The Quick and the Dead

"Went out last night, had a great big fight,

Everything seemed to go on wrong;

I looked up, to my surprise,

The gal I was with was gone."

A dark-skinned woman in a green silk robe swayed in a tiny spotlight next to the bar, singing throatily, and a little piano next to her played accompaniment all by itself.

"Where she went, I don't know,

I mean to follow everywhere she goes;

Folks say I'm crooked, I didn't know where she took it,

I want the whole world to know..."

A silent, dark woman in a bright tignon headwrap swept by the table. Draco held up one finger, and she nodded, refilling his glass. He picked it up and swirled the bright yellow-green liquid inside, the mingled scent of citrus, anise, mint, rosemary and lavender rising to his nostrils. He took another sip of Chartreuse liquor. The husky, melancholy blues song eddied through the great dark room, lit only by a candle at each table that cast a little pool of light around itself, and a vast crystal chandelier hung above a long mahogany bar at the front, each prism winking ever so faintly.

He didn't know exactly how he had ended up at Gris-Gris, the private club in Knockturn Alley run by expatriate Haitian wizards. But it had seemed the natural place to go after what had happened at the Crystal Palace. Draco grimaced when he thought of that, and drained his glass.

It had all seemed so straightforward when he first Apparated into the elegant marble foyer, a house-elf taking his wrap and opening the door for him that led into the main room. It was the most exclusive brothel in wizarding society, and had been visited by countless generations of Blacks and Malfoys for several thousand years now. Draco took the discreet attention he always received whenever he visited the Palace as no more than his due--the best seat at the bar, the exquisite hot toddy, and the very personalized attention. He let his eyes run over the girls arranged discreetly around the room, the soft, low lighting showing off their beauty to greatest advantage as they lounged on cushioned sofas or talked to each other in small groups. His eyes flicked to several that seemed as if they might do nicely--given further inspection, of course-- and another house-elf instantly scurried off to summon them.

The staff knew a great deal about Draco's preferences by now, yet those preferences were so varied that he always ended up examining a variety of girls before making his choice for the evening. He liked intelligent women, and, after a few experiments, didn't much care for threesomes, or hasty encounters. He was best pleased by savoring an individual girl for several hours, which often stretched into an entire night. Not tonight, though, he thought. Lately, his tastes had run to pleasantly attractive, rather vivacious brunettes, but he had already decided against continuing that trend tonight. He didn't want anyone who might remind him of Pansy.

It's been much too long since I was last here, he thought as he made desultory conversation with a couple of girls who had weighty, wavy caramel-coloured hair, but giggled entirely too much. How long, exactly, I wonder? Before that last time with Pansy, certainly, so it's been more than six months. Yes. Too long. A man has needs, after all, Draco decided rather pompously. Of course, once Ginny can meet those needs...and surely she will be able to, soon... His thoughts faltered then. Even the low lights suddenly seemed too bright, and the laughter of the women surrounding him too shrill and loud. For a second, he desperately wanted nothing so much as to go home, get into his bed, and lie by Ginny Weasley's side, listening to the soft sound of her breathing, the miracle of her living body. But I won't be able to touch her. I won't be able to lay a finger on her. It'll drive me mad. No, I need this first. Then I'll go back to the Manor. I'll be so much calmer, afterwards.

"And I thought it was awfully amusing," gushed one of the girls with the caramel-coloured hair.

"I'm sure you'd think so as well," tittered the other caramel girl, putting a hand lightly on his thigh.

Draco smiled absently, not having the slightest idea what they were talking about. His own thoughts had led him to ignore them, which was never a good sign. And on second glance, they looked too much like twins. He already knew that he didn't like that sort of thing.

"Perhaps another time, sweetheart," he said lightly, and, receiving their cue, the pair melted away into the background, continuing their discussion on the other side of the room. Draco scanned the other women seated near him. None of them seemed very appealing despite their undeniable beauty and charm. Some brunettes across the room were quite pretty, or at least he would have thought so normally, but he knew that he didn't want them. He dismissed the blondes summarily. If I want to see blond hair, he thought, I'll wank off while I look into a mirror. There were a couple of women with intelligent faces and glossy brown curls, and they seemed a little more appealing, but after a few moment's thought, he skipped them over as well. The entire world of women seemed rather stale, flat, and unprofitable at the moment. And yet... and yet unfulfilled desire throbbed in him, still. He rubbed a hand over his chin, feeling suddenly very tired.

And then he saw the woman sitting by herself at the end of the bar.

There was no-one sitting between them, so when he slowly turned his head to look at her, his view was unimpeded. His heart beat faster when he saw the long, wavy red hair that spilled over her shoulders. When she saw that he was looking at her, she calmly raised her head and looked back. She had bright brown eyes and a pointed little cat's face, and she seemed a bit older than most of the girls. Draco nodded at her, almost imperceptibly, and she nodded back. He had made his choice.

He sat in a chair at the end of her sumptuously appointed room while she sat on the bed, brushing out her long red hair. He had asked her to do it, and she had complied, of course. Her hands were long and graceful, and he watched their movements. I'll have to ask Ginny to do this, he thought. I wish I could do it for her... Without a word, he stood up and took the brush from the woman, and began to run it through her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned back against him.

"What's your name?" he whispered, feeling her hair crackle under his hands.

"Marie-France," she said in a low, husky voice.

"I haven't seen you here before."

"No, you haven't. I only just arrived." She had a very faint French accent, more a flavor to her words than anything else.

"Close your eyes, Marie," said Draco.

"All right."

He watched her blue-veined lids flutter as he brushed, and brushed, and brushed. She had taken off her outer robe to reveal a very low-cut bronze silk gown that clung to her every curve, dipping perilously close to revealing her nipples in front. Her breasts were as white as milk. Draco reached out and ran his hand along one of them experimentally. Then he sighed.

"I don't know," he murmured, "if the problem is that you remind of someone else too much, or not enough."

She gave a little shrug.

Draco sat behind her, feeling her warmth against him. "I don't know if I can do what I came here to do anymore," he said.

She nodded, as if she were used to hearing such things.

"I mean, it's not that I can't, of course," he hastened to add. He generally spoke to the women he chose at the Crystal Palace in any way he liked; they were his possessions for the night, after all, to be vaguely put in the same category as house-elves, although his manners were always good. Anything less than courtesy towards a bed partner was unfitting to a Malfoy. But he had never gone this far before. He felt as if he might begin confessing strange things to this woman if he didn't watch his tongue carefully. And I have too much to confess...

"Of course not," said Marie-France soothingly. "I have heard the other girls speaking about you, Draco."

"How did--" He stopped himself before asking how she'd known his name. She just said that she talked to the other girls, idiot. Obviously, one of them told her. ""Well, if you've talked to them, then you know what I'm like, usually. But--" He turned to face her, looking into her eyes, brown flecked with gold, just a bit darker than Ginny's.

"You want someone else, no?" she asked.

He nodded.

She looked at him. There was something utterly inscrutable about her face. "Then go to her, Draco."

"But I can't have her now," he said softly.

"Then wait for her. Wait. She will be yours, in time."

Draco didn't ask her how she knew these things. He merely nodded again, and got up. "You're very beautiful, Marie," he said. "And any other night--well, I assure you, you'd enjoy our time together just as much as I would."

"Yes," said Marie-France. "The other girls told me about that, as well."

"I like to please the girl I've chosen," he said absently. "But now, tonight, I'm sorry. I just can't."

"I know," she said, and she watched him go.

On the way out, he made sure that she would be paid, and asked the elf at the door to see to it that she received a little extra. His head was spinning, and he felt dizzy and strange. I don't understand what just happened, he thought groggily, stepping out into the street. And I don't know where to go now... I can't go home just yet, I can't...

So he had Apparated to Knockturn Alley as naturally as if he could have gone nowhere else, directly in front of the elegant two-story building with ornately carved teak double doors. He went to the side door under its little green awning, with its tiny brass plate just above the doorknob that read Gris-Gris in copperplate engraving. The silent, dark doorman had ushered him inside immediately, of course. And there Draco sat, burning for his bed, and for Ginny, and for Ginny in his bed, but as unable to rise from his seat and go home as if he were glued there by a thousand spells. He trailed a finger through a little puddle of water on the table, and heard the sensuous voice of the singing woman at the bar.

"It's true I wear a collar and a tie,

Make the wind blow all the while;

They say I do it, ain't nobody caught me,

They sure got to prove it on me."

Draco sighed deeply.

"Don't you look happy," said a cheerful voice just behind him. He almost jumped out of his chair.

"Milla?" he asked in astonishment, swiveling his head.

"Live and in person. Don't get up." Millicent Bulstrode plopped into the other chair at the table, straddling its back with her legs and balancing her head on her folded arms. "I haven't seen you in forever, Draco. Where've you been?"

"Oh--here and there--" Draco made a vague movement with his hands.

Millicent looked at him keenly. "From what I hear, you haven't seen anyone in forever. Pansy said she hadn't seen you in months."

Draco grimaced. "You've been with Pansy? I see your taste hasn't improved."

"It has!" said Millicent indignantly. "And anyway that was only once, and it was because I had to take her back from a party that one night, and we were so drunk that we couldn't Apparate, and we had to take the Night Bus, and there was only one bed left, and--"

"See, you should've stuck to me, Milla," said Draco, smiling faintly. He couldn't help but be cheered by Millicent Bulstrode, even under the present circumstances. Sometimes I think she's the only true friend I've ever had, Milla is. I shouldn't have gone so long without seeing her... even if I didn't want to see anyone else...

"What--our one little roll in the hay back in fifth year, before I realized I fancied girls?" She swatted his arm. "If I believed you meant that, Draco, I just might turn straight again."

"Oh, no. I know you too well, Milla. But, er--so you've been talking to Pansy?" he asked carefully.

"Only once. Once every six months is about all I can handle, I think. I ran into her coming out of Madam Malkin's, and we talked for a bit. She really misses you, Draco."

"She doesn't miss me." Draco held up a finger as the serving woman drifted by his table again, and drank deeply from his newly refilled glass. "She misses my money."

"The Parkinsons aren't doing too well, that's true. But I think she misses more than that."

"Mmm," said Draco noncommittally, sipping at his drink. He was never sure exactly how much Milla knew about the activities of the remaining Death Eaters.

"You seem awfully down, Draco." Milla looked at him keenly from her black-button eyes. He was suddenly afraid that they might see too much. Yet he'd never been able to keep his guard up very well around her. I'll have to be careful...

"Thought you said I looked happy," he said lightly.

She rolled her eyes. "It's called sarcasm. Look into it."

"Maybe I am down, a bit," he admitted, knowing he was treading on dangerous ground by even saying that much.

"I heard about what happened," she said quietly, awkwardly. "Your father, I mean. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," he said.

"You should've told me. I would've come to the funeral."

"No," he said, knowing she would understand what he meant. "No. I couldn't do that."

She looked at him with pity on her kind, square face, and it was almost more than he could bear. For an awful instant, he was sure that he was going to start crying.

"I want to go home," he muttered, hardly even knowing what it was he said.

She touched his hand lightly. "Then go, Draco. Don't sit drinking in a bar."

"I should," he sighed, letting himself relax into the mindless comfort of human touch for just a moment. "I really should... but..."

"But what?" She cocked her head, like an inquisitive parrot.

"I came out for something that I wanted, and I didn't get it. I don't like to go back without it." He set his teeth. I've said enough, more than enough, even to Milla. I don't know what the matter is with me tonight. I feel as if I might say anything. Maybe it's the Chartreuse, or just that I'm so tired, so very tired, I feel as if I could sleep forever...

"Hmm," said Millicent. "If you're running true to form, Draco, then you went to the Crystal Palace in search of a shag."

"What!" He was badly startled. "How'd you know that?"

"I'm psychic." Millicent wiggled her fingers.

"So your abilities have improved since you failed Trelawney's class fourth year?" he asked dryly, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice. He hadn't meant to admit so much to her.

"Oh, yes. If I ever have to join the Muggle world, I plan on opening a 1-976 hotline. Madame Cleo doesn't have a prayer."

"A what? And who?"

"Never mind." Millicent flapped a hand. "Hi, Luna." She looked up at Luna Lovegood as the blond girl drifted up behind them.

"Hello. And hello, Draco," Luna said. "I was the bookkeeper there last summer, you see."

"Wait--what? Lovegood? What are you doing here?" asked Draco.

"Sitting down," said Luna vaguely, flopping into a chair. "At the Crystal Palace, they had a whole string of boys from Hogwarts working as bookkeepers who pretended to be gay to get the job. Then they'd spy on the girls day and night. So I showed up and got hired. And they talked about you all the time, Draco. So I know you went there a lot. Quite a lot. You must be dreadfully energetic. And you can call me Luna. We're third cousins, after all. So I told Milla about it. I know you're her third cousin too. And I'm her fifth cousin, once removed, through Barnabas the Barmy."

Draco cradled his head in his hands. It was beginning to ache from sheer confusion, as it always seemed to do after spending any length of time around Luna Lovegood. "All right, all right," he mumbled. "I get the picture." He looked up at the two girls, who were sitting with their arms round each other's waists and looking very content. "So. Your taste has improved, I'll give you that, Milla. You and Lovegood, eh?" he asked Millicent, beginning to feel rather desperate to get the topic of conversation off himself.

"We're staying in rooms in Diagon Alley while Milla finishes security troll training school. And I'm helping the Weasley twins in their shop," Luna said happily. "I also do magical massage therapy. But Milla wanted to show me this club. It is nice, isn't it? So are you going to go somewhere else for a shag, Draco, since the Crystal Palace didn't work out? I wonder why not? I wonder--"

"Hush," said Millicent. "You're flustering the poor boy, can't you see?" She smiled at Luna fondly.

Draco didn't know quite what to say. He kept quiet, and stared at the dark woman singing at the bar.

"I went out last night with a crowd of my friends,

Must've been women, cause I don't like no men,

They say I do it, ain't nobody caught me,

Sure got to prove it on me."

He pushed his chair back from the table.

"I think I will go," he said. "Goodbye, Milla. Lovegood." He nodded to them both.

Millicent kept staring after Draco long after he had gone, an abstracted frown on her face.

"I told him he could call me by my first name," said Luna sadly. "But he wouldn't."

"He's like that, Draco is," said Millicent, not taking her eyes off the door through which he had left.

Draco crept into his bed as silently as he could, but Ginny awoke anyway.

"You're back," she said joyfully, sitting up. "You came back."

"I told you I would," he said. "You can always trust me, Ginny." He smoothed his pillow, and arranged the blankets over them both. He could tell that she was still looking at him.

"What is it, Ginny?"

"Did I used to sleep here?" she asked.

"Uh--yes. Yes, you did. Do you remember it?"

She tapped a finger against her cheek, clearly thinking. "No, not really," she finally said. "I just wondered."

"Good night, Ginny." He turned over.

Silence for a few moments. Then...

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

"Don't people hold each other at night when they sleep in the same bed?"

His breath snagged on something in his throat. He turned towards her. "How do you know that?" With a sudden, painful stab of jealousy, he wondered if she had slept by the side of other boys, other men.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I just do."

He turned over onto his back and stared up into the hangings of the bed. "Yes. They do. But we can't just yet."

"Will you want to do it soon?"

I want to do it now. I want to hold you in my arms as I drift into sleep, Ginny, and I want it the way I want to breathe. Draco clenched his teeth. If only I'd shagged that woman, Marie-France. Or Milla... I'll bet she would have been willing to go upstairs with me, if I asked pitifully enough. I don't believe she's changed that much. Luna could've waited in the bar... Yet he had the uneasy feeling that sex with either of those women--or, indeed, with any other-- would have sated his desires only until the moment he'd returned to see Ginny again. He shuddered.

"You're asking too many questions. Go to sleep, Ginny," was all he said.

She fell asleep almost at once. He listened to the quiet sound of her breathing for a very long time, and at last, he slept as well.

"Come on, love," said a soft, yet firm, female voice.

"Hunh?" asked Ron groggily. He felt hands lifting him out of his seat at the table and blinked blearily. The taproom of the Leaky Cauldron was closing up around him.

"Time to go home," said Cilla, the barmaid.

"Ergh," said Ron, with something less than eloquence. Of course, all of the firewhiskey he had drunk over the course of the evening might have had something to do with that.

"Let's go, now," said Cilla, a little more coaxingly.

"Don't think I can get home," said Ron, pointing out the obvious.

"What are we to do? Gracious, but Molly Weasley would skin me alive if she knew I'd thrown you out in this state," muttered Cilla.

Wizarding society was altogether too small, Ron decided. Of course, if he'd been at the Three Broomsticks, Madam Rosmierta would have been more than happy to take him upstairs with her after closing time. And after he'd sobered up a bit, he probably would have been happy to forget his troubles for a little while in her, as well. At the Hog's Head, on the other hand, he could have sat at a table until the end of time and nobody would ever have noticed. More than once in the history of that tavern, several days had gone by before anyone thought to remove all the dead bodies after a fight.

"Still, we've got to get you home somehow, love," continued Cilla. "Why, just look at the time!" She pointed to the clock hanging over the door, which had just struck three.

"Clock. Time. Yes," mumbled Ron. "Only that's the whole problem, isn't it? Mum's clock changed yesterday. Ginny's hand changed. And it doesn't make sense, Cilla."

"Well, most likely it will do soon," Cilla said soothingly. "Don't you have friends you could stay with, love?"

"Friends..." sighed Ron wistfully. He thought of Harry and Hermione, whom he hadn't yet told about the strange behavior of the clock. I need to see them. Need to talk to them. We need to meet, and decide what to do. This has to mean something. Maybe Hermione will know... He tried to stand. The results were less than successful.

"Up you go now, love," said Cilla. "Put your arm around my shoulder. That's right. I do wish all the rooms weren't full. P'raps they'll have something over at the Hog's Head. I heard they've all been fumigated and exorcised now."

She had actually managed to get him halfway across the room--she certainly is stronger than she looks, thought Ron--when he saw a head of long, stringy, ash-blond hair swaying in front of his face. Only one witch he knew had hair like that.

"Luna!" he blurted. "It's you, isn't it?"

"Hello, Ron," said Luna calmly, pausing and turning round. She looked at him curiously. "Oh dear. Don't fall. I don't think I can get you up again if you do. Milla, get his other side, would you?"

"Milla?" asked Ron muzzily. "You don't mean--"

"We'll take over from here, Cilla. Exactly how long have you been drinking, Ron?" asked Millicent. "You smell like a distillery." She supported his right arm. "Upsy-daisy, now. We'll get you up to our rooms and everything will be all right."

"Your rooms!" spluttered Ron with what was meant to be extreme dignity. "I'm not going anywhere with you, Bulstrode."

"Doubt you could stop me," she said cheerfully, peering at his face. "I think he's going to throw up. Don't you, Luna?"

"I think you're right," said Luna thoughtfully.

"Isn't it awful," said Millicent, "when you know you're going to throw up, and your stomach is sort of churning, and it's rising in your throat, there's nothing you can do to stop it, and--"

"Oooh," groaned Ron.

"I don't think you're helping, Milla," observed Luna, steering the three of them up the narrow, winding flight of stairs.

The instant that the two girls had got Ron into their room, he bolted for the bathroom. There, he made intimate acquaintance with a certain porcelain bowl.

"He doesn't sound well at all," observed Luna, sitting on the couch.

"Is that the tenth time? Or the eleventh?" asked Millicent.

A brief period of silence followed.

"Maybe he's done," said Luna.

"Maybe he's dead," said Millicent. She strode over to the bathroom and flung the door open.

Ron lifted his head, looking faint and pale, but venomous. His freckles stood out on his face like splotches of orange-brown paint. "What do you want, Bulstrode?"

"Doing all right, Ron?" she asked.

"Don't call me--urgh--Ron! I'm Weasley to you! In fact, don't call me anything at all!"

Millicent perched on the edge of the bathtub. "Oh, I don't know. I think that once I've seen you throw up, I can call you by your first name. Of course, I was doing it before you threw up, that's true. My goodness. You certainly have thrown up a lot, haven't you? That can't be good. D'you think you're quite done? Luna wondered if you were."

"That's it," said Ron. "I'm leaving." He tried to stagger to his feet, but found that he was, indeed, not yet quite done.

He rested his head on the cool porcelain edge. Someone was moving around behind him, but he could no longer summon up any energy to care very much about whatever it was she was trying to do. It's probably Millicent Bulstrode about to drown me. His throat burned from the bitterness of the bile that his stomach was bringing up, and his nose stung. This is it, he thought, closing his eyes. I'm throwing up in Bulstrode's bathroom. This is as low as I can go.

When a hand touched the cold wet rim of something to his lips, he knew that he shouldn't drink. But he couldn't seem to help himself, and he swallowed the deliciously cool water the hand held for him.

"Kind of brings back memories of that time I stuffed your head down the girls' toilet in first year, doesn't it?" said Millicent cheerfully, supporting his chin. Slowly, he realized that her voice came from his left, and the blessedly cool hands that had given him water were at his right. He opened his eyes a crack and saw Luna's face pressed very close to him. He tried to shrink back, but she lifted the glass again.

"It's not good to vomit that much without taking in liquids," she said calmly. "I had basic Healer training before I got my magical massage certificate, you know."

Ron nodded faintly, no more than the tiniest movement of the head.

"Are you done now, do you think?" asked Luna.

"Yeah," said Ron.

"Good," said Luna.

He watched her rise to her feet. There had always been something cool and serene about her at Hogwarts, something untouchable, and she still had that aura now as she carefully replaced the glass and moved back towards him.

"Can you get up, do you think?"

Ron closed his eyes briefly. Maybe I can put a Memory charm on them both tomorrow, so they don't remember anything about this night. Seems like the only solution. "Help me," he said in a very faint voice, and they did.

Together, they folded out the couch in the little sitting room, and tucked him in with plenty of blankets. He kept his eyes closed the entire time, only opening them for a brief peek at the very end. Millicent was already gone, and Luna was arranging a pillow under his head. Her hands brushed his cheek, and he closed his eyes again.

"Good night, Ron," he heard her say. Then she leaned down so that he could smell her perfume, herbal and astringent. He thought vaguely that it suited her. He felt something touch his forehead as gently as a butterfly wing. Then she was gone.

He watched her walk into the bedroom and close the door. His head seemed to be clearing a bit. Odd, he thought, that she and Bulstrode wouldn't get one of the two-bedroom suites. But I suppose they couldn't afford it. Stranger still that those two would ever be roommates in the first place. But I reckon Bulstrode isn't so bad, really. I never thought she was. It looks like they're friends now. They probably like sharing a room, the same way that Ginny was always pestering Mum to let her little girlfriends sleep over. Likely they'll spend all night gossiping... about me, I imagine... and I wonder what they'll say. Ron reached up and touched the spot on his forehead where Luna Lovegood had kissed him.

Then he turned over and went to sleep, immediately beginning to snore more loudly than a bull elephant. As thick as the walls were at the Leaky Cauldron, only a soundproofed underground bunker could possibly have kept Ron's snoring from penetrating the bedroom. Luckily, Luna was used to that sort of thing from Millicent already, and so all three of them slept peacefully.