Veela Magic

Chapter 1: Above the Stones

If you should dip your hand in,

your wrist would ache immediately,

your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn

as if the water were a transformation of fire

that feeds on stones and burns with a dark grey flame.

A sudden crack. Then another.

She doesn't know what it means. The Muggle guards barring her way curse softly and let their heads fall in despair. One, a woman, seizes hold of her and tries to embrace her. She is alarmed by this bizarre behaviour. She wants to ignore the silly noise and storm the building. She has her wand, after all. She doesn't understand 'negotiations'.

She runs, and is caught by a Ministry official. He whispers, "Somna" and spools dust into her eyes. She tries again to reach the building, but her eyes close despite her and she falls.

Later, they tell her what a gun is. They also tell her they are sorry.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Draco, love?"

Narcissa Malfoy was holding Draco's hand limply, but her gaze was fixed on him with a tearful intensity. For a moment, he hated her.

"Draco, you won't leave me, will you?"

"I have to go back to Hogwarts at the start of September, Mother. Mum," he added hastily, as his mother's eyes opened wider and she let out a soft wail.

"My little boy's growing up and he doesn't need me anymore... Oh, Draco, you look just like your father, do you know that?"

"Yes," said Draco grimly. It was why he'd been letting his hair grow out ever since the beginning of the summer. Its silvery tendrils now reached his shoulders, a look Lucius Malfoy would never have approved of.

"I remember your father when he was just starting fifth year - he was a prefect for Slytherin, you know. Or was it sixth year? I was never a prefect, of course... I... I wasn't strong enough... prefects have to make difficult decisions sometimes, you know... Draco, your father's doing some very important work right now... you should be proud of your father, Draco, he's... he's a wonderful man..."

Draco's hands, loosely held around his mother's, convulsively tightened their grip. His right thumbnail began to dig into the soft flesh where his left index finger met his palm. A drop or two of blood spilled over from the tiny gash, staining his mother's fingers. She didn't notice.

After a while, she allowed her son to put her to bed for the night, crying silently all the while. Draco returned downstairs after he had assured her twice that he would still be in the manor in the morning. He whispered "Nox" and the dining hall fluttered into darkness, but Draco remained there, eyes wide open and unseeing, staring angrily at the night.

His father had gone.

Abandoned his family, without apology, without reason. All he had left to Draco was a brief note saying: When it is time, you will perform your duty.

Draco thought bitterly of his childhood adoration of his father. He had worshipped the ground his father walked on, drunk in every word he said.

What kind of child has Death Eaters invited to their birthday parties?

Draco had grown up around the Death Eaters. He hadn't known them by that name, of course - they had just been the secretive group of men who praised his mother's cooking and withdrew into his father's study for long, grim conversations. They had observed Draco with curiosity and regard. He was precocious, the Malfoy scion who displayed an uncanny aptitude for the Dark Arts. It was chilling, female Death Eaters had remarked, to see the angelic blond child crouching in the gardens with a determined countenance, muttering, "Crucio!" at the garden gnomes. The gnomes would crumple up in agony, and Draco would proudly hand Lucius' wand back to him, beaming at the wary approval his father granted him. By the age of ten, he could resist Imperius for up to five minutes at a time, and by the age of thirteen, could throw it off altogether. Not, of course, that he'd betrayed his ability during his lessons on the Unforgivable Curses in fourth year. When Mad-Eye Moody's impostor had put the Slytherins under the Imperius curse, Draco had calmly obeyed the ridiculous instructions Moody gave him. He had carefully imitated Blaise Zabini's vacant, blissful gaze, turned his robe inside out and hopped around the room on one leg, just as he had been instructed. "Terrible attempt," Moody had grunted.

Draco had no inkling, at the time, that his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was not what he seemed. Even Lucius Malfoy, with his wide network of Death Eater contacts, had known nothing about the impersonation. It was this, more than anything else, thought Draco, which had caused his father to leave so suddenly.

Lucius Malfoy had modestly considered himself to be the de facto leader of the Death Eaters following Voldemort's downfall. Part of the reason for his preeminence was that he'd still managed to remain on the good side of the Ministry. Securing an acquittal had been easy, and his donations to 'good causes' and his sharp mind, at a time when the Ministry had been in need of intelligent men, had effectively smoothed his way into the world of wizarding politics. The ragtag Death Eaters had followed him because he, unlike most of the pathetic lot, seemed to know what he was doing. Moreover, he could easily have increased his prestige by throwing one or two of them into Azkaban, had it suited him.

But now Voldemort, the true leader of the Death Eaters, had returned. And he hadn't bothered to include Lucius Malfoy in his plans - simply carried out the incredible task of his resurrection with only two servants to help him, and then summoned Lucius and the other Death Eaters like so many stray dogs. Voldemort had questioned their loyalty. He'd made it very clear that those who'd risen to prominence in the years of his bodily exile were those he trusted least, because they'd evaded Azkaban and had grown far too comfortable in the wizarding world without him.

Lucius hadn't needed telling twice. He'd returned to Malfoy Manor briefly after that first summoning, and then vanished without trace. Draco had crouched at the top of the grand staircase, listening to his father's terse explanation and his mother's hysterical cries.

-But... but you can't be leaving... I don't understand!

-Of course you don't understand. All you understand are your precious dinner-parties, when you simper at the Ministry officials and their women and prattle about being the mistress of Malfoy Manor. Those people are my enemies, Narcissa. You've never understood that, have you? All these years have been nothing but a preparation for this day, when I can finally join my Master. You... are no longer required.

-How can you do this to us? How can you leave Draco?

-Draco will do what he is told. He isn't a delusional fool like you.

And then his father had gone, leaving Narcissa in a weeping bundle on the threshold of the Manor. Draco had stared aghast at the scene, and then run to his bedroom, unable to face his mother.

Draco will do what he is told...

Draco wasn't exactly privy to any of Voldemort's secret plans. And the severe beating he'd received the last time Lucius had caught him spying on a Death Eater conference had dissuaded him from repeating that trick again for a while. But he had a pretty good idea what Lucius' order would be.

It would be the order Draco had dreaded ever since first year. The order that flashed terrifyingly through his mind every time the Malfoy owl swooped down on him at Hogwarts. The order that would destroy any hope of a happy life for him there.

He was going to have to kill Harry Potter.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's a dungeon. There are no windows anywhere, and the stone walls are slick with moisture. The occasional beetle scuttles through the cracks between the stones and crawls along the floor. Not for long, though - an enormous snake, twelve feet long and as thick as a man, is curled along one wall like a doorstop. Every so often her long, forked tongue flickers out and captures one of the beetles. She likes to let the beetles hurry across the width of her red tongue, seeking escape from their strange carpet, before it flashes back in and she swallows the creature. Whenever a beetle evades her she hisses with anger and advances on it, mesmerising it with those impossibly huge, lidless eyes, before it too disappears into her jaws.

She looks like a doorstop. But there are no doors in this low-roofed dungeon - nothing but the stones, the beetles and the snake. And a row of steel manacles set deep into the long wall opposite her.

Suddenly, a man Apparates into the dungeon. He is small, and covered by a brown cloak. He brandishes a wand and chants some strange words at the wall. A moment, and then the manacles are filled; each one holds the limb of a woman. The women are thin, dirty and covered in rags. A cloud of unkempt silver hair falls to their knees. Some are too tall for the low walls of the dungeon and are forced to stoop painfully, bending as far as their restraints will allow them. Yet for all this, they retain a wild beauty, akin to that of the elegant prowl of a creature of the forests. It is somehow unnatural that such women are trapped.

The snake raises four feet or so of her length into the air, swaying forward with tongue outstretched, and hisses at the women. They hiss back. Somewhat abashed, the snake retreats to her wall, but keeps her head upraised, her eyes warily fixed on the women.

One of the women begins to toss her hair, staring hungrily at the man in the cloak all the while. The motion of her hair is like the silhouettes of birds flying by moonlight. Soon others join her, and the graceful dance of silver tresses fills the dungeon. Entranced, the man begins to move towards the women. They nod reassuringly, eyes shining in invitation.

The snake darts forward and slithers between the man's legs. He trips in her coils, and she raises her head once more and hisses urgently. A green light blazes sharply into the dungeon, and when it has faded, a tall man dressed in black is standing beside the snake. The women cry out in anger and spit at him, straining against their chains. A gesture from the man, and their necks are tightly confined in a new row of manacles. One begins to scream, but her shackle shrinks about her throat until her proud head sags into unconsciousness.

Next, the black-robed figure turns his attention to the short man cowering in the snake's iridescent coils. He ignores the hand the man feebly stretches out, a desperate plea for mercy, and extends his wand...

Harry shuddered violently, and woke up. His scar felt like it was trying to burn a hole through his skull. And after fourth year, he knew very well what that meant.

Voldemort.

I believe it hurts him when Lord Voldemort is close by, or feeling particularly murderous, Dumbledore had said.

Was Voldemort close by? Harry had no idea. He'd been in that dungeon - but where was the dungeon? Harry groaned. The memory of the dream was slipping away, just like dreams always did. Voldemort had been there, or at least he had at the end - that he felt certain about. And there'd been a snake, and Wormtail - Voldemort had been angry at Wormtail towards the end of the dream. He'd been about to punish him. He'd been about to do something pretty dreadful, too; dreadful enough to frighten Harry awake.

Harry smiled grimly. If Voldemort's only feeling particularly murderous towards Wormtail, I think I can handle it.

Harry had had many opportunities over the past year to regret his leniency towards Wormtail. He and Sirius and Professor Lupin had finally caught the man who had murdered Harry's parents, and Harry had stopped the others from killing him. Dumbledore had assured him that he'd done the right thing, but what had been the result? Wormtail had gone free, and the Dementors had nearly killed Sirius. Sirius had been forced to go back into hiding, after spending twelve years in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit. And now Wormtail had resurrected Voldemort.

Harry turned over restlessly in bed. With a little help from me, of course. Voldemort even has the protection my mother gave me now.

The thought of Voldemort gaining the protection that his mother had paid for with her life made Harry feel sick. During his third year, he'd heard his mother's final moments over and over again as the Dementors approached him. He knew the terror she'd faced as she'd died bravely, died for him.... Because of her sacrifice, Harry had survived the Avada Kedavra curse. And now that same protection ran in Voldemort's veins. Who knows if anything can stop him now?

Unable to lie still, Harry got out of bed. He began pacing up and down his bedroom, and then went to his window and yanked the curtains open. When Lord Voldemort is close by. Privet Drive looked fairly normal, as far as Harry could tell; he wasn't usually around to look at it this early in the morning. Still, Harry wished he had his wand with him, just in case that car at the end of the road turned out to be the Dark Lord in a cunning new disguise. But the Dursleys had locked his wand away in the cupboard downstairs. They were too afraid of Sirius not to let Harry have the books he needed to do his homework, but after that incident with Dobby three years ago they knew perfectly well that Harry was prohibited from using his wand outside Hogwarts until he turned eighteen. Still, that wand was the only protection he had against Voldemort. It was what had saved him last time. It...

Harry's breath suddenly grew constricted, as he remembered the moment his wand had connected violently with Voldemort's, both linked by the feathers of Dumbledore's phoenix. It had been so hard, holding onto his wand, as the unearthly light had crept along the joined wands, first towards him, then reluctantly back to Voldemort. Harry hadn't known what the light had meant, only that whatever was happening was postponing his certain death at the hands of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. And then... Cedric had emerged from the wands, pale as a dream, telling Harry to hold on.

Harry pressed his burning forehead against the windowpane.I would never have survived without him. And what did I do for him in return? I brought his body back. I won the Triwizard Tournament, and I came back dragging Cedric's corpse as my trophy.

Harry remembered Cedric's parents. They'd come to visit him when he was in the hospital wing. They'd cared about him. Harry would almost have felt better if they'd attacked him. If they'd grabbed his throat and screamed at him for surviving, and for letting their son, the real Hogwarts Champion, die. They should have accepted the gold Harry had offered them. Accepted it, and hurled each heavy disc at him in turn until he collapsed, bleeding from a thousand cuts, against the wall.

Trying not to think about it, are we? Trying to pretend it hasn't happened?

Harry smiled bitterly. It might have been a first in wizarding history, but Malfoy had been right. Harry had been trying not to think about it, and that did about as much good as showing up to Potions class without a cauldron. It all just spilled over. The guilt and the crushing fear and worse, the growing sense of futility. The casual way in which Voldemort had killed Cedric, as if the best the student body of Hogwarts had to offer was nothing more than a blade of grass to be trampled under his feet.

Harry turned from the window, and began pacing the room again, trying to distract his eyes. All he could see were images of Cedric. The expression on his face at the instant Voldemort had lashed at him with the Killing Curse - his ghostly countenance minutes later, watching Harry with a forgiving concern that Harry could never deserve - the memories of him imprinted in the face of every student at Hogwarts when Dumbledore had given his memorial speech, when Cho had sat motionless at the Ravenclaw table, tears pouring down her cheeks...

Harry's eyes screwed up at the memory. Cho.

If there's one useful thing I can do this year, he swore vehemently, it's to do all I can to make it up to Cho.

Harry understood bereavement. He knew what it was like to understand that evil, possibly the greatest evil that had ever existed, had blotted out the lives of those you loved. He knew the loneliness of the realisation that this injustice could never be packed away into a case of old memories, because it was still there, spreading its vileness through the world. He would do his best to comfort Cho. And, just possibly... she might comfort him.

Harry stopped pacing, and returned to bed feeling calmer. But it took a long time for him to fall asleep again.

* * * * * * * * *

It was a warm afternoon in early September, and Fleur Delacour was in the centre of Muggle London, making her way towards King's Cross station. Her bags were being taken ahead by taxi, but she - had decided she'd rather walk. Soon her train would leave London for Hogwarts. Her task lay ahead of her, and somehow - she wasn't at all certain that she'd return.

So for the moment, she could spend this last three-quarters of an hour walking through Muggle London at a leisurely pace. The sun was pleasantly warm on her pale skin - it was much cooler than the stifling heat of July in Marseilles, when she'd had to apply a Ray-Repellent Charm every morning to protect her delicate complexion. That day, she'd forgotten the Charm and her skin had turned rough and red like a Muggle farmer's. The first time she'd had the chance to look in a mirror afterwards, she'd barely recognised herself - her eyes bloodshot, her face creased and burned and covered with tear-tracks. She'd torn out some ribs of her precious hair, too, and the result was... unbeautiful... the first time she'd ever been unbeautiful, she realised with curiosity.

At the time, this had seemed like the most unimportant thing in the world. Gabrielle's beauty hadn't saved her, had it? And without Gabrielle, nothing mattered. But in the bleak weeks that followed Gabrielle's murder, Fleur had realised that her Veela heritage could be useful after all.

Beauty hadn't saved Gabrielle. But it could avenge her.

Fleur's head snapped to one side, involuntarily, as she fought to escape the memories. She was trying hard to remain focused, to concentrate on the task ahead of her and the facade that she had to present to the world. She had been in Britain for five weeks now, preparing. But those days in July refused to be relegated to her long-term memory. They would strike her, sharp as a knife, at the worst possible moments and destroy the calm front that she had so painstakingly created.

It was on the first of July that Gabrielle didn't return home from school. Usually, of course, the Delacour nanny would walk her home - young Veela, untrained and unable to use their strange appearance to their advantage, were at particular risk in public. Even though the Veela allure was not fully developed in an eight-year old, and even though Gabrielle was only one-quarter Veela... this was Marseilles. It was a dangerous place. So "Tante Christiane" accompanied Gabrielle everywhere when Fleur was away at school and her mother was busy. Until Tante Christiane fell sick.

Lots of girls walk home from school everyday, Gabrielle pleaded. It's only a ten-minute walk, she pointed out. I'll stay with my friends, and everything will be fine, she promised. There's only two days left at school... please?

Everything did go fine the first day. Mme Delacour returned home at her usual time and was treated to the exciting tale of Gabrielle's Walk Home From School. She smiled indulgently at her youngest daughter, and agreed that Gabrielle had shown great maturity in the walk home. Perhaps, she wondered, she had been a little overprotective?

The next day, when Fleur arrived home from Hogwarts at tea-time, the house was empty. Gabrielle should have been home two hours before, but there was no sign of her. Worried, Fleur tried to get in touch with Tante Christiane. But her fireplace had been boarded up.

Fleur Apparated straight to Tante Christiane's house. She shouldn't have done it - she was a month away from taking her test, and unlicensed Apparition could get you splinched - but she was too frantic to care. Nobody was there, and she realised that she hadn't really expected to find anyone. Still dizzy from her first ever Apparition, she Apparated again, this time to her mother's office in the Ministry.

The rest of that night passed by in a confused blur for Fleur. Her mother, collapsed in her chair, looking vacantly at the wall, endlessly repeating her agonised cry of "Ma petite! Ma petite!" The swarm of Ministry officials asking Fleur about Christiane and about Gabrielle's friends from school. And, over and over again, asking about her father. She told them what little she knew of Christiane, and what she knew of her father, which was even less. Sometimes, she could have sworn they were even suspicious of her. Her! The idea was preposterous.

But of course, the next day, that blisteringly hot second of July, the questioning came to an end. Because the Ministry received the ransom note from the young Muggles who held Gabrielle hostage.

Somehow, the Muggles had discovered the location of the Ministry. (From Christiane, who was evidently collaborating with them, some claimed; from Gabrielle herself, others conjectured.) How they had learned of the existence of the wizarding world itself was a subject of much debate, as it was established that none of them had wizards in their immediate families.

The note was quite brief. It demanded, on behalf of the Muggles of France and of the world, the extension of wizarding privileges to all. Magic, it declared, was a commodity that rightfully belonged to humanity, and not merely to that secretive élite which had wrongfully kept knowledge of it from their fellow-citizens. Non-humans - especially dangerous ones like the Veela - should not be permitted to mix freely with humans. The writers of the note were perfectly willing to kill the "disgusting part-human" they had captured, should the Ministry refuse to accede to their demands. And if this failed to convince them... there were billions of Muggles worldwide who might get very angry if the existence of the wizarding world was suddenly announced to them.

Panic spread like wildfire through the Ministry. This had the potential to be the worst disaster to ever befall the wizarding world. It would be impossible, of course, to 'give' magic to the Muggles, as the kidnappers demanded. But neither could the kidnappers be permitted to reveal the existence of the wizarding world to all the Muggles. Powerful as wizards were, they were very much in the minority, and could not hope to defend themselves if the whole Muggle world suddenly turned on them.

The Muggle président was alerted, and a strategy was agreed upon. A secret division of the Muggle police with responsibility for cross-cultural operations was called upon, and together with some Unspeakables from the French Department of Mysteries, they advanced upon the innocuous-seeming apartment block in a suburb of Marseilles, where the Muggle kidnappers held Gabrielle.

The Unspeakables threatened them. After describing the Cruciatus curse and the Dementor's Kiss in lurid detail, they softened their tone, promising the kidnappers safe passage out if they released Gabrielle unharmed. They hoped to confuse and frighten the Muggles, to convince them that they were out of their depth, and should take their chance to escape into normality while they still had it. They told them that their memories would be modified with a Memory Charm, and that they could walk away and never be troubled by wizards again.

The strategy failed spectacularly. All the Unspeakables achieved was to convince the Muggles that they were in the hands of untrustworthy barbarians, powerful and alien, who would not hesitate to subject them to torments they had never before dreamed existed. The kidnappers' plans were in ruins, and they knew they had no chance of alerting the wider world to their plight before the wizards modified their memories - or worse. Twisted with hatred for the wizards who held them pinned, the young Muggles made the only attack they could.

They shot Gabrielle, and themselves immediately afterwards, preferring a normal, human death to the grotesque fantasies the Unspeakables had described to them.

Fleur had awoken at Ministry headquarters some hours later, and they had explained it all to her. How they had done everything they could... a tragedy, certainly, such a young girl, luckily these unfortunate incidents are very rare... the wrong place, the wrong time...They'd looked surprised at how calm Fleur had seemed. She remembered the effort it took just to keep still, while the voices pounded into her and the cold shivers ran through her body, threatening to tear her apart or throw her into a gurgling seizure... but she'd known she had to hold together. Fleur had lain back, twisting a skein of icy hatred into a ball of hard determination, listening to their platitudes.

She had known that nothing like this could ever be allowed to happen again. The world of the wizards had to remain secret, inviolate, and above all, separate. She just hadn't known how on earth to achieve this.

Until he had come for her, two weeks later, and explained everything. It was very simple, really, when you thought about it. There were two worlds. And that was the way it had to stay. And if some people thought otherwise... well, Fleur didn't have much compassion left for those kind of people anymore.

Fleur shook herself out of her reverie. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing that she'd used these last moments of solitude to slip back into those memories, to remind herself of just why she was undertaking this mission. But now - it was time to catch her train.

Without a backwards glance at the Muggle world, Fleur strode into King's Cross station. Outside, wet leaves glistened in the sun, and a young man stared wistfully at the head of shining silver he could just see disappearing through the station doors.