Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

Chapter 26: A Show of Quality

IN THE DUNGEON PASSAGE, SHE SHIVERED. The irons hung heavily on Bethany's wrists with a sepulchral chill, a promise of pain and isolation that penetrated to the bone. But as the man called Yeats gave the final link a brutal tug, it seemed that no metal could pierce as incisively as Malfoy's glare. His eyes, pale grey, yet so little like his son's, glinted with a cultivated malevolence she had never seen in the Slytherin fifth-year. They narrowed as he appraised the chains dangling from her wrists and ankles.

"Silencio."

As Lucius's wand retracted from her throat, Bethany raised shackled wrists to her neck as the involuntary constricting of her vocal chords began.

"Just in case," he said, coolly sheathing his wand into the head of his cane.

A silent stream of the most vicious obscenities Bethany had ever thought to utter stopped dead on her tongue. All she could manage was a muffled moan as she struggled against the spell.

Lucius's pallid patrician countenance was, for once, flushed--though whether in fury or anticipation, she couldn't be sure--as he raked his gaze along the iron chinks digging into her skin. He tilted his head and bestowed a curious half-smile, as if amused by some private joke. Nodding his approval, he grasped her chin between his thumb and index finger and met her gaze. To her alarm, he brought his face closer until his lips brushed her jaw and the etiquette of personal space was thoroughly breached by his disconcertingly familiar manner. She cringed as his lips brushed her ear.

"The iron suits you," he whispered.

And at his words it was as if a dim torch had sprung to life in the crevices of her memory. Whirlwind clusters of disjointed images flickered past her mind's eye... four stone walls in a crypt, an altar, the dim ochre blur of burning torches, and a circle of black-hooded figures, each grasping weapons, riding crops, whips, and lengths of water-drenched rope...

Bethany cut her eyes away from his sneering face and cursed herself for the shudder that went through her.

"Awww, the poor dear..." clucked Umbridge without a shred of sincerity. "She'll catch a frightful chill. It would be most uncivilised for Professor White to join us without a proper cloak or something to take with us."

"What!" Lucius turned on the woman indignantly. "I don't give a damn if she--"

"I wonder," continued Umbridge, as if he had not spoken. "... I wonder whether we ought to have a look round to fetch one." She leaned her considerable pink bulk forward and peered curiously around the door into Bethany's chambers.

Lucius's thin lips arched from a scowl into an appreciative sneer. He straightened, looking mildly impressed. Shackled as she was, Bethany blinked in bemusement at the girlish flush that crept momentarily onto Special Assistant Umbridge's moon face.

"How right you are, Madam," said Lucius, giving his head a perfunctory little nod. "Most uncivilised indeed. Perhaps we should go in and have a look for the... appropriate article." He jutted his pointy chin at the two thugs, Ely and Yeats, who barrelled roughly into the tiny sitting room.

Restrained by the pinch of Umbridge's pudgy fingers on her arms, Bethany gaped in mute indignation as the hulking Ely and the Dugboggish Yeats gleefully decimated her chambers. Squeee-eeee-eeak! THUD! Thunk! Thunk! Thwap-thwap-thwap! In moments, her desk drawers' contents lay strewn across the thick pile rug, some of her sixth-years' essays catching fire at the edge of the hearth. Yeats pulled down the shelves above the desk. They fell away from the wall with a loud wrenching sound and the tinny clang! of the ginger biscuit tin falling against stone. Ely overturned the divan with a kick of his trunk-like leg, leaving it to lie in the centre of the rug, curved legs raised like deer hoofs in the undignified posture of a captive. Ely reached out to yank books from the library shelves on the opposite wall--irreplaceable volumes that had been in Bethany's mother's family for centuries, everything from the latest Art of Alchemy to an autographed first edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Their fragile bindings and pages flapped helplessly as they tore in the man's thick fingers and fell haphazardly around the room in a violent flurry as Lucius suddenly strode into the eye of the paper hurricane.

He paused and poked through the debris around the legs of the divan until finally he turned to Bethany with a smug smile and a raised platinum brow.

"Well, well, well," he said, narrowing his eyes. "It appears our dear professor has a visitor."

Bethany's eyes widened as he prodded something forward from beneath the litter...

Sirius's boot.

Had she been able, Bethany would have gasped. As it was, she felt mildly grateful for the loss of her voice and dropped her gaze quickly to the flagstones, that the woman Umbridge and her henchmen might not see the flood of emotions Bethany knew her eyes betrayed.

"Search the rooms," ordered Lucius.

What? Bethany's head snapped up indignantly. Without a warrant! She took a step forward in protest, but the firm pinch of Umbridge's pudgy fingers dug into her arms.

Yeats and Ely stomped through to the bed chamber, overturning her dressing table and nightstand (Cretins. They must be thicker than they look, thought Bethany. Who would be hiding under those?) before wrenching open the wardrobe. With a pained grimace, Bethany heard the ripping of fabric, the splintering of wooden hangers, and the pitter-patter of tiny beads that could only have come from her great-great-grandmother's string of mer-farmed South Sea pearls bouncing to the room's four corners.

Behind Malfoy and Umbridge, a hinge creaked in the dungeon passage. Lucius cast a wary glance down the corridor but turned back to wince at the sound of whispers and low chuckles from the other room.

"Ely! Yeats! Speed it up!" Lucius hissed, tapping his pocket watch. "If the professor's guest is there, then bring him forward! If not, then come out now! There is no time to waste!"

"Er... no one there, sir," barked Ely from the threshold. Lucius glanced irritably at the lacy camisole in the man's hand which the burly giant tossed away guiltily.

Yeats peered over his accomplice's thick-set shoulder. "No one back 'ere, sir. Jus' the perfesser's kitty."

As if on cue, a white blur at ankle height streaked across the sitting room and leaped up to perch on the edge of the capsized divan. Lilith, her back raised in irritation, glanced disdainfully at Ely and Yeats. She peered at Lucius and Umbridge with something resembling a passing interest before returning to licking the black spot on her front leg.

"Hem, hem," began Umbridge tentatively. "Mr Malfoy, we really must be going. The portal will--"

"Not until we have our answer," he snapped. The woman shrank back like a chastised schoolgirl and nervously adjusted her Alice band. Lucius, in the meantime, sprang forward and seized the boot from the floor, swinging about and waving it before Bethany.

"Whose is it? Hmm?"

Bethany blinked. Opening, then closing, her mouth, she drew her gaze up to meet his, and arched a sardonic brow. Good Lord, he's just as thick as the other two.

"I said," Lucius growled, giving his cane a violent crack! against the flagstones, "whose is it?! ANSWER ME!"

Bethany, however, still half-lamenting the destruction of her great-great-grandmother's pearls, was unmoved. She resisted the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes and point to her neck.

Malfoy sniffed. "Oh."

Narrowing his eyes at Bethany, he drew his wand and waved it at her throat. "Finite Incantatem."

His eyes glittered triumphantly as he held up the boot once again.

"Now, professor," he snarled. "You will tell us to whom this piece of surprisingly fine footwear belongs."

Bethany wrestled her arm from the old witch's grasp and glared at the pair of them. She suspected that if she refused, Umbridge might run her through the mill of a rain forest's worth of bureaucratic paper filings. But Lucius, tapping his cane impatiently at his side, would have no reservations about subjecting her to more taxing, terrifying and immediate punishments. If she refused... The iron suits you... Bethany closed her eyes against the haunting images... the swarm of black robes, the lashing of whips, the screams--her screams?

She shivered.

And yet, after the night's confusing events, the one thing of which Bethany could be certain was that there was no torture conceived in hell itself that would induce her to betray Sirius.

"Your... unfortunate guest," prompted Lucius. "Give us his name."

Bethany drew her chin up and met Lucius, glare for glare.

"No."

Malfoy's nostrils flared. This time Umbridge made no move to intervene as Lucius lunged forward and drew his hand back--only to gasp in surprise as the firm grip of long fingers swiftly seized his wrist above his head.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"

Bethany released a breath she hadn't even been aware that she was holding. Lucius's stunned face contorted, first in alarm and then in outrage at the interruption. But his fury did not compare to the wrath on Dumbledore's weathered face as he strode into the room, still tightly gripping Malfoy's wrist in the air. Over the Headmaster's shoulder, Bethany spied the fringe of Minerva McGonagall's nightcap.

"I will not condone violence against any staff member or any student in this school, Mr Malfoy."

The Headmaster's eyes held nothing of the kindly old jester Bethany had seen pleasantly goading Snape in staff meetings or eyeing the parade of desserts at dinner. The half-moon spectacles which had formerly lent the old wizard a benign, grandfatherly aspect now only magnified the blue fire of a dragon awakened. She cast a quick glance at Lucius whose thin lips opened to retort, but shrewdly closed once again. Dumbledore released his wrist.

"I do not recall having been informed of your visit," said the Headmaster in a dangerously measured tone. "I trust that you have some good reason for violating Article 87?"

"Article what? Eighty-seven...?" repeated Lucius. "There is no--"

The challenge died on his tongue as the old wizard stepped forward with an expression so menacing that Malfoy recoiled reflexively.

"Article 87," boomed Dumbledore, "subparagraphs 33(f) and 33(g), of the Ministry Decree of Unauthorised Access to Protected Institutions in the Fourth Restatement of the Magical Security Council's Congress of 1016. Article 87 which requires the written authorisation for irregular visitation from the Head of said Protected Institution."

Lucius glared at Umbridge, whose mouth opened and closed in wordless confusion. The witch pulled a portly leather-bound volume from her shirts. At an impatient nod from Lucius, her twitchy fingers flipped page after page. The woman's bulbous eyes blinked in distress and punctuated her search for the appropriate citation with incoherent mutterings.

"Since I have not issued the required authorisation," continued the Headmaster, resting his glare on Lucius, "I demand a valid warrant for your presence on these premises."

Lucius, however, had regained enough composure to sniff at Dumbledore's demand.

"I need no warrant to see my son," he spat.

Dumbledore's eyes blinked in condescending amusement, as if spotting a chess opponent's mistake. "Your son does not reside in Professor White's quarters," he said. "And, as a member of the Board of Governors, Mr Malfoy, you must know that the security regulations of this school require the announcement of any visitors--particularly," he continued, nodding at the clock on the mantelpiece, "at this hour. I'm sure you would agree that this is an odd time indeed to... visit students." A sardonic brow twitched above the wire frame of the Headmaster's spectacles.

Lucius's pale complexion steamed to an alarmingly deep pink. But it was Umbridge who spoke.

"Hem, hem." She coughed primly and closed the weighty legal tome in her hands with a loud thunk. "There are no time restrictions as to when and where the Ministry's representatives may question the principal of an attempted murder."

"Alleged principal," corrected Dumbledore, inclining his head to address the stocky little woman. "No formal allegations of any wrongdoing have yet been raised against Professor White. And you are Mrs...?" The snowy brows furrowed over his spectacles.

"Miss Dolores Umbridge, Special Assistant to the Minister of Magic," came the curt reply.

"Ah," the Headmaster said with a nod. "Then, Miss Umbridge, I am sure you will appreciate that without an official warrant from the Ministry, I'm afraid that you and your party may return only in the afternoon, after classes, when our regular office hours resume." Dumbledore cast a withering glance at Yeats and Ely, who shuffled their feet nervously. "At that time, you may seek an audience with Professor White to pose your questions, as well as request a supervised search of her chambers, should that be necessary," he said, approaching the two goons. Yeats fiddled quickly to hide something protruding from the pocket of his robes, but the Headmaster proved too swift for him. Deftly tugging at a strip of cloth hanging from Yeats's side pocket, Dumbledore extracted a satin slip and a small assortment of silk underthings.

Bethany gasped in outrage. Even Umbridge frowned at the pair in annoyance.

A low growl came from the direction of the door and the room echoed with a feral hiss.

All eyes turned to Lilith, back arched and claws digging into the divan's crimson brocade, as she mewled in protest of the large black dog limping through the threshold.

Bethany watched in horror as Lucius glanced from the dog to the boot in his hand and back again. His eyes had just begun to widen with dawning understanding when the boot was snatched from his grasp.

"Ah! Professor White!" exclaimed Dumbledore, cradling the boot in the crook of his arm. "You've managed to repair the Kelpie hide most admirably--better, I imagine, than even my cobbler in Diagon Alley. Thank you. I am much obliged." The Headmaster shot a glance at her over his shoulder and Bethany was almost certain that she caught a tiny wink.

She almost smiled back in relief. "It was... nothing, sir."

In the corridor, the hitherto silent Minerva cleared her throat and folded her arms across her tartan robe.

"It is best, Mr Malfoy, that you and your company depart through the fire here," she said, pushing past Lucius and Special Assistant Umbridge to the fireplace. Helping herself to a handful of Bethany's Floo powder on the mantle, she flung a handful into the hearth and the green flames rose and swirled high as the passage opened. "There is no need to rouse the rest of the school."

"But..." began Lucius, still frowning at the boot.

"I strongly suggest that you and your party leave now, Mr Malfoy," said the Headmaster, eyeing Ely and Yeats in particular, "before I am forced to contact the Ministry to report four counts of burglary and attempted theft of the school."

"If you have anything left to say to Professor White," Minerva added sternly, "you may do so tomorrow. During office hours."

Lucius glared accusingly at Umbridge. The woman quivered under his stare but nodded at Yeats and Ely to climb into the fire.

"Until this afternoon, then," snarled Lucius as his scowl swirled away into the flames.

The portal closed and a heavy silence fell snugly on the sitting room. Lilith gave Snuffles a disdainful hiss and, at his growl, sped from the room, down the corridor.

"Professor Dumbledore... Minerva," began Bethany. "Please. You must know that I--"

"That you had nothing to do with the Mulroney boy's injuries?" finished the Headmaster. Following a quick wave of the old wizard's wand, Bethany's chains fell to the thick pile rug with a series of thuds. "We know." His blue eyes were kind but grim. Snuffles leaned reassuringly against Bethany's legs and Minerva turned to her with a wan smile.

Bethany sighed, suddenly feeling at once relieved of a great burden and extremely weary. She blinked at Minerva and the Headmaster. "But then why--"

"I am afraid the luxury of time is not ours," interrupted Dumbledore with a swift shake of his head. "Lucius Malfoy is not a patient man." He paused to glance at Bethany. An impish glitter kindled in the Headmaster's eyes and his snowy beard gave a wry twitch. "Nor will he be a happy one when he and his party discover that there is neither Article 87 nor a Fourth Restatement of the Magical Security Council Congress of 1016. His connections may grant him a Ministry warrant within the hour. And if that happens," he said gravely, "you will not be safe." With broad sweeping gestures of his robes, he ushered them into the corridor. "Come with me."

**********

Draco liked the library.

Well... perhaps "like" was too strong a word. After all, it wasn't as if he considered himself a bookworm. No, not by any stretch (any similarity between himself and Granger could never be a good thing). Nor did he have a soft spot for the librarian, whose dour, pinch-faced at any hour suggested chronic haemorrhoids.

Leaning sideways until the arm of his chair dug into his ribs, Draco peered through pale shafts of morning sunlight at the reserve reading desk where Madam Pince took irritable gulps from a coffee mug on the counter. Her hair was pulled back severely but hastily and her usual black robes had a slightly dishevelled look about them, as if she had woken late and shrugged them on carelessly without so much as a Pressing Spell. Through her pince-nez, the witch glared back across the room at Draco, as if the blame for her presence there on the morning after the Masque could only be attributed to him. After a moment, she pursed her thin lips and squinted blearily at the card catalogue, muttering incoherently to herself.

He dismissed her with a sniff. What else could a librarian have to do on a Saturday, anyway?

On the other hand, Draco himself wouldn't have chosen the library to spend the morning, had it not been for the silence it offered. He turned his eyes to the snowflakes still falling beyond the Gothic window panes. At daybreak his sleep had been shattered by a raven bearing a new missive from Tom. Draco would soon be summoned for his next Initiation Rite. Strangely, rather than feel the elation he might have expected just a few months earlier, Draco was surprised to feel a nervous twinge in his gut wholly unrelated to anything brewed by the Weasley boys.

What he needed was a place to think, a place devoid of distraction. But as he strode through the common room on his way to breakfast, he'd nearly tripped over the prostrate bodies of Goyle and Crabbe--both still in costume, yet almost indistinguishable from their normal selves but for the trolls' clubs clasped in their fists. A rivulet of drool crept down Crabbe's puffy cheek and both lay sprawled across the flagstones, snoring away, surrounded by several tankards of advocaat--a particularly strong batch, too, judging by the fumes fermenting in the common room air. Draco wrinkled his nose in disdain. The last thing he needed as he struggled to gather his wits was a room full of booze, burps and wheezes.

Now gratefully ensconced in a chair at his isolated table in the stacks, he smoothed out the black parchment and ran his eyes over the raised silver script.

Draco,

The Dark Lord has determined that the time has now come at last for you to show your quality. Your second and final Initiation Rite shall take place within a fortnight. At that time, a final task shall be appointed to you to demonstrate your worthiness. Due to the Dark Lord's involvement in foreign interests at present, however, the precise date and time have yet to be determined. Professor Snape shall provide you with further details as the appointed hour approaches. I trust that the Portkey has already been provided by your father.

It is a delicate process, separating the wheat from the chaff. But most reports on your progress to date have been favourable and, as your mentor and friend, this pleases me. Should you continue to prove your loyalty to the Pureblood Cause, your compensation in the Dark Lord's ranks will be great when His time comes.

Tom

Draco's brows furrowed wryly over the letter. He snorted. Happy holidays to you, too. And task? What kind of task? He wondered vaguely whether Tom meant something like the Dark Arts practice O.W.L.s? The "task" didn't sound like it might be an essay exam, at least. Written exams were the worst; Draco's quill hand inevitably seized up after the first two hours or so and his mind had a tendency to wander... Perhaps he should start combing his Dark Arts texts to brush up on his jinxes and curse work. Disarming hexes were easy enough... Confundus hexes he could practice on Goyle and Crabbe. Hmm... though it may be hard to tell the difference...

Draco had just begun to fantasize pleasantly about testing the more offensive manoeuvres on Millicent Bulstrode--or, better still, on an unsuspecting Weasley--when the rustle of robes and hushed voices interrupted his train of thought.

"... couldn't have picked somewhere a little closer to Gryffindor Tower, could you?" yawned a voice full of sleep.

"I told you, there's something important that I have to look up," another voice retorted testily. "Anyway, you were the one who wanted to meet in secret." The scraping of chair legs echoed painfully through the silence. "This place is as perfect as any."

Sliding the letter into his pocket, Draco crept to the bookshelf and shifted aside a copy of Spies and Lies: The Unspeakable Primer. Peering through to the next alcove, he caught sight of Hermione Granger (Well, well, thought Draco, witness my shock) dropping a cargo of dusty tomes onto the desk across from a familiar ginger ponytail.

"So," said Granger, pushing aside dusty copies of Van Helsing's History of the Damned, Lovers Like Leeches, Vampires I Have Known, and Bite Me!: The How-To Guide for the Aspiring Vampire. "Why the cloak and dagger?"

Ginny Weasley yawned again and leaned forward. Draco would never have admitted it aloud, but even in profile there was something pleasant about the way her fringe fell about her eyes as she rubbed the sleep out of them. Though, not as attractive as his girl in red, he reminded himself... his mystery girl. Hmm... his girl. Draco grinned. He liked the sound of that. And before long, his mind had strayed so far back to the previous night that it was some moments before he remembered that he had been leaning against the bookcase to eavesdrop.

"... it's from Harry. Well... not really from Harry," corrected Ginny, tugging out something shiny from a chain around her neck. "It's from his costume. Dean and Seamus said they hadn't seen him all night, so I thought you might... well, I want to give it back to him, but--"

"Well you can't, anyway," interrupted Granger, uncorking an inkpot and rolling open her parchment.

"I--" Ginny raised her brows. "Why not?"

"He's not here; he's in Bulgaria."

Behind the shelves, Draco frowned. Bulgaria?

"Bulgaria? What..." said Ginny. "Since when? What on earth's he doing there?"

Granger leaned forward, speaking in a voice so low, Draco was only able to catch a few odd phrases.

"... Viktor Krum... at the masque, wanting to talk to Harry."

"Krum? The Viktor Krum you went with to the--"

Granger cut her off with a dismissive wrist movement and nodded. "Right," she whispered. "He came... request from... Bulgarian Minister of Magic... that only Harry would understand--"

"But Harry didn't even say goodbye," said Ginny.

"It was urgent," Granger explained. "They needed his help and we didn't see much of Harry at the Masque after--wait... What? Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"I know." Ginny Weasley gave a modest shrug. "I mean... well... you probably didn't see much of Harry because..."

Draco pressed his ear between the books, but heard nothing of Weasley's murmurings until Granger's squeal of delight nearly startled Draco into knocking over a few loose books.

"Harry kissed you!"

Draco recoiled in disgust. Potter what?

"When?" Granger whispered gleefully. Her books now completely neglected, Granger's bushy head bobbed in excited anticipation of the gory details.

Ginny Weasley blushed predictably. Draco would have, too, had he been in her position. He could only imagine that he would have turned red, then paled considerably... and then maybe retched into the closest corner. Any fragile détente that Draco had forged in his mind about Potter the previous night evaporated in an instant. He grimaced at the thought of Potter sneaking away from the Masque with Ginny Weasley and... and...

Well, why should he care, anyway?

Because!

Because what?

Just... because. Because the very thought was... well, it was just... inconceivable. Offensive. An outrage. Just plain wrong. Draco was sure he'd be forced to perform Obliviate on himself just to scour the very image from his mind.

And what was this business about Bulgaria? BULGARIA! What could that famous four-eyed fake ever have done to deserve an official invitation from the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, Draco wanted to know. Why did Potter always have to get everything? Everything and the girl? In his stomach, the whirrings of a familiar distaste were swiftly escalating to cyclonic proportions.

But it had nothing to do with Potter and Ginny Weasley.

Much.

Well, all right. Maybe just a little.

But he'd feed himself to his Manticore before he'd admit that aloud.

Still... things weren't all that bad, Draco decided, fingering Tom's letter in his pocket. Stepping silently out of the stacks, his mind wandered back once more over the past twenty-four hours. There was his mystery girl to find--Draco was confident that she was out there somewhere--and he had his final Initiation Rite to look forward to, which would land him high in the Dark Lord's ranks.

Pushing open the library doors with a gratifying bang!, Draco ignored Madam Pince's reproachful glare.

He'd show Potter. He'd show them all.

The time had come for Draco Malfoy to show his quality.

**********

The ocean gusts tugged at the tangles of her hair, flying about her in an unruly mass. The vines grew fast and thick, obscuring her view of the clearing on the cliff.

But she could still see them, as much as she could smell the copper stench of fresh-spilt blood.

The nettles wrapped around her arms cut into her flesh, but she couldn't afford to lose sight of the two figures. With her remaining strength, Bethany wrenched apart the vines in time to see the rivulets of bright red staining the moonlit sand and rock, the black cape of the beast... and the body splayed across the ground.

Oh, Claire! Oh, God, she sobbed. Claire!

But her cries died against the wind that whipped across the cliff side.

The black cape gave a hollow flutter like a fallen sail as it slipped aside to reveal the corpse. But the body didn't belong to Claire.

It was the Mulroney boy. Even in the shadows, he was visible. Lying with wide, dead eyes... dark red streaks pouring across his jaw, mixing with the wet sand in his hair... the palm of one hand upturned in a lifeless impotence over a Hufflepuff scarf trailing in a bloody pool on the sand. Standing over the boy, the beast threw up its arms to the godless night and rejoiced with a high-pitched feral cry like a banshee's wail.

Bethany pitched forward through the brambles.

NOOOOOO!

Startled, the beast straightened and slowly turned, the black hood slipping just an inch over bright yellow curls and a skeletal jaw dripping with the bloody remains of its feast.

Bethany shuddered and struggled to shift into the safety of shadow, but her feet! The vines had tangled around her ankles. She was powerless to move. In the distance echoed the growl of the beast and the flapping of a black cloak shifting direction... closer... closer with each gravelly tread.

No sooner had Bethany opened her mouth to scream than it was covered by a hand from behind, followed by arms wrapping around her, drawing her to safety... darkness... a calming quiet. And a voice that soothed away her fear... Hush... Hush, now...

"Hush."

Fluttering open her eyes at the feel of warm fingers on her cheek, she gasped at the silhouette against the flickering fire in the Headmaster's office.

Kneeling beside her was the dark man. It was--

"Shhh..." he whispered. "It's all right. Just relax."

Bethany blinked.

"Sirius?"

"You were having a nightmare," he said, brushing the hair from her forehead. His blue eyes sought hers. "Do you have those often?"

Bethany nodded, resting her head back against the leather arm of the chair.

"So do I." Sirius turned away, staring into the fire.

His features were drawn and weary. In the firelight, the wrinkles beside his eyes that had once deepened with mirth now drooped with the burden of sadness. How easy it was, she thought, to sink into the quagmire of one's own nightmares in ignorance of the demons of others.

Bethany gave in to the impulse to rest a hand on his arm and he rewarded her with a grateful half-smile.

"The Mulroney boy," she said, sitting up suddenly. "Is he--"

"He's fine," said Sirius. "I came in to tell you that Dumbledore's just spoken to Madam Pomfrey. The boy was critical for most of the night, but he recovered well towards dawn. His blood level is back to normal and she's managed to sort out most of his injuries, so, while he'll probably feel like hell for the next few days, he'll be fine."

"Can I see him?"

"That's... the other thing I came to tell you," said Sirius, standing up. "You've got to leave at once."

"What?"

Sirius shrugged apologetically. "Sounds melodramatic, I know," he agreed. "But Dumbledore's right. He can't hide you here in his office indefinitely. All they'll need is a simple warrant. Malfoy and the Ministry will be back--and it won't be just to question you. I don't need to tell you that attempted murder is an Azkaban-worthy crime."

"But I haven't--"

"You haven't done anything?" The corner of Sirius's mouth turned up in a bitter half-smile. "That won't matter to them," he said gravely. "Trust me. They have an unconventional definition of justice."

Bethany shook her head.

"But I can't just leave," she insisted. "What if it happens again? What if she--"

"Yes?" Sirius swivelled to face her, raising his brows curiously.

Bethany bit her lip and turned, fixing her gaze on the horizon.

"I mean..." she continued more measuredly, "what if more students are attacked? Someone must act to stop it."

"Someone will," said a voice from the door, "...when the time comes. But I am afraid, for the moment, it cannot be you." The Headmaster strode to Bethany's side by the fire and took her hands in his. In them, she felt a warmth and strength belied by the fragile cast of his weathered fingers. He fixed her with an earnest gaze. "I know you mean well, Bethany. There are those of us who are certain of your loyalty, despite those who are not. But for the moment, it is for your own good that you must leave. There is only danger for you here. And you will do none of us any good should you end up in Malfoy's hands."

Bethany's mind raced as she looked back and forth between the two men. Leave? How could she leave now, knowing that the beast was prepared to strike? How could she leave when she was so close to getting her sister back?

On the other hand... it didn't seem as though Lucius could be relied upon as an ally after all, she thought, recalling his temper in the corridor. And if not Lucius... what of Tom? What of their bargain?

The Headmaster raised his snowy brows, prompting an answer, and all she could think of were the secrets she had been keeping since her arrival. Secrets that had been her burden for years. Everything she knew that would save the school and yet would surely jeopardise her own agenda.

As her head began to spin, she took a step back to sink onto an ottoman, propping her forehead on her hands. After a long moment, she swallowed hard and looked up.

"Where must I go?"

Dumbledore gave an affirmative tilt of his head, then turned to Sirius. "Do you still remember the way?"

Sirius nodded with a rueful smile. "Remembering was what kept me sane all those years. I have every path and trail from the Apparition point to the front door indelibly carved right here," he said, tapping a finger to his temple.

"Then, a safe journey to you both," the Headmaster said. "One of the Order will contact you directly if there are important developments. Now, go. Be swift. And remember, keep to the shadows, for we can never be sure where they may be watching."

**********

Once the spinning had stopped and the whirlwind of colour decelerated into the greenish brown sway of a moonlit wood, it was the eyes that Harry noticed first. A flash of white around amber irises glinting out from between the snow-covered bristles of evergreens and low shrubbery marking the edge of the wood. They blinked and vanished, only to reappear seconds later a few steps away, pausing and watching. Watching him. Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and fumbled for his wand.

"Professor Lupin...?" he whispered. It was a struggle to contain the tremor in his voice that sounded as fragile as the puffs of his breath in the brisk mountain air.

There! A glimpse of a reddish-gold mane and a thick tawny coat followed by the swish of a tail, elegant as a giant cat. A lion! Just as quickly as the beast appeared, it vanished again in the mountain mist. Harry had only seen lions once, on his first and last trip to the zoo for his cousin's birthday. Lazing in the sun on landscaped turf, they looked docile enough. But he preferred not to find out just how domesticated this one was.

"Harry, don't move."

Beside him, Lupin slowly rose from the ground, fresh snow clinging to his grey robes. His eyes scanned the tree line.

"Stay close," Lupin muttered. "Make no sudden movements." As he raised his wand arm, a few evergreens shuddered and a nest of birds took flight from the tops of trees above.

Harry swallowed and glanced behind him. There was nowhere to run. They had Apparated directly onto the edge of a cliff. As luck would have it, the thickness of the wood before them was their only buffer against the frost and howling of the north wind. On the rock face, Harry's dress shoes crunched through layers of fresh and packed snow. The freezing chill worked its way up from his soles to his knees. There was only room for a few steps back across the blue-white powder underfoot before the ground cut sharply, dropping into a mist-laden ravine. The inky browns and greys of an adjacent rock face were the only evidence of solid ground in the distance.

"Professor Lupin... d'you think we... missed the Apparition Point?"

More rustling of leaves announced the arrival of something large in the shadows. Harry turned from side to side, as the sounds drew closer from both left and right. The knuckles gripping his wand had turned an anxious white.

"I don't think so," whispered Lupin. "I mean, according to Krum's directions, we should be--"

"Zdrasti!" boomed a deep baritone.

Harry and Lupin jumped as a tall, burly wizard with a bushy salt and pepper beard pushed through the foliage, bearing a small torch. He froze at the sight of their raised wands and slowly raised his hands, blinking in confusion. "Nu, tak..."

"Na angliski, Dima," said a younger man in his early twenties, also tall, but thin with a bright angelic countenance. He calmly stepped over a cluster of loose twigs, brushing snow and pine needles from the collar of his robes. "It is time ve are practicing our English." He took a step forward and gave a formal half bow. "Hulloa and velcome--"

"Wait!" interrupted Harry. "There's a lion--"

"Molya, kakvo kazahkte? What are you saying?" he asked. "Lion? Ve haff no lions here."

The brawny wizard glanced puzzled behind him and garbled something to the younger man, who frowned thoughtfully, then nodded.

"Ah, yes, there vos news of a circus lion that had escaped from a town not far from here," he explained. "But ve need not be afraid. It is old and like domestic cat, the news report vos saying. Eighty-five percent chance it vill not attack."

Harry preferred not to dwell on the odds represented by the other fifteen percent, but the young ranger seemed unperturbed. Slipping his hand from a dragonhide glove, he extended his arm and stepped forward to shake hands with Harry and Professor Lupin.

"I am Krystof Aleksandrovich Gogol," he said. "I believe you haff already made acquaintance of my nephew, Viktor Krum. This is my colleague Dmitri Danilov Kovalenko..." He gestured to the burly man, who gingerly lowered his hands. "But in the village ve call him Dima."

Dima's ruddy cheeks turned pink behind his unruly beard. He gave them a small nod of acknowledgment and a shy smile--an unexpected transformation that made Harry immediately think of Hagrid. It was hard not to smile back.

"Thank you for coming to meet us," said Lupin agreeably. "I'm Remus Lupin, and this is--"

"Harry Potter," the young wizard finished with a cheery wink. "I vos guessing so."

Harry resisted the urge to smooth down his fringe and his shoulders shook with a modest shrug. "It's the scar."

"Scar? Da! Beleg. Of course!" The man's brows rose and he grinned. "But, actually, this I had forgotten," he confessed with a boyish shrug, "I vos remembering that Viktor said you vood be the von vearing the glasses. It is an honour to meet you both. Normally, ve vood be haffing a more grand velcome party but the Minister is vishing to keep your presence here as quiet as possible..."

He furrowed his brows, his gaze darting across the shadows along the cliff side. The creeping dawn had tinted the sky a paler grey than it had been only moments ago. A thud, that could easily have been chunks of melting snow dropping behind the tree line, resounded across the cliff and the young wizard's smile faded.

Dima paled and raised his wand. Harry watched the knuckles of the man's other hand whiten around the torch.

"Ve must not linger here," said the young ranger, signalling to Dima and beckoning for them all to follow him back into the wood.

"But I thought you said the lion wouldn't attack?" said Lupin, negotiating his way around a snowdrift.

The man nodded. "But it is not lions ve must fear. It is still dark," he said, squinting along the tree line. "Tak, if you haff any questions, ve can--"

"Excuse me, er... Mr--" began Harry.

"Krystof, please," he corrected, placing a gloved hand on his chest. "Viktor is my nephew, but he is only junior by two years."

"It's just that we were expecting Viktor," said Harry. "Do you know where--"

"Quidditch practice, of course." Krystof sniffed. "Ve hardly ever see him since he is beginning training. If it vos possible, his coach vood haff him vork twenty-four hours a day." He shrugged at Harry and Lupin. "He vonted very much to meet you, but he is not haffing the courage in these days to say no to Wilfried," explained Krystof, frowning. "But never mind, he vill join us for nadenitsa."

Harry yawned. He hadn't the foggiest notion of what nadenitsa could be, but if it was some sort of Bulgarian welcome custom, he thought, it certainly would be nice to get in a quick nap beforehand.

"If you wish, ve vill take you directly to Minister Oblanov, or..." He glanced at Lupin, who was failing at a valiant attempt to stifle a yawn. "Oh, I apologise. Forgive me. You haff travelled a great distance and you must be cold... and tired. Perhaps you are vanting some rest before you are meeting with Minister Oblanov?"

Harry and Lupin smiled gratefully.

"Come," said Krystof, turning to follow the path illuminated by Dima's outstretched torch. At the first tree, he stopped and turned, showing them how to follow behind himself and Dima in a single file. "For keeping secret our numbers," he explained. "Just in case."

In case what?

Harry glanced up and around them as they entered the forest. The lightening sky disappeared almost entirely behind the heavy cloak of firs and interwoven branches, but Dima's torch cast a feeble light into the trees where the mist was patchy in places. Harry fancied a number of times that he saw or even heard the soft footpads of the lion, walking beside them, prancing ahead, pausing, then keeping step with them again... but with every turn of his head, his eyes met only mist and shadow. He sighed. It was probably just fatigue. They had yet to have a moment's sleep since the day of the Masque. Behind him, Professor Lupin yawned, while the two rangers trudged wordlessly ahead of them, keeping a vigilant, yet unalarmed, lookout.

Still... Harry drew his cloak around his neck and rubbed his weary eyes. It almost seemed that it was his lot in life to wander into dangerous forests. It was a miracle Professor Trelawney had never read that in his tea leaves before.

Harry sighed into the woollen folds of his scarf, welcoming the warmth to his nose and cheeks. For the first time in hours he felt tired. He was hungry, too. The dull ache in his head meant that he probably also had a mild butterbeer hangover. And, in the murky swamp of disparate thoughts that coagulate in a sleep-deprived mind, a disappointing thought rose to the surface. He realised that he had been so preoccupied with hiding from Evelina's advances at the Masque that he hadn't once seen Ginny Weasley, let alone asked her to dance. He sighed again thinking of how he was going to miss exchanging Christmas presents and pulling crackers with Ron and Hermione that morning. And brunch in the Great Hall... the eggs and sausage piping hot, the self-replenishing pastry tray, the Engorging Eggnog Fred and George planned to smuggle into the Hall... Instead, he was marching through the back-of-beyond in Bulgaria on the way to an audience before the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, while being stalked by a phantom lion and perhaps whatever nameless menace that had the rangers spooked; he was famished enough to eat a whole plate of Hagrid's rock cakes; and his toes were numb and stiffening, possibly with frostbite... If there was ever a reason not to want to be The Boy Who Lived, thought Harry, narrowly missing a nasty fall down an icy slope, this was it.

**********

What bothered Draco the most in his life was the inescapable fact that he was not Harry Potter. If he was to be completely honest with himself, that's really what it all boiled down to... and the very thought of it was also not a little bit annoying. To admit it out loud was the one thing he could think of that was worse than having his entrails gouged out by a peckish Manticore.

Hmmph. Which was exactly what his father might do to him, too, once he found out that his son had lost the Portkey. Draco's arms ached from turning his entire room inside out looking for the damn thing that afternoon. If only he could remember when he'd last had it... He'd put the Shrinking Spell on the dagger, pinned it onto his pirate's costume before the Masque. And then... then...

He grinned despite himself. Then he'd met the girl in the red dress. After that, Draco was fairly certain that he probably hadn't been able to see straight. Not since the moment that she came to see him in the turret room and clutched him tightly for balance when Peeves--

Draco swore floridly. That's it!

It must have come off with the cheap cloth of that frilly pirate's shirt. For all he knew, it could have been swept up after the Masque, probably hidden in Filch's filthy filing cabinets or buried in Mrs Norris's litter box by now. One of the most powerful and most treasured antiquities in the collection of Malfoy family heirlooms, his father had said.

Holy Salazar, he was done for now.

It was all Potter's fault, he decided. If it wasn't for that pot-headed plonker setting his sights specifically on hiring those dessicated pirate rags for the dance, Draco might not have bribed the clerk at Zonko's for them. He might actually have chosen something decent to wear and--

"Oy, Malfoy! You blind, or what, yeh useless git?!"

At the grating common twang of Bole's voice across the pitch, Draco's knuckles whitened around the neck of his Firebolt 220. A second later, he turned over his shoulder to find the pockmarked face of the Slytherin captain himself leering at him.

"That's the fourth Snitch yeh've missed--and that one almost bit yeh!" Bole raised his Beater's bat threateningly and leaned forward. "You know and I know that the fastest brooms an' all the magic in Britain can't make talent where there ain't none," he spat. "But as long as yer up 'ere, least yeh can do is not embarrass us, right. Now, look alive."

Draco's eyes narrowed dangerously, but his sense of dignity kept his hackles down. The wind was picking up, but all he was painfully aware of were the other Slytherins, hovering close to observe the power play. Draco returned Bole's glare for a long moment... until the Slytherin captain's crater face erupted with a cocky laugh, a sneer on his lips and a challenge in his eyes.

"Know what the problem is with silver spoon snots like you, Malfoy?" said Bole. "No. Balls."

In the space between Draco and the pitch, Derrick and Sponger sniggered. And from somewhere near the hoops, he heard Bangert's guffaw. This only spurred the captain on.

Although Draco wanted nothing better than to ram his broomstick through Bole's chest, he rolled over on the opposite flank in pursuit of the Snitch, catching it one-handed this and three more times in rapid succession.

Experience, however, told Draco that Bole was precisely the type to flog a dead horse... if not eat it, too.

After practice, still shouting belligerent comments across the field, Bole trailed after Draco as the team marched toward the school. Name-calling was, of course, beneath a Malfoy, and Draco's increasingly fragile self-restraint commanded that he fix his eyes forward, to force himself to close his ears to the boy's taunting.

But it was no use. Ignoring Bole was like trying to tune out a Jarvey that had nested in your ear. Bole and Bangert kept so close to Draco's heels that he was too distracted even to dispense a cutting remark as they crossed paths with that loser Longbottom. The mousey little freak was crossing the pumpkin patch towards the school and appeared to be snickering and muttering to himself. Longbottom barely remarked Draco, but paled and cowered at the sight of... was it Bole? Draco narrowed his eyes at the Gryffindor and moved on.

"... fastest broom in Britain... feckin' useless, if y' ask me," rang Bole's obnoxious voice across the hillside. "'Can't trust our Seeker to find the feckin' Snitch 'f it was glued to 'is arse..."

Draco seethed and gritted his teeth as the hoots and jeers rose behind him. But he forced a few deep breaths and concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other in the hardening snow. Ignore him, ignore him, ignore him, he chanted to himself. Just. Keep. Walking. Now with his final Initiation Rite looming on the horizon, the last thing Draco could afford to do was to screw it up with a lifetime of detention for castrating the Slytherin captain.

As he crossed the path to the Manticore cavern, the twilight glinting on the swish of a ginger ponytail caught his eye.

Brilliant, Draco thought grimly. He wished despite himself that Bole could have chosen a less public place to air his insults. Ginny Weasley fixed Draco with a scornful glare as she took hold of the rope ladder, but he could muster barely an impotent sneer in return. Every crunch of Bole's boots in the snow reverberated in Draco's ears, the flurry of footfalls peppered by a hackneyed selection of insults from the Slytherin's unimaginative vocabulary--all comments that would have faded eventually into a harmless drone, except--

"Know what your problem is, guv?" called Bole. "Yeh've got no brass about yeh. Yeah. Now, that Potter... 'e's got it in spades, 'e does."

Draco's eyes darted warily toward Ginny Weasley. The girl did not return his glance as she descended into the foxhole, but it irked him that the very mention of Potter was enough to turn her lips up proudly at the corners.

The Slytherin captain had stopped walking to have a word with Bangert, though his voice assumed an audible stage whisper across the icy slope. "Too bad, really... shame all the gold in Gringotts can't turn a talentless Malfoy into half a Harry Potter."

Draco froze.

His grip could have snapped his Firebolt in two. And as he slowly turned to face Bole, it seemed to Draco that every sound around them had dissipated, leaving only the heavy drum of blood beating in his ears.

In the snow, Draco stumbled angrily towards Bole, who arched one side of his monobrow. The Slytherin captain's eyes narrowed into dark slits and his pimpled chin rose in the air with haughty satisfaction.

"Hit a nerve, 'ave I, guv?" drawled Bole with a mocking grin. "Look at yeh. Think yer so high an' mighty, bein' one of the elite few." With the butt of his broomstick, he gave a hard tap to the Sentinel badge on Draco's cloak. Draco did not wince, although he suspected he'd find a nasty bruise there the next day. "But yeh 'aven't got what it takes to follow through on anythin', do yeh? All that talk in the common room 'bout givin' the Weasleys a little o' their own back..." Bole threw his head back with a vulgar laugh. "... when yer really jus' gaggin' fer a coupla minutes in the closet with that wee ginger biscuit o' yers," he said, nodding at the entrance to the Manticore cavern.

""Ow d'yeh think the great Lucius Malfoy'll feel when 'e finds out 'is son fancies a piece o' ginger Weasley's--"

"YOU SHUT UP!" There was nothing for it now. Draco's wand scraped the side of Bole's neck. "That's a lie!" he cried, though he was secretly disappointed to detect in his own voice a distinct lack of conviction. "It's not true, and you know it!"

"Innit?" countered Bole, flicking Draco's wand away with his wrist. "So yeh say." The Slytherin captain cast a quick glance up to the castle and Bangert leaned to whisper something in his ear. A slow malevolent mischief crept across Bole's face. "Think it's 'bout time Malfoy puts his galleons where 'is mouth is, eh?"

Julian Bangert sneered at Draco.

"You're always going on about revenge on the Weasels," said Bangert. "Why not give this little one a scare?"

Draco blinked. "What?"

Bole cuffed Bangert on the shoulder. "S'what I like about you, 'mate," hissed Bole gleefully. "Always thinkin' like a Slytherin." Turning back to Draco, he said, "Yeah, give 'er a scare. You could jus' lock 'er in there in the dark," he said, nodding at the trapdoor opening. "Wait a few minutes... five... maybe ten--"

"Twenty," said Bangert, spitting into the snow-covered pumpkin patch.

Bole's grin widened. "Twenty minutes," he agreed with a conclusive nod. "Then, open the door. Yeh can give us the gory details over tea, 'ow's that sound? ...If yeh've got the balls, that is."

Draco looked silently from the boys and peered down into the trap door. Inside, Ginny Weasley was just finishing up the feeding, putting away the bucket and slipping off the dragonhide gloves, taking care not to drop her portable flame.

Bangert nudged Bole and frowned as if to say he'd thought all along that Draco didn't have the guts to do it. Don't I? Draco wondered. Would they shut up after this? It was just a harmless gag, after all. Did he dare? She'd scream, probably, but she'd be all right. It was just a prank. Just a prank. His father might even find it amusing. No big deal. Right?

Still... Draco had a bad feeling about this. And suddenly he felt alone.

And he was. Bole and Bangert had started back up the hill.

"Hey! HEY!" Draco called after them. "Where do you think you're going, then?"

Bole raised his brow. "We'll watch from inside," he said with a shake of his shoulders. "Freezin' our bollocks off out 'ere."

Goading him with a final scornful glare, the boys picked up their broomsticks and hurried for the locker rooms, just as the rustling of the rope ladder being tugged echoed from the foxhole.

Draco glanced once again up the slope. Deserted. But he knew they were probably watching.

They were always watching.

Draco's mouth went dry.

It was now or never.

He threw down his Firebolt 220 and bent forward to lift the frosty moss frame of the trap door from the ground. Circe, this is heavy! And--aaaaaaagggghhh! Cold! It's cold! The ice burned against his fingers. He had barely succeeded in prying the door loose from surrounding clumps of packed ice when the dim light from a portable flame below lit the visible rungs. The ladder shook as she approached. He had to be quick.

Bracing his feet against the thick roots of a nearby stump, he pushed forward with all his strength. The trap door, heavy-laden as it was with snow, slid forward onto the opening. But as Draco put his weight behind the door, awaiting the thud of its closing, several things happened at once.

The portable flame fell back into the cavern, a gasp and a squeal echoed in the chamber as one hand reached out to stay the door, and another lit a wand... there was a stir amongst the Manticores in their cages as the rumble of metal and rattling of chains drowned in the growls and roars below... The door was nearly shut... Just a prank, Draco repeated to himself, just a prank. 'Beasts are all locked up, anyway. No big deal. There's nothing dangerous about--

Resounding up through the foxhole came the curious sound of rusty iron doors groaning open... followed by the pounding of threatening steps and glimmering red-yellow eyes as the Manticores, incited by the wandlight, lunged forward to swipe at the girl... They were free!

Draco gasped. Great Merlin--they're--

Without a second thought, Draco threw his hands forward, just catching the door before it shut. He tugged to open the trap door with more effort than he had put into sealing it, and his neck muscles protested from the strain. But at last, the door gave way and swung reluctantly open, filling the night air with Ginny Weasley's screams.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!!! Help me! HELP!"

She clung tightly to the ladder, looking down and trembling as the mob of Manticores took turns leaping to swipe at her with claws and spiked tails.

"Grab my hand!" shouted Draco. Hooking his foot around a tree root, he reached down into the cavern with one arm... but it was no use. She was too far away.

"Climb up!" he ordered. But she paid him no attention. Immobilised by fear, she continued gaping down at the beasts. Her face had gone a deathly white and her shoulder shook with desperate sobs as the Manticores grew bolder. Draco watched in horror as they leaped onto one another's backs and onto the ladder. Ginny screamed as one managed to slash at her ankle.

Draco's stomach sank. His first instinct was to make a mad dash for the school. He wasn't resourceful like Potter. He'd never had a knack for squeaking through McGonagall's detentions, let alone near-death situations. Hell, thought Draco, even Bole said he couldn't catch a bloody Snitch even though he had a--Firebolt 220!

The Firebolt!

Draco scrambled back on the surface for his broomstick. Once mounted, he tapped the row of buttons on the handle and pushed off into the cold air, praying that there was no malfunction in the Invisibility Apparatus. Glancing down, he noted with some relief that he could see neither his cloak nor the broom.

Perfect.

He turned quickly and dove straight down--dove with all the bravado of a Wronski Feint he'd never attempted. Not a moment to spare to guess the best angle, for there was little time and much to lose.

Draco careened through the opening unnoticed and righted himself just above the tallest of the Manticores. The torchlight was so dim, he could barely see where them all. But behind him he could smell as well as hear them.

A few feet to his right, a claw hooked around Ginny's ankle and she tumbled back a few rungs, arms flailing in vain to keep herself from the vicious snapping of sharp teeth. The blood flowing from the gash in her ankle only whetted the beasts' appetites. One or two gripped the bottom of the ladder between their teeth and began a vicious shaking to pry her off. She screamed--screamed right into Draco's ear as he pitched forward, wrenching her free and onto the broom.

"Let go of me!" She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling wildly against the invisible grip that wrapped around her waist. "Let go! LET GO!"

"Stop struggling, for the love of Merlin!" yelled Draco. "I'm getting you out of here."

Ginny Weasley opened her eyes and peered blindly into the air. She addressed a spot somewhere near his left ear. "Who--who are you?"

Draco swore in fright as his broom suddenly tipped forward. A Manticore leaping in their direction accidentally knocked its nose against the Firebolt's coil of bristles. It fell back with a roar, fixing its eyes on Ginny, who was now practically strangling Draco with her arms clutched around his invisible neck.

"Augh! Not... not... so... tight," he choked.

"Oh... sorry," she said, then, "Watch out, I think they're going to--"

Draco threw all of his weight back and pushed off the closest rung, just missing three sets of claws and stingers by a hair. Before he could blink, they had cleared through the trap door and into the brisk evening air.

With a free hand, Draco aimed his wand at the foxhole.

"Fermare."

The trap door slammed over the cavern, sealing away the distant roar of disgruntled Manticores deprived of a fresh feast.

And for the first time since he had taken Bole up on his stupid dare, Draco stopped to feel his heart knocking against his chest. Any second now and it was going to rip right through his rib cage.

Stupid dare. He hadn't counted on the Manticores getting out. Hadn't that towering oaf of a gamekeeper said he'd sealed the cages securely? Gods, we could have died. He glanced at the girl shivering in his arms. She could have died. Ginny Weasley stared searchingly to the right of his head into the twilight.

"Who--who are you?" Her voice was a tremulous whisper, but her eyes shone not with fear but with relief and... was that... recognition?

"It's all right," he said, touching down in the pumpkin patch. "You're safe now."

Yet, of her safety she seemed relatively unconcerned. Draco still hadn't deactivated the Firebolt's Invisibility Apparatus, and he struggled to stay his breathing as her eyes scanned across his face... or where it ought to have been.

She squinted and frowned for a long moment.

"I know your voice," she muttered, almost to herself. A small mysterious smile slid onto her lips.

Draco's stomach dropped. Bugger! Did she know it was him? If she ever found out he'd even planned to trap her in the cavern... The Weasleys or the Ministry could charge him... send him to Azkaban perhaps... He could see the headlines now... and the look on his father's face... the look on Tom's face...

He backed away slowly, still clinging to the broom. But he left a trail in the snow that was easy enough to follow.

"It's okay." Ginny crept forward gently, as if approaching a wild hare. "I just... want to see you again."

Draco paused and frowned. Again?

He slid on a patch of ice and fell backwards against a tree trunk. Ginny advanced a few steps almost eagerly in his direction, despite the fact that she was limping and trailing blood--

"You're hurt," observed Draco, less out of concern than a hope to change the subject.

"Oh!" She bent to examine her ankle under her red-stained socks. "It's... fine," she announced after a moment. "Just a scratch."

Ginny looked up, swinging her ponytail back with a flip--an easy, simple motion that would have meant nothing but for the sudden glimpse it afforded Draco of the pendant hanging at the base of her neck.

There, glinting in the moonlight was his family's heirloom dagger. The very same that had been torn from his costume at the Masque by the girl in red.

But... how could Weasley possibly have the dagger unless the girl in red had been... unless she was...

Draco's mouth dropped open.

Oh. My. Dark. Lord.

She was grinning at him. Ginny Weasley was grinning at him. It was ridiculous, thought Draco--utterly and completely skinny-dipping-with-Grindylows-insane, because if she knew who she was really looking at, she might... well, he didn't want to think about it. Though he was fairly certain that she wouldn't be smiling.

"I was afraid you'd gone..." she said quietly and shrugged. "I don't know... run off or something, because... maybe because of something I did." Not even the shadows of the of the trees could obscure the colour that fanned boldly across her cheeks. He noticed, irrelevantly, how the little upturn at the end of her nose flushed pink with the cold. She gave a self-deprecating chuckle and bit her lip and... and great Merlin--he couldn't help it--he was staring at her mouth and his heart was pounding against his chest again, but this time with a different species of fear. Before he knew what he was doing, even as she spoke, his head was inclining towards hers even as his stomach was doing little nervous somersaults.

"...then we thought you'd gone to Bulgaria because Hermione--"

Draco snapped his head back. "Granger? What's she got to do with anything?"

Ginny blinked. "Well, she's the one who told us why you left for Bulgaria last night."

Left for Bulgaria. Draco felt an ominous sinking as he recalled the conversation he'd heard that morning in the stacks. She thinks Potter kissed her. It's not me she fancies, he told himself bitterly, it's Potter. POTTER. Of course. Who else could it be but The Boy Who Lived? That myopic mop head. The Boy Who Always Gets the Girl.

Draco released a contemptuous snort. A puff of his breath lingered in the air between them.

"Um... Are you... feeling all right?" A little wrinkle formed above Ginny's nose as she leaned forward. "...Harry?"

Even if Draco hadn't already been mired in a paralysing self-doubt, those two little syllables would have been the seaweed to break the Kelpie's back.

"I am not Harry Potter!" he spat, startling her backward with the vehemence of his cry.

Still shaking, he took to his broom and made a spirited bolt, flying as quickly and as far as he could from the confusion on her face.

By the time Draco had charged through the Slytherin locker room and chained his broom away in the shed, he had resolved to take dinner in his room. Facing Bole and the Slytherins was out of the question. He couldn't imagine explaining what had just happened.

Indeed, how could he? He couldn't even explain it to himself.

**********

"Is it... much... further?" panted Bethany.

Her voice echoed in the winding passage, dissolving like the faint glow of their torches into the shadowy maze of tunnels behind them. Occasionally the earth would shake with a distant rumble and small clouds of dust would fall from the low ceiling onto their robes.

"Not much," said Sirius. "If I remember correctly, the door should be just a few meters from here." He paused and held out his arm. "Are you tired?"

"I'm fine," said Bethany, who fancied herself a fine liar on certain occasions. The truth was, however, that her legs already felt sore from treading non-stop for the last couple of hours, but her pride prevented her from mentioning it. Sirius himself was still limping a bit, she noticed, but he'd not so much as winced for hours--not once from the time they Apparated onto a night-covered pasture dotted with muddy sheep and shimmied down to the bottom of a dry well where the tunnels began.

There was nothing around them now but more cob-webbed passages and round, elf-sized doors, so she had no way of telling what she looked like, but in front of her in the torchlight Sirius was plainly filthy. Soot had collected in his hair, cheeks and on the bridge of his nose, and when he smiled, his teeth gleamed extraordinarily white by contrast. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned like a truant schoolboy embarking on a forbidden adventure. She remembered that look.

"Tell me again," she said, "why we're going this way and not Apparating to this safe house?"

"These tunnels were last used by the original members of the Order of the Phoenix to transport refugees--families of prominent citizens who refused to swear allegiance to Grindelwald," he said.

Bethany raised her brows. "That must have been over fifty years ago," she said. "How is it that you know this place so well?"

"My parents used it often," was the vague reply. A dark expression flickered in his eyes but vanished just as quickly as it had come.

"As you can see," he continued, waving his torch about with the air of a wine cellar tour guide, "no one's been here for years. As one of the minor underground highways during the war, it's been largely forgotten by the map-makers. And it's likely to be the only travel network in Britain that isn't under surveillance. Now that the Death Eater alliance has spread throughout Britain and on the continent, there's almost nothing we can do to escape their notice. It's a fair guess that every Floo station and registered Apparition Point from here to Vladivostok is being monitored."

His face darkened. "Just yesterday, five Aurors off-duty Apparated to five separate secure locations, only to be splinched on arrival. No coincidence. Ministry forensics are still combing the surrounding neighbourhoods for chunks of flesh, bone fragments, anything they can recover to determine how re-entry was sabotaged. And those are only the most recent," he said. His eyes lingered on her face in the shadows and his hand rose gently, as if to brush her cheek, but he hesitated and rested it on her shoulder a moment.

"Dumbledore doesn't want you to become a statistic," he whispered. "Neither do I."

Bethany's stomach did a little leap, but before the tingling her in her stomach had faded, Sirius had already turned at the next corner.

He stopped almost reverently at a dead end before a single round metal door and paused to wipe his forehead with the dusty sleeve of his cloak. As he lifted his torch, the faint outlines of a marking appeared over the threshold: the letter "P" carved into the core of an apple. The etching glittered dimly at first, but as he raised his wand to the marking, the outline of both letter and apple began to shimmer brightly until the passage flooded with a flash of blinding gold.

Bethany covered her eyes. When she opened them at last, the door had disappeared. In its place remained an opening onto a small landing bisecting a winding spiral of stairs that led up to the right and down to the left.

"Almost there. It's a three-minute walk from the surface," said Sirius, as footsteps from below echoed up past them on the stairs. "And we must be quick! Follow me."

"But Sirius, where--"

"Just stick close, whatever happens," he said, hastily pulling her through the wall and gesturing up the narrow concrete steps. Bethany picked up her skirts and glanced behind her to find that the aperture to the tunnels had vanished entirely. Footsteps and voices carried up from somewhere below on the stairwell as the musty air resounded with the fading rumble of a train pulling away. Sirius tugged her onward.

"Where are we?" she asked, quickening her pace.

"London... Hampstead Tube Station, to be precise," muttered Sirius. "Think we've hit the beginning of rush hour, judging from the noise."

As they ascended, the ebb and tide of weary Muggle voices followed not far behind...

"...bloody lifts, not working again," someone growled.

"... ought to stagger the trains better this time o' day... quarter of an hour between each train... that's ridiculous, that is..."

"Been like this for months, hasn't it?" said another companionably. "And always when we're all heading home."

"'Least you get to work off your sticky toffee pudding, then, eh?"

"Watch it!"

"...and those two down-and-outs sleeping at the end of the platform," said someone else, "... aren't there shelters for that sort?..."

"Yeah, bet they're sick as well... it's so draughty in here, and there's no colour left to them--"

"Cor! Left the brolly on the train, 'aven't I?"

"... hope the rain's stopped..."

Bethany thought her legs might give out. The concrete stairs carried on almost endlessly as they climbed past intermittent patches of wire fencing, windows that looked down into forlorn little rooms stacked with metal pipes. Ahead of her, Sirius, too, was beginning to show the signs of a very long day, but he gave her an encouraging smile as they emerged through a metal door and tumbled into a cacophony of sound. The beeping of ticket machines in the Tube station lobby drowned in the wail of a siren, blue flashing lights and the shouts of a team of uniformed Muggles--an emergency crew, by the looks of it--making a rush for the stairwell.

"Stand aside, please," said one of the crew, as his colleague dashed down the steps. "Out of the way, please, ladies and gentlemen. If you could all just stand aside..." The gaggle of commuters, some stopping to stare unabashedly and others modestly feigning disinterest, squeezed aside to give the other men every available space for the gurneys they carried. Bethany winced as a briefcase dug into her calf and reached out to grasp at Sirius as the crowd shuffled to create a path to the stairwell.

It was just as the throng pushed Sirius and Bethany against the ticket booth that she glimpsed them. Or thought she did.

There was at first no way to be certain--not with all the unfurling umbrellas in the way. But as the flock of commuters exited, there was no doubt. Queuing to exit the turnstiles alongside the Muggles were two faces Bethany wasn't likely to forget: the ugly grimace and malicious sneer of Malfoy's henchmen Ely and Yeats. Both elbowed their way through the crowd toward the street. Bethany cringed as a blind man shook his walking stick at Ely, but the wizard pushed past him without so much as a grunt.

Sirius's grip tightened on her arm and she nodded. Keeping their heads down, they threaded their way out onto the corner of the High Street, camouflaging themselves amidst groups of travellers until the latter threw open their umbrellas and dispersed in search of dry cover.

Bethany squinted into the darkness against the rain, recalling uneasily the scene in her quarters. Were they expecting her? Was it a trap? The very thought made her shiver.

But Sirius gingerly peered around the corner up and down Heath Street and shook his head.

"They're gone," he said, "... for the moment, at least."

"Do you think they followed us?"

Sirius shrugged, drawing his cloak in around his neck. "I don't know. But if we stay out in the open long enough, we'll probably find out the hard way."

Bethany snorted and wrinkled her nose. "I'm not that curious," she said. "Let's go."

As they walked briskly across to Holly Hill, away from the footsteps and chatter of Hampstead High Street, she heard Sirius mutter, "Obscurare". Drawing her water-logged cloak around her shoulders, Bethany looked up to see a thick train of mist rising ahead of them. Within seconds the fog had blanketed the narrow street that led up to the red brick Georgian houses at the top of the hill.

"Keep close," said Sirius.

She was glad for the hand he offered, as the light from the streetlamps overhead vanished into the fog. They could barely see two steps ahead of themselves on the pavement. But Sirius moved surefooted up the narrow incline until they came to a fork in the road marked by a red post box and a small triangle of grass.

"Here we are," he said, pulling out an envelope from the folds of his cloak.

"You're mailing a letter?" Bethany dropped his hand. "Now?"

Sirius shook his head, a mysterious curl to his lips. His brows furrowed in concentration as he dropped the letter into the slot beneath the little black hood. He listened for the hollow scratch of the envelope as it sank, then gravely offered her his hand.

"Do you trust me?"

The eyes that met hers were blue and a little bloodshot, and, at the corners, creased--strangers might say from time, age or madness. But Bethany had known the same eyes to crinkle with laughter, soften with tenderness, and flash with courage and conviction.

Trust Sirius Black?

She laced her fingers through his. "I do."

In the mist she saw him smile.

But the encroaching fog thickened swiftly until she could sense nothing of Sirius but the grip of his hand. A deep humming noise originated from the direction of the pillar box at her side and the pavement began to shake. Bethany clawed at the post box for stability, blinking in confusion when she succeeded in grasping nothing but thin air. Somehow, too, she had lost her footing--completely lost the sensation of her feet on the ground until she realised that she was floating--not pleasantly, as in dreams, but uncomfortably. She not so much heard as felt the shattering of the air around her, and then, quite unexpectedly, a violent tug on her limbs--and suddenly the pain, as if she were being drawn and quartered.

"Bethany!" Sirius's voice reached her ears sounding muffled and distant, as if through yards of cotton wool.

At last, she lost the grip of his hand and, gasping, called his name. But the pressure... the pressure on her chest was too great... as if she were being crushed in a vortex of white and grey... spinning... spinning... round and round... twirling faster and faster until a vise-like grip hooked around her waist and her head collided with something hard and cold and the world was nothing but a flash of light receding into a still blackness.