Prince of Unicorns

Prince of Unicorns
By Cinnamon
Chapter Three

They could hear the screams of the creature as they approached Hagrid’s home. Harry ran a distracted hand through his hair as he listened, his blood running a little cold. They didn’t sound like ordinary howls to him. They sounded wrong.

“What’s wrong with it?” Ron asked as they hurried towards Hagrid’s home.

“At least it sounds more alive than it looked on the Quidditch pitch yesterday,” Hermione said.

They knocked on Hagrid’s door but no one answered. Glancing at each other nervously, they decided that the fear that your friend had been eaten by a mutant purple tiger was justification enough to break and enter. Hermione pulled out her wand and magicked the lock open. As the door swung open with a low creak, the spitting howls that had emerged from inside paused.

“Did it die?” Harry whispered.

“It’s sitting over there,” Hermione cried, pointing at the large cat.

It was too dark inside the hut to see clearly and Ron glanced around nervously. “Do you see any bits of Hagrid? It didn’t really eat him, did it?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry said, stepping into the dark hut. “He might have just left.” The cat started growling low in its throat as Harry approached and he paused, glancing over his shoulder at Ron and Hermione nervously. “Should we go in?”

“I don’t see why not,” Hermione said. “The cat obviously needs help.”

“The cat’s obviously starving,” Ron said. “And I don’t fancy being its next meal.”

Hermione brushed past Harry and went to the hearth, stirring the smoldering coals there and blowing on them until a few tongues of fire started licking up around the wood inside. The fire cast the small hut in soft, warm light and Harry glanced around, searching for clues as to where Hagrid had gone.

“Fang’s missing,” he said a moment later.

“Hagrid probably took Fang with him,” Hermione said calmly, approaching the tiger carefully.

“Either that,” Ron said from the doorway, “or that monster ate him.”

Hermione shot him a dirty look. “It isn’t a monster, Ron, it’s just an animal. A strange one, yes, but hardly one worth worrying about. Besides, it’s got a collar around its neck and a rope attached to the wall. Perfectly safe.”

Ron stepped cautiously into the hut, watching as Hermione cooed something soft and soothing to the tiger. He snorted. “Hermione and cats, it’s disgusting. First that stupid cat in third year and now this monstrous thing —”

“I told you, it’s not a monster. If you’re afraid, Ron, why don’t you just go and wait back at the castle? We’ll come by in a while and let you know if we find Hagrid.” Her eyes lit up. “Or you can go to the library and look up winged purple tigers in Weird Creatures; An Index. They’ve catalogued every weird creature ever found, I’m sure. So if anyone has ever seen a winged purple tiger before, it’ll be in there.”

“Or you could go look for Ginny again,” Harry said distractedly, glancing out the window. “There’s a set of tracks heading off into the forest, maybe that was Hagrid,” he said.

“I’m not scared, besides, anything is better than research in the library.” Ron joined Harry at the window, squinting outside. “It’s begun to snow,” he noticed, glancing at the tracks. “It looks like a blizzard, if this keeps up, soon there won’t be any tracks left at all.”

“Do you see that?” Harry asked, pointing. “A set of dog prints as well. It had to have been Hagrid.”

There was a low, mewling cry from the other end of the hut, and both Ron and Harry spun around quickly, fearing the large cat had bitten Hermione’s arm off or something. She was kneeling right beside the cat, however, perfectly happy, and stroking its soft back.

“Her wings are broken,” she told them solemnly. “I can see that Hagrid was trying to bandage them up. I bet the tiger didn’t like that very much, she must be terrified.”

The low mewling sound came again and Harry realized the monster cat was purring as Hermione gently stroked her throat.

***

Ginny still had not been able to tear her eyes away from the figure dressed in elegant green robes that stood in the doorway, his gray eyes flicking calmly from her to Draco and back again.

It was Draco who broke the silence first, with an eloquent snort. “I look nothing like him,” he said, studying the stranger objectively. “He needs a haircut, he’s got darker skin than I do and he’s a bit wider around the middle, if you don’t mind me saying so. Perhaps you should start wearing black. It is far more slimming,” Draco finished and only Ginny, glancing over him as he spoke, could see the shadows of unease flickering in his eyes. The stranger did look like him. Almost exactly like him.

He cleared his throat, not looking the least bit self-conscious after Draco’s observations. He smiled once, and Ginny was struck by the tragic, sad cast that smile lent his eyes. Though this man stood with all the arrogance Draco traditionally projected, there was something fundamentally different about his eyes. They were the same shade, except they sparkled with something that Draco did not have. Emotion. Draco’s eyes never showed anything except disdain and disgust. The stranger’s eyes glimmered with a deep pain that called to Ginny and made her want to do anything she could to ease it.

“Who are you?” she asked him breathlessly. Draco snorted again in disgust.

The man performed a graceful bow, flicking his hair out of his face in a move that reminded her so much of Draco that Ginny felt disoriented for a moment. “I am the Prince of Unicorns,” he said. His voice was silken like Draco’s, but where Draco’s was cool silk, his was warm and made shivers crawl up and down her back.

“Even Princes of Unicorns have names, I assume,” Draco said in a bored tone, and the prince’s eyes flickered to him briefly.

“You would be wise, Draco Malfoy, to remember which of us is chained to the wall before exercising your gift of sarcasm.” He turned his attention to the potato-shaped gnome still writhing on the floor and mumbling about having been blinded. His arms were too short to flip himself over and he was stuck face down on the floor. The prince picked him up and set him right side up. When the gnome saw it was the Prince, he immediately started kneeling and bowing repeatedly, mumbling about how grateful he was that his lord had cured his blindness. The prince rolled his eyes but did it carefully when the gnome’s eyes were to the ground so he wouldn’t see.

“Excuse me, sir — your highness,” Ginny said, not wanting to offend him. “How did you know Malfoy’s name?”

The Prince’s cool glance shot again to Draco, shackled to the wall, and he glanced back at Ginny, a slight, sharp smile twisting his lips. “Draco and I,” he began, pausing as he considered his next words. “I suppose you could say we are related. After a fashion.”

“Related.” Draco’s voice was flat and cold.

“That would explain the resemblance,” Ginny said faintly, horrified at the knowledge that there was another Malfoy in the world.

“My name,” the Prince said, with another elegant bow, “is Copper Malfoy.”

Draco sputtered with shock. “Copper Malfoy?” he repeated.

Copper’s smile, cast in dark shadows from the light spilling over his shoulder from the hall, showed all his teeth, like a wolf. “Yes.”

“You can’t be the real Copper Malfoy, he’s been dead hundreds of years or something. And you can’t be a Malfoy named after him, his name has been forbidden for use by any Malfoy since his father betrayed us all. I’m only lucky they didn’t name the little bugger Gold Malfoy, because we’ve even been forbidden to buy or wear anything copper because of that prat.” Draco sucked in a huge, shuddering breath and would have continued ranting if Ginny hadn’t interrupted.

“What did this notorious Copper Malfoy and his father do?” she had spoken hesitantly and Draco shot her a furious look. He didn’t get a chance to reply, however, because Copper beat him to it.

“Father fell in love with a Squib,” he said lightly. “Not to mention that he was born without the slightest bit of talent for the Dark Arts. Even in those days, the Malfoys weren’t the Malfoys unless they were involved in something dark and illegal.”

“They were an embarrassment,” Draco cried. “Mothers still use the threat ‘Listen to your father or you’ll end up like Copper Malfoy’ in my family!”

“And do you, Draco, listen to your father when your mother tells you that?” Copper asked quietly.

“My mother doesn’t dare speak that name in my house,” he replied instead of answering the question.

Ginny was getting a headache. “All right, let me see if I understand this,” she said slowly. “You had that black shadow thing —”

“A greelie,” Copper said helpfully.

“All right. You had that greelie capture Draco yesterday in an attempt to bring him here so you could chain him up and have a wonderful family reunion? You being his… cousin… or whatever.”

Copper tilted his head and smiled a little. “Sort of. He is a descendant through my cousin’s line. His father is the great great —” Ginny lost count of the ‘greats’, “grandson of my cousin.”

Draco’s mouth fell open and then slammed shut as he gasped desperately for air, like a fish out of water. Ginny asked the question for him. “How old are you?”

Copper grinned boyishly and the sight strangely repelled Ginny. “I will be 547 years old in March.”

“That isn’t possible, unless…” Ginny trailed off, her eyes narrowing in thought. “You don’t happen to have a Philosopher Stone, do you?”

Copper laughed and Ginny shivered. There was something not quite right about his laughter. “No, I do not. But there is something to be said for disobeying your father and sending your son to join a distant band of monks intent upon discovering the key to immortality. They just might find it.” He shrugged easily. “And we did.”

Draco started swearing fluently but Ginny didn’t even glance at him. She was staring in awe at the man before her. “You’re immortal?” she whispered. “But what do you want with us? With me? You aren’t bad, are you? Because that talking tree said any friend of Harry’s is a friend of the Prince’s, and I can assure you, if you’re going to kill me, then Harry Potter’s friends are the last people you’re going to be hanging around with on weekends.”

“You met the sen-tree!” Copper cried, smiling. “I grew him myself, he’s nearly as old as I am! A cousin of the Whomping Willow. I have been training him to be a sentry for my fortress for years.”

Draco was still swearing, though his curses veered more towards things like, “I should have known that rude little bugger had been trained by Copper Malfoy”, “Green does marvels for my complexion indeed,” and “Just wait until I get my hands on that worthless tree, I’ll tear it limb from limb and use the branches to beat this Copper prat until his back bone spits out his nose.”

Ginny was growing nervous. “I’m serious. If you and Mal — Draco are going to kill me, Harry and Ron will not be impressed.” It was hard enough dealing with one Malfoy, now suddenly she was being forced to deal with two, one who seemed to have lost his mind, unable to do anything except curse loudly and graphically, and the other watching her with a slightly hungry, half-mad look.

Copper sighed. “I suppose I had best tell you the whole story before you work yourself into a panic thinking I am here to kill you. I assure you, I did not mean for the greelie to capture you as well as Draco, though I am not displeased that he did. I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to ensure that you aren’t killed,” his quick glance at Draco told her that Draco would not be as lucky as she, “But in the end, as with nearly everything in life, that will be left up to you. Before I tell you my story, however, I must ask you a few questions, and my ability to ensure your survival depends upon your answers. I do not want you to lie, however. You must be honest and simply hope that the truth is the answer I wish to hear.”

Biting her lip and glancing back at Draco, who for once seemed to have finally run out of things to say, Ginny nodded slowly. “Answer your questions correctly and I’ll get to go back to Hogwarts?” she asked, already mentally planning to run screaming back to Hogwarts and send someone back to rescue Draco.

Copper smiled and it was one of those smiles that left Ginny feeling cold. “Answer my questions and then we will be able to negotiate that point.”

“And what about Draco?”

“He dies. It’s nonnegotiable, as you will see when I tell you my story.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Ask then,” she said, trying to sound offhand, even though she was nearly sick with fear.

Copper’s smile this time, was gentle. He flicked his wrist lazily and the tiny stone cell was draped with golden silks and ivory satins, hanging in elegant tapestries on the walls and tossed about the floor in pillows. “We may as well be comfortable while we talk, my lady,” the Prince said gallantly, gracefully sitting among the piles of pillows that had suddenly appeared on the ground.

The garden gnome, who had grown bored of the discussion and curled up to sleep on the floor, woke up when a heavy velvet pillow fell on top of him. His soft, whistling snores cut off abruptly and he began to fight desperately with the pillow, wailing that he’d been blinded. Again, the Prince lifted him gently out from under the pillow and sat him on top of it, ignoring the gnome’s wheedling blessings for once again restoring his sight.

Ginny could feel Draco’s outraged stare burning into her back but she did not turn around. She knew that the Prince’s offer of comfort did not extend to his descendant, still shackled to the wall.

“How did you do that?” Ginny asked, after the silence had grown uncomfortable. She sat reluctantly, pulling a golden pillow onto her lap and hugging it to her chest. “I didn’t see a wand.”

“We learned different magic in the religious order I belonged to. We do not rely on a wand. But I am the one asking the questions.” His smile softened the sharp words but Ginny wasn’t comforted. “First, what is your name?”

She opened her mouth to tell him her name was Ginny when something stopped her. Nicknames, after all, were not for enemies, and something was telling her that this chivalrous Prince was not a friend. “Virginia Weasley,” she said stiffly.

“Virginia,” Copper said musingly. “A very pure name, I believe it will suit nicely.”

Ginny snorted, tossing her fiery hair over her shoulder. “And if it didn’t, would you have changed it?”

He didn’t reply, only went on with his questions calmly. “What year are you in at Hogwarts?”

“Sixth.”

“And you are friends with Harry Potter?”

“I suppose. Yes. He’s my brother’s best friend.”

“That is good. No one would suspect…” he trailed off, thinking, and then nodded, satisfied. “Despite what you may be thinking, Harry and I are nearly on the same side in this. The side of good.” Before she could question him further, he asked, “What is Draco like?”

“Draco?” Startled by the abrupt change in topic, Ginny glanced over her shoulder. Draco was still shackled to the wall, as she had known he would be. Copper seemed almost to ignore his existence after basically informing her that he would be killed, treating him as if he were nothing more than the walking dead. Or, in Draco’s case, the shackled-to-the-wall dead, but the idea was the same. The part that disturbed Ginny the most, however, wasn’t the fact that Copper intended to kill Draco, because Malfoys were mad, that was to be expected. It was the raw fury on Draco’s face. She had rarely seen any emotion on Draco’s face besides smug triumph and an occasional sneering smile.

Copper followed her gaze and scowled, looking more like his relative than he had in any of his gallant moments. “Yes. Draco. What is he like?”

“You wish for me to gossip to you about Draco?”

“I wish for you to tell me what he’s like.”

“I suppose… If you want me to be honest, he’s somewhat of a prat. I mean,” she hurried, seeing something that looked something like hurt (except, on Draco’s face, hurt was hard to identify as it was so rarely there) flash in Draco’s eyes. “I’m sure he’s really nice, once you get to know him. I don’t know him all that well, you see. And from what I do know of him, he’s something of a bully. I’m sure he’s nice to his friends,” she rushed on, trying to be honest but nice at the same time. “But I’m not a friend of his. Honestly, he really doesn’t have too many of those.” She winced, giving up and letting her shoulders slump. She decided to ignore Draco’s burning gaze on her back and tell the brutal truth. After all, how would she be of any help if she were dead too? “He’s cruel,” she said quietly to Copper. “He makes fun of people who are poor, ugly, or not as ‘pure-blooded’ as he is. He likes to make the first years cry, he’s rumored to be heavily into dark arts and such, and his father is even worse than he is.”

“His father? You’ve met Lucius Malfoy?”

“He gave me a dangerous diary in my first year that nearly killed me. He is arrogant, cruel, and cold.”

Copper tightened his lips thoughtfully. “So the Malfoys of today are no better than the Malfoys of five hundred years ago. I didn’t think they’d get any better.” He shook his head and then smiled at Ginny again. “So, Virginia, you do not get along well with Draco?”

“I accidentally turned him into a turtle,” she said miserably. “I felt terrible afterwards, but it was an accident, and he was being mean to me, and Professor McGonagall changed him right back! She even told me that if I was able to do that charm that well on my final, I would probably have gotten a better mark.”

Copper nodded patiently. “But you do not get along with him?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

Copper’s smile was radiant. “That’s good then, you won’t mind horribly much when he is sacrificed. That is very good, considering that it will be you holding the knife, and you seem too sweet to want his torment prolonged because a moment’s hesitation caused you to miss his heart and puncture a lung.” He looked very pleased.

Ginny wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. “Sacrifice?” she said incredulously. “You want me to kill him?” Despite her best efforts to avoid looking at Draco again, she couldn’t help herself and glanced over her shoulder. He had gotten control of his rage and was now watching her with a faintly mocking smirk.

With a martyr-like sigh, Copper touched her jaw gently, turning her back to face him. “I’m afraid it’s necessary, for the coronation to take place.” She opened her mouth to question him on that and he shook his head, continuing. “I will explain everything, my lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” Ginny said in a disgruntled tone. Draco’s snort behind her let her know that he agreed with her.

“Virginia,” Copper said, his tone the same Ginny’s mother used when she was about to chide a young child. “Everything will make sense to you before the day is done, I promise you. For now, we must both prepare ourselves for the coronation. Then I will explain.” He rose gracefully to his feet and held a hand down to help her up.

“Explain now,” she said, ignoring his hand.

“Virginia, I cannot stand to be in this room for another moment. It’s cramped and stuffy and I simply can’t bear it. It’s not clean.”

Ginny smirked. “Sounding more like a Malfoy with each passing moment. But I won’t leave, Copper, so explain everything to me here.”

Copper stared down at her for a moment, measuring the resolve in her eyes and then he sighed, sitting again. “As you wish, my lady.” He settled himself against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering his strength. Ginny had the odd feeling that this was going to be a long story. “As I told you before, I am over five hundred years old. My father was the youngest of six brothers. The eldest son is Draco’s ancestor. Of the brothers, my father was the only one not born with magic. His older brothers were all talented and powerful. Their father was proud of them all, and loved them in the way Malfoys love, I suppose. But he hated my father. He was a disappointment. But he was beautiful to me.” His voice became very soft and his eyes glimmered with something that could have been tears, except Ginny didn’t think princes cried, not to mention Malfoy princes. He cleared his throat and continued. “His name was Stirling. He fell in love with a poor wizard’s squib daughter and they eloped, going to some remote place, where they intended to live some quiet life where no one would ever be bothered by their existence. She was my mother; her name was Mandrynn. Even her family disowned her for marrying a Malfoy. But my mother and father didn’t care; they were married and had lived together for a year or so before my grandfather finally got around to tracking them down. My father had betrayed him, he claimed. He refused to recognize the marriage. I was just a new born baby then, and conceived in the sanctity of their marriage, but he would not recognize me, he claimed I was illegitimate.

“He killed my mother with a flick of his wrist for daring to steal Stirling from him and then, for his punishment, he banished his son and me from the family. He disowned us. My father didn’t really care, he was torn apart by grief for his wife, whom his father had slaughtered.” Copper shot a hard look at Draco, who hadn’t made a sound. Then he continued. “My father raised me and told me all about his father and what he had done, how he had disowned us both. He taught me what I needed to avenge us both and the woman he had killed. When I was eleven, my father became ill and died in short order, after giving me instructions to travel to a distant sect of monks who studied the use of magic, magic without a wand. Magic wasn’t the only thing these monks studied, however. They called themselves Seekers of Tir na n-Og, and that is what they sought. A way to cheat death, and they found it. It is well known that drinking the blood of a unicorn offers respite from death, but this means living a cursed life. The monks worked day and night to find a way to get immortality from the unicorn without the curse, and they found it.” He smiled and Ginny was chilled by the sight. “The unicorns are one of the purest creatures and to steal from a creature of such purity is a crime. But if the unicorn gives the gift of immortality freely, then where is the crime in that? It is a gift.” He smiled again. “The monks changed their name to the Worshippers of Unicorns, rather a joke among them. They soon fell to worshipping the unicorns, praying to the unicorns, offering gifts to the unicorns. Taming the unicorns, as much as a unicorn can be tamed. In return for that, the unicorns would have given the monks eternal life.”

“Would have given them eternal life? Why didn’t they?”

Copper grinned. “They never made it to the coronation. An arrangement of sorts had been made between the alpha unicorn and the head of the Worshippers. The alpha unicorn was flattered by the worshipping and she wished to repay them, to thank them.”

“She? The alpha unicorn is a female?” Ginny’s head was spinning and she had trouble keeping the whole story straight.

“Yes, unicorns are quite mad. They’re a matriarchal society; they follow the orders of the head female rather than the male. Anyway, the alpha unicorn came to the head of our sect when I was seventeen years old. Our prayers to her kind humbled her and she knelt before Gilbal, the head monk, and laid a wreath of ivy and nightshade berries at his feet. A few of the monks had mastered a technique to speak to animals, and they spoke with the alpha unicorn, and she told them that they were unworthy of our worship, and they did not wish to anger the gods, so they offered us a trade. If we stopped praying to them and continued praying to the gods, in gratitude, they would crown one of us as their Prince. They would serve him as best they could and offer him immortality.”

“That’s not fair!” Ginny cried. “You only prayed to them to get immortality and they were giving you immortality to make you stop!”

Copper shrugged. “A creature who is renowned only for its purity can’t be all that smart. Our plan was for Gilbal to accept the title as Prince, giving him the right to rule over the unicorns. His first act as Prince would be to order the unicorns to give the rest of us the gift of immortality as well. It would have worked well for me; I needed time to plan how best to avenge myself on my mother’s family. The day of the coronation, however, I overheard Gilbal and his closest advisor plotting to betray the Order. He was not going to order the unicorns to give the gift to the rest of us. With the power to grant immortality nearly at will, he had decided he did not wish to share it. Unless, of course, people were willing to buy it from him. He planned to extort as much as he could out of people, offering immortality in exchange for riches, power, and respect. I suppose many kings would have given anything to live forever, and had they posed a problem in the future, Gilbal could have ordered the unicorns to end the magic keeping them alive, and they would have died. It was a good plan, as far as typical grab-for-power plans went.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid the knowledge that he intended to retract the perfect aid to my quest for vengeance did not sit well with me. I flew into a rage and used my magic to slaughter Gilbal and his advisor before they even realized I had over heard. Their blood stained the window of Gilbal’s study crimson and before it had dried, I had decided what I must do. It was late, and the other Worshippers, my brothers, were sleeping. With my magic and the force of my rage to aid me, I slaughtered them all as they slept and brought the upper levels of the Temple of the Unicorn to ruins around me. I was the only survivor and the only parts that remained of the temple were the rooms and tunnels that had been constructed underground and into the mountain, where we are now. Not as fine as the upper reaches of the temple had been, but a fine fortress just the same.” He smiled and Ginny finally knew what those strange lights dancing in his eyes were. Madness. “I was the only Worshipper of Unicorn that went to the coronation that night and I was crowned with a garland of nightshade and made the Prince of Unicorns, granted immortality.”

“You killed them all,” Ginny whispered, horrified. “All those men.”

Copper shrugged. “It was necessary, they would all fall prey to the corruption of power as Gilbal did. I could not allow that to happen.”

Draco was silent behind her and Ginny wondered if he had fallen asleep. Her voice, when she spoke, was carefully devoid of emotion, and she was glad. It wouldn’t be very good to irritate the Prince, she knew now what he was capable of when he was angry. “And so you waited to avenge yourself on your mother’s family.”

Copper nodded. “After they named me the Prince, I returned to the ruined temple and converted the underground caverns into my fortress. I remained inside them, isolating myself from civilization, waiting for the chance to avenge myself and my mother and father. My powers grew and developed, but I never grew to look older than seventeen. And now the day has come.”

Ginny glanced down at the pillow she was holding, noticing that while he had spoken, she had been worrying away at the trimming and had pulled a few threads loose. She set the pillow aside carefully and cleared her throat. “So you will avenge the death of your father and the banishment of your mother by killing Draco?”

Copper smirked. “Hardly. I will kill Draco, take his place, and infiltrate the family. It is, after all, better to cause rot and instability from the core rather than the fringes.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say if you want to cause rot and instability, the Malfoy’s are a bad place to start. They’re as rotten and unstable as you can get already.” Ginny listened for any sound from Draco, but he was silent. “Why don’t you just… wave your hand and kill them with a lightening bolt or something?”

“I want to make them suffer,” he hissed, clenching a fist. “I want to strip everything from them, starting with their pride. The last thing I will take from them is their lives. And you, Virginia Weasley, are going to help me.”

Ginny’s eyes widened. “Me? You want me to help you destroy the Malfoys?”

He smiled again, madness glowing in his eyes. “Yes. See, my original plan was just to kill Draco Malfoy and return to Hogwarts in his place. I have waited for years for this moment, for Draco. I had to wait for a Malfoy to come to Hogwarts who looked enough like me that I could pass for him, I could become him. I nearly took his father, but the time wasn’t right yet, the situation was not as ideal as this one. I can become Draco, I can, I look like him. The only thing I worried about was fitting into his role, going to Hogwarts, and knowing enough to pass myself off as Draco. Now I can use you, you can help me.”

“Why would I want to help you?” she asked nervously.

“Why, to rid the world of the evil that is Malfoy family. You claimed to be a friend of Harry Potter’s, and even in my isolation, I know of him. He fights for the greater good, I assume you would as well.”

Ginny was quiet for a moment, though she longed to shout out any number of things like the fact that Harry’s battle for good did not include vengeance quests that should have been laid to rest years before and that Harry did not usually ally himself with a man who took advantage of the unicorns and killed an entire temple full of men with just a thought. Instead, after careful thought, Ginny said, “You want me to help you become Draco.”

“Yes. You know about Hogwarts, you can help me. Simple things like getting around the school and such. I can’t very well ask anyone if I’m supposed to be Draco.”

Ginny struggled not to tell him how mad she found his plot. “And what do I get out of this again? Showing you around, helping you deceive people into believing you are Draco?”

He smiled broadly. “Well, like I said, you get to help me rid the world of Malfoys. And you get to live. I can’t very well have you running back to Hogwarts and telling everyone what I’m planning, so you’re either with me, or I have to kill you. I think you’ll find that working with me is the better deal. As my Princess —”

“Princess?” Ginny asked, startled.

He nodded, waving an airy hand. “The best part. I forgot to mention it. I would have you crowned as my princess. The unicorns have gotten restless lately, and with all those other animals coming to the fortress, I didn’t know what was happening. It was only when the greelie brought me to you and Draco that I realized what they had seen that I did not. They have come to witness the coronation of their Princess.”

“Animals? Animals have come here?” She was thinking of the shadows she saw running across the grounds of Hogwarts and into the forest.

He nodded. “Unicorns are rulers of all the other animals in the world, and the crowning of a Princess is a huge event in the animal kingdom. At my own crowning, thousands of animals gathered to witness the alpha unicorn crown me. As unicorns are a matriarchal society, I suppose the crowning of a Princess would draw even bigger crowds.”

“Are you saying that the animals are coming to the Forbidden Forest to see me crowned Princess of Unicorns?” Ginny argued. “That isn’t possible, they started coming here long before I got here.”

Copper smiled. “Unicorns are magical creatures, Virginia. They have the gift of prophecy, though only in matters that concern them directly. They foresaw the arrival of a Princess and are prepared for it. It was fated that you come to me.”

She wrinkled her nose and said slowly, choosing her words carefully, “I didn’t come to you, exactly. You brought me here.”

“But you will be my Princess.” He shrugged. “It does not mean we have to be together, Virginia, if that is what you’re thinking. Your role, as Princess of Unicorns, would be to be my partner. It would add to my power over the unicorns, restoring what has been lost as the unicorns grow dissatisfied with my rule. The unicorns would follow your commands as they do mine, they would give you immortality, and, after you aid me in my quest, you would be free to go about your life.”

“All right, let me get this straight. You wish to have me crowned a Princess, for me to take you back to Hogwarts with me, show you around, help you fit in, point out Draco’s friends and tell you their names so you know what you’re doing, and then you will go home at the end of the term to Draco’s family and destroy them. In return for this, I get to live forever.”

Copper nodded once, still smiling his mad smile.

Ginny restrained the impulse to glance at Draco over her shoulder. “And I have to kill Draco.”

“A gesture to show your commitment to my cause, Virginia. It shouldn’t be so hard, you told me that you don’t like him.” Copper’s smile was warm, but his eyes watched her face calculatingly.

Licking her lips, Ginny considered her options for a moment. Then she asked hesitantly, “That’s all I have to do? Kill him and help you at Hogwarts?”

“Well, of course, there must be other things to ensure you do not break your word back in Hogwarts. Not that I would not trust my Princess, but I am a suspicious man. I would have to bind you to me in such a way that would ensure you could not speak of this to anyone. It would not be good if Lucius Malfoy found out of my intent.”

“Bind me to you? What does that mean? And how is it done?”

He smiled quickly, looking amused. “It’s a pleasant process, for the most part, I assure you. A simply tongue-binding charm that will come into effect when we are back at Hogwarts to ensure you that cannot speak of this to anyone, which also prevents you from writing it on parchment. Security, you understand. I cannot have word of this getting out.”

“What, exactly, would this tongue binding do to me?”

“Any time your mind would form the intent to speak of the fact that I have switched places with Draco, your tongue would be unable to form the words. You also would not be able to mention the fact that I intend to destroy his family, or that he has been killed. In short, your tongue will not be able to form the words to mention anything I have told you or anything that I have ordered you to do. Unless you are speaking to me, of course.”

Growing more nervous by the moment, Ginny nodded slowly. “That sounds fair. When would the coronation be? I… I have class tomorrow.”

He smiled again. “Tonight. We would be back at Hogwarts before morning, you won’t miss a class.”

“And when… would I have to kill Draco?”

“At the coronation, which would take place outside the fortress. Following that, we will head back to Hogwarts.”

She forced a bright smile. “That sounds all right. I get to be a Princess. This is brilliant.”

Copper nodded, smiling at her enthusiasm. “I knew you would want to help. You are a friend of Harry Potter’s, and we are almost brothers in our fight against evil.”

Ginny was nodding like a puppet whose strings were being pulled. “Yes. I’m sure Harry will love you.”

Copper got to his feet and grabbed her hand, pulling her up as well. “I will bind your tongue now, before the ceremony.”

“Now? Here?” Ginny took a nervous step away from him and he laughed softly.

“Yes. Here is as good a place as any; it won’t take long. Don’t be worried, Virginia, I promise you, it doesn’t hurt that badly.”

That badly? Ginny thought in panic. She forced herself not to move, however, and Copper stepped very close, tilting her face up towards him. He looked down at her thoughtfully.

“Perhaps it would be best if you close your eyes,” he said finally.

Ginny squeezed them shut, willing her hands to stop trembling. She was expecting all sorts of foul magic, so when Copper kissed her lips very gently, her eyes flew open in shock. She didn’t pull away, however, because it was the oddest thing. It was Copper kissing her, of course, but if she drove that thought from her mind and just looked at him, he could have been Draco. And hadn’t she sometimes, though she would never admit it, fantasized about what it would be like for Draco to kiss her? She may not have liked him very much, but she couldn’t help noticing that he was very attractive, in a graceful, dangerous sort of way.

The tip of Copper’s tongue touched her lips very lightly and, closing her eyes again and pretending that it was Draco, Ginny opened her mouth beneath his lips. Copper’s tongue touched hers and Ginny made a warm, purring sound in the back of her throat.

“Ginny!” Draco cried out, disgusted, from behind her, and, startled, her eyes flew open again. She moved to push Copper away, but in that split second between opening her eyes and moving her hands up to his chest to push him away, Copper’s hand cupped her cheek, his fingers stroking absently, and something like lightning slashed through his fingers and into her mouth, where his tongue touched hers. It pushed through her tongue like molten metal, wrapping around it and nearly burning it as Copper pulled away, smirking. Ginny gasped for breath as the magic wrapped itself around her and then slowly cooled.

Tears were running down her cheeks from the pain and she swallowed hesitantly, licking her lips to make sure she still had a tongue. She did, and she glared up at Copper, who watched her innocently a few steps away. “You said it wouldn’t hurt,” she said, after wiping her tears away.

He shrugged. “I said it was a mostly pleasant experience. And it was.” He smirked again. “You taste very sweet, Ginny.”

Draco snorted behind her and Ginny glanced once over her shoulder. He wasn’t asleep, apparently. She tried a slight smile at him, but he was looking hateful again and she turned back to Copper with a sigh. She pointed to the garden gnome, who was biting his toenails absently, sitting on a golden pillow. “What about him? What’s his role in all this?”

Copper glanced at the gnome. “The garden gnomes, like all other creatures, came to witness the coronation. This one is from your garden, he had heard from the sen-tree that you were in the forest, he insisted upon going to find you. Apparently your brothers have been quite rough with him, he wanted to discuss his indignation with you.” He shrugged again. “I left him in here as a sort of spy, to watch you and Draco to make sure you told me the truth of your relationship with Draco when I questioned you. I am satisfied, however. You and Draco argue like hateful children, you are obviously not friends.” He smiled warmly. “But it is time, now, to prepare for the ceremony. I have prepared a room for you to change, as Princesses do not dress in —” he glanced down at the clothes Ginny wore, “things like that.”

“My mum made me this jumper!” Ginny cried, crossing her arms over her sweater.

Copper nodded once. “I’m sure, however, you will find the garments I have put in the wardrobe in your room far more suitable for a Princess of Unicorns. You may pick which of the outfits you want to wear to the ceremony; they are all suitable. I designed and conjured them myself.” There was typical Malfoy arrogance in his tone. “They are enchanted to fit anyone who puts them on, so you should have no problem. When you are done changing, I will come and fetch you and Draco. The room across the hall is yours, mine is in another wing. I won’t be gone long, and you will find all you require across the hall.” He snapped his fingers and the pillows and wall hangings were gone, leaving the room as empty as when Ginny had first woken up. Draco glared balefully from his shackles and Ginny couldn’t look at his face. She kept her eyes focused on the ground as she walked out of the room after Copper.

He bowed again, the same gallantry he had displayed before, but this time Ginny wasn’t charmed by it. She was disgusted. “I will return in an hour,” he promised.

“Will you give me my wand back?” she asked hesitantly.

“Of course, Virginia! It is waiting in the room I prepared for you. Now that we are partners, I see no reason to keep it from you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling anything but gratitude towards him. She had no doubt, judging by what she knew of him, that he would not hesitate to kill her once her usefulness ran out. She would be a liability to his cause.

Copper lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles before turning and walking away.

Ginny watched him go and then hurried into the room he had pointed out to her. It was a huge, luxurious bedroom, complete with a four-poster bed with a black canopy, tapestries covering all the stone walls, and a roaring fire in the hearth. The carpet was so thick that her feet sunk into it. She hardly noticed, however. She ran straight to the wardrobe, stripping off her clothing as she went. Throwing open the doors to the wardrobe, she pulled out the first outfit she saw, tossing it onto the bed while she finished undressing. It was a wispy gown made of layers upon layers of crimson silk, so fine that it was nearly sheer, made decent only by the number of layers. She pulled it over her head, the wispy layers falling gracefully around her, and closed her eyes at the uncomfortable feeling of the dress molding itself to her curves, resizing itself to fit her. When it was finished, she grabbed a comb off the vanity table beside the wardrobe and brushed her hair quickly, hoping that she would look ‘decent’ enough for Copper. She didn’t even glance in the mirror as she snatched her wand off the bed and jammed her feet into a pair of golden slippers. Her mother would have been appalled at the disorder she left behind, especially that she hadn’t even folded her dirty clothes up and set them in a neat pile beside the door.

She didn’t bother to think about those things as she rushed out of the room and back across the hall.

The door to Draco’s cell was locked as she knew it would be, and she breathlessly whispered the words of the unlocking charm before throwing it open and dashing inside.

It was dark inside; Copper had taken the torch he left. Ginny whispered, “Lumos.”

She should have been prepared for the hate in Draco’s glare when he looked at her, but she wasn’t. She still flinched a little when he spoke. His voice was so cold.

“You make such a pretty princess, Weasley,” he sneered.