A Dish Best Served Cold

It was just after midnight when Ron brought the car to a stop outside the hotel in Stuttgart. Hermione had watched the miles pass with monotonous regularity since ceding the drivers seat to Ron just outside Paris. She sighed; here she was, on a whirlwind tour of Europe and she wasn't even enjoying it. Certainly she had enjoyed the first few weeks well enough. France had been lovely, in more ways than one.

Now though, it was something else entirely. The taste of bile was still faint in her mouth, she wondered if maybe it wasn't subconscious rather than real. It had been fourteen hours since she threw up in the hotel room just before checking out. The car ride had been quiet. Ron had tried to start a few conversations, but one-sided conversations never really lasted very long. After the third or fourth aborted attempt, Ron had just turned on the radio. The French pop stations had faded in and out as the miles passed, but not really filled the void. They were just noise in the background.

She had tried to drink herself into oblivion during dinner, but having never consumed so much alcohol all it had done was make her sick. Fortunately Ron had been able to cast the "Patented Weasley Sobriety Charm" on her before she revisited her dinner. It had been an altogether unpleasant experience, but not one she was sure she wouldn't try again.

"Come on, Honey. Let's go." Ron squeezed her leg. Her door was opened and a man in a blue uniform offered her a hand.

"You're German is really good." She tried to smile up at him. "I always said you were smarter than you looked." Ron had decided that he would be the fluent one once they had determined that they would go to Germany. For two months he had spent hours every day studying German. She had never seen him study anything that hard in the seven years she had known him.

"You do have a voice." He hugged her close and kissed her temple. "How are you doing?"

She shrugged in response, but said nothing more. She didn't think she even had the strength to walk down the hall to the lift, let alone all the way to her room. She couldn't understand how Ron could just go on like nothing had happened. Here she was sick and tired, and all she had done was plan how they would do it. She hadn't even done the killing and still it made her sick to think about it. Narcissa's limp form staring up at the ceiling haunted her whether she was awake or asleep.

She slumped against Ron as the lift started to move. When the lift stopped, Ron scooped her up and carried her down the hall to their room. The last thing she remembered was Ron lying her on the bed.

She had no idea what time it was when she woke up, she only knew that it was far too bright in her room. She pulled the covers over her head and considered going back to sleep. She felt something crinkle under her hand. She flexed her hand and realized it was paper. Slowly she emerged from her blanket cocoon and opened the note lying on the empty pillow next to her.

Hermione stared at the page, reading without comprehension. The only line that had mattered was the one that was the hardest to read, "That's also the reason I have to leave." She had always heard that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but that fury was buried far within, encased in the sadness of the knowledge that she was alone in the world now. Clutching a pillow to her chest, Hermione curled up and pulled the covers over her head. Her tears consumed her, but were hidden from the world that didn't even know who she was.

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Ron quickly came to the conclusion that while The Student's Guide to Europe on $20 a Day knew the secret to Europe on the cheap, it totally failed to convey just how beautiful Florence really was. It had taken him two days just to walk the length of the city. By far it was the largest city he had been in since leaving Paris a month before. Italian came fairly quickly; after all, he had been speaking Latin for seven years and had a passing familiarity with French. He was sure Hermione would master the language within a week if she were with him.

He forced his mind away from that thought. He had wrestled with those demons from the moment he walked out of Stuttgart and headed down to Munich. Her memory was with him across the western arm of Austria into Northern Italy. Leaving her behind had haunted him for days, and now he spent his days doing something he had learned from her- studying in a musty library. If he closed his eyes and thought about it, he could almost hear her badgering him to study.

The wizarding community in Florence was small, amounting primarily to a few shops selling potion supplies and an old man who ran a shop that seemed to carry a little of everything, including backdated issues of The Daily Prophet and L'Oracle. It had only taken a couple of days for someone to recognize the wand as the one Draco had "thought destroyed" during the final battle with Lord Voldemort. Wagging tongues, being what they were, had immediately set to work on the most nefarious plots and reasons why Draco's wand would have been used as the weapon to murder his mother. Ron was pleased to see that no matter how wild the theories got, the truth was still stranger than the fiction.

Then, reading an article in l'Oracle from after the attack, Ron very nearly had a heart attack where he sat. There in black and white, was the story in supposition. The author of the article had written it as a fictional account of the final hours of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron liked the author's ending better than the reality. In the story, he and Hermione were hiding on the French Riviera sipping Mai Tai's and telling fortunes for tourists. He laughed at the ending. The idea of Hermione telling fortunes was absolutely ludicrous, and anybody who knew her would never buy it. He supposed it was better that nobody believed the story, but the author's uncanny knowledge of the facts was more than a little unnerving. Some key facts were wrong though. In the story they had changed their names to Elizabeth Bennett and Jonathon Darcey. Her parents had been killed on the way home from her funeral, his father had died in a splinching accident, and there was no mention of Uncle Marcus or any other relatives. He purchased the copy though, and thought he might contact the editor just to find out who the author was.

After two weeks of poking around shops and studying in old musty libraries Ron finally set about following up on the real reason he had come to Florence. He began with a tour of the Ufrizzi Museum, also known as the Palazzo deMedici the former family home when the Medici family had been at the height of their power. Now it served as an art museum, this was especially appropriate because some of the greatest art in the world was actually frescoed right on some of its walls. In one room, the tour guide explained, the family had actually commissioned two pieces of work to be done concurrently; one by Michaelangelo and the other by Leonardo DaVinci.

The young woman prattled on about how the family had made their fortune in banking, and how their development of double entry accounting in the late 1200's had revolutionized their ability to keep track of money and make more of it. She explained how the Medicis had been responsible for decorating a significant number of churches in the area because "usury," making money from someone else's possessions or money, was considered a sin by the church and penance usually meant putting some of that money to the "greater glory of God." At the family's greatest point in the mid to late 1400's, they had been patrons the greatest artists of the day, had boasted several terms as "Prince of the City State of Florence", and even boasted the appointment of two of their family to the prestigious position of Pope. Finally, she informed them, so great was the power of the Medici family that a young author named Machiavelli had penned a treatise on politics and delivered it to the family elders as something of a peace offering following a falling out between the two parties. Machiavelli had been welcomed back into the fold privately, and he set down his treatise in a permanent form in a book called The Prince.

"What about the last heir of the Medici family fortune?" Ron asked as they neared the end of the tour. She smiled at him. She had done so several times during the tour as he had asked insightful questions about the family and their holdings.

"Contessa Michaela deMedici," the woman answered, "was married to a French family in the early 1700's. By that time the family had suffered the trap of all great families of the day, too many spoiled heirs that knew more about spending money than making it. The family holdings amounted to this home with its many treasures, a few titles, an estate in Paris, and some land straddling what is now the French-Italian border southwest of Milan. She died in childbirth in 1741. Her son took the name of his father's family, deMalfoise. Seventeen years later the deMalfoise family came to ruin during a peasant uprising and the family was put to the sword. A year later their lands and holdings were divided between the king of France and the rulers of the respective Italian city-states where the holdings were located."

"What about legends that the heir did not die?"

"I have never heard any such rumor." She turned and began to walk away.

"What about ghost stories?" Ron badgered her as he fell into step right behind her. "Any odd occurrences here in the old house? Suspected hauntings, unexplained phenomenon, mysterious kidnappings, anything like that?"

"No, not that I know of, though I have only been here since September." She wrapped up the tour at the gift shop. Ron turned to go, but felt a hand on his arm. "If you're interested in the ghost stories, perhaps you should talk to our curator. He has been here a long time and knows more about the family than anyone." Ron's heart began to beat very rapidly. Her hand was warm on his arm and her perfume was heady and intoxicating.

"Could you arrange a meeting for me?" he stammered.

"I'd be glad to." Ron noticed she was smiling very broadly and had just a slight flush of pink in her cheeks. "If you'll give me your name and number, I can have him contact you." She pulled a small flip-pad and pen from her pocket and handed it to Ron. He quickly scrawled his assumed name and the number for the hotel he was staying at.

"What time does the museum close?"

"In about ten minutes."

"Thanks," Ron interrupted her. She looked like she was about to add something else and he really didn't want to answer whatever question she was going to ask. "I've got to be going now, thanks again." Ron headed out the doors and into the street. There he took a deep breath, followed by another and another. He strode away up the street, heading to a café across from the library where he had been studying. The day before he had stumbled across a book that looked promising, Ghosts of Florence: A Guide to Hauntings and Unexplained Mysteries in the Old City.

Within a week he was on a first name basis with Donna, the young woman that passed his name on to the curator. He and Meg, the assistant curator who was working on her Doctorate in Art History from the University of Rome, had gone for drinks and wandered the museum after hours on a couple of occasions. Tonight was different though. Tonight he planned to stay very late at the museum. Ghosts of Florence had a rather interesting chapter on a spirit that was said to wander the lower halls and basements of the Ufrizi Museum.

As the moon rose over Florence, Ron passed a pair of young lovers kissing and whispering sweet nothings to each other in an alcove along the front of the building. He passed them with nary a thought and disappeared into the shadows of the building. With a flick of his wand he was inside the building, down in a basement that Meg had shown him just that afternoon. Using his copied map to reference against the walls he saw before him, he found a passageway that had been sealed. Following the rats that lived in the lower tunnels, he shrank himself and used one of their passages to reach the forgotten lower chambers. In a sub-basement he resumed his normal size and lit his wand. He was sure at first that his eyes were betraying him.

Scattered down the length of a long hallway were artworks the likes of which were above in the museum, but these were pieces that he had never seen. There were statues reminiscent of Donatello, paintings signed by Ghiberti and Botticelli. Ron stopped and ran his hands over one particular piece that was in stark contrast to the rest. While many appeared to be works from the height of the Italian Rennaisance, one piece was dark and brooding, full of half-formed images and nightmares of ideas. Ron was entranced by its dark imagery. It spoke to him on a level he didn't understand; though he knew it was reaching for his baser instincts. He shined his light directly on it and stepped closer to it. His fingers ran over the ridges of oil paint that had to be hundreds of years old.

"Beautiful piece, isn't it?" The dry rasping voice startled Ron, causing him to jump and turn around. A clawed hand snapped forward and grabbed his chin in a vice-like grip that sent chills through his body. Ron could see by the faint glow of his wand, which had clattered to the floor, that the creature was old- perhaps older than any living creature had a right to be. Its face was wrinkled and the skin was drawn over its bones. The skin itself was a grayish white color; the color of something deprived of sunlight for far too long. "What do you want here?"

Ron could feel his resolve collapsing in the face of the horror that now faced him. "I, I've come looking for someone."

"Too bad, it looks like I found you first." Ron could feel his neck bending and stretching. He was now acutely aware of stench of death that hung about the creature. The creature focused on a spot on Ron's neck and opened his mouth to reveal a set of long, pointed fangs.

"I'm looking for Cosimo deMedici," Ron choked out through his restricted windpipe. His vision was starting to blur and he was starting to feel light-headed. The grip relaxed slightly and Ron could breathe again.

"They're dead. There hasn't been a Cosimo deMedici in two-hundred fifty years."

"I'm looking for Cosimo Mortre deMedici deMalfoise." Ron felt his neck released and a sharp slap across his face that knocked him to the ground. His hand landed on something cylindrical. Without a look he knew it was his wand. To cover the movement of picking it up, he put his fingers to his face where the creature had struck him. He was surprised when they came away with blood on them.

"Never speak the name Malfoise in my presence, nor in this house." The creature grabbed Ron by his neck and hauled him to his feet again. "I'm glad you found me though." Again the creature bent Ron's neck to the side and moved in close, mouth open wide.

"If you kill me, I can't lead you to the lost heirs of the Malfoise family." Ron's head impacted the wall as he was slammed against it, making his vision swim yet again. The creature seemed impossibly strong as it held him against the wall. The creature lowered down and got directly into his face. Their noses were but inches apart. The stench of the creature was making him nauseous.

"Where do I find them?" the creature snarled.

"All in good time," Ron snarled back. He set the tip of his wand against the creature's chest over the heart. He pushed against it just enough to put pressure there and convey his intentions to the vampire. "You give me what I want, I give you what you want. Everybody goes home happy." There was no happiness in Ron's voice.

With impossible speed the creature grabbed Ron's wand, spun to the left, and threw Ron face first into a wall across the room. Ron collapsed to the ground, woozy from the impact. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now." Ron felt a foot in the middle of his back.

"You and I want the same thing. The deMalfoise family destroyed your family and tried to kill you. Their descendant betrayed and murdered my friend. He killed the family of my friend. He told my mother I was dead and cried crocodile tears at my funeral. He stole my life, and I want him to pay."

"How very interesting. It seems the nature of the beast has not changed." The creature lifted the foot that was holding him down.

Ron tried to roll over and get up, but he was too slow. The vampire knelt on the floor beside him, its knee pushing into his throat. It grabbed his wrist and yanked on his arm, pulling it straight. "It has been a long time since I fed on a magical creature. I am going to enjoy this." Ron felt the fangs puncture the skin of his wrist. He could feel the blood being sucked from his veins. Within seconds his heart began to pound in his chest. He forced his eyes open and saw that the creature was beginning to resemble a man more and more. As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

"If I drain but one more drop from you, you will be in my thrall for as long as I choose to keep you. You will be my slave, and I your master." It stared deep into his eyes. Ron could feel his soul being laid bare before the dark eyes of the creature, which now resembled an old man wrinkled with age. "You fear that." The creature smiled a hideous grin. "Tell me, do you want revenge on this...Draco Malfoy?"

"More than anything," Ron wheezed.

Ron shouted out in pain as the vampire's fangs again pierced his skin. His heart began to pound again and he could feel his will crumble like so much ice under a hammer. He could feel the connection between himself and the thing he would now call master. The man, for he no longer looked like a creature but was indeed a man, released his arm and cast it to the floor. "That is the price of vengeance, Ron Weasley. You have paid the price. You can never go anywhere that I forbid you to go, cannot see anyone I forbid you to see, cannot do anything I forbid you to do." It laughed a cold heartless laugh then stared deep into his eyes again. "Until my vengeance upon the deMalfoise family is complete, I forbid you to seek out Hermione in any way. That is the price of my help. Do you still want it?"

Ron didn't have the physical strength, let alone the will, to fight his master. Instead he buried himself in his hatred and his desire to see Malfoy lying dead at his feet. "Yes, Master."