashes. Ron´s face had turned beet red and slackened into a mindless grin. Oh, for Merlin´s sake.

At last the Gryffindors tumbled into the Great Hall, breathless and bruised. At the house table, Dean climbed onto the bench, flexing his pinched limbs and unwrinkling the announcement in his hand.

"Who are the moderators?" asked Hermione. "Does it say?"

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry and ladled himself some split pea soup.

"Oh, yeah," said Dean. "Looks like Professor White´s down for all the mock military combat, advanced spells, duelling and wizard fencing. And the art, theatre and music--including those dance classes--are being covered by Professor van der Witte."

To Hermione´s chagrin, Ron stopped sneering. "How do we sign up?"

**********

At sundown on Friday, Draco sat in the darkness of his chamber. His large single room with four-poster bed and fireplace was an in-house perk reserved only for prefects and students whose parents compiled copious documentary evidence of the private indiscretions of the Board of Governors.

Draco was not a prefect. But he took full advantage of the fruits of his family´s influence. And at all times, the implications of the magnitude of his father´s investment remained clear. He was expected to succeed in each of the Initiation Rites into the Dark Lord´s Circle. Of course, he fully expected it himself. How could he not? But...what if he failed?

Professor Snape had been of little help. After Potions, Snape had ushered him into his office and brusquely handed him the latest owl detailing instructions on how to activate the portkey.

"Tonight, be sure to commence the incantation precisely at nine o´clock," Professor Snape had said, "and not a second before. Overeager initiates who gun-jump that spell frequently experience... rather unpleasant results and have to be collected by members of the Dark Lord´s Circle. Often, piece by piece." His thin lips contorted wryly at the corners.

Draco paled slightly and his stony exterior faltered for the briefest of instants. He cleared his throat. "What will I be expected to do, sir?"

"Do?" The question seemed to surprise Snape, who drew back a moment across the desk. His long-boned fingers dragged thoughtfully against his hollow cheek and the lines around his black eyes seemed to soften. "That, I cannot say." He sighed and shook his head. "Every Initiation is different, depending on the will of the Dark Lord. He alone knows his precise agenda... as well as his precise agenda for you." The Potions Master´s brow furrowed in earnest. "But I can tell you this: no matter what occurs, Draco, be true to yourself. Know who you are. Suspect anything. Trust no one."

Draco frowned at his Head of House. What did that mean? Tonight Draco would follow the steps of his forefathers in cementing this allegiance. His father would be there. Professor Snape would be there as well. Why should there be cause for concern? Hours later, Draco was still puzzling over Snape´s words. They made about as much sense to him as if the Potions Master had said, "the cow moos at midnight."

Now as he watched the clock slowly hammering away toward the hour, he shrugged again, fidgeting with the high collar of his formal robes. He toyed with the miniature dagger clasped to his lapel and tried to quell the Kelpies playing water polo in his stomach.

Draco wished there could have been a dress rehearsal for this Initiation. There hadn´t been so much as a single owl from his father all week. Not a note about how to dress. Not a word about what questions to expect. Not even a stray deprecating remark. With a pang, he remembered his father´s words in the Prefects´ Lounge: "If you didn´t resemble me at all, I´d have assumed you must have been switched at birth..."

The clock struck nine and Draco squared his shoulders. Tonight he would show his father that he was a Malfoy.

The portkey incantation was long and difficult to pronounce, full of words that made it sound as if he was coughing up phlegm. But as he completed the final phrase, the familiar tug through his midsection confirmed that it had worked. First, the dark green glow of his chamber swirled round him into darkness, then a kaleidoscope of colour and sound rushed past, until at last he tumbled onto the hard frosty ground of a carriageway, where he fell forward rather ignominiously onto his knees.

Brushing the gravel from his legs and palms, Draco glanced up at a sprawling Gothic mansion standing at the top of a steep flight of crumbly stone steps, its spindly turrets rising into the black sky. In the air hung a pall of the deepest chill and not even the merest whisper of a breeze disturbed the eerie silence of the front gardens.

At that moment, the creak of a hinge pierced the night and the double doors at the top of the stairs groaned open. Two men robed in black stepped out onto the terrace carrying the body of what appeared to be an old man--judging from the limp hang of his head and limbs, a very dead old man. The men in black were tall. One was rail thin with frizzy wisps of auburn hair and had the eyes and overbite of a jackal. The other, easily three times as wide as the first, had stiff brown hair parted sharply to one side and a such a mean, beefy face that Draco suspected he might be part troll. The burly man heaved the dead body unceremoniously over the side of the terrace. There was a rustling followed by a great thud as it hit the rhododendron bushes below.

Shivering, Draco had just begun to wonder if he had mispronounced the incantation when the Jackal called down to him.

"Oy! You Draco Malfoy?"

Draco nodded.

"Better come in, then," he said, holding open the door. "They´re expecting you."

Draco mounted the steps, gingerly sidestepping the Troll whose eyes disappeared into the leery folds of his blotchy, bulbous face.

The light of several torches infused a vast entrance hall that was otherwise unadorned, except for an imposing twelve-foot oil painting that bore a startling resemblance to the body now lying in the bushes.

"Master Malfoy. You´ve arrived." From one of the side doors, Walden Macnair, whom Draco recognised as the executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, approached him with an outstretched hand. A colleague of Draco´s father, Macnair was a massive man with a miniscule sense of humour. "I see you´ve met Averill Yeats and Baldrick Ely," he said curtly, gesturing at the Jackal and the Troll. "Yeats, take his cloak. I´ll let them know he´s here."

Yeats leered at him and reached for his travelling cloak. A door creaked open and Ely thundered past them into a small cloakroom from which Draco thought he´d imagined muffled cries of anguish and the loud snapping of a whip. Draco´s palms were beginning to perspire and he wondered where Professor Snape might be.

"Ah, Draco. On time, I see." Lucius Malfoy strode toward his son from a long corridor lit with more torches. Treading a few paces behind his father was a young man, tall and slim with short dark hair and sharp black eyes that fixed Draco with an appraising stare even from that distance. The torch lights flickered weakly in his wake.

Within moments, others garbed in the same black hooded robes appeared in the hall, all wearing the same eerie silver mask. Draco´s heart pounded nervously in his chest as they formed a dark circle around him and his father. A preponderance of shadow.

"Tom," said Lucius, resting his hand on Draco´s shoulder. "Allow me to introduce you to my son." The young man who had followed Lucius into the hall stepped forward. Draco was somehow comforted that the man shaking his hand didn´t seem to be more than ten years older than himself. A smile like a scythe sliced across Tom´s face.

"I´ve heard some impressive things about you, Draco," he said. "And I look forward to the possibility of your joining us."

Lucius paused, almost nervously, then turned to Draco. "Tom will be your personal guide and liaison for each of the Initiation Rites until the Dark Lord... sees fit to meet with you directly."

Edgy as he was, Draco couldn´t help noticing that his father seemed reluctant to look the young man in the eye. Now, that was curious. He had never before seen his father recoil from anything, and witnessing it now unsettled Draco.

Tom stepped forward and placed a hand on Draco´s shoulder, leaving a cold tingling where Tom touched his robe.

"Before we begin," announced Tom, "the question must be asked: Is there any person present who has reason to call into question the boy´s commitment to service in our Circle?"

The Death Eater throng shuffled and shifted, with some shaking their heads until one of the masked figures, almost as tall as Tom, came forward and bowed. Tom tilted his head to listen and Draco strained in vain to make sense of their whispers.

Draco turned to his father and nervously shifted his feet. Wonder what that´s all about.

At last, Tom nodded and turned to Draco with an odd, closed expression. "Master Malfoy," he said calmly, "is it true that your current Hogwarts curriculum includes the pursuit of Muggle Studies?"

Draco´s stomach dropped.

Lucius gasped in outrage. "That´s a lie. What preposterous nonsense!"

A terrible gnawing feeling lodged in the pit of Draco´s stomach. How did they know he was taking Muggle Studies? What if they didn´t initiate him? In a flash of panic, he wondered what punishment awaited him for why the Dark Army´s newest recruit had been turned away at the last minute for his heretical curriculum. He was just imagining himself dodging his father´s prized metal-studded cudgel when Tom´s voice cut into his thoughts.

"Let the boy answer for himself, Lucius." He turned to Draco, who cast his eyes sheepishly to the floor. "Master Malfoy, is this true?"

Draco snuck a guilty glance at his father, then turned to Tom and nodded. "Yes."

"No!" Lucius´s face turned red as his voice rose to a shout. "I would never give permission for any son of mine to be exposed to that Muggle filth!" He turned to the young man beseechingly. "I assure you, Mast--Tom, that I could never have permitted such a thing. Had I but known--"

"Then you are a fool, Lucius," said Tom simply.

A stunned silence followed, and the force of all eyes fell on Lucius. But Draco eyed at the Death Eater who had initially come forward with the allegation. His stance had stiffened indignantly, and he slipped back into the crowd, taking refuge in the anonymity of shadows. Draco couldn´t resist a smirk. It was hard for him not to feel the least bit of triumph at this turn of events.

"You surprise me, Malfoy," said Tom. He looked Lucius in the eye with a startling vehemence. "The Dark Lord knows that it is only in knowing one´s enemy that one can expect to vanquish him."

After an awkward pause, Tom turned back to Draco. "And now, my young friend," he said, "allow me give you a brief tour while the others prepare the Feast." He nodded curtly at the crowd and it dispersed. Lucius as well bowed and reluctantly slid away through a large side door.

Tom smiled at Draco. "Walk with me."

Tom intimated a bit about the selection process, though not as much as Draco would have hoped. As they passed through the hall, Tom said that Lord Voldemort had picked only a handful from the purebloods of Draco´s generation as candidates for Initiation. Draco´s stomach sank as his guide explained that initial selection did not necessarily mean automatic approval into the Dark Lord´s ranks. There would be tests. Trials. Some planned, but most without warning.

"But don´t worry," said Tom reassuringly. "Your father assures me that you´ll do just fine. All the Malfoys have." He grinned at his young charge, who smiled back feebly. Not for the first time that evening, Draco was feeling more than slightly out of his depth. Tom had a self-assured manner about him that Draco at once admired and feared. There was something about Tom´s stare that filled him with unease, though he couldn´t describe exactly why. Perhaps it was the way those obsidian eyes peered at him, at once blankly and attentively, as if he knew everything that was running through Draco´s mind. As if Draco Malfoy was a foregone conclusion.

"Let me explain a little about what we do," said Tom pleasantly, casually setting fire to a few portraits as he passed. Behind them, mewling cries and pleas for mercy rang through the corridor as the portrait occupants fled to the corners of the frames. "The Dark Lord´s Circle, as you will know from your father, is no longer as small as it once was. Over the past few months, the Dark Lord has reunited his loyal followers and rekindled alliances with like-minded groups abroad who share his vision of purification. Many centuries have passed since the great Salazar Slytherin envisaged an era in which dominion over the magical and Muggle worlds would belong to the pureblood wizard. Now, that era has come. Power to the pure is the manifest destiny of the wizarding world, wouldn´t you agree?"

Draco nodded. "Of course."

Tom fixed him with a lopsided smile and eyed him carefully. "Good."

They walked through a long, winding corridor connecting a series of lavishly decorated antechambers, but for Draco, listening intently to his guide, they all passed in a blurry sequence of paintings, tapestries, mother-of-pearl marquetry and marble statues until they came upon two sets of enormous double doors with two large dragon head knockers. Tom waved his hand and they parted, though not to reveal, as Draco had expected, a vast hall, but a small windowless alcove large enough to accommodate two, possibly three very thin people. It was empty.

Tom gamely stepped inside. "Come on, then," he said, beckoning with an insistent hand.

Draco´s eyes widened. At fifteen, he hadn´t yet managed to shake his childhood fear of dark, enclosed spaces.

"You´re afraid," said Tom matter-of-factly. He crooked a serpentine brow. "Are you sure you´re a real Malfoy?"

Draco´s head snapped up to see Tom, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed and eyeing him with amusement. "You know, I´d be the first to say that fear has its place." Tom smirked. "But there´s something the Dark Lord wants you to see before we begin the first phase of your Initiation."

Draco set his jaw.

If there was a nagging voice in Draco´s head, he managed to gag it long enough to step into the alcove. As the doors swung shut, a diffused green light filled the chamber and the floor shifted. He could see now that there was a small domed ceiling high above them and that the floor was in fact spinning up toward the roof. With a wave of Tom´s hand, the stained glass dome opened and they rose through it to the highest point of the roof. All around them was cloud and mist as the stone floor ground to a halt. Their robes flapped wildly in the icy breeze.

"What exactly did the Dark Lord want me to see?" asked Draco, shivering.

Tom, seemingly unaffected by the cold, passed his hand through the mist, and the cloud cover parted like a curtain. Draco´s jaw dropped. Over the parapet, the dazzling lights of a large metropolis appeared below, its silver minarets glistening like pearls in the moonlight. And further off in the distance, more cities, more spires. A dizzying number of lights burning in the dark of midnight or fading at the break of dawn. And the people, the multitudes, rushing forward bearing gifts and homage. For Draco. He could never have imagined a sight like it, as if the entire world was, quite literally, at his feet.

"If you choose to join the Dark Circle, Draco, this--and more--can be yours," he said, "as it was offered to your forefathers."

Draco blinked in awe.

Tom´s grin lengthened. "I take it this meets with Master Malfoy´s approval?"

Draco frowned. "Is there a catch?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and his eyes widened in alarm.

But the young man laughed. "How refreshingly practical. Of course, there´s a catch. There always is," he said, clapping a hand on Draco´s shoulder. "Oh, now, don´t look at me like that. What I mean, simply, is that you must pass the tests. But you already knew that, didn´t you? Come, let´s continue the tour, or I suspect we´ll be late for the first course."

And with that, they descended.

"I understand that you have also applied to the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus," said Tom, stepping from the lift.

"Yes."

Tom nodded. "Good. I´m sure that an accomplished young man such as yourself will gain easy acceptance into the Sentinels as well." He smiled down at Draco indulgently. "The Dark Lord will have even more use for you then."

Draco had only just opened his mouth to ask him what he meant by that when Tom pressed on, ushering Draco through a broad, carved oak door.

"The library inventory hasn´t been finished but I´m told there are some very valuable first editions of both magical and Muggle works in here." Tom stretched his arm, to indicate an expansive, domed gallery. Five floors of oaken shelves gleamed with hundreds of thousands of volumes that must have spanned several centuries.

"Wow," breathed Draco, forgetting his resolution not to seem too impressed. "This is... You have an amazing library."

"Thank you." Tom turned to him with a small, crooked smile. "It´s a... recent acquisition."

His guide didn´t seem to be in any rush, and in fact appeared to enjoy showing off the vast rare book collection. Draco, therefore, took his time fingering the stacks of scrolls in their woven baskets and perusing the medieval magical manuscripts in the display cabinets. He snickered with delight as a gilded serpent uncoiled itself from a page of the Book of Kells and sinuously slithered before them. In another corner, Draco picked up a copy of One Thousand Ways to Skin a Rampaging Hippogriff and slammed the book shut with a yelp as a large clawed foot flew out, nearly taking the skin off his nose.

Embarrassed, he looked up to find Tom eyeing him with curiosity. There was so much to see, Draco had almost forgotten what he´d been summoned for.

"Erm... so, about the Initiation," he began, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from a buxom mermaid, winking from the seascape above the fireplace, "what will they make me do for the First Rite?"

Tom dismissed the question with a careless wave. "Oh, we´ll get to that soon enough. Here, I´d like to show you something." He moved with panther-like grace to one of the shelves nearby and his smile broadened. "If I´m not mistaken, I´m sure you´ll recognise some of these books."

Draco did recognise them. The faded spines read like the literature syllabus from his Muggle Studies class.

"Some of these are rare first editions worth more galleons than even your father sees at any one time, and some of them,"--he tilted his head toward the shelves-- "utter rubbish. All of these were found in the dingiest of market bookstalls, where they´d been discarded as practically worthless. You´ll find that the value of many things is often underestimated, and that includes wizards as well as books." Here, Tom placed a fraternal hand on Draco´s shoulder. "The most precious, the most worthy often get passed over because of the jacket cover. And the tricky part lies in separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak."

A shadow flickered across Tom´s face so quickly that Draco wondered whether he´d actually seen it. But the young man resumed the sly smile. "There are whole worlds represented in these pages, Draco. Fame, wealth, success, power, domination, subordination, failure, destruction. So many paths a man might take. Sometimes the way is not always clear, but I want you to believe that you can count on me if you ever need advice. Remember, I´m only here to help. That´s my job."

"I understand," said Draco, nodding.

Tom eyed him doubtfully for a moment, and his lip curled up in one corner. "I´m sure you do."

A bell rang in the antechamber and the square shoulders and blotchy, lined face of Walden Macnair appeared at the door. "The table has been prepared, my L--"

"Thank you, Macnair," Tom said curtly. He gave Macnair a stern look and the wizard quickly retreated.

Tom turned to beckon Draco to the next room, then paused thoughtfully. He rubbed his chin. "Before we go, it is Lord Voldemort´s wish that you have your choice of one book from the collection. Consider it... a token."

It had to be a test, thought Draco, with a nervous glance at his guide. Everything was a test. In the Muggle literature section, he blinked at the unfamiliar titles, looking for something that might be appropriate, something that would make a good impression on the Dark Lord. War and Peace?... Slaughterhouse Five?... The Razor´s Edge?... Catch-22?... Maybe...maybe... this one. Draco reached forward and plucked out a threadbare copy of Death in the Afternoon. He supposed it was just as good as any.

"Ah, Hemingway," Tom said agreeably. "A classic. And one of my personal favourites."

"Really?" said Draco, relieved.

Tom´s lips glistened in a twisted crescent that might have been a sneer. "Have you ever seen a bullfight?"

Draco shook his head.

"For a Muggle, Hemingway had an admirable appreciation for death. Even death can be reduced to an art form, you see. Everything in life, including death, is a spectacle." He paused as the crowd of Death Eaters milled into the dining chamber. "But enough of that for now, we´ll have plenty of time to revisit this discussion, perhaps once you´ve read the book." He nodded in the direction of the door. "After you."

He couldn´t explain it, but, as Tom spoke, Draco began to feel edgy again. His guide had been ingratiatingly charming throughout their little tour--and still was, even now--but the smallest of changes seemed to have come over him. He looked as if the wheels in his head were turning rapidly in a direction Draco wasn´t convinced was safe. Yet he still couldn´t say why. Only later would he recall the word he was trying to capture to describe the look in those dark eyes: predatory.

But he didn´t have the luxury of leisurely reflection. There was barely enough time to tuck the book into his robes and follow the last of the Death Eaters into the next chamber.

Smaller than the library, the room´s four walls were set with dark oak panelling. Yet no one would ever have called it cosy. The ceiling was as high as in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but there was no similarity to the warm glow of festive hearths and floating candles. In the murky darkness above, he could just make out a scant few rows of narrow Gothic arches from which there came no light, owing to the absence of the moon. The room glowed green and yellow from a roaring fire in the enormous hearth. And the small blue flames from elaborate silver candelabra on the round table cast mournful, sinuous shadows on the walls, like gibbets in an eerie twilight.

"Welcome to the Room of the Dead Fellows," Tom whispered.