Heavenly Creatures

August 4^th, 1995

12 Grimmauld Place

Fifteen minutes to midnight

Ginny's breathing seems to stop. She sits up, ignoring the waves of dizziness that spread through her. Remus, by her side, still doesn't wake. She wonders briefly if he's all right, but she is almost glad that he isn't conscious for this. She has an awful feeling of foreboding about what she will hear next. But Loki doesn't say anything right away.

Instead, he walks casually across the room to stand by Draco. He looks down into the boy's silvery eyes, and Draco tilts his head to look back up at him.

"Ah," says Loki, his voice no louder than a sigh.

Draco doesn't reply. A strange, unnamable expression comes over his mortal face as he looks into the face of immortality. An odd thought strikes Ginny. I've always believed that Draco Malfoy was a coward, and Merlin knows that most of the time, he is. But I'd never dare to look at an Immortal the way he's doing now.

"Like knows like, does it not?" Loki asks softly, after a long silence.

Draco licks his lips before replying. "I--I don't know what you mean, my Lord."

"Don't you?" Loki smiles mockingly. "Well, you know how to address an Immortal, at least. What about the rest of you?" He glances around the room. "Do you know what I mean?"

"I know," Sirius says. "Evil knows evil. Dark knows dark. Draco Malfoy is one of yours, Loki, as all of the Malfoys--and most of the Blacks-- have always been."

"Keep your mouth shut, Black," hisses Snape from his position against the wall, "or I will shut it for you!"

"Well, enough." Loki yawns elaborately. "Amusing as this argument apparently is to mortals, it's gone on a bit too long for my taste. If I have to listen to any more of it, I just might lose my temper." He saunters towards Sirius, stopping only when they are a hair's breadth apart. "And I'm sure you wouldn't want to see that... would you?"

Sirius's mouth compresses to a line so thin that his lips turn white at their edges, but he says nothing.

"Good," says Loki. "As much as I love melodrama, I believe that it's time to cut to the chase... a bit of deux ex machina is called for, don't you think? Clearly, you lot will never figure out what's going on by your wits alone."

Ginny forces herself to speak. Her voice sounds very high-pitched and almost tinny. "What do you mean, er--my Lord?" She almost chokes over the last two words, but when Draco addressed Loki that way, the Immortal did seem pleased. And she figures that they need all the help they can get.

Loki reaches down to caress Draco's shoulder. "I have a gift for this dear, dear boy. But first, I have an explanation that I'd like to give everyone. Yes... the time has come to put the cards on the table."

Sirius makes a sound that seems suspiciously like a snort.

"Yes? There's a comment from the peanut gallery?" asked Loki.

"You've never showed your hand," said Sirius. "And I don't think that you've ever been honest about anything. You are the Lord of Lies."

"That's so. But even a liar can tell the truth, when he so chooses." He moves his preternaturally white fingers in strange patterns above Draco's head. Ginny tries not to watch those patterns being made. I could become lost in them and never find my way out again, she realizes. And I've got to keep my mind clear now. Then Loki reaches towards her suddenly, and she cannot help giving a little cry of fear.

She feels his touch distinctly, as brief as it is. His unnatural skin burns hers. When he takes his hand away, she glances down at her chest and is surprised to see no mark.

Something glitters in the air now, above Draco's head. Ginny gasps. The locket!

"That's mine!" she blurts.

"Is it?" asks Loki, still sounding amused. "Well, finders keepers, losers weepers."

"But--"

"You didn't do with it what you should have done, Ginny. So I've been forced to interfere."

"I don't understand," Ginny whispers.

"Pity, really," Loki continues. "You brought it where it belongs for oh-so-brief a time, and then you didn't want to stay."

"Malfoy Manor?" Ginny asks incredulously, sitting up. "Of course I wasn't going to stay there. The Malfoys would have--would have--" She glares down at Draco on the floor. He has been staring at Loki as if in trance, but he seems to snap out of it now, shivering briefly before turning on Ginny with a sneer.

"See! You were supposed to stay," Draco says smugly. "Can I bring her back with me now, my Lord?"

"I'm afraid not," says Loki. "It doesn't work that way, you see. She must decide to come to you, and to the Manor, of her own free will."

"And I won't ever do that," Ginny says, a note of triumph in her voice. "So there!" Draco scowls at her. She sticks out her tongue at him.

"Enough," says Loki. "Lughnasa is almost over, and there's a lot left to do." He reaches up and plucks the shimmering, suspended locket from thin air. Then he clasps it around Draco's neck. Draco looks up at him, startled, and touches the locket wonderingly.

"There are four people now walking this earth who can wear these lockets without courting death and madness," says Loki. "You--and she--are two of them." He swivels his head to look at Sirius. "And you know who the other two are, don't you, Sirius Black?" he asks softly. Sirius does not reply. "But it's too late," Loki continues. "Both of you have missed that chance."

Snape speaks up, his voice hoarse and gritty, as if the few minutes' disuse has been an age. "My Lord," he says, "that is one of the Lockets of Rhiannon which Draco Malfoy now wears. Is it not?"

"Very, very good," says Loki. "You're a treasure trove of information, aren't you, Snape?"

"Ginny," says Snape, and she jumps a little at being addressed by her first name. She has never before heard Snape do that, and never thought she would. "Where did that come from?"

"I--I visited my brother Bill at St. Mungo's today," says Ginny. "I mean, I wasn't actually there, but I sort of was. I travelled in a kind of spirit form, I think. I know that doesn't sound like it makes much sense." Even as she says those words, though, she realizes that she sound almost silly. They are all faced with an Immortal who is both god and devil, whether cowering before him, like Snape, fascinated by him, like Draco, antagonistic to him, like Sirius, or--well, Ginny doesn't know what she thinks of Loki, or if she can even put a name to it. Mostly, she feels as if existence has been reduced to each individual slice of time as she faces him, and all of their decisions at every isolated moment might be the pivot on which everything turns. But in any case, when she considers the situation they're all in now, it doesn't seem so hard to believe that she visited Bill that day in the way she did.

"He found the second locket," says Snape. "And he gave it to you, or you took it from him, didn't you?"

"I'm not sure which it was, Professor," she admits. "But that's what happened."

"Ginny, Ginny," whispers Sirius. "You saved your brother's life. He couldn't have borne that thing any longer than he did."

"Yes, yes," says Loki, sounding impatient. "A mortal life saved, brother-sister love, yada yada yada. All very touching. That's not the point. The point is that you, darling Ginny, took what was meant for you, what you have the power to take--and the power to wield."

Ginny sits up very straight. A number of vague ideas are chasing themselves around in her head, beginning to coalesce into some shape that she can only see dimly as of yet. "What is that locket?" she demands. "It's a lot more than just a piece of jewelry, I know that from what Bill said, but what's it for?"

"Be careful, Ginny!" hisses Snape.

Loki waves a hand. "No, no. There's nothing to fear; I admire her spirit. And she must know." He looks directly at her, and for the first time, his voice holds no mockery at all. "The lockets of Rhiannon are keys, Ginny. They open doors that were never meant to be opened, but sometimes are nonetheless... doors between the world of men, and the world of the gods."

Draco fingers the locket lovingly. "So this gives me that power," he says in a self-satisfied way.

"Well, in part. Sometimes there's more than one key that opens the best-guarded doors."

"Magical keys can be like that, as well," Ginny says slowly, remembering the stories she'd heard about Harry, Ron, and Hermione's search for the Philosopher's Stone during their first year. "Sometimes you need four or five keys just to open one lock, if it's protecting something important."

Loki nods. "Just so. Your father already has the first locket, Draco. But you need both of them to get to the next key. You must wear one, and she must wear the other. They are two halves of a whole. If you go with only the locket that is at Malfoy Manor now, you will not be protected, and you will not fully receive that second key. And you need all three to find the third key... the treasure that I so desperately want to be found."

"What's the treasure?" asks Ginny.

"A jewel at the heart of Istanbul."

Draco has been frowning, and suddenly he speaks up. "And we have property there--my father does, I mean! It belonged to my mother, I think. A piece of land at the centre of the old palace in Topkapi. It's starting to make sense! But what's the second key, then, if the first is the lockets, and the third is a jewel?"

In answer, Loki reaches for the boy's neck and holds up the locket. He presses a hidden catch and the two halves pop open. A small scrap of parchment glowed with tiny embedded rubies. "Do you recognize this, Ginny?" he asks.

"No," says Ginny. But she has the strangest feeling that she should.

"No? I suppose not. It's a page from a book, but I very much doubt it was in that form when it was in your possession."

"A book?" repeated Ginny stupidly, her brain straining for alertness, darting between possibilities. And then it struck her. "The diary," she says.

Loki nods. Snape and Sirius exchange glances, but they both remain silent for the moment.

"Wait, wait," says Draco. "I heard, uh, a bit about that." He looks at Ginny strangely, then shakes himself. "Father has a lot of Dark Arts things. That was just another one of them, wasn't it?"

"It was a bit more than that," says Loki.

Ginny takes a deep breath, feeling as if she teeters at the very edge of some awful knowledge. "What was that diary?"

"It was a thing that twisted a schoolboy named Tom Riddle into a being beyond humanity," says Loki. "He got hold of it through the goblins, you know. You didn't? Well, you learn something new every day, hmmm? Anyway. It was a thing that was never meant to be among mortals. It was Lord Morpheus's Book of Dreams. And although no-one knows this, it was the thing that created Voldemort from what had been a mortal boy. Lucius Malfoy bought it later from the same group of rogue goblins, of course. They were glad to be paid twice. Even with all the protection spells he put on it, he was lucky not to go round the bend simply from having it in his possession for as short a time as he did. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up going that way anyway, in time."

"So why didn't it drive me mad?" asks Ginny, feeling the pounding of her heart. "I wrote in it for a year!"

Loki looks at her intently. "Because you are one of those who can hold the power, even as you can hold the power of the locket." He sighs. "If you had only chosen to go to Malfoy Manor, everything would be so much simpler. It would all have been under your control."

Ginny stands. Her legs feel very wobbly. "I'll go back now," she says simply.

"No, you won't!" exclaims Sirius. Snape starts forward, too.

"I have to; don't you see?" pleads Ginny. "I can control it if I choose to go back. I can keep the Malfoys from getting power!"

"He doesn't even know how to do anything but lie. Are you going to tell me that you trust him, trust what he tells you?" demands Sirius, pointing to Loki, who seems rather elaborately bored with the entire thing, and is now smoothing his hair in the reflection from a window.

"N--no," says Ginny hesitantly. "I suppose not. But even a liar can tell the truth, like he said. And if it can help us--if it can make the difference for us--"

"I can't let you go back there," says Sirius, seizing her arms. His hands feel feverishly hot and freakishly strong. "Not alone, not with me, not with the whole Order behind you. They tried to hurt you before. I won't let them do it again. They wanted to hurt you in the worst way a girl can be hurt, both of them, father and son--"

"Hey!" says Draco, sounding indignant. "I wasn't going to do anything to her she didn't agree to--didn't want--"

"You," snarls Sirius, "are filth! I should put your head through this brick wall! The world would be a better place if all the Malfoys were--"

Quickly, Draco scrambles behind Loki, who leans one shoulder carelessly against the circular wall of the tower, beneath the blank portrait frame. "Settle down, now," the Immortal says. "He is under my protection, this mortal. You certainly can't touch him. Dear, dear, but family solidarity has its limits, doesn't it?"

That's right, Ginny remembers. Sirius's mother's sister was Narcissa Black's mother. Does that make Draco a second cousin? Or a first cousin once removed, maybe? It does not seem of much importance, at the moment.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Loki continues. "That's what I was trying to say when I was so rudely interrupted. Time has moved on. If Ginny chose to return to Malfoy Manor now, it would do no good. It would have made all the difference before. But now, things must play out as they will. "

"What? But that's so unfair!" said Ginny. "I didn't know what was at stake, or what the choices really were!"

"Do humans ever know that?"

"You could have told me!"

"No," says Loki, his voice suddenly serious. "I could not. And I would have if I could, for it would have saved both you and me much suffering and pain. But I am the King of Devils, and no devil anywhere ever gave any mortal a straight answer. "

"But then why are you telling us all of this now?"

Sirius has been silent for a long time, standing closer to the crouching figure of Snape than he had done earlier, but he suddenly straightens up from his leaning position against the circular wall. "Yes, why?" he asks, his eyes bright and keen. "When have you ever offered mortals anything for free, Loki, including information?"

"Never," says Loki.

"Then what's your price?" Sirius demands.

"Oh, there isn't a price, exactly." Loki shrugs. "But you might say that there's a condition, I suppose."

Sirius gives his short, sharp bark of a laugh. "Whatever you call it, it's likely to be more than we can pay."

"You may be right," says Loki. He looks around at the small room and everyone in it with a faint, inscrutable smile. Snape has risen to his feet and is pressed tightly against the wall, his dark eyes glittering. Sirius looks back intently. Draco stands at Loki's right hand, a superior grin on his face. Ginny recognizes that expression very well from most of the times she has ever seen him at Hogwarts. She scowls at him. When he sees her furious face, the grin falters a bit.

"Come here, Ginny," he says, clearly trying for his father's tone of command and failing miserably. "You're coming back with me."

"I'd rather jump out that window," says Ginny.

"Not now, Draco," Loki says. The he pulls a small bag from the air. It is made of some dark material, but its folds shimmer with an orange light. He dips his hand into it, and pulls his palm out, laid perfectly flat. A small heap of silvery dust glimmers on it.

Sirius sucks in his breath sharply. "You bastard," he says.

"Not very original today, are we, Sirius?" asks Loki, sounding amused. "And I have neither father nor mother, so your accuracy's a bit off in any case."

For the first time in several minutes, Snape speaks up. "My Lord," he says, his voice quavering the tiniest bit. "I beg you not to do this! We won't have any defenses against Lucius Malfoy. He'll kidnap Ginny at his first opportunity."

"Yes, I imagine he'll try, as she won't go willingly," says Loki. He turns to Draco. "She can't return with you just now. You'll go back alone."

"But--"

"You'll have her soon enough. Don't forget to have your father take the locket off you when you get home; it isn't safe for even you to wear it very long, mortal as you are."

"When will I have Ginny?" Draco persists.

"I name neither the time, nor the place," says Loki calmly. "But you will have her. Remember, Draco, Ginny's yours. Never forget it. She's for you, and only you. Don't let your father or anyone else so much as touch her. I can't come back to you for a long time; I must return to my imprisonment, so you must remember. You must be her first lover, and she yours."

Draco squirms slightly and clears his throat. "What makes you think that I haven't already, I mean with Pansy, or--"

Loki laughs, a silvery, rippling sound. "I'm the Devil, Draco; remember? I know. I also know that you're very attached to your right hand, and the two of you do make a cute couple, but trust me, that doesn't count. Now listen--your father wants Pansy Parkinson for you, because that will cement his power and his control, but don't you do it. If you have her first, it will ruin everything. He doesn't understand that, so you must tell him! Together, only you and Ginny can make the magic that I need. Ah..." His voice softens. "And you will enjoy that, won't you, Draco?"

The blond boy has had a strange, troubled expression on his face. But he tilts his head at an arrogant angle now, and dredges up one of the worst smirks Ginny has ever seen. "She's another of your gifts to me, I suppose," he says. "Thank you, my Lord."

Sirius makes a sudden rush at Draco, or perhaps at Loki. Since they are standing next to one another, it's impossible to tell. Snape grabs at the back of his neck and holds him, the tendons in his hands straining under the effort.

"What a pity," says Loki. "First you lost Narcissa, and now you'll lose Ginny. Not that this girl could ever have been yours. Tsk, tsk, Sirius. For shame. You're old enough to be her father."

Snape actually claps a hand over Sirius's mouth after that. He winces and gives a pained yelp, and Ginny guesses that Sirius has bitten his palm. At that sound, Remus stirs beside her on the cot. He still looks ill, but he sits up and rubs his face. "What--" he begins. Then he sees Loki, and his eyes widen and become almost preternaturally alert. He swings his head round as if sniffing a new and dangerous smell in the air. "You," he says, rising a little unsteadily to his feet. "You, again!"

"Bingo."

"I knew the last time couldn't be the end," Remus muttered. "I always knew we'd see you again one day, Loki--Lucifer--Beelzebub--whatever it is you're calling yourself now--"

"Yes, like a bad penny, I always do turn up," says the Immortal. "Say, Remus, don't you think you'd better help your friend?" Sirius has almost broken loose from Snape. Remus scrambles awkwardly towards him and grabs both of his arms from behind.

"Once again, Sirius Black," continues Loki, "you see that there is nothing you possess which I cannot take away. That line comes from the first Indiana Jones movie, I think. I've always wanted to use it. What a perfect opportunity this is!"

Snape is strong, Ginny thinks through a mind that seems to have been numbed. But Remus is making all the difference. Werewolf strength, I suppose; I didn't think of that. And they certainly need it. I don't think anything less could keep Sirius back from killing Loki. Except that you can't kill an Immortal anyway. We don't have any real defense against what he wants; we never did. Lucius Malfoy is going to kidnap me and get me into that room under Stonehenge and then Draco will--No, no they won't, neither of them! We'll be ready for them. The Order will protect me. But what did Snape mean, when he said that we wouldn't have any defenses against the Malfoys? Of course we will! We have to--don't we?

"Why?" she wails, knowing that she sounds weak, but totally unable to control the awful quiver in her voice. "Why are you doing this? Why do you hate Sirius so much? Why are you trying to ruin all our lives? Why?"

The Immortal looks at her. For the briefest instant, his silvery eyes seem oddly gentle and unguarded. But surely that is only an illusion.

"We'll walk in the paths of Destiny's garden someday together, Ginny," he says. "And then we'll figure it all out, eh? But, in the meantime..."

Loki lifts his hand to his mouth. The heap of dust gleams in his palm. Sirius makes one last desperate effort to get free. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny sees something move in the blank picture frame over his head, on the wall. A flash of apricot-coloured hair, and a circlet of gold and citrines. Morgause! Could she help us? Maybe--

"Goodbye," says Loki, puckering his lips. He blows gently across the pile of fairy dust, and it shimmers through the room. Snape tries to pull his cloak over his head, but the cloud of dust is so thick that Ginny can barely even see him. It hits her in a wave, blotting out the tower room. The last things she sees clearly are the twin figures of Loki and Draco wavering and winking out. Then the tower door bursts open. But even as several indistinct figures charge into the room, they falter, slow down, and stop, like figures frozen in the midst of a windstorm.

*****************************************************************************************************

Ginny opens her eyes. Or perhaps they had already been open for some time. The tiny tower room was crowded with people she knew. Their names came to her mind, one by one. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Elphias Doge. Emmeline Vance. There's Tonks... Mad-Eye Moody.. Remus Lupin and Sirius up against the wall, sort of holding each other up... Snape... All of the adults stare about them vaguely, turning their heads, making no movement. They stand as if they have been interrupted in the very middle of a desperately important journey, and now have no idea where they were going, or why they are there. I should know that, thinks Ginny. I'm sure I should. But... When she tries to remember why they are all in the room, a door closes softly in her head. It is as if nimble, careful fingers have sifted through her mind, sorting, discarding, and saving, then rearranging everything back into perfect order.

Light, quick footsteps scurry up the stairs. Hermione runs into the tower room, panting. "Ginny," she gasps. "You were right. You were right. You really did visit Bill, and it all happened the way you said-- I didn't believe you and I'm sorry, so sorry, I should've, because I figured out the key, the only way it all makes sense, everything that's happened..." She stops short. The shimmering dust moves past her face like a magical snowfall, and she breathes deeply. Her face slowly goes blank. "I figured it out," she murmurs, but the urgency drains from her voice with each syllable. "I did. I... " She sits on the cot. "I don't understand," Hermione says plaintively. "Ginny, why don't I understand?"

The cot creaks as Molly Weasley sits on Ginny's other side. Her round, pretty face is vaguely troubled. "I was so worried about you, dear," she says. "But I can't think why. Isn't that funny?"

"Yes, Mum," Ginny replies, and then she leans against her mother's warm soft side, and lets Molly run her comforting hands through her hair. Hermione leans into her other side. Her father sits down slowly at the very end of the cot.

"Something's very..." Arthur Weasley begins, his voice wandering oddly, as if he cannot quite remember how to speak the English language, and must recall it word by word. "Odd," he finally finishes.

"No," says Hestia Jones, her blue eyes dreamy as she stares into space. "It's exactly as it should be. I'm quite sure of that."

Sirius passes a hand over his face. "Why are we here?" he asks in a confused way.

"Does it matter?" asks Snape.

"I suppose..." Sirius hesitates, his face faintly troubled. "I suppose not."

Ron, Fred, and George are clustered just outside the open door, their red hair powdered with sprinklings of white from the dust. All three are staring into space.

"Ginny?" asks Ron, glancing at his sister without seeming to see her. "Was I looking for you?" Then he turns and follows them all downstairs. Fred and George walk behind him, slowly, their faces troubled and remote. The twins clutch onto each other's hands like two halves of a splintered whole.

Nearly all of the Aurors wander out of the kitchen. Ginny is not very interested in where they are going, or what they are doing. She sits at the kitchen table with Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George. They all stare at each other.

"Off to bed now," says Molly Weasley at last, with none of her usual briskness. "It's very late." The clock strikes two as she speaks.

Hermione blinks and looks up at her where she stands beside the table. "Is something..." The girl's face seemed to be struggling with itself. "Wrong?" she finally asks.

"No. I'm sure it isn't," replies Molly.

Ron has a piece of bread in one hand and a butter knife in the other. He butters the bread repeatedly, in a confused motion, until the knife comes through the loaf and cuts his hand. He stares at the blood welling up from the small cut for a moment as if he does not quite know what to make of it. Then he shakes his head. "But, weren't we--" he begins.

George squints, as if fighting with a thought that will not come clear. "I'm sure we weren't," he says.

"Quite sure," Fred agrees absently.

Hermione's brow knits very hard, but all she says is, "I'm dreadfully tired. Come upstairs with me, Ginny."

Ginny follows Hermione up the dark flight of stairs, a witchlight in her hand. In front of Ginny's door, Hermione stops, holding the candle up so that a tiny, flickering circle of light illuminates her face from below.

"Where's Dumbledore, do you suppose?"

Ginny shrugs. "How should I know?"

"He was here. Remember?" Hermione persists.

Ginny tries to think. "I don't know. I'm not even sure what the last thing is that I do remember."

"I remember you being locked into your room because it was Lughnasa," Hermione says. "Nobody wanted to tell me about it. I think I came to talk to you later. That's a bit hazy."

"That sounds about right," says Ginny vaguely.

Hermione does not say anything else right away. She looks down at the floor, and her long dark eyelashes cast little shadows on the skin beneath her eyes.

"Were you angry with me, Ginny?" she suddenly asks.

"I think so," says Ginny. "But I can't remember why."

"Oh. I can't, either. " She glances up. Her eyes are very large and dark. "Won't you come and stay in my room tonight, Ginny?"

"No."

"But why? You're not still angry, are you?" Hermione's lip trembles.

"I don't know. I don't think so. But not tonight. Maybe tomorrow--"

"I'm sorry for whatever it is," says Hermione in a rush. "So sorry. I don't want to be alone. Ginny, Ginny, I'll tell you a secret, and don't you ever tell anyone else... I'm afraid to be alone, in this house. I don't know where Ron went and Fred and George are gone and I'm all alone, Ginny--"

"Tomorrow," says Ginny firmly. Hermione finally pads down the hall, her feet making small, soft sounds in the stillness. Ginny goes into her small, dark room and gets into her bed. Even though she is tired, she cannot seem to stop staring up at the dark oak of the bed's canopy, and looking for faces in the grain of the wood. Then she turns her head and looks at the empty portrait frame on the wall for a long time. There's something wrong, is the thought that drifts through her head like a bubble breaking the surface of dark, thick liquid, just before she falls asleep at last. Something missing. But I don't know what... And then sleep claims her, and it doesn't matter anymore. It will all come clear in the morning, she thinks drowsily. Surely it will.

******************************************************************************************************

Lucius Malfoy stands in the room of ritual at the base of Stonehenge, far below the manor and its grounds, far below the great stones that stand in their eternal circle like giants frozen in the midst of a dance. This little room is far older than any of those things. Its age and its power have a very limited tolerance for human magic, and the Returning spell he has cast on his son drains all his strength. He slumps wearily against one of the stone pillars at last. His shoulder knocks a blank portrait frame askew on the wall, but he does not notice.

"Too late," Lucius murmurs aloud. "It's too late. He's been gone too long. I can't do any more." His words echo back to him a little in the dark, silent, vast chamber, like mocking whispers. He raises his hands in one last gesture of invocation, and lets them drop.

"I've lost him," he says.

Lost him... lost him... lost him...

But as the last faint echoes die out, the air in the very centre of the chamber shimmers. Lucius sucks his breath in sharply. A faint outline of a crouching figure begins to solidify. Draco stumbles and falls to the dirt floor, shivering. He raises his head and tries to meet his father's eyes, but cannot quite manage it. Lucius stares at him without a word.

"Father," he says, his voice hoarse and gritty.

Lucius Malfoy starts forward just the slightest bit, then seems to check himself. He steps backwards a little, so that his head is in shadow. Whatever emotion he might be feeling, it does not show on his face.

"I'm back," Draco says, trying to stand upright.

"So I see."

The silence grows ominous. Draco falls into a coughing fit, struggling for his next words.

"But, listen to me, Father. Please, listen! I haven't come back empty-handed," he finally manages to say.

"What do you mean?" Lucius asks coldly. "I don't see the Weasley girl."

"I know; I know, and I tried, but I couldn't--"

"Then I fail to see what you might have brought back with you," says Lucius, "that could possibly compensate for your disobedience."

Draco flinches back a little. "Wait," he says pleadingly. "Please wait, I'll show you, Father--" He gropes at his chest, then holds up the locket on its chain. He winces in pain, but does not draw back his hand. "Look," he says. "I have it. I came back with it. I brought it back for you. For us."

The very air in the room seems to change then, to draw into itself in a piercingly bright moment of expectancy. "The second locket..." Lucius sucks in his breath, his eyes glittering. "Draco, take it off. Hurry."

"But aren't you pleased, Father? Aren't you? He said I could wear it, that I was one of only four people in all the world who could. He took it off Ginny Weasley's neck and gave it to me, and--"

"Yes, Draco, I'm very pleased. But it's dangerous for any mortal to wear."

Draco slumps against the wall as if he can no longer hold himself up. "That's what he said."

Lucius carefully guides the locket from around Draco's neck with subtle wand motions and watches it glide towards the altar stone, where it vanishes. He breathes a long sigh of relief. "It'll be safe there, for the time being."

"Aren't you pleased?" mumbles Draco.

Lucius takes a long breath. "Tell me quickly, Draco. You were in the tower room at Twelve Grimmauld Place, weren't you?"

Draco nods.

"Who was there?"

"Snape... the werewolf, Lupin... Sirius Black... Ginny, of course..."

"But none of them told you these things, did they? They can't have done. No-one else in that house should have been able to even touch that locket; they don't know the spells that would protect them from it temporarily... as I do..." Lucius has turned away slightly, and almost seems to be talking to himself now. " So who else was there? Who gave the locket to you, and said that you could wear it, Draco?"

The boy lifts his head. His face is very pale and sweaty, but there is an expression of pride on it, and more than a trace of arrogance. "Loki. The Lord of Chaos. Do you know who that is, Father?"

Lucius does not react very much, but he clearly must struggle to avoid doing so. His eyes widen just slightly, and a muscle jumps in his jaw as he clenches his teeth together. "Yes. I know who that is, all right. I think you'd better tell me everything, " he says. And Draco does.

In the realm of the Endless, there is no time, only duration. One cannot precisely say, either, that one event occurs before another, or causes another. At least, not in any way that mortals could understand. Still, Loki had crept up the polished marble stairs that led to the razor-sharp throne of the Lord of Dreams, and he had stolen the Sands of Forgetfulness. Since Loki is not only the Lord of Chaos and Lies, but also the King of Thieves, he was not caught. And now the lady Morgause, she who had once been the mortal foundress of the House of Black, does the same. She has not come through her portrait in the marble hall, since she does not want to be seen, but has made her way to the realm by strange paths.

She looks about her as she tucks a little bag filled with the sands into the belt of her robes. The hall is dimly shadowed and quiet, with no sign of Lord Morpheus. Only the little swish, swish sounds of a broom sweeping the floor break the silence. Nuala pauses in the midst of her work and leans on the end of the broom.

"You'll have to pay some sort of price for what you're doing, you know," she says.

"I know. But I cannot do other," Morgause murmurs, remembering the white, terrified face of Ginny Weasley in the tower room at Twelve Grimmauld Place. "Good luck, then," says Nuala. "You'll need it."

Morgause nods, her dead-white face remote, and makes her way back to the mortal world, and to Malfoy Manor.

Draco has finished his tale, and now he leans against a marble pillar, obviously trying very hard not to show the utter exhaustion he is feeling. "That's all," he says. "I've told you everything I can think of."

Lucius nods, brows knitted in thought. He does not speak.

"So... you're glad I brought back the locket? It was the right thing to do, yes?" Draco asks. He looks up at his father with a strange expression on his face. His features usually appear so closed, as if they hide everything he is thinking. It is an odd, bitter look for a boy of fifteen, but it is the look that he has had for a very long time; in fact, it is the same one that so repelled Harry Potter when he saw it on Draco's face in Madame Malkin's Robe Shop when they were both eleven years old. But now that face is utterly transparent. "It's going to help, isn't it?" he adds.

"So Loki said that we must have both lockets, did he?"

Draco nods. "He said we needed both of them or we couldn't get to the other keys, and that Ginny would wear it and use one and I'd have the other, remember? Oh--and I nearly forgot! He said she was for me, that's the most important thing! He said nobody else can touch her, that she has to be mine alone, or none of it will work properly. And I don't have to bother with Pansy."

"Well, Pansy Parkinson still may have her uses," Lucius says musingly. "But... I see now the part that the Weasley girl must play. I never truly understood it before. I underestimated her from the start."

"Then..." Draco begins hopefully.

"Then we'll just have to bring her back here, won't we?" Lucius smiles at his son, and Draco's face lights up.

"So I can have her?" he asks eagerly.

Lucius shrugs. "It seems as if that's the way it must be, so yes. If you perform the ritual upon Ginny Weasley, however--you do, er, know how to perform as required, don't you?" He frowns slightly.

A slight flush creeps up Draco's cheeks. "Yes, I know. Although..."

"Yes?"

A thoughtful expression steals over Draco's face. He steps backwards slightly, so that he is in shadow, hoping that his movement was too quick for his father to see what he is feeling at this moment. "Although I would know better, Father, if you'd allowed me a bed-elf," he said in a neutral voice. " Or if I were permitted to go to the Crystal Palace. Zabini goes all the time.""

"Doubtless you would," Lucius says noncommittally. "But I think, on balance, that it is better you do not."

"Loki did say that I had to be Ginny's first, but he also said that she had to be--well--mine. Or it wouldn't work. "

Lucius nods, seemingly unsurprised. Draco looks at him keenly from beneath lowered lashes, and remembers. Your father wants Pansy Parkinson for you, because that will cement his power, and his control. Yes, that's what Loki said... and I don't think I'll tell Father that I know about that part of it. So he wanted Pansy to be my first? That can't be... it can't... Well, there's no time to think about it now.

"Yes, I imagine that it won't work otherwise," Lucius says. "The Weasley girl's yours in the ritual, then. And after that first time, she'll be yours in whatever way you like, for as long as you like."

Mine. Draco lets out all his breath in a long sigh, all thoughts fleeing his mind for the moment. His vague anger dissolves into lust, and a kaleidoscope of Ginny- images fill his head. She is beneath him in his bed, her thighs spread wide for him; standing up against a wall with one leg wrapped around his waist; kneeling before him as her long red-gold hair hides her face; writhing on the floor as he pounds into her body; moaning and crying and screaming out her pleasure, whispering that she is his, all his, only his... And soon, it will all happen so soon, a week at the most...oh gods... He realizes that he has been silent too long, and that Lucius is staring at him.

"Thank you, Father," Draco manages to say.

Lucius nods. "And now we must go. It isn't safe to stay in this room too long... it drains too much strength from us. We'll lay our plans, Draco, and we ought to have the Weasley girl here within the week."

"Thank you," repeats Draco, simply. "Everything will turn out perfectly now, won't it, Father?"

"Yes," says Lucius, his voice soft. "It will." For the first time since Draco's return, he touches his son, placing his hand lightly upon the boy's shoulder. "You have done well," he says.

Draco seldom smiles, but he does so now. The smile transforms his sullen face, lighting his eyes from within. They turn to leave then, the Malfoys, father and son, and their steps are filled with confidence. Lucius reaches the threshold that leads to the hall. But before his foot crosses back into the hypocaust, a woman materializes in the doorway. She is tall and beautiful, with apricot-coloured hair streaming down her back, and a circlet of citrines upon her head. Her slanted green-gold eyes are blazing, and a fiery glow surrounds her in the darkness.

"What--" Lucius begins.

She raises a long white hand, and he staggers back, the words dying in his throat.

"I know you," whispers Draco.

"Be quiet, Draco!" hisses Lucius.

But Draco takes a step forward. "I saw you!" he persists. "It was during that journey through the hypocaust tonight, I'm sure it was."

"Yes," says Morgause, looking down at him with unreadable eyes. She is taller than any mortal woman.

"Won't you let us pass?" Draco asks. At some point during this long, strange night that has seemed to last forever, all fear seems to have left him. He has pleased his father, he has spoken to an Immortal, and he knows that he will soon have Ginny Weasley. Also, there is something he knows that his father does not know, and Draco is too much a Slytherin not to be pleased at that. He feels as if he could never be afraid of anyone or anything again.

"I will not," says Morgause.

Draco gapes at her. "But--but we have to get out, uh, my Lady. You see--"

"I know what you and your father have planned, Draco Lukas Malfoy," she interrupts him. "I need no telling."

"Oh. Uh--" Draco glances back at his father, who, for the first time he can remember, actually seems to be speechless. "Well, then--why won't you let us out?"

Morgause bends her beautiful head. "I have sworn a vow to Loki, yes," she murmurs, as if to herself. "But I will not allow him to fulfill it in this way, not when he has changed the rules to suit himself, against all justice and all fairness."

"I don't understand," says Draco blankly, and indeed he does not. But the wonderful invincible feeling is beginning to drain away from him as he listens to her words.

"In the world of the Immortals," she continues, "there is no fairness, and that I know well, for justice is something that only the mortal world can know. But there is a balance, and that I will correct. I will not allow the Lord of Chaos to twist mortal lives to shape his purposes in this way. And I will not allow my kinswoman Gwenhyfar's sanity to be the price, if any act of mine can prevent it." She strides forward, into the room, and with one movement she reaches down into the altar stone. Draco blinks. Yes, she definitely did put her hands inside the stone itself, and for a moment the granite slab is translucent. He can see through its surface to the space within the rock. Two lockets shimmer side by side. But the vision does not last long. Morgause lifts her hands up with one locket and chain shining between them.

"This I will return to Rhiannon," she says.

Behind Draco, Lucius catches his breath. "No..."

"I will not allow the path to be so easily smoothed for you," Morgause says scornfully. "The first one must remain, more's the pity."

"You can't do this!" snarls Lucius.

"You will never grasp the second locket within your hands again, Lucius Gabriel Malfoy," Morgause says. "All your striving after it will fail, and you will never know why." Then she draws something out of a small bag at her belt, and lifts her palm up to her mouth. Draco looks up into her emerald-like eyes for the first time.

"No... no, I won't allow this, it cannot be! I'll forget, I'll forget everything! And we were so close... " Lucius scrambles forward. But it is too late, and Draco hears his father's voice fading, as if down a long tunnel. Morgause blows gently upon the pile of shimmering dust in her hand, and Draco feels himself fall to the dirt floor, his head and shoulders coming to rest on the other side of the threshold. Then darkness overtakes him.

Draco opens his eyes and blinks. He sits up, shaking his head, feeling as if he has woken from the longest, strangest dream he has ever known. But all the details seem to be slipping through his mind as the corridor beneath the hypocaust slowly comes into focus. What am I doing here? I overheard Father and Thomas Nott talking in the library ... and then... and then... He winces. Then I woke up with a lot of pointy rocks digging into my bum. Wonder what happened? Very slowly, he begins to get to his feet. But before he gets very far, the darkness shakes itself back and forth, violently; he loses his balance and falls heavily to the dirt floor, and someone is shouting in his ear.

"What happened? What? Something did--I know it!" Then hard, angry hands seize Draco's shoulders and yank him around, and he is looking into the almost unrecognizable face of his father, contorted with fear and fury. "I knew what it was. I knew. But now it's all slipping through my mind, Draco, all disappearing, all leaving me. What was it? Do you remember? Do you?"

"No," says Draco, honestly frightened of his father's fierce, mad eyes, and of the tremendous strength in his gripping fingers. "I just ended up down here, and I must've tripped over something and fallen, I think, and knocked myself out, but I don't know why you're here--"

"You've got to remember!" snarls Lucius. "Think! Think!"

"I--I can't, Father, I can't--"

"Don't tell me you can't!" He shakes his son back and forth, and Draco cries out as his head hits a rock embedded in the floor.

"Stop it! You're hurting me!" gasps Draco in disbelief. The shock is far worse than the pain. Lucius has never laid hands on him in anger before, not once in all his young life. He struggles to get away, to back down the corridor, but his father is far stronger that he is, and Draco feels a moment of real fear.

But Lucius does stop then, and slowly looses his fingers from his son's robes. He looks down at his trembling hands as if he has never seen them before. "I'm sorry," he finally murmurs. Draco curls up on a rock and cradles his head in his hands. He can already feel a bruise forming, but the turmoil in his mind is far worse. He does not know which event has shocked him more--that his father hurt him, or that his father apologized to him. I never thought that either would happen... He shivers.

"Are you cold, Draco?" Lucius asks. His voice sounds almost normal. "It's so damp down here."

Draco shrugs. He does not feel able to form words at the moment.

Lucius sighs. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"

"No. I don't. Is there anything to remember?"

"I don't know..." His father's words trail off, and he stares unseeingly down the corridor. Draco wraps his cloak more closely about him. The damp chill seems to be penetrating to his very bones.

"Go upstairs, Draco," says Lucius, sounding very remote. "Get a healer-elf to see to your head, and then go to bed."

Draco nods. Exhaustion hits him in a vast soft wave even as he rises to his feet, and he hurries out of the hypocaust, taking the shortest way back up to his rooms. He steals one glance back down the corridor. Lucius Malfoy has risen from the floor, and is walking back towards a large doorway that gapes like an empty mouth into blackness. Draco looks away quickly, and does not know why. I don't even know what's in there. I've never been in it... and I don't want to go, I'm sure.

Once upstairs, he applies a clumsy bandage to his own head, dabbing at the little wound with a wet washcloth first. He feels drained of every last scrap of magical ability. I don't think I could perform a good Wingardium Leviosa right now, much less a decent Healing charm, he thinks, looking at his pale, strained face in the mirror. And I don't want to see anyone. No, not even a healer-elf.

"Whatever have you been doing, dear?" the mirror asks in worried tones. "You're a bit too young to look like death warmed over, you know."

"Never you mind," says Draco, and turns away.

In the deepest part of the night, several hours later, the door to Draco's bedroom opens softly. Lucius walks in and pulls a chair noiselessly from the writing desk to the side of the bed. He looks down at his son.

Draco's body is relaxed, and his breathing deep and even. The lines of tension on his young face are all smoothed away, and, after a time, the corners of his mouth curl upward into the faintest of smiles. He looks strangely childlike in sleep. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that only in sleep does he seem to be nothing more than an innocent fifteen-year-old boy, guileless and guiltless. Perhaps his father thinks these things as he sits beside his son's bed, and perhaps he does not. But whatever the case may be, Lucius watches Draco for a long time.

"I tried," says Lucius at last, in a voice that is no more than a whisper. "I used every Revealing spell I know. I went further into the Dark Arts than it is wise to go, on Lughnasa, and in that room. I took risks that I probably ought not to have taken. But none of it did any good. If only the Dark Lord were here. He is the only one who might know, the only one who could help me, perhaps... but on my own I learned nothing. Nothing. I know that something happened I cannot remember, but I do not know what. And I feel even that knowledge fading..."

Draco frowns slightly in his sleep, and curls up around a pillow, making little noises in his throat.

"Sleep," says Lucius. "Yes, sleep if you can, Draco. It's right that one of us should be able to do so. I don't feel as I could ever sleep again. If I had anything at all, even the faintest clue..."

The boy's eyelids begin to flutter faintly in dream. He mumbles something so quietly that it sounds like no more than the end of a breath. It is impossible to tell if the sound contains words, at first. But Lucius sits bolt upright. "What?" he asks urgently, his voice still very quiet. He leans forward and hisses his next words directly into his son's ear, not quite touching Draco's skin. "What did you say?"

"Ginny..."

Then Draco gives a long sigh, turns his back, and falls more deeply into sleep. Lucius drums his fingers noiselessly on the back of the chair for a long time.

"I still can't believe that the Weasley girl is as important as all that," he continues. "I never have. She was a convenient pawn three years ago, but no more than that, surely. No, Pansy Parkinson's for you. I haven't spent all this time grooming her in order to give up on her now. Thomas Nott seemed to think Ginny Weasley might be important, though. I didn't really agree at the time... I do remember that..."

Draco gives a troubled snuffle, his forehead wrinkling. His fingers move restlessly, as if trying to clutch at something he cannot quite grasp. Lucius bends over the bed and quiets his son's hands, laying one on the top of the other and holding them lightly. Draco sighs and relapses into stillness.

Lucius sits back down and picks up the thread of his whispered monologue once more. "That was the last thing I do remember, really. Speaking with Nott about the Weasley girl... and about the locket. Yes. The second locket is vital; that much I do know. There must be a way to find it. The goblins will help. Yes, they'll find anything or do anything for enough money. They say they can't get the second one, but I'm sure they're lying... they stole the first one, after all... And then... I cannot lay hands on those lockets, but you can. How do I know that, I wonder? But I do know it. And you will, Draco. You must, even though I do not know quite why, not now. I believe that I knew the reason once. And I will learn it once more. So... "

Lucius rises to stand at the bedside, looking at the sleeping Draco. Several motionless minutes tick by. They are like a living tableau, father and son, both of their faces gone strangely soft and unguarded.

"So you will be a part of this, as well?" Lucius murmurs. "I have tried to keep you from it. But I see now that it must be. And it must begin." He reaches down and strokes his son's forehead tenderly, just once. His touch is as light as a butterfly's wing. "What must be, will be," he whispers. "And nothing that begins, ever really ends..."

Then he turns, straightens abruptly, and is gone, vanishing into the night as silently as a shadow.

****************************************************************************************************

Albus Dumbledore has lain in trance for a very long time in the little alcove just off the tower room at Twelve Grimmauld Place. The spell cast to bring the Aurors back from Malfoy Manor had depleted his strength, and he has lingered in this room that is not exactly real, slowly returning, readying himself to re-enter waking life in the mortal world. But the trance is also a heightened state of awareness, and he sees much. His powers of perception are very great, and there is little that surprises him anymore. When he opens his eyes at last to see the dark, brooding figure standing at his bedside, a chill of dread ripples through his bones. But Dumbledore is not surprised.

"I greet you, Lord Morpheus," he says clearly, sitting up.

Dream inclines his head, as to an equal. His spiky dark hair swirls in shimmering patterns. "And I greet you," he says. "You knew I would be here?"

Dumbledore seems to think for a moment. "I believe that I did," he finally says.

"And do you know why?"

"Perhaps. But tell me nonetheless, Lord Shaper."

"Loki has stolen what is mine in order to shape mortal events even further to his own liking. Then, the lady Morgause of Lothian did the same. They will both be punished." A hint of iron enters the Immortal's voice. "But that is matterless. There is a balance that must be righted, and that righting is not yet complete."

"Ah. I am the last mortal who knows what truly happened, am I not?"

"You are, Albus Dumbledore, last Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Dumbledore gives a violent start and stares up into the immobile face of the Immortal. Then he sags back against the cot, looking suddenly very tired, and very old. "And no mortal may carry that knowledge."

"I am glad that you understand what must now be," Dream says gravely. "It is a heavy burden to be borne unconsenting, as the others need do."

Dumbledore nods. "My Lord, may I ask a boon of you?"

"You may ask," says Lord Morpheus dryly, "if asking pleases you."

He looks up to meet Dream's eyes, and gazes into the galaxies that whirl in their depths. "May I keep nothing of what I have seen? No scrap of knowledge? No clue? Perhaps I could--"

"You may not." Dream's voice has a quality that might almost be called gentle, but it is also as inexorable as falling snow.

Albus Dumbledore is very old, even for a wizard, and he is in the fullness of all the strength and power and wisdom that the years bring to his kind. But before the Immortal who now looks at him, he suddenly seems to shrivel into a weary child on the edge of crying. "I see," he says. "Then do as you must, my Lord."

Dream reached into a pocket of his cloak and draws out a small bag, tipping its contents into his palm. But he hesitates, holding the pile of shimmering dust poised in front of his mouth. "Yet I will grant you a boon, mortal dreamer," he says. "Or perhaps it is no boon at all, but simply the way fate must fall out, if the balance is to be maintained. Anyone who has stolen my Sands of Forgetfulness and used them retains one curious gift. This thief has the right to shape a dream that belongs to any one person--and only one person-- whose memory they have taken. The lady Morgause had that right, but no longer. I took it from her as part of the price she must pay for her theft. But I may not take the gift from Loki. He has returned to his eternal torment on the rock of pain, and that is punishment enough."

He passes his hand over Dumbledore's face without quite touching it, and the wizard closes his eyes. "When Loki chooses to exercise his right, it must be on Lughnasa, for that is how the law that governs such things falls out. It will occur in two years. This I know," says Dream. "And on that Lughnasa, I give you a gift, Albus Dumbledore. You will be allowed to enter the dream that Loki controls, and to shape it as you may. And you, too, may choose one mortal who will share it."

Dumbledore takes a deep breath. "I thank you, Oneiros, Lord Shaper."

"Strange," says Dream musingly, "that you should thank me."

"Why should I not?" asks Dumbledore.

"I am about to take memories from you that could make all the difference between victory and defeat."

"I know that you have no choice in that."

"We of the Endless do not choose, or fail to choose." Dream turns away so that only his dead-white profile is visible in the moonlight from the high barred window. "We cannot. Only mortals have that gift."

"You have given me a thread of hope, at least."

"Think you so?" Dream smiles faintly. "Well, perhaps... perhaps I have. I may not choose. But I can give." And then he blows steadily across his palm, and the Sands of Forgetfulness spread all through the little room.