Crown of Thorns

Chapter VI: Legacies

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.

Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.

Saturn ascends, comes round again.

Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.

Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.

Desperate to control all and everything.

Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

-The Grudge by Tool (Lateralus)

_______________________________________________________________________-_

The sun rose over Druid College University. And still Ginny did not wake up...

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

He didn't say anything. And that was somehow worse. Hermione gingerly touched his shoulder. "Uh--Draco--"

"Where is she?" he asked simply. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of shorts, but he didn't look any worse for that. Draco never looked bad. Which was more than Hermione could say for Ginny.

She didn't look like she was sleeping. She didn't look real. She didn't even look like Ginny.

"Er..." said Hermione, not knowing what to make of Draco's question.

"Hesper Malfoy."

Hermione turned around and gave Harry a despairing look.

He nodded and tapped his stepbrother on the shoulder. "Look Draco, she's your cousin, you--"

"Blood can take care of blood."

"By shedding it?"

"Where is she?"

"I'm right here. Behind you." The voice was calm, with only a slight tremor to it.

Draco turned to face Hesper Malfoy. Her hair was tangled, and she was in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans pulled on in the dark. Her fists were clenched. But her face was perfectly immaculate, except for red eyes and tear tracks gleaming in the infirmary lights. There was something about the set of her jaw that suggested that all onlookers dive for cover.

"What," asked Draco, walking slowly toward her, with a manic grin on his face, "did you do this time?"

"I didn't do it," she snarled.

He stopped within a foot of her. Not far enough. Two red spots were beginning to burn in his pale cheeks.

"Say that again."

She leaned into his face. "I didn't do a fucking thing... cousin."

One of the lights exploded.

"Draco," said Seamus urgently. "You're going a little too far."

This was a mistake. It was one thing when Hermione told Draco that. It was forgivable when Harry said something, because they were, after all, brothers. And as for Ginny, he treated her like a bit of a fool anyway. And he might just be able to stand Ron (if he was in a very, very good mood). But Draco's patience ran thin when any of the other Gryffindors tried to tell him what to do.

Draco turned to Seamus with a faint smile. "Your girlfriend is lying unconscious. Her roommate has a known Death Eater for a parent. Even with your intellect, you ought to be able to figure out that it wasn't Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the lead pipe."

Seamus turned an unbecoming shade of purple. "You--" Hermione pulled him away.

Another light exploded. Between the two Magids, they were doing very well in miniature lightning storms and unnatural winds.

"She's alright," snapped Dr. Elliot. Her staff was milling around, looking rather puzzled. "Looks like a case of Stranding to me."

"Except she isn't Stranded," said Valerian, the dean, softly. He was looking at the readouts on some of the instruments. "I haven't seen this kind of sleep--if it really is sleep--since... well..."

"Since when?" asked Draco sharply.

Valerian gave him a calculating look. "Since the Dark Lord's time."

The lines between Harry's brows appeared again, something that had not happened in a long time. Seamus had the kind of look that said, 'I see your point.' Draco looked unsurprised.

"I don't know any of the Dark Arts," said Hesper angrily. "You think any government would let me within a mile of a grimoire?"

"Government?" asked Harry, his face troubled. "Who were your parents?"

Two spots burned red on her cheekbones. "American Death Eaters."

"Not both of them," said Draco, the insane grin growing wider.

"What is this?" she demanded. "The Inquisition?"

The infirmary door slammed open. An ashen-faced Ron entered, followed by Charlie. The dragon keeper assessed the situation, and retreated, closing the door after him.

Ron stared right through the team of mediwizards, who were trying to look as if they were doing something, but were in fact, at a total loss to what they were supposed to do.

"Mum says Ginny's hand on the clock is at Mortal Peril. They're trying to get over here, but there's some Bloodstorm activity that's messing with the Floo network and trains and such. They'll be down here as soon as possible."

"Which won't be soon enough," murmured Valerian.

Draco's eyes narrowed. "You--"

Valerian looked back, his expression devoid of any humor. "You will control your temper, Draco Malfoy."

"No blood loss, no concussion, no goddamn--" Dr. Elliot complained in the kind of low voice that everyone can hear above all the noises.

"Never mind what you promised," Draco spat out at the dean. "Since when did I take the word of a bunch of third-rate wizards anyway?" Valerian said nothing. He whirled around to face Hesper. "You're a disaster just waiting to happen," he growled. "If you think you can just avoid Destiny--" He jumped nimbly aside as a bolt of lightning hit the spot where he had been.

"I didn't do it!" she screamed at him, and a few more lights shattered.

("--fix the fucking lights--" Dr. Elliot shouted.)

Draco waved over to the bed. "What do you think--"

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the yelling. ("--fucking glass shattering around us--FIX THE FUCKING LIGHTS!")

Hermione looked at Ginny. She almost looked... almost as if she was melting into the sheets. She didn't look real anymore. As if she was draining away... but that wasn't possible was it? It was over, everything was bloody over and Ginny shouldn't be lying there unconscious.

There was a heartbeat of silence in the infirmary. Then Hesper whispered, "I didn't do it." Her hands were clutched so hard, drops of blood from the reopened wound of her right hand dripped down her palm and splattered onto the antiseptic floor. Thunder boomed and hot rain pattered into the room, condensing from nowhere.

A burning raindrop fell into Hermione's gaping mouth. She quickly closed it. The raindrop was salty, like a tear.

"Look at her," said Draco in a dead serious voice.

"I already saw," said his cousin, her expression unreadable in the way that there were too many improbable emotions reeling around in an unstable environment.

("--will someone fix the fucking lights? And get a readout on the brain activity, we're going to have to take this the Muggle way.")

Another light shattered.

("SOMEONE FUCKING FIX THE FU--" A hurried and apologetic "Reparo. Reparo. Reparo." "--CKing lights. Thank you.")

"I never did anything," Hesper snarled. "I never hunted for trouble, I stayed hidden in America like you Brit Malfoys wanted me to! My life might not have an angelic track record, but this not my fault!"

"Er," said Seamus.

She turned her pointed gaze toward him. He stared back. Another light shattered.

("--F--" "Reparo." "Thank you. Did someone call the Ministry yet?")

"Ow." Seamus clutched his bleeding forehead. The Irish student was busy trying to let Ron and Harry fix it. Ron and Harry were busy making the wound worse. Hermione was busy trying to pry them off his forehead.

She also noted that Draco's expression could be read, "I should be siding with the Irish git, but... well, I don't mind if you bring another piece of jagged plastic in contact with his forehead."

"You don't have any proof anyway," Hesper hissed.

"Proof? You mean a birth certificate and a DNA test?"

"Shutupshutupshutup," she said, and flew at him.

Draco was usually not one to hit a girl. But he had already demonstrated that she didn't meet his standards for humanity. His punch sent her reeling, but she responded with a high kick that sent him to the floor.

"You hit a girl!" exclaimed Seamus, the raw gash forgotten.

"She hit you!" cried Ron in disbelief.

"You'll hurt Ginny!" screeched Hermione.

("Someone fix the--")

Valerian absentmindedly pointed his wand at the two shattered lights. And then at three more. Could he stun the two? No, too fast, too angry. Might as well try to tranquilize an elephant with the dosage required for a yapping poodle.

Hesper slammed against the wall. But she did not hurl back in retaliation. Instead, her eyelids fluttered, her breathing grew shallow. "Leave me alone," she breathed. "Leave me alone, bastard."

And she lurched out of the infirmary.

The color in Draco's cheeks slowly began to fade, his eyes turning from black to stormy grey and back to silver again. "Detention, I supposed?" asked Draco with a small smile.

"No, Mr. Malfoy. This is not Hogwarts, I'm afraid. Still, there will be no punishment." This surprised everyone. Valerian continued, "This incident is not to be spoken of. But if you and your cousin fight again on campus, you will both suffer the consequences."

Draco nodded, but it was clear he did not care. His eyes flicked over to where Ginny lay--pale and ashen and vulnerable. He stormed out.

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

Fireplaces were getting used less and less--especially when the need for mobile communication was growing. Magical cellular phones (spellphones) took the place of fireplaces, which were rather difficult to carry around. They were a bit different though--one only needed to touch it with a wand and instead of dialing a number, say a name. They were quite handy, though expensive, and Draco Malfoy owned the newest model.

He tapped it with his hand--he had had it specially modified to turn on for only his left hand, his wand hand, and not a wand. "Henry Cromwell, Head of the Department of Mysteries." Instead of putting it up to his ear, he held it out in front of him as Cromwell's body appeared in a sort of hologram projected by the spellphone.

"Hello, Malfoy," said Cromwell. "Couldn't you call at any other time? We've almost got our hands on Catherine Malfoy--"

"Who?" asked Draco sharply.

"You know who," said Cromwell wearily. "That St. Clair woman. The one that Moody thinks is La Voisin."

"Look, this is important--"

"You don't bloody know what's happening, do you?" asked Cromwell disbelievingly. "By Merlin, there's a bloody international crisis--an Auror was killed overseas in New York. One of Moody's students. Murdered. With a sodding unknown curse! Mad-eye Moody's gone completely insane--and I didn't think he could get madder--President Jamison is getting more and more nervous back in the States--the International Confederation of Wizards has been called into session, warning us off about the peace treaty--France is claiming that it, in no way, is egging on the Lutèceans. You know, that bloody feminist cult that's catching on like a disease. Damn terrorists. We've got seven blood Death Eater splinters operating in Britain, and the Devourers bombed Platform 9 ¾ in London--Brown, you know, the Head of Law Enforcement, thinks that the Elder Death Eaters aren't going to go into their death throes for quite some bit, they're reviving just now--and the Bloodstorm in Wales is laying low, which is not a very good sign, and--"

Draco stopped him in mid-rant. "All right, all right. So things are really fucked up, just now."

"That's the general idea."

"Right then," said Draco, absorbing all this information, but deciding to plunge ahead anyway. "I want you to pull all the files on Hesper Ashtoreth Malfoy."

Cromwell blanched. "You're kidding."

"No. I'm not."

"That's why Alexander Blair died, Malfoy. He was digging into her files in New York. Moody sent him."

"Ah," said Draco, not really meaning anything.

"Your family is at the center of this. A lot of evidence points to Catherine Malfoy having murdered Blair--he had documents on Hesper Malfoy with him, but they were destroyed, all except for a birth certificate. You know how they're bewitched so they cannot be destroyed. Blair was important, Malfoy. The Blairs are a damned old family, descended from old lines with lots of faery blood liberally mixed in. You better lay low for a while, if you don't want to get caught up in this."

"Hmm," said Draco.

"You know how the fey-blooded are when provoked."

"Yes, I do, Cromwell. Thank you. I'll see you another time." And he cut off the connection.

A war, then. Dumbledore had seriously miscalculated the importance of Hesper Malfoy.

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

"What was that all about?" asked Ron, his face puzzled but far from concerned.

Harry stared after the door, as if he could still see Draco's retreating form. Then he shrugged it off. "No clue," he admitted. "Draco's being so bloody elusive. He barely talks to me any more."

"Something's wrong," said Hermione flatly.

"I know," said Ron quietly. "Someone tries to kill Harry, Ginny goes into a coma for no reason, and then Boy Wonders Harry and Draco are on bad terms. It's time to panic, isn't it?"

"Ron--"

"And how did that girl know?" he asked feverishly. "She knew, she knew that I'm not me anymore."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Hermione briskly.

"We can't run away forever," said Ron. "Part of me is dead. We've been waiting for a year and half now, waiting for that part of me to grow back or something."

"It will," said Hermione assuredly.

Harry didn't say anything.

"She just said it to hurt you," said Hermione. "It's not like she's unquestionably right."

"But how did she know?" Ron demanded.

"She's a Magid," said Harry. "But that doesn't really mean anything." He fell silent again, as if remembering the first time they came together after Ron's Diviner-sense was stripped away from him--as well as a good chunk of his soul.

"There's a counter-spell to everything," said Hermione firmly.

"Except Avada Kedavra," said Ron.

"We've been through this conversation before, haven't we?" asked Harry softly. "When Hermione took the love potion. But even that spell was broken."

"But part of me is dead, Harry. No spell can bring the dead back to life." He brightened, like an artificial light turning on inside of him. "I wonder what's going to happen to Draco once he ponces back in here and tells Seamus that he's going to watch over Gin."

Hermione made a pitiful attempt at laughing. "Whatever happened to Ginny and Draco any--" she stopped herself. There were too many 'whatever happeneds' hanging in the air.

Ron grinned. "I'm glad Ginny never got together with that git... but still... sometimes I can't help but wish that all is as it might have been."

"But it never is," said Harry.

"We should have known that from the start," said Ron.

"But we didn't," said Hermione. "And here we are... with the ghosts of all that could have been."

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

She lurched drunkenly across the campus. People were only beginning to stir, belying all that was happening in the infirmary. The sky was the pallid color of early morning.

Hesper stumbled toward the Druid Grove. A part of her mind was wondering what she was doing here. Another part was telling her body to keep moving.

And still yet another part was cringing in fear as things flashed in the corners of her vision.

The trees were tall and foreboding. She wasn't sure why she felt slightly sick whenever she was around them--the frightened part of her mind noted that she was about to find out, while the imperious part told it that it was being a superstitious bit of nonsense.

Hesper leaned against a tree. Her body was tired. Her spirit was frightened.

A man in black. A girl with one green and one blue. A woman with a silver ankh.

Beckoning to her, asking her why she was running away.

She told them that otherwise the things would catch up with her. She was fairly sure she knew them all. But there was no way--no fucking way--she would remember.

Maybe then it would all go away.

She backed away from them, each step bringing her into a whirling madness of the waking world.

There was a flicker of reality before she could feel a burning, searing pain as gods and goddesses touched her one by one and seemed to wonder at how weak she was.

"I do not wish to do this," said a woman in Druid white, standing there in the past. She was beside Hesper, unaware of the girl. "My land is all I have left. I was chosen as a priestess--your priestess. To give up everything else. My family, my people, my magic, my life. This is all I have left. Do not cut my ties to the land also--please."

The woman was tired and helpless as she sank to her knees. The moonlight soaked everything.

"Please, please, please," begged the woman. "Taking away the magic hurt, do not take the land away from me also."

But her goddess did not listen, and the woman cried out in pain. In the corners of her eyes--through witch sight--Hesper could see talons of burning black raking through slender bluish lines between the woman and the land. The land she loved was taken away from her too, despite all her pleas.

What the woman could not see were the feathery silver lines that still yet connected her to the Net.

Magic had been forbidden from her, it had not been taken away.

Very little can take magic away.

She opened her eyes. Nothing was there. No one was there. Confused, Hesper's mind whirled round and round until she slipped back into dream, kind of like inverted waking. The vision enveloped her again.

The woman stood before the others. Her face was hard, and although she still wore Druid white, it somehow seemed tarnished. She had dark hair and dark eyes, with the features of an angel. But her expression was that of a maddened demon.

The gathered Druids seemed to be in some kind of a discussion. The woman, though shorter than most of them, stood straight and proud. Her black eyes burned with anger. "I know," she said in a soft, dangerous voice. "They told me."

One of the Councilors, the court of twelve assembled for decisions that involved all of the Clans, looked sharply at her. "What did you say?" The Councilor was a tall woman with piercing blue eyes and auburn hair.

"The spirits of the wood. They told me."

"Did they urge you to the deed?" asked another Councilor condescendingly. He was beginning to bald.

The woman jerked slightly. "No one told me," she hissed. "There are no gods, there are none to dictate our lives. I listen to the spirits because no one ever taught me to close my ears. And no one can take my magic from me."

Some of the Councilors shifted uneasily in the artfully crafted wooden chairs.

The tall woman with auburn hair smiled sadly. "It was a sad day when the goddess Cybele took you from us. Do you remember--"

The dark-eyed woman's face softened, but only a little. "Yes, Alba. You were right. You were right about too many things."

The balding Councilor cleared his throat. "But what you have done has consequences, you understand. Killing, especially by magic is not to be toler--"

"You're a fool, Orion," snapped a dark-haired Councilor. She had slightly slanted green eyes. They were hard, but the rest of her face was sympathetic. "She's one of our best. I told you, we should not have let foreign goddesses onto our shores--"

"Too many gods are foreign, Zara," interrupted a brown-haired, blue-eyed male Councilor. "And Cybele has done little compared to some of our native gods."

Zara's beautiful green eyes narrowed, cat-like. "Shut up, Kyrron. I hate the gods, I hate the goddesses, and most of all, I hate this damn nonsense!"

Alba twiddled her thumbs. "The laws must be kept, Zara," she said quietly. "The forswearing of magic was a rather stupid move on Cybele's part, but we all know a goddess is not about to admit she was wrong. And her crime," Alba nodded toward the woman, " is not really breaking that oath, but killing Anros." The Councilor turned to the woman. "Do you admit to this deed?"

The woman nodded. "Yes. I killed Anros." A faint smile flickered across her face. "And it was a job well done."

Zara made a noise of agreement, but one sharp glance from Alba silenced her.

"Murder," said Orion. He nodded his balding head almost in satisfaction.

"He was breaking the laws," said the woman angrily.

"Technically--" he began.

"Technically?" she snarled. "The laws don't protect anyone anymore, not since we began to trust in the gods. They play with our lives, although we are the ones who first made them!"

Two Councilors, a man with straight golden hair and a woman with curly brown looked at each other rather meaningfully at this heresy. A few others shifted nervously.

The gods remained silent.

The woman continued, "How can the laws overlook the priests and priestesses like that? You know very well that the gods are beginning to choose for themselves servants that are easily tempted to err. And if they do not succumb to temptation, the gods push them." Her face twisted. "And I will not be pushed--not anymore."

Silence. Then Kyrron said, "I am sorry it had to turn out this way."

"It doesn't have to," argued Zara. "The laws are there to be broken."

The Councilors around her inched away, not wanting to be there when some god decided that that was enough from that particular Druid.

"I'll go into exile," the woman announced suddenly.

"Appeal to the gods," insisted Alba. "I have no desire for you to go. Please."

"I wish to go," said the woman. "This culture is rotten and fetid. And my ties to the land have been broken beyond repair." For a moment, it looked as though tears would spill from those dark eyes. But perhaps it was just the light.

"You're playing right into the gods' hands," said Zara angrily. "Out of all the people I know, I thought you were the least likely to do so."

"There is no other way," the woman said.

"Appeal to the gods," repeated Alba. "Please. For the sake of our friendship."

"I have spilt blood," said the woman firmly. "And as for our friendship, go to the gods and ask whose fucking will it was for everything to be broken."

Alba drew back as if she had been bitten. She let out a deep, painful sigh. "Very well then." Her voice changed into an official one, the voice of one who presided on the Council. "Very well. We have not forgotten that you were once on this Council. We have not forgotten that you were once a great Priestess among us. But you have chosen exile, and our hearts go with you to whatever far land you will choose to live in hereafter. We will send you on a ship to take you to the hot cities, to the lands of the east." She was silent for a moment. Then, "I'm sorry."

The woman nodded, and Zara opened her mouth to say something indignantly, but everything twisted and warped back into reality.

And there Hesper lay, on the grass, her back against the oak tree. She sent out a signal to tell whatever bits of her brain that had slipped out for a quick smoke to come back and think for her.

As everything gathered together again, she stared into the pale blue sky, obscured by the branches of the trees. She wondered why she was sitting on the grass now. She also wondered why some of the Councilors had looked so familiar.

Then she wondered what the fuck was wrong with her.

"There are no gods," she scoffed at her unconscious. But then the vision came upon her again, as if reality was the dream and what she saw was the waking world infringing upon her sleep.

And the woman was in the land of sun and sand and the River of Life--it's Egypt, I see Egypt--and the woman studied new magic and wore white linen and laughed with a young man as they walked among the limestone pillars of the temples of the gods.

"There are no gods," he said to her.

"I've learned that long since," she replied soberly, her dark eyes a little far away.

"But we need them, though they are but dreams. And everyone worships a god."

"I don't."

"You do. You worship the lack of one."

And then it was as if someone crumpled the piece of paper--no, linen cloth--upon which the two were painted or something or somewhat and threw it into a blender and it reformed itself into another piece of paper--no, linen cloth--upon which there was the woman again.

How pretty the woman was! Egypt had changed her for the better from the hard-faced Druid standing trial before the Council. She was still the woman with dark eyes but something had changed. Her skin still remained pale despite the Egyptian sun, and her hair was still an unadulterated glossy raven. But something like weariness had been taken away, and she looked so pretty...

And the woman was turning over the old texts, the ancient texts written in neat hieroglyphics on crinkly papyrus. The man Hesper had seen before entered the airy room. He wore a white kilt and a jeweled pectoral. He was not handsome. He wore a wry look on his face, and he had the lazy grace of a cat. No, not handsome. But there was something about him... there was charm. He had blue eyes, copper skin, and black hair.

"Well," he said to her, "what are you reading?"

The woman looked up. "What do you think, Ankhmet?" she replied with a teasing smile. Her eyes were filled with a light that illuminated her... the light of love.

He looked back at her, the same light in his eyes. "The texts of magic. Are you still looking for the Secret of Eternal Life?"

"Why not?"

"Sister, forget it," he said, using the Egyptian term of endearment.

"Brother, I cannot. Life is so brief. I will not succumb to Death."

Ankhmet shrugged. "Everyone gets the same thing. A lifetime."

Her black eyes flashed. "I won't! I will live forever, I will watch Egypt sprawl across the continents. I will watch iron and gold and chariots and fine wine come to my Homeland. I will watch as all of humanity becomes greater and greater until they ascend as gods, perhaps a thousand years from now! We will fly across the sky on wings and we will speak with our minds, each one of us. Everyone will have magic. There will be no nonmagical people, cringing whenever we pass." She saw the expression on his face, and changed her strategy. "And with the Secret of Immortality our love will be forever."

But Ankhmet still looked troubled. "I--"

"Come on," she cut in. "It'll be wonderful!"

He opened his mouth to speak, but everything was whirling again and she tried to see the woman and Ankhmet but then she found herself awake again.

Hesper contemplated this. Just when the visions got interesting, they were snatched up from beneath her feet. Well, was that really surprising?

The autumn breeze beneath the Sacred Oaks was cool and crisp. She wanted to lie there on the thick grass forever, far away from life.

Then she frowned. Why the visions? Why that particular woman? And why did those Councilors look so familiar?

She let the whirlwind of questions pass over her. She couldn't answer anything. Nothing was going right. She thought about Ginny lying motionless in the infirmary, slowly fading away.

"You did it, didn't you?" she whispered to the wind.

It did not reply.

"I didn't do it," she told the air. "I was dreaming... of that face again. Sometimes I dream that I'm killing, over and over and over again. But no one's woken me up in the middle of one of those dreams. And maybe... it's not a dream after all." Her silver eyes narrowed. "Or maybe... "

She sighed. "Ever since Grandmère disappeared... why do I even try anymore? Why should I run away?" Unbidden, Death's smiling face appeared in her mind's eye.

"Go away," Hesper said softly. The wind moved across the leaves.

She watched the sky for a few minutes. Then, "Maybe Fate happens, whether I challenge it or not. Maybe it's not needless battering against walls. Maybe I'm just making it. Maybe--maybe I'm full of shit."

"Really," said a feminine voice behind her.

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

"I see." British Auror-Investigator Gabrielle Durham-Sullivan sighed. "Well then. Dismissed." The American Auror snapped off a salute and strode away.

Gabrielle sank onto the steps of the apartment building and buried her face in her hands. No clues. Nothing left. A cold trail--if there was a trail at all. Merlin, what was she going to do?

Her spellphone rang. She unclipped it from her belt and tapped it with her wand. The image of Michael Sullivan appeared. "Gab--you coming home tonight?"

"Not tonight, honey," she said wearily. "This isn't a one-nighter. Hell, I don't think I can solve this in a month."

"Well," said Michael, looking worried. "Jen's been asking after you."

Gabrielle straightened unconsciously, looking more alert. "My sister? What's happening now?"

Michael squirmed under her gaze. "She's been having more nightmares. And she keeps telling you not to get involved in the Affairs of the Roses."

"Is she with you?"

"No, she's sleeping over at a friend's house. She has her spellphone with her. It's a witch friend," added Michael hastily, seeing the expression on his wife's face. "She called me a few minutes ago. For the fourth time. I thought this might be kind of serious."

"You using the fireplace?" Immediately, Gabrielle knew this was an idiotic question. Since he wasn't a wizard, he couldn't use anything except for the fireplace. And of course those Muggle contraptions, but even Michael conceded that they were too unreliable. And so damn expensive.

"I'll call Jen right away," said Gabrielle, and collapsed the connection just as Michael opened his mouth. She tapped the spellphone again, muttering 'Genevieve Durham.'

She appeared, looking haggard and exhausted. "Gabrielle!" Genevieve's expression changed to one of joy. "I've been waiting."

Her Muggle sister has always been the dearest person in her life, before and even after her husband came along. Poor Jen--she was not a witch, but she had always had the weirdest dreams. And she would see things in mirrors and in still water. Gabrielle's sister had started taking only showers ever since she could tell Mum and Dad that she didn't want to take a goddamn bath. "The water-pictures scare me," the two-year-old had explained. Dad had been puzzled--then skeptical. Mum had thought that maybe Jen was another witch in the family, despite what Dumbledore had said when she had asked him. And Genevieve had learned that not everyone sees the past and the future in the water.

Poor Jen. The most brilliant of them all--doomed to see things she was not meant to see. A complete and total Muggle, born to two Muggle parents--and yet she was a strong seer, an Esoterican of immense power. Perhaps she was meant to be the witch, and not Gabrielle.

Since the end of the Silent War, during which their parents had died and Jen had come to live with Gabrielle and Michael, her sister's nightmares and visions of doom had subsided. Apparently, they were back.

"What's the matter, Jen?"

Genevieve took a deep breath. "I can't say, Gabrielle. There was a Rose, and a Snake, and a Woman who Smiled and didn't mean it. And Genevieve--another Genevieve--trying to stop the Smiling Woman--but not that one, but another one, and it was so--" she burst into tears. "You need to come back to Britain, sis. There's danger over there."

"You told Michael to tell me not to meddle...?"

"In the Affairs of the Roses," finished Genevieve tearfully. Poor girl--only a kid really. Only sixteen.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" asked Gabrielle sharply.

"Gabrielle!" exclaimed Genevieve. "Only you could say that--and it's Saturday over here, anyway. Please, Gabrielle. Don't continue the investigation."

"Jen, it's my job! I can't just up and go!"

"Yes you can. You can't meddle in the Affairs of the Roses." Her image wavered and flickered out. Genevieve had cut off the connection.

"What's the meaning of this?" demanded Gabrielle to the sister who was no longer there.

She remembered Alexander Blair. Nice guy--a little cold, and maybe overly paranoid. But still--not bad.

She could either take Jen's advice, or avenge Blair. Then she remembered the cold trail, the absence of clues, and American Aurors who were more than ready to give it up. Gabrielle Sullivan shrugged. Well, why not?

She staggered off to find her boss. It was time she went back to Britain. Back to Michael and Jen. Back to where the bloody Affairs of the Roses would no longer touch her. Perhaps she could take some time off--a vacation in Vienna might be nice. Take Jen along too. Good for her nerves.

If only she had known.

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

Hesper scrambled to her feet, running her hands through her long hair in a futile attempt to smooth it down.

A young woman emerged from the shadows of a huge oak. Two slim white hands lifted back her hood, revealing red hair and a beautiful face.

And bright green eyes that Hesper had last seen in the past.

"Who are you?" asked Hesper, uncomfortably aware of how sloppy she looked, and also that the girl looked too much like the Druid Zara for comfort.

"Blaise Zabini," she said, her lips curving slightly. "I'm a Bloodstorm operative."

"A what?" asked Hesper in a voice laced with contempt.

"The Bloodstorm. We replaced the Death Eaters."

"Along with several million other shards of the first group," Hesper said viciously.

Blaise gazed at her calmly. "We have something they don't."

Hesper forced a mocking smile. "And what would that be?" But fear was already brewing in the pit of her stomach, and an insidious voice was singing to the intensifying beat of her heart.

"We have a secret," said Blaise, and with each word Hesper's heart seemed to plummet down and down and seemed to drop out of her body and into hell.

"What secret?" she asked flippantly.

Blaise Zabini's hard green eyes glittered. "Must I tell you?"

She meant to say, "You don't have one, do you, you pathetic posers?" but it came out "Yes-you-must."

"There was a woman named Blanche Malfoy," Blaise said, her voice a dark and heavy buzz in Hesper's ears. "And there was a man that she would have followed to the ends of the earth. The man that so many named as their lord and master--the man called Lord Voldemort. And there was a child that lived after both of them had died."

Hesper shut her eyes, her own memories of a mother who had only cared about one thing: the heritage that Hesper had never wanted.

Once upon a time there was a lady named Blanche Carmine Malfoy. She never loved her own daughter. She died for a lord who probably never cared. Once upon a time there was girl named Hesper Malfoy. She lived a life of running away. One day all her mother's intentions caught up with her.

Hesper only half-heard Blaise Zabini's words, her mind occupied with the buzz of her own narration of the story. Presently, she was aware that the other girl had finished speaking of the ghastly truth, and was now waiting expectantly.

They knew, then.

Someone had told them.

Who? How? Why?

It doesn't matter. There's only one path to take... one last path to walk.

"I see," said Hesper at last, in a different sort of voice. "I'll consider your offer, then."

Blaise didn't point out that she hadn't made an offer yet. Instead, she said, "When can I contact you?"

A manic grin spread on Hesper's face. "Tomorrow." Then she walked away, something crushed and mangled inside of her. Something crushed and destroyed before it had even taken root. Perhaps it was hope, but now it was dead. And there was no other way.

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

She was lurching down the hall now--it was early morning and people were giving her odd looks as they made their way to breakfast and classes.

Rattling the doorknob now--groping for keys--wait, she didn't lock it when she left--

The familiar shapes in the dark room--curtains over the windows still--naah, why bother--

She paused, gazing at Ginny's side of the room. "Glad I knew you," she said, or at least thought she said.

Hesper wondered how life had gotten so horrid so quickly. But then again, the darkness had been lurking all the while, for eighteen years. She closed her eyes for a few heartbeats, wondering if there could ever be a place in the world for Voldemort's daughter.

Then she slowly stepped into the bathroom. Flipped on the light. Pulled open a drawer. Picked up a small black velvet bag. Turned it upside down.

There, glittering in her palm, was a slender shard of something that might have been blue glass.

She began to fill the sink with warm water.