Lucifer

    "I'm coming, I'm coming," said Maude Pickering. She wasn't sure what exactly had Rita Skeeter up there babbling incoherently about a classmate and blood, but it sounded like something that she needed to see about.

    Rita led her into the room she shared with the other two girls. Lacerta Carlisle was sitting up in bed, and drew breath to complain as Madam Pickering opened the door, but she paid her no mind. The room smelled of blood, hot and coppery, and she saw why when she stepped around the corner of Evadne Norton's bed. Losing the baby, poor girl. She'll do better in privacy, and this way they can get some sleep. She summoned a stretcher and packing, and transfered Evadne up to the hospital wing. The girl was pale, moaning deeply in pain as the contractions hit, and Madam Pickering decided it would be more compassionate to give her a Dreamless Sleep potion. That way she'd sleep through it. Poor girl. She cast a spell, and nodded. Definitely losing it, and she'd have to be checked when she was done to make sure everything was all right. And then, considering the hour, she went back to bed, after setting an alarm to wake her for the next check.

    The room stank of blood, Lucius noticed, despite the efforts of the two house elves cleaning it. Lacerta Carlisle said, quite huffily, "Really, Rita, I don't know what you're...."

    "Imperio," said a soft voice behind him, and he glanced around to see the soft eyes of his best friend hard as he bent his will against hers. Lacerta's tirade faltered, and she drew back into her bed.

    I will never call his hobby useless again, thought Lucius.

    "I'm going to bed, Rita," Lacerta said. "Whatever you want to do is up to you." And she yanked the curtains closed.

    Adrian said, very quietly, "Seal her bed off so we can get this over with."

    Lucius set his jaw and set the spells. When he was done, you could have screamed next to that bed, but Lacerta wouldn't have wakened. The house elves finished and left, and Lucius began trying to get Rita, who was nearly hysterical, to talk. Adrian, meanwhile, was rifling quickly through a bundle of letters from Evadne's parents.

    "Now," he said to Rita. "What the HELL is going on?"

    "I....Oh, God, Lucius, she's dying and I did it!"

    "What do you mean?" he said.

    "She had a headache, I gave her a potion, but I must have given her the wrong one, oh, gods, I'm going to Azkaban...."

    "Do get control of yourself, Rita," he said. "No one's going to Azkaban here. Now, tell me what you did. You came in, she was being sick. You told me that already."

    "And I knew it was a migraine. So I went to my trunk, cause I suffer from them too, and got her some of my migraine potion."

    "I....see...." said Lucius. He looked at the distraught girl in front of him, and said, "Which one? The one with musty wheat and feverfew and rose thorns?"

    "Yes...." she said. "The other ones don't work once you've started vomiting."

    "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "Do you have one for normal headaches?" He figured she did. Rita dosed herself for everything.

    "Y-yes, but I don't see why...."

    "Get it out, please."

    She knelt and rooted in her trunk until she came up with a small glass phial. It had the label printed on it. Lucius took it from her. "Very good. Now, Rita, I have absolutely no interest in sending you to Azkaban. So if they ask you what you gave her...you gave her that. Just rose thorns and valerian and crushed ladybirds."

    He undid the corking on the vial, and tossed it down, before walking over to Evadne's bedside. "Here we go," he said softly, and laid it down on the bedside table. "Looks perfect. Are we set, Adrian?"

    "But I killed her...." Rita said, staring at the clean bed and the little phial lying on the table beside it, mute props in a play.

    "We're set," Adrian said, one hand indicating desk drawer, the other indicating the bin next to the desk.

    "Well, now, Rita," said Lucius, smiling softly, "If you did, I'm not telling, and neither is Adrian. Don't worry, your secret is safe with us. See, your tracks have been covered."

    Adrian smiled at her, and then yawned, waving his wand at the bed and releasing Lacerta from his curse. "I'm going back to bed, Lucius. Don't wake me when you come in, it's been exciting enough tonight already."

    Lucius took down his silencing spells, and drew Rita out into the corridor. "See, problem solved."

    "Yes...." she said, and looked critically at his dressing gown. "I've cried all over that silk," she commented, and resolved it with a brisk flip of her wand, and another to her own face.

    He nodded. "Did I tell you blond suits you?" he said, as they walked out into the deserted common room. She smiled.

    "I'm glad, " she said. They sat down together, and he raised his hand to stroke her hair. She arched into the touch, just like petting a cat, and they sat in silence a moment.

     Finally, she said, "Lucius, why are you doing this?"

    "To comfort you," he said.

    She moved against him sinuously, looked him in the face, and said, "It isn't comfort I'm wanting tonight."

    He laughed, softly. "What a lovely coincidence....I'm not either." They both bore identically predatory smiles.

    "I'm looking forward to this," she murmured, and drew him over to an alcove in the corner of the room. Her silencing spells, he noticed, were as good as his own.     

    The alarm went off two hours later, and Madam Pickering got out of bed and went to check on Evadne. She probably needed the padding replaced, but she should be waking up about now...she needed to drink some fluids to replace the lost blood. Poor girl. She stepped around the screen, and realized she was very wrong. The bed was red, bright red, blanket soaked, sheets soaked, and the only white thing there was Evadne.

    Madam Pickering cast charms to block the bleeding, to restore the blood lost....but it was no good. She called the Headmaster and bit her knuckle, crying, while he patted her shoulder and Evadne Norton slipped silently from life to death, a faint smile on her face. She had never awakened.