Deeper Than Blood

I don't believe in panic

I don't believe in fear

I don't believe in prophecies

So don't waste any tears

I don't believe reality would be

The way it should

But I believe in fantasy

If you just understood

- Believe, Run Lola Run Soundtrack

Close Encounters of the First Kind

Chapter Eight

"Great, just great."

Seminar for students from all over the world or not, St. Lawrence's did enforce a very strict curfew for the students not staying in one of the many hotels St. Louis had to offer.

Draco was unlucky enough to find this out the hard way.

He stood at the bottom of a very large brick wall surrounding the first few floors of Trenton Hall, where the young men who attended St. Lawrence's for any reason at all slept. The building was expansive--eight floors of nothing but tiny cubicles containing two boys each. Two slat beds, two smallish desks, two lamps, and too many rats to count: every dormitory's paradise. On the inside, it looked as though it had never passed up the year 1940. Everything was dark, grim, and strangely musty, with the smell of being lived-in always present. Breathing, chatter, music, noise in general--it all mixed into one unequivocally present roar. The lull, combined with the never-ending humidity, was enough to drag anybody into an incoherent stupor.

Outside, it just looked like an impregnable fortress forged from pitted, grey stone. Which, Draco discovered, was most certainly not an illusion after eleven o'clock at night. All three sets of heavy iron doors were locked with bolts and magic, and it thoroughly looked like the attendant on duty wasn't answering the courtesy phone located outside. There was simply nobody to let him in.

Well, mate, he thought to himself as he stood aglow in the amber effulgence of a nearby streetlight, you could always go get a hotel for the night. However, he didn't think that hotels in the area technically accepted Galleons or Sickles, wizarding or not. In the Midwestern United States, they seemed to enjoy using foreign Muggle currency, and from what Draco gathered, purely wizard establishments were hard to come by in this part of the city. St. Lawrence's, as he had come to understand, functioned as an oasis in the middle of a be-Muggled world.

Draco cursed under his breath and checked his watch. It was nearing midnight, he was out in a foreign place--alone--and he was seven kinds of exhausted. The meeting with yet another mysterious benefactor of Voldemort's had taken a lot more than he had expected from him, especially after the liquor and brandy had been brought into the parlour. As a guest and a Death Eater-to-be, he was expected to have at least one, even though he tried to avoid alcohol. Alcohol was what made Lucius a demon on nights that he consumed too much. One glass had turned into another glass, and then yet another.

So here he was, a bit tipsy, a little lost, and definitely locked out of the room he had been staying in for only a day and half.

"You know, you're lucky you've got somebody looking out for you."

He didn't have to turn to recognise the voice; two years of playing back-to-back on the same Quidditch team, and shouting insults at each other the whole time, definitely meant that he knew how to recognise the voice of Malcolm Baddock when he heard it.

However, that didn't make him a happy man when he did recognise the voice.

Now, he swung about a little crazily with the liquor in his blood stream making him totter the slightest bit, and glared with every scrap of dignity he possessed. "What are you doing here?"

Baddock had been leaning back in the shadows, black Muggle clothing enabling him to blend in easily. Draco could clearly make out the slightest tremors of a smirk quaking about the corner of his lips, even though half of the other young man's face was obscured by the shadows that hid him so effectively. "Didn't you know? I've been sent to St. Louis to...watch your back. Your father feels that you're going to screw it up somehow, so I'm here."

"My father feels." Draco actually snorted. "Didn't know you were such a ruddy comedian." He eyed the other young man angrily and snorted again. "You look like a bloody Muggle." Not really sure as to what he was doing, he reached one hand out and grabbed a protruding stone above his head. He released the outcropping long enough to remove his sports-jacket and fling that into a silken pile at the base of the wall. Grabbing up the outcropping once again, he pulled his weight up. "Since you're here, make yourself useful. Climb!"

Baddock's expression turned to amusement when Draco nearly slipped and tumbled from the wall. "After you," he said graciously, watching Draco inch up. After a couple of minutes, he began his own rocky path up the side of Trenton Hall, a wall which had been undoubtedly climbed by boys of all ages since the 1940's. Unlike Draco, his blood was mostly blood and didn't contain any vile toxic chemicals, enabling him to climb much easier. There were a couple of near-misses during the second floor involving a pigeon and what Baddock believed later to be a hallucination, but they actually reached Draco's windowsill in one piece.

"Alohamora," Draco slurred, and pushed the window open. He tumbled in, followed shortly by Baddock.

"Draco?"

This was just the night for surprises, Draco thought ungraciously as he stood up and brushed off the expensive pants. Why did everything have to happen when he was tipsy, for the love of Midas? He squinted into the darkness for the telltale glimmer of red, and found it sitting at his desk--in the dark. "What are you doing in here?" The question was mainly forged from curiosity, but it came out sounding slurred and grouchy. Draco stretched out one long, pale arm, and flicked the lamp-switch.

Ginny blinked owlishly at him. It was obvious that she had fallen asleep at his desk, for her eyes were unfocused and her hair was tousled. There were bright red marks across her forehead from the fabric of her sleeves, and her arms were still folded over the books on which she fallen asleep. Still, despite the mussed and unfocused appearance, she was lucid enough to say, "You just climbed a wall while sloshed, didn't you?"

"And what great fun it was," Baddock said, climbing to his own feet and scowling in Draco's direction. He actually froze at the sight of Ginny, before rounding angrily on Draco. "You consort with Gryffindors?! And--and--Weasleys?"

Exhaustion nearly toppled Draco into the slat bed as he took in the wild range of personas in his dormitory room in the middle of the bloody United States of bloodier America, with too much liquor in his stomach, a newly-climbed wall on his record, and more explaining than he cared to do in store. He shook his head at this predicament and crossed back to the window. "Accio Jacket!" Once the jacket was crumpled up in a pile at the foot of his bed, he turned to Baddock. "Baddock, meet Ginny Weasley. Ginny, this is the bloke that has been the personal pain in my ruddy posterior for the past ten years. We met when I was seven, if you'll believe it. He's only got more annoying since."

"Says the prat," Baddock snorted, taking a seat on the other bed. Draco was pleased to notice that he looked as worn out as the Malfoy heir felt. "Since when do you associate with Weasleys?"

Ginny had been silent during this exchange, but now she spoke up. "He doesn't associate with most Weasleys. I'm different." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Baddock, and Draco found himself increasingly grateful that he had done nothing to incur that look in the past two days. It was Wednesday night, two nights after the day that he had asked Ginny to go to dinner with him. That was plenty of time for him to stick his foot into his mouth and even swallow it, but he had done no such thing. "What are you doing here?"

Baddock's shrug was insolent. "Got nothing better to do. What about you?"

"I'm here on a Hogwarts scholarship."

There was a dull thud as Draco's body finally hit the mattress. He closed his eyes, wishing the world would stop spinning. Had he been aware that he resembled a train wreck, he would have undoubtedly cast some sort of temporary glamour. "I don't mean to sound rude, Gin, but you never did say what you were doing in my room."

"Liz smuggled me in so that I could talk to you about tomorrow." Ginny glanced at Baddock, obviously not wanting to discuss her entire reason in front of him. "Do you know where Fawkes is?"

Now Draco opened one eye. "How should I know where he is? Bloody bird's been following me everywhere--it's creepy, I tell you."

While most people would have been annoyed at his rather stiff mood, Ginny just smiled and shook her head. "I'll leave it on your desk, then, and talk to you tomorrow. You will be eating lunch with the rest of us, right?"

Draco's answer was an empty shrug. "Should be."

"All right, then. I'll see you tomorrow. It was...nice...meeting you...Malcolm, was it?" Ginny glanced questioningly between Baddock and Draco, but Draco was now turned away from her, half-asleep.

"Call me 'Baddock.' Everybody does." Baddock's tone was grudging, as though he couldn't help but like Ginny.

"All right. Baddock, then. Good night, boys." And with that, Ginny stepped out, leaving the note she had mentioned on the desk.

Draco turned over and watched the door swing shut with an unreadable expression. "I shouldn't be getting her into this," he told Baddock, and then rolled over once more, turning his back to the other boy. He was not interested in starting heartfelt conversations with bratty Baddock. "If either of us is going to get any sleep, better turn out that lamp."

"You think?" were the last words he heard before he drifted off to sleep, ironically before the lamp was turned off.

*

Severus Snape turned irritably as the door to the Potions classroom opened, but the face melted away easily once he saw the form of the Headmaster standing in the doorway. "Albus," he greeted almost warily, always reverent of the man who had pulled him from so many predicaments. "You're just in time to see the outcome of my research. Miss Granger's letter confirms it all indeed."

Albus Dumbledore moved into the scant light of the dungeon, the cane that he carried in the summer always tap-tapping in front of him like an unwanted friend. It made him feel older, he claimed, so he hardly carried it around when the students were at Hogwarts. Their youth helped buoy him against the onslaught of old age. "Have you now, Severus?" he asked slowly, looking up at the blackboard. Instead of potions ingredients, it listed a very odd assortment of symbols. "And has your research proved what we have felt all along?"

Severus pushed irascibly at the nagging feeling that started at the base of his throat. "Yes, yes, of course. Down to the very last prediction." He moved to the left portion of the chalkboard, where a great number of insensible drawings littered across the plane in apparently random effect. "If Miss Granger's letter proves true, it was indeed a variant of Arigone's most popular ritual that they used in creating the heir."

Wise blue eyes drank in the drawings. "What makes you say it was a variant, Severus? I'm not doubting you, but we can't entirely disclose the actual ritual itself from this equation."

"The variables," and here Severus tapped a pentagon encircling a sixth point in the centre, "just don't fit the actual ritual. If we were to, erm, mutate the ritual, then they would be nothing but a perfect fit." He tapped a parallelogram now, with two identical points of the centre. "Given the fact that one of the ritual members was dead before the ritual even happened, and then the rest were too young to speak, much less chant, I'd have to say that it would be impossible to use without voodoo magic--which is imprecise as it is."

"And here I was, thinking that your speciality was Potions," Albus remarked drolly, a lingering half-smile on his face present even as he looked over the equations. "So have you figured out who the variables are?"

For this, Severus moved to the right half of the chalkboard, his dusty fingers trailing along the drawings until he located a cluster of several. "If I've given myself large enough of a margin of error--and I'm inclined to think that I did--I'd have to say that these symbols right here represent the different participants in the ritual."

There were six figures in all, the most any Arithmancist had been able to draw for years. Most were only able to figure out the given variable, which was the Lover. "The Lover is female, yes?" Albus asked, studying the symbol. "Red hair, fiery disposition...hm, indeed." He smiled almost nostalgically. "This should be an interesting summer."

"If events play out as they should, it will be more than interesting," Severus promised dourly, his pasty face set quite nastily. "One of them is bound to destroy this ritual entirely. My wager is on Miss Granger. They'll all be dead for sure."

"Our esteemed Head Girl, Severus? Surely you're taking the ancient Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry too far," Albus suggested mildly, not in the least put out by the Potion Master's dire predictions.

Severus pulled at his lip, an old habit from his school days. "You can't deny it, Albus. She may be the cleverest witch to come through this school since perhaps Rowena Ravenclaw herself, but she freezes up under pressure. Is it possible for her to blindly follow a pre-set destiny? I highly doubt it."

Now Albus's smile turned towards inner amusement. "And you're positive that you're not holding a grudge, seeing as she defeated your logic test as a mere first-year?"

Head tilted fractiously, Severus eyed his old mentor with something akin to dislike. "Did I not just say that she's quite the exceptional student, Albus?" he asked, his tone annoyed. Seeing nothing similar to indemnity in the Headmaster's wrinkled face, he let out a sigh. "Very well, Albus. If you have faith in the girl, then I do so as well. Let's hope that you aren't forced to eat your own words."

"Nothing tastes as foul as one's own words," Albus acknowledged with a nod. "Now, explain the Mentor to me...I fear I just don't see how this is possible..."

*

"Do you mind?"

Up until that point, Meg had been perched very studiously over some kind of textual handbook, her reading glasses slipping slowly down her long nose. She pushed them back up as she looked over at him, her expression cross. Draco just looked back at her, his own expression curious. "You're tapping again," she pointed out.

Draco looked down at the culprit--his foot--as Liz let out a muffled snicker from her own chair. The three of them were waiting in the lounge at the end of Ginny's floor, a room spotted with a hodgepodge assembly of old, dilapidating couches and armchairs. Liz was sitting sideways in an armchair, legs slung over one side and back resting against the other. She was reading another handbook. "Leave him alone, Meg, he's nervous!"

"I'm not--" Draco began.

"She just hates it when people tap their feet like that," Liz explained with a smile, cutting him off. She buried herself in the pages of her book and pretended not to notice his irate look. He was not nervous--his early lunch just wasn't agreeing with him, that was all. Yes, that was it. Unconsciously, his leg started to jiggle again, forcing the heel of his nice shoe to click against the ground rhythmically.

"If you don't stop that," Meg swore, "I'm going to castrate you with a pair of dull scissors!"

Draco stopped. Quickly.

"You're lucky," Liz observed without looking up from her book. "Last time it was her dead great-grandmother's rusty old garden-shears."

Draco looked from one American to the other, wondering if they had secretly abducted Ginny into their sisterhood. Never had any girl back in Britain promised to remove his masculinity with an instrument her great-grandmother had once used for a daily chore. America just seemed to provide an entirely new breed of witches, and Draco wasn't sure if he liked the saucy attitude they presented in contrast to the traditional British attitude. But wasn't that the reason he liked Ginny to begin with? She was different than any of the witches back home, wasn't she? Draco suppressed a smile; Ginny was definitely a far cry from anybody like Pansy Parkinson or that horrible Lavender Brown from Gryffindor.

His smile quickly turned into a frown as he glanced at his watch. "What's taking her so long?" he asked impatiently, knowing that the Greys wouldn't wait long for the pair of them.

"Make them wait," Liz said as she turned a page. "It's a girl's greatest secret."

"Liz!" Meg looked scandalised, as though Liz had shared some great occultist conspiracy and betrayed all womankind. Draco looked from one to the other, confused and not willing for either of them to know about it.

Liz snorted audibly. "Oh, come on, Meg. Even though men are clueless, after centuries of this trick, one of them is bound to pick it up!" Draco shifted at the defamation of his gender, but allowed himself to smile distractedly as Meg stuck her tongue out at Liz in a very mature move. There was really nothing he could say in defence to his gender. It was no wonder why Ginny had picked this pair to befriend; they were humorous and overly silly, but strangely mature in their own way. Hogwarts girls tended to prove themselves to be empty-headed and dull before the second date. Meg and Liz could keep Draco laughing for hours. However, right now, he had other things to do.

"Can one of you go get her? We do have an appointment to keep up," Draco said, wondering if he were breaching etiquette by enlisting outside help to break the wait. "I know it's tradition and all..."

Meg snickered, much to Draco's irritation. He fidgeted again, sitting up straighter and moving his legs so that the backs of his feet rested against the couch. "Oh, we're just pulling your leg, you know. You're making yourself a very easy target."

"Well, thank you." Not sure how he should take this unrequited teasing, Draco just settled for being politely distant. "Now, can one of you please go get her? We're on a tight schedule, and the whole deal may fall through if we're late. That's the sort of people we're dealing with tonight."

"All right." Meg made a show of stretching luxuriously and sauntering down the hallway. Draco scowled after her, wondering exactly how she could afford to be so nonchalant about the whole deal. The Greys, an old wizarding couple that had fled to the United States some decades before, were distantly related to Draco through his mother's side of the family. That would not give Draco any leeway for tardiness, he knew, for his mother's side of the family was always prompt and polite. Draco had been severely chastised on his last visit to his grandparents' manor for being thirty seconds late for breakfast.

They were still apparently very bitter that their sweet little Narcissa had married the 'derelict' Lucius Malfoy, and that Draco had resulted. Perhaps they saw him as just another layabout, fully eager and willing to fall into the footsteps of both his father and Voldemort.

Draco let out a soft snort at how wrong they all were.

The sound of approaching footsteps made him glance up sharply. While Liz chuckled quietly at him, he watched the arching doorway, a cold sweat blossoming across his forehead and along the back of his neck. This waiting trick was far too effective for it's own right. Feeling far more aggravated than he had felt possible, he stood up.

"May I present," Meg cried, springing through the door, "a Miss Guinevere Weasley!"

"It's Ginny, you twit!" Ginny appeared in the same doorway, glaring at Meg in frustration.

All notions of punctuality flew from Draco's mind, leaving nothing but a stuttering vacuum behind. For a moment, he felt too incompetent to do naught but stare. She was there, she had not walked out on him, she was looking hard at Meg, and she was beautiful. He felt as though somebody had socked him in the stomach, and nothing existed there anymore. Breathing had suddenly become unnecessary. Outwardly, he knew that the black dress she had managed to find was simply cut, and not very extravagant as far as dresses went. But his two selves were in accordance about one thing: Ginny made the dress look like it should be worn by no lesser than the goddess Aphrodite.

Everything existed in a tunnel, it seemed, with Draco at one end and Ginny kilometres away at the other. At that moment, she was turned partially away from him, laughing at something one of her friends had said. He did not care; his eyes did not move from where they were fastened wholly on her face, radiant from her inner glow...

Just as his eyes moved down the porcelain slope of her neck, she turned her head the barest of angles and caught his smile with hers. She did not seem to notice that he was stunned by her every movement, which was, Draco reflected to himself, probably a good thing. Malfoys were never supposed to be love-struck fools, after all. Hurriedly breaking his trance in the wake of that thought, Draco straightened his tie and moved over to where the three girls had gathered.

Malfoys also did not date Weasleys. So why did he care?

I don't, he told himself in a stern voice, and smiled widely at her. "You look absolutely breathtaking," he offered with all sincerity. Distantly, he heard giggling: Meg, no doubt.

The best thing about Ginny's smile was that it lit up from the inside, starting around her eyes and slowly encompassing her face in a steady glow. Draco had heard about such radiance before--as a child, he had never been above picking up whatever highly romanced magazine his mother was reading and drinking in a few pages--but never before had he believed it existed. Now he reached out to touch one of the curls of red that had already escaped from the bun she had pulled her hair into. "You're almost too beautiful," he whispered more to himself.

The flush that he would tire of rose in full force, but her voice was surprisingly level as she said, "Thank you," as though young men in elegant suits complimented her every day.

"Does he have a brother?" Meg asked Ginny, drawing a none-too-gentle nudge from Liz and a bemused smile from Ginny.

"No, only child," Draco answered for her, still playing with the curl. His expression turned thoughtful as his hand stopped moving. For the briefest moment, he was reminded of his first taste of red wine: how the wine had sparkled like nothing else when held up to the light. Ginny's hair colour, while not identical the rest of her family's, was rather unique (excepting Meg), and would stand out like a beacon. It would not take much for Voldemort to trace her on just her hair colour alone. He cleared his throat and released the tendril. "Would you be terribly offended if I asked you to change your hair colour for a few hours?"

Liz made a noise in the back of her own throat. "It does stand out," she told Meg, who looked scandalised that Draco would dare ask such a question. "Perhaps, if you'd let me, Gin, I could hue it down a bit."

"Would you?" Ginny asked gratefully. Obviously, her quick mind had quickly worked out why exactly Draco felt the need to change her hair colour. "Luckily, I was stuck with plain brown eyes--nothing standing out there."

Although Draco wanted to protest that he liked her eyes, he knew that Meg would just twitter over that. While he liked Ginny's new friends, he tended to dislike twittering. It reminded him too much of his mother trying to play Super-Mother, a sickening game in its own right. He opted to wait patiently as Liz withdrew her wand from its specialised holster and muttered a hair-changing charm, slowly darkening Ginny's hair to a medium brunette. "Come find me first thing in the morning, and I'll remove it," Liz promised, holstering her wand. "Now, you two kids go out and have fun. If I hear the pair of you have been drinking, there'll be hell to pay--drinking age here is twenty-one!"

"Yes, mother," Meg replied for the pair, prompting chuckling all around. "Now, c'mon, Mom, you're going to help me with my notes on diaries." She started to usher Liz from the room, but stopped before they reached the doorway. "Be careful," she warned Draco and Ginny in a low voice. Before either had time to reply, however, the Americans had ambled from the room and out of sight.

"Well," Draco said in the wake of silence the pair left behind, "that was interesting. You certainly choose very odd people to befriend."

"No stranger than the young man that trips over himself asking me on a date, and walks in with so much self-confidence that I wonder if he's hiding something," Ginny pointed out mildly, taking his arm and starting to pull him towards the staircase. The glow had faded to a mere light of amusement in her eyes, Draco noted with some disappointment. Although he was entranced by the sight of that glow, he would have to make do with that.

"It's the suit," he told her, tugging on a lapel with a free hand. "Much as I spent most of my Hogwarts career trying to prove I was made of bigger stuff than I was, I'm more than liable to trip over myself and cause a scene than you know."

Ginny actually wrinkled her nose, but it did nothing to ruin the charm her face still held. Whenever his mother scowled, or made expressions like that, they were ugly and out of place. On Ginny, they were just sincere, even on the days when she was trapped in her own pessimism. Luckily, those days were few and far between. Meeting Liz and Meg had been kind of a therapy for her. "You're being awfully flippant about that," she remarked now. "Doesn't it bother you at all? I mean, you hated Gryffindors, and suddenly, you're taking me to--where is it we're going?"

"The Maison du Magique," Draco supplied easily, eager to draw the conversation away from where it was hurling. "It's in New Orleans, so we'll have to catch a portkey."

"House of Magic. How appropriate." Ginny paused. "Wait, New Orleans?"

"Yes--it's quite a ways south of here." Draco held the door open and blinked into the late afternoon sunlight. "I always forget how bright it is out here. It's the same time in New Orleans, so this dinner will be an early one." Even as he talked, he removed a small box from his pocket and showed her the portkey, a rose pin that he had picked up in an old antique shop. Because they had both been raised in the wizarding world, neither needed any preamble; they touched the portkey at the same time, and were off.

*

The fires had barely died down to a guttural cacophony of popping embers and the last cracklings of nearly spent wood as the figures made their way into the parlour room. There were five, two especially tall, one short and stocky, and two of medium builds that claimed no importance. Shadows from the expiring flames, combined with the cumbersome dark robes that adorned all five, succeeded in hiding the identity of any of the members to any phantom hiding within.

Grunting an apology, one of the taller members separated himself from the group to stoke the flames with his wand. Instantly, the room brightened in colour, but darkened in spirit as the slumped, defeated postures of the group became more obvious. The owner of the parlour was the first to remove his mask. Lucius Malfoy's cold, haughty face sneered out at the rest of the coterie as he slowly shucked off the black gloves that hid pale hands from any of the Muggle victims. "I trust you've all made timely arrivals from your assorted tasks, gentlemen?"

The short and stocky man, revealed by the removal of his mask to be Peter Pettigrew, moved immediately to a sideboard. "Assigned tasks, Lucius? Most of us had the night off--your call interrupted my sleep." He returned with a tray of port and glasses, eyebrows raised at the master of Malfoy Manor. "I trust it's important?"

"Asleep at eleven o'clock, Wormtail?" Demetrius Reginald, a close confidante of Lucius Malfoy, jeered mockingly. "My, that's keeping the spirit of evil on its toes. Do you read yourself a bedtime story before you go to sleep, rat?"

Victor Crabbe gave Wormtail a warning look before the shorter man could start anything. "We agreed not to fight even outside of our master's company," his low voice rumbled with caution, as though Voldemort was indeed listening to him at that very moment. Big-boned, but never heavyset, he was handsome in a Germanic sort of way. He played the political court while Lucius kept everybody well funded. "Demetrius, keep that forked tongue behind your teeth for now."

Beside him, his long-time best friend Gunther Goyle, grunted an agreement. "Malfoy, what have you called us here for? I'm still under Ministry-surveillance, you know. I can't just pop in and out like the old days. They'll start to suspect if I take too long."

"You'll hardly have to worry about that tonight," Lucius told him coolly. "Lord Voldemort has taken some of the new recruits out on a raid."

"Mere babes that quiver at the sight of blood, I wouldn't doubt," Demetrius remarked disparagingly, black eyes flickering over at Crabbe and Goyle once. Lucius wondered idly if Crabbe was going to receive any retaliation for his warning words to Demetrius. Hopefully, the sinister Death Eater would be too busy with the upcoming assignment to focus on making Crabbe's life less than pleasant. "But I digress. Are we here to discuss the situation with Luca, Malfoy?"

Lucius's cold face twisted into a superior smirk not unlike the one every Malfoy had adorned since the beginning of time. He accepted the glass of port that Wormtail held out, and swished that around in the glass while he pondered his answer. "No. Our mission tonight has only to do with the boy. Draco."

Crabbe looked at him suspiciously. "Don't you mean--"

"He means Draco, fool!" Demetrius hissed, cutting him off. The serpentine Death Eater straightened quite irritably. "You know better than to discuss plans like this so openly, Crabbe. Now shut your trap, and listen!"

Goyle gave Demetrius a threatening look, but was willing to let the harsh words drop on the occasion of Lucius's imminent news. Demetrius gave him a short glare in return. His eyes flicked momentarily over the still-silent fifth member, the recently dishonoured Damien Baddock. Lucius, following his gaze, could hardly stop his sneer. The only reason that the Damien the Failure was still alive was his son--and he'd done little to treat the goods with respect, Lucius knew. He'd seen the way the Baddock boy cowered in front of his father.

Not that Lucius was an ideal role model. But Draco would thank him for it one day.

"Tomorrow begins what we hope will be the final rise of the Greatest Dark Lord of all time. Lord Voldemort himself has Divined this day," Lucius announced, assured that he had the attention of the entire group. "And we, gentlemen, are going to be just the lords to deliver that power into his hands. Preparations for the boy have already been made, and are just waiting for you, Demetrius and Wormtail, to be dispatched to America. Should things in this meeting go well, you will be leaving within the next half-hour."

Wormtail looked slightly stunned that he was going to make such a long trip, when he had only been expecting perhaps a casual drink with colleagues. Demetrius's face showed nothing but a mephitic half-smile. "Here's to hoping," he said, raising the glass of port that Wormtail had just passed to him. "Is it just the boy?"

"And my son," Damien said, finally speaking. "He's fled over there--for what reasons, I have no idea. I was not aware that they were friendly, your son and mine, Lucius."

Lucius eyed him opaquely. "They aren't." That was enough to quiet the blathering fool's comments. "You're to train your son, you know that. Geena knew that. We haven't the time--"

"Geena's dead, or haven't you got the memo?" Damien snapped sarcastically, rising to his feet. He was a man of rather average proportions; perhaps the most striking thing about him was his ponytail. "I never wanted my son involved."

"You had little choice, didn't you?" Demetrius hissed, effectively shutting the shorter man up. "Fate doesn't look at the wishes of the parent--I could tell you that better than most." His own son had been lost in the first siege of Voldemort's a fact of which Demetrius was both proud and regretful. "What your son is--it's not something that could be helped, as I'm sure you're aware." He fixed the ruined man with the iciest Malfoy glare he could muster. "If you'll be so kind as to stifle that obnoxious trap of yours until your orders are assigned."

Damien did so, obviously sulking.

"Goyle, you and Crabbe will need to prepare the chamber. We've discussed this before, have we not?" Lucius looked from one face to another, seeing understanding in only one. "Oh, well, Goyle, be sure to fill Crabbe in." A nod was enough to assure him, and he turned back to the matter at hand. "Now, gentlemen, I will explain in very clear detail what is about to happen..."

*

Business dinners were very boring, Ginny found out the hard way.

The restaurant--the Maison Du Magique--was a very nice one, possibly the classiest place she had set foot in since the time she had been dragged to dinner with the Minister of Magic with her father as a small child. They were on a terrace off of the main ballroom, a pleasant area that smelled of scented candles. It was cool even in the muggy Louisiana heat, for the restaurant proprietors obviously used several cooling spells. If she craned her neck slightly, Ginny could get a very breathtaking view of New Orleans at its fullest. Faint music from the verandas below trickled to her ears, providing an ample backdrop for the rather stale conversation. How Draco wasn't bored, she would never know.

The Greys were nice enough people, she had found out from the start. Of course, Lana Grey bore a striking resemblance to Narcissa Malfoy (whom Ginny had seen at the Quidditch Cup before her third year), but that was only in appearance. She was a rather kind old woman, not directly grandmother material, but one could tell that she loved both her son and her husband. Hector Grey was not so kindly, but he was certainly not impolite. Geoffrey Grey, their only son, had accompanied them. He was maybe a year older than Draco, but nowhere as tall or lanky. No, Geoffrey Grey had what Ginny would describe as a charmingly normal face, with evenly spaced blue eyes and sandy hair. He looked like a younger, less gruff version of his father.

Lana's charm had lasted through most of the salad, and then the soup courses, but it had slowly died out as Draco and Hector started to talk business. Most of the terms that they were using flew right over Ginny's head, so she answered Lana's enquiries politely, and even conversed with Geoff. He had been a student at St. Lawrence's, but he was studying at, oddly enough, the Magical University of Illinois. His major, he told Ginny, was Divination, with a minor in Arithmantic Studies.

"Isn't that contradictory?" Ginny had asked, quite surprised. "Divination is so imprecise--"

Geoff laughed quietly, taking care not to interrupt his father's conversation. It was obvious that he was used to such dinners, although he hardly seemed like the type that would support the Death Eating cause. "No, no, what I hope to do is study the fields, not practice them. I've often found Diviners to be utter fruit bats," and a picture of Professor Trelawney came so strongly into Ginny's mind that she was forced to stifle a giggle, "or problematic children. I want to study the genetics of it all. What makes a Diviner?"

"Now you've started him," Lana remarked with a small smile. "He won't shut up for hours. Why don't you two take a spin on the dance floor and talk about that there? I'm sure Draco won't mind."

Draco looked up with interest at his name, and glanced fleetingly at Geoff. "Shouldn't be a problem," he said, shifting his gaze to Ginny. The ice-grey seemed to be chipped with blue flakes, slightly wider than usual. Ginny blinked at him, but he did not appear to notice. "I'll just finish up here, and steal my date back then."

Geoff actually grinned at Draco, which very few people outside of Slytherin did. He and Draco had really hit it off at the beginning of the dinner, talking about minor differences between British and American Quidditch. Hector had cut that conversation short just as Ginny was beginning to get interested. Now Geoff clapped Draco on the shoulder, making the other boy jump. "Don't need to worry about my intentions, or anything. I'm engaged--my fiancée will be here in about twenty minutes. She herself had a meeting to attend, about her team. I'm sure you'd like her--she plays Keeper for the Sacramento Bees."

That explained the empty space in between Geoff and his mother, then. Ginny glanced at Draco, and was amused to find the slightest amount of relief present on his features. Jealous prat, she thought affectionately, and followed Geoff out into the main ballroom.

This was evidently a very popular establishment, for the dance floor was very full of couples foxtrotting this way and tangoing that. "You have to love the wizarding style of dancing," Geoff remarked ruefully as a couple tangoed by them, very flamboyantly. The man had a rose, thorns and all, clutched in his teeth in a very cheesy imitation of Muggles. "I think this beat's good for a simple waltz, though. Probably lucky for me--I've got two left feet."

"Better than having three," Ginny remarked as they started to waltz. She was only about an inch shorter than Geoff, surprisingly. He had seemed a lot taller while they were at the table. "At least, that's what my brother says. He'd be very interested in your major, I think. He actually liked Divination."

"You've got a brother, then?" Geoff asked curiously, leading her easily in the waltz despite his supposed two left feet.

Ginny opened her mouth, about to answer that she had six older brothers, but decided against that very quickly. She was Ginny Martin for the evening, not Ginny Weasley. They had given her an ambiguously pureblooded family name, in fear that the Greys might recognise the Weasley name. "Yes, I've got two older brothers. Percy and Bill. I haven't seen Bill in years," she lied. "Percy's the one that likes Divination."

"Sounds like a smart guy," Geoff joked.

"Oh, he is!" Ginny said before she could stop herself. "He was Head Boy at our school, and if he could have kept going with school, he would have. Magic's not the same over in Britain. Hogwarts is the highest level of education we have."

"Oh, I'm sure magic is the same, but the school systems aren't." That naturally kicked off a conversation involving the differences between British and American magical systems, down to the functions of the Governor of Magic, and the Minister of Magic. "Ministers belong in churches over here," Geoff joked when Ginny mentioned Cornelius Fudge. "We've got a Governor that controls everything for the quadrant, and he's got a Deputy Governor. There are four Governors in the country--and it's a rare day indeed when they agree. But your system does sound very quaint."

Before their conversation could become too highly political, somebody tapped Ginny on the shoulder, and a smooth soprano asked, "Excuse me, could I please cut in?"

Ginny turned to see a shorter brunette woman in a very fancy ball gown smiling up at her a bit hesitantly. She had only the impression of very dark eyes, and a stringy build before Geoff said, "Oh! Jackie, you're here! Ginny, this is my fiancée Jacqueline Duvall. Jackie, this is the British witch that accompanied my father's business partner, Ginny Martin."

"Business partner?" Jackie's smile faltered just enough to let Ginny know that the Keeper obviously did not approve of most of Hector Grey's business partners. Still, her handshake was firm, which could only be expected from a professional Quidditch player. "As in...?"

"Draco's just here on business for his father," Ginny said hastily. "I accompanied him because we attend the same school back home, and it's always good to have a familiar face about." She hoped that Jackie would buy that excuse, and wondered for the briefest of moments if she should have played clueless.

Jackie's full smile returned. "Well, then. Sorry if I caused any bad vibes. It was very nice meeting you, Jenny." Even though the American witch had butchered her name, Ginny replied that it had been a pleasure to meet Jackie as well, and fled. The Quidditch player had such a presence that it was almost overwhelming. The only person that Ginny had met anything like her was Cho Chang, Harry's old crush. Ginny had been overwhelmed by the girl at the time, too.

She found Draco before she could return to the table with Greys, luckily enough. He was standing at the edge of the dance floor, obviously searching for her. The sight of Draco Malfoy fidgeting stopped her in her tracks, but she hurried to gather her pace when he spotted her. "There you are! My business with Mr. Grey is finished, so we're free to leave whenever we want." Before Ginny could respond, he reached up and stroked a stray lock of her hair. "I'm sorry, but it is very odd to see you with any hair colour but red."

"I haven't looked in the mirror yet," Ginny said honestly, wrinkling her nose up at him. "How's it look?"

"Liz is very good with complexions, but it just doesn't do you justice." A smile appeared so quickly that Ginny nearly stared. Underneath all of the Malfoy charm and polish, Draco actually had a crooked smile, which looked nothing but breathtaking on him. Now Ginny knew why Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown always swooned at the sight of wizards with smiles like that. Those smiles were downright dangerous!

Ginny forced herself to remember to breathe as Draco asked, "So, do you want to go now? They won't miss us. See? The elder Greys already left. Geoff's already wrapped up in his fiancée, so he certainly won't notice we're gone."

He wasn't lying, Ginny found out as she looked at Geoff, who was almost slack-jawed in awe towards Jackie. She smiled, wondering if Jackie knew what she had in Geoff. She certainly hoped so. "Do we have to go back so soon? I haven't seen you all week, and there's hardly a Prefect's Bathroom where the two of us can meet," she found herself saying.

Draco chewed the corner of his lip. "I think there's a coffee shop across the street. Fancy a cup of hot, bad American coffee? I warn you, the stuff's not very good."

"They don't have tea here?" Ginny asked, eyebrows rising as she allowed Draco to lead her away from the dance floor.

"Well, they do--but it's even worse than the coffee..."

He wasn't lying, Ginny found out quickly. The coffee shop across the street was definitely a Muggle affair, but Draco had remembered to bring a few American dollars. Perhaps the coffee shop attendant gave him a few strange looks after he had ordered and shoved a wad of bills at him, but Draco took no notice. He and Ginny were soon situated at a corner booth in the rather dark building, clutching cups of bad coffee like lifesavers. "So, did you have any fun at all during the dinner?" Draco asked conversationally, daring to take a sip of the vile concoction.

Ginny inspected a funny-coloured stain on the table with some interest. It looked like a Smelling Solvent gone sour. "They were almost too nice to be Death Eaters," she remarked. "Geoffrey was very interesting, for sure. We talked about the different types of governments. Did you know that they have governors here, instead of Ministers?"

Draco nodded to show that he did indeed know how the American politics of wizardry functioned. "Father's explained them time and again. He thinks I'm following his rather absurd position in the Ministry."

"Oh? And what do you plan to do?" Ginny asked with some interest. "Play Quidditch?"

"Coach it, maybe. Some of the best coaches in the league have been Slytherins." Draco's eyes acquired a far-off gaze for the briefest flicker. He seemed to land back on earth in the dismal coffee shop rather quickly, though. "Do you ever feel like you're being watched for every second of your life? Like every second."

The question came from seemingly nowhere and, startled, it took Ginny more than a minute to answer. "I don't know," she said slowly, looking from the stain on the table to the unreal blue of Draco's eyes. The day before, she knew, they had been grey. "I've never really felt that way, but I'm sure some people have."

"Yeah," Draco snorted. "The people that end up in St. Mungo's."

Ginny had an aunt in St. Mungo's, and said so. "Maybe you're just paranoid," she reasoned, one eyebrow rising above the other. "I mean, if I went through what you go through possibly every day, I'd be paranoid, too." She carefully didn't mention the dreams that the remnants of Tom sent her way every once in a while, or the power surges. Those were immaterial at the moment. "Who do you feel is watching you?"

Shifting restlessly, Draco managed almost a surly shrug. "I don't know--it's almost from within, actually. Sometimes I think that I have an evil half that's just sitting there, waiting for me to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and then strike! But that's crazy, right?"

"Right," Ginny agreed slowly, feeling as though she had become the psychoanalyst in this situation. It takes one to know one, she thought rather ruefully. They were like the blind leading the blind--utterly pointless and laughable in their own right. "How long have you felt this way?" She took a sip of the coffee and immediately regretted it.

Draco leaned back, still twirling the styrofoam cup of coffee. "Since fifth year," he said quietly. "When I started to change. It was the strangest thing--I didn't want to pick on Potter so much anymore. I still hate him--he's a stuck-up prig--but I never really wanted to go out of my way to get a rise out of him or Wea--Ron, like I used to." Hot coffee spilled on his finger, making him wince.

"We all thought that you were humiliated by the train incident," Ginny told him, daring another sip of coffee. "But I think it was something else. What was it? Onset of common sense?" She was just teasing him, but Draco's eyes darkened. Suddenly, the cold feeling that there was a storm on the horizon nearly threatened to overtake her. She swallowed carefully, the coffee still in her mouth. "You know what? I'm changing the subject. This is my first date, and I'm hardly going to spend it talking about dark sides and dark pasts. So, what have your lectures been over this week?"

If anybody had told Ginny four months before that talking to Draco Malfoy was one of the easiest things to be done, she would have laughed in disbelief. Changed or not, Draco was a Malfoy, and Ginny was a Weasley. They were like oil and vinegar: potent when mixed, but normally not mixed well. But Ginny had not known then that he could talk with such fascination over the different aspects of Chinese and European rituals, a lecture which he had definitely enjoyed. "It's the workings of magic, and the strengthening of magical vessels that's really the intriguing part," he said, sounding so much like an old scholar that Ginny actually giggled despite the stormy feeling lurking within. "What?" he demanded, still not accustomed to having people chuckle at his antics.

"Right, professor," Ginny teased, all warnings of a storm within abating. "Will you be assigning homework about this?"

"Was I lecturing?" Draco asked, astounded. His eyes widened as Ginny chuckled. "Don't tell me I was prattling on like some boring old scholar!" When Ginny confirmed that, yes, he was, he groaned. "It's the coffee shop, I tell you. Let's get out of here."

The restaurant and the coffee shop were located in a nice sector of New Orleans, so they only slightly cautious as they set along the street-lamp bathed street. Some of the signs they passed were written in French, and probably butchered by Draco's pronunciation. "I always liked Latin more, anyway," he muttered to himself, shoving his hands in the pockets of his dress jacket. He was not nervous, but he seemed to draw within himself, almost like pulling a cape around the vibrancy he normally gave off.

"French is supposed to be the most romantic language," Ginny remarked after one of his attempts.

"Romance is for swots who need real jobs," Draco sniffed disparagingly, but the smile took the sting out of his words.

Ginny raised her eyebrow anyway. "You're just saying that because you don't know how to be romantic," she taunted. "In fact, I think you're afraid."

"If that's your plot to get me to be more romantic, you're as cunning as any Slytherin I've had the fortune of exchanging words with," Draco remarked shrewdly, eyes narrowing perceptively. Still seeing taunting disbelief on Ginny's face, he sighed. "And I suppose this time I'll force myself to give in to the wiles of a woman."

And to her eternal amusement, he tap-danced a little number right there in front of her. Before she could react, he swooped her up into a dance without music, twirling and spinning her with him.

Ginny had only met three people that could move with the grace that Draco Malfoy did instinctively--and they were all dancers, trained to become that graceful. Draco's grace seemed to pour from his every limb without his even being aware of it. Ginny might have been jealous, but she was oddly content to let Draco have his little quirks. Heaven knew that she had enough of her own to manage quite well.

Once he had released her into a whirlwind of unexpected emotions, Draco pretended to take the utmost care in selecting a dandelion clock from a nearby lawn. "A flower for m'lady," he said, affecting a very poor French accent that made Ginny giggle. "It may not be a rose or anything, but..."

Ginny pretended to regard the dandelion clock rather severely. "Well, if you turn it this way, the light catches it just so and makes it appear like a white rose," she told him, grinning mischievously. "Of course, roses don't come apart when you sneeze, though..."

Draco's expression turned slightly wry. "My suggestion would be not to sneeze, then," he advised drolly.

"I'll keep that in mind."

They walked past a series of old-fashioned shops, pausing here and there to peer into the large front windows, and to comment on the merchandise within. Ginny was most fascinated by a display of shiny kitchen appliances, but Draco lingered in front of a shop that read, that read "Bobby's Stuff." He was staring in almost morbid fascination at the toys that were displayed rather haphazardly. "They sell those things?" he asked, pointing at a rocking horse obviously fashioned from very old wood. The paint had at one point been garish, but it was now faded and dull, sullied by a patina of dust. "I mean, that's what, the Muggle equivalent to a rocking-broom?"

Ginny had never had a rocking-broom, for Fred had destroyed the family's only one about four days before she was born. Of course, as it was Fred, he had given Ron a scar on his left shoulder in the process, something Ron liked to bring up from time to time. "I think this is an antique shop," Ginny said now, eyes travelling from one dusty toy to another. "I don't think any of these things are current toys. It's all about eclectricity now." Although she knew how to say "electricity," she still mispronounced it, an old habit from her father.

Now disinterested in the wooden figure, Draco jerked his head, signalling that they should probably get along. "I think there's a flower shop up here," he told her, pointing at a blue-painting building that looked green under the streetlight. "And look--just up ahead. There's some kind of bridge."

After Ginny had sufficiently admired the mums and orchids that were subtly arranged in the window to attract more customers, she allowed Draco to lead her up onto the bridge. It was a narrow affair, strapped between two strips of land that bordered a small tumbling creek. "They pronounce it 'crick' out here," Draco informed her, leaning far over the trickle of water only a metre below. "I heard somebody at St. Lawrence's call them that. Talk about mispronunciation."

"Americans do have a funny way of saying things," Ginny agreed readily. "Meg keeps saying 'schedule' like 'sked-duel.' I tried to correct her, but I didn't think it got through." She smiled down at the rocks, subconsciously counting the patches of dried-up algae along the tops of them. New Orleans must have been experiencing a bit of a drought as of late. She pushed all of that from her mind and looked over at Draco, who was watching the rocks below. Blue-grey eyes that were less like steel with each passing moment flitted rapidly from one rock to another. "Hey, what's so interesting down there?"

"What?--Oh, nothing, nothing," Draco said hastily, leaning back so quickly that he nearly tumbled backwards. He faced her, poker face sliding neatly into place. "I've just had a lot on my mind lately." He looked as though he were going to say something else, but changed his mind. "That's all, really..."

Even with the poker look, Ginny's sixth sense could tell that he was lying, or at least hiding something from her. He can keep his secrets, her mind admonished. Things just don't change overnight.

"Well, something's got to be bothering you," Ginny said, not entirely willing to let him get away with a bold-faced lie. "Are you not having fun tonight?"

"Flustered" was not an emotion that suited Draco Malfoy. Some people could pull this off and still look astoundingly beautiful, but a flustered Draco Malfoy actually looked rather helpless and lost. The look was so different from the normally polished composure that Ginny forced away the urge to stare. "Well, I'm having fun, but it didn't turn out the way I hoped."

"How do you mean?" Ginny asked, a sick feeling sliming down the back of her throat.

Soft spikes of white-blond stood on end as Draco ran a hand through his hair, breathing deeply in order to regain at least a fraction of his dignity. "This wasn't a real date," he finally said, his voice cracking slightly over the words. "This was a business meeting to further the cause of the Dark Lord that's currently terrorising your family and friends. I really like you, Ginny--and I really want to go out on a real date."

"Draco, I--"

He held up one hand, stopping any protests cold in their tracks. "No, let me finish." Another deep breath, another portion of dignity regained. "I don't know what's wrong with me--I can't talk all of the sudden. But...anyway, I feel like we have this...like we have a connection. I'd love to spoil you like a good boyfriend, and be a general all-around prince charming--funny hearing me say that, right?"

Ginny bit her lip to stop the sick feeling from overtaking her entire torso. Her limbs tingled slightly, like an onset of some kind of warning.

"I mean, I'm Draco Malfoy. Two years ago, I was the top recruiter for Death Eater candidates at Hogwarts. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to me--why am I suddenly willing to go out and buy flowers and candy?" Now he was definitely rambling, and it was starting to frighten her. People like Draco did not ramble: they spoke their point concisely, with a hypothesis to back it up, and let that judgement stand.

"But we can't do that--"

Before she regurgitated the lovely shrimp scampi she had eaten for dinner, Ginny touched his arm, stopping his rambling in its tracks. "I'm willing to keep it a secret," she said softly, enunciating enough so that he understood every word. "I'm willing to do that to be with you." She pushed the thought of her family members' reactions to Draco Malfoy from her mind and steeled her resolve. "There's not much we could do but keep it a secret."

To her surprise, Draco nodded grimly. "Isn't that the truth?" His voice was bitter. "I mean, a Weasley dating a Death Eater? A Death Eater good enough for you? The thought's laughable."

Ginny's fingers closed about his forearm. "Would you become a Death Eater if you had a choice?" she asked softly, not flinching when he jerked away. The anguish in his eyes alone was more than enough of an answer for her. "Then that's all I need to know."

He looked away from the bridge, the rocks, and even her, so that his eyes unfocussed and his face grew tight, composing itself to be rock hard. Ginny didn't think; her arm went to his shoulders, forcing him to turn. He looked confused for the briefest of instants. "What are you doing?" he demanded, eyes becoming guarded once again.

"Proving that you're worth it. Come here."

And with that, Ginny Weasley did the boldest thing she had ever done in her life and kissed Draco Malfoy.

*

Somehow or other in his rather short life, Malcolm had passed over the fact that he innately knew how to Apparate.

Unfortunately for his sanity, he was forced to realise that he did indeed know how to Apparate, and that he could Apparate over quite some distance--without giving pause to think about it. One minute, he had been sitting at Malfoy's desk, writing a letter to Tiger; the next, he was standing in the middle of a bridge, clutching three books in his arms and carrying what appeared to be a bona fide phoenix on his shoulder. He had always doubted the existence of phoenixes, but the bird on his shoulder quickly put an end to that. He spun around warily, eyes darting about. Luckily for him, he had landed on some sort of footbridge, so there wasn't a Muggle car in sight.

However, there was another slightly disturbing image in sight. "Would you two cut that out already?"

Malfoy and Ginny sprang apart, both flushing guiltily. When Malfoy saw that it was Malcolm, he snarled, "You! What are you doing here?"

From the murderous expression on Malfoy's face, it looked like a shrug on Malcolm's part could mean instant death. "I don't know," he said truthfully, looking from one rosy face to another. "What--did I break up a first kiss or something? I didn't mean to." He was being honest, but that was doing very little to spare his life in the grey eyes of his Quidditch captain. About to do the unthinkable and apologise, he instead let out a yell of pain as talons clawed him. "Get this beast off me!"

"Fawkes!" Ginny cried, rushing forward to relieve Malcolm of the bird. "How on earth did you get hold of the Headmaster's phoenix, Baddock?"

"I don't know!"

Malfoy tore the tomes away from Malcolm's grip, his gaze accusatory. His eyes flickered furiously over the titles before landing on Malcolm's face. "Since when are you able to Apparate, Baddock?" he asked lowly, his voice maliciously dangerous.

Malcolm had heard rumours about the Quidditch Captain, and the rages he used to throw before Malcolm's time at Hogwarts, but Malfoy had always seemed so reserved and quiet. Well, he'd been boisterous and arrogant in Malcolm's first year, but something had changed. Malcolm had never believed the rumours, but the very image of an angry Lucifer standing in front of him brought every last word to mind. Unintentionally, he started to shake. "Er...since always?" he asked hopefully, praying that his voice didn't tremble. "I'm not sure, all right? One moment, I was sitting down, the next I'm here! I didn't have any control over it!"

Like a bird flattening its feathers to appear normal, Malfoy's evilness seeped away. At the touch of Ginny's arm, he almost seemed to jump. "He's telling the truth, Draco," she murmured at him. "I can tell."

As grateful as he was to Malfoy's girlfriend for saving him from the wrath of Malfoy, Malcolm swallowed angrily and puffed up like an animal backed into a corner. "Why doesn't anybody believe me?" he shouted at the pair of them. "I didn't do anything! I'm just here!" He threw up his arms either to protect himself, or to catch a phantom Quaffle. In the end, he would never be sure.

It was that action alone that saved him.

He heard a shriek, and the trajectory of his arm sent him sprawling backwards rather clumsily in retaliation. Dazedly, he realised that the sharp crack he heard could be none other than his head. This can't be good, he thought at the oncoming void, looming up on the horizon of his vision.

There was a high-pitched scream, but then it too was enclosed in the inky darkness that promised nothing and took everything.

To be continued...