Passing Along the Ornament

Author's Note: Just expelling a rotten thought that's had its hold on me for ages, haha. Comments always appreciated.

Dumbledore knows; Dumbledore knows; Dumbledore knows.

The old wizard's blue eyes haunted Draco, grabbing his gut and twisting tight until he wanted to vomit. His hands were shaking as they pushed open the gates at the end of Hogwarts' long drive, and not from the chilly October night. He wondered how his Disillusionment charm could hold up through his nerves, but where he knew his body to be was camouflaged.

Thank Merlin for small mercies. At least it appeared he wouldn't be caught leaving. As this year passed, luck was getting harder for Draco to come by.

Draco had to kill Dumbledore. And he was pretty damn certain Dumbledore knew about it. The anticipation, the waiting for the headmaster to blow his cover, was killing him--as surely as the Dark Lord would in December if his plan wasn't expedited.

In his arrogance, Draco hadn't foreseen the difficulties the cabinet would give him when he'd first thought up the idea this summer. When he had agreed to be marked, he had figured the first part of his plan--to get Death Eaters in, to distract the castle--would come as easy to him as most things had in life. But it had been a month, one long month, since term started and Borgin's instructions on the cabinet were the most useless thing he'd ever read. He didn't know what to do. But between Dumbledore's suspicions, Snape following him every time he left his common room and the terse letters from his aunt warning him of the danger of failure and the pride of success, he knew he had to do something.

So he had been reduced to this: Sneaking along the path to Hogsmeade in the dead of night, on a plan he was fairly sure he couldn't go through with. The dark magic of the cursed necklace in his pocket was seeping through its box, fraying his already tense and jumpy nerves.

He had never cast the Imperius curse before and didn't know if he could. He was fairly certain it took more than desperation to produce an Unforgivable.

Draco's knees felt a little weak. He stuck his hands under his robed armpits and distantly wished for his gloves.

It was surreal how his consciousness could exist on two planes like this: worrying over the fate of his family's life while at the same time cursing himself for not dressing more warmly, for allowing himself to lose some scarce, insulating pounds this last month, for bemoaning his inability to hold multiple charms at once. If he were to cast a warming spell, surely his Disillusion would fall, and he wouldn't risk getting seen.

He wondered when the first snow of the season would fall, and wondered how one of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters could worry of something as trivial as the weather.

It seemed an eternity before the lights of the pub on Hogsmeade dispelled the shadows on the pathway. The Three Broomsticks was the only place still open at this hour. Through the place's front windows, Draco could see the personable, voluptuous matron laughing with a group of appealing vampires.

Guilt surged in him, clawing at his throat like an angry beast wanting to be let out. He did his best to ignore it.

He waited by the door until a patron opened the door to leave. He entered stealthily and pressed himself against the wall as soon as he was inside. Though he trusted most these customers were inebriated or on their way, he couldn't help but spare an envious thought for Potter, who would never need to maintain a Disillusionment charm for hours on end. Now that he was so close to his goal, his charm was quivering; his outline was no longer seamless.

Now that he was so close to his goal: Madam Rosmerta. No on would suspect her to be involved in a wicked plot.

What Draco needed was to get her alone during a time when no one would notice her absence. The pub would need to clear out some before he would have his opportunity--as packed as it was, she couldn't be gone for as long as a minute without drawing attention. Draco sighed in impatience and dismay. He would have to wait until all these people left.

Though it had been miserable outside, the heat and smoke and din in here was equally bad. Draco just wanted to sit down; more than that, he wanted to be in his bed. He was tired but his anxiety staved the worst of it off. He wished Father hadn't been arrested, wished Potter had never been born. He wished it was closer to the pub's closing time...he had left his dorm at half past midnight. From his position, he couldn't see the clock behind the bar but he knew the wait until three would be a long one.

Instinctively, the eyes of the predator sought and tracked the motions of his prey. Rosmerta's honey curls bobbed as she turned her head to wink at a man she passed. The wizard blushed. Draco sneered. The miscreants who sought to have a time here, on a Thursday night, at this hour, were pathetic and it was annoying how amiable she was to all of them.

The longer he hid next to the door, the more aggravated he became. She should be kicking out these drunkards, not encouraging this raucous. She was too...pretty to put up with their unseemly behaviour.

His lip curled at the cretinously sentimental thought. He was a pureblood, of one of the oldest houses around today; he was proud. Father spit on women like her. Not to mention, he had a mission to complete. He couldn't afford to lose focus. His fingers curled around the wrapping that covered the opal necklace in his pocket. Its horrid, pulsing feeling was almost comforting. It certainly served to remind him why he was here--as if he could forget.

His nervousness heightened when pairs passed him to make their leave, but as time passed, with every other seat abdicated, he seemed to relax. After hours, he was floating in a contented lassitude and could barely remember why it was significant that there were only two or three tables still full. The pounding in his head matched his heart beat, and both were in tune with the pulsing of Borgin's package, still clutched in his fist in the pocket of his robe.

Suddenly the air around him shifted. Through half-lidded eyes, Draco could see himself. When the implications of that hit, a surge of panic shot through him and he quickly released the necklace in favour of his wand.

His spell had fallen and before he could get it back up again, he was sure he saw Rosmerta's gaze dart toward where he was a fraction of a second before he disappeared. He cautiously, silently moved metres left along the wall and toward the barstools. The proprietor's eyes stayed at the door for a lingering moment, before she shook her head slightly. She tugged at the low neckline of her robes, attempting to ease her discomfort by covering herself up.

Merlin, Draco breathed. How the hell had he let himself slip like that? He tried to remember what had happened right before his charm fell...and all he could remember was a sluggish, warm throbbing encompassing his body, originating from...his pocket.

Grey eyes, usually aloof, widened and breath caught in his throat as he realized he had been letting himself succumb to the curse of the necklace. Suddenly he remembered Borgin's grizzly warning as he wrapped the glittering necklace in some brown paper: "Be careful, young Master Malfoy. The most beautiful things have the greatest temptation."

His insides shook a little bit as the severity of what he was doing hit him. If he was caught tonight, if he unsuccessfully attacked Rosmerta, this would be his end. If he was caught in possession with this necklace, he would be better off dead. The Aurors would storm down on him and uncover his Dark Mark and he would end up alongside Father, in Azkaban with the Dementors, with no hope, with nothing--and he would thoroughly embarrass his family's name. Ensuring tonight went as planned was the most important thing he could do.

He couldn't believe the dark curse had lulled him into a haze momentarily. He needed focus. But the longer the necklace was around him, the harder it was becoming to think. The panic of being visible had cleared his head for a bit, but now his fingers were twitching to connect again with the content of his pocket.

He needed to get away from this necklace. There was barely anyone left in here and it was time.

A clink of mugs meeting each other filled the room as two couples stood to leave and Rosmerta gathered the debris from their table. Her pink mouth opened in a yawn before stretching into a smile. The group paused to say some words to her, someone dropped some coins on the table and Rosmerta sweetly bade farewell to the retreating figures.

The loudest of the lot threatened to return the next night. The petty part of Draco which could still summon feeling over people as insignificant as this rolled his eyes. God, what an awful job. He mentally thanked the ancestry which would never require this of him.

When the door clicked behind them, the matron waved the mugs in her hand to the sink behind the bar with a flick of her wand and concentrated on the door. "Tresalva," she nervously muttered.

Draco spared a moment to smirk. That particular warding spell, while nothing a determined Death Eater couldn't crumble in seconds, was stronger than what was necessary for casual storekeeper. Even though his slip earlier was highly embarrassing and could have been detrimental, he kind of liked this evidence that he had scared her. A heady rush of smugness occurred to him as he thought how none of her wards would do her any good tonight.

Appearing slightly more assured with having cast the spell, the woman disappeared into an alcove behind the bar. After long seconds, Draco determined she had gone upstairs to complete her nightly routine before descending between the sheets. Reticence greeted him at the idea of intruding on her territory, but he knew it was wiser to get off street level to do this.

He looked up the staircase that was hidden from the customers' plain view. The narrow walls and the poorly aged wood spoke of the place's classlessness. The only illumination came from a thin space under the door at the top. His goal. Draco took a step toward it.

The first step creaked under his foot. Every cell seized in preparation for an assault.

When none came, he slowly released a breath. Thank Merlin for the bird's inattentiveness.

"Finite incantum," he whispered, running his wand over himself, replacing the Disillusion with a feather light charm. He should have thought to silence his footsteps before ascending these stairs.

Much more slowly, he crept upward. When the door that barred entrance to the woman was pressed against his cheek, Draco inhaled a deep breath of air which weighed ten stones in his lungs with the knowledge that after this, whether he was successful or not, his life would never be the same again. He had planned carefully to send Dumbledore the necklace in this way so as to remove himself from the crime, but even if he went undetected, he would always remember this night as the first night he used an Unforgivable. His wand would forever be proof of it.

His left hand clutched his wand so tight it hurt. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to die. He closed his eyes, seeking to concentrate his power. His attention drew to the still-pulsing package in his pocket. Knowing he oughtn't allow this, he attuned his breathing with the time the necklace kept, feeling its power wrap around him and fog his brain. He could feel a headache begin to form from the pulsing, and though it was uncomfortable, it was also warm and powerful.

He thought of the word he would need to say and focussed on the power of the dark magic. The longer he thought on it, the deeper this evil mingled with the magic in his own blood.

Pulling his hood on and as far over his face as he could manage, he sucked in a breath and held it. With his right hand, he pushed open the door savagely, banging it against the wall and alerting the girl immediately.

Half-dressed in front of her open wardrobe, she was unprepared to face him. She shrieked as she took in his shadowed appearance. She hadn't even tried to reach her wand before he was shouting, "Imperio!"

The next he knew, he was on his ass at the very edge of the staircase and his tailbone hurt so bleeding much. He jumped to his feet, scared as to why he was out in the hallway again and stupidly, so stupidly, for the first time wondered if the barkeep lived with anyone. The pain in his bottom had brought tears to his eyes as it refused to abate but he only briefly pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes before he was ready to rush back into the bedroom, wand ready for attack. He took a step forward...and promptly emptied the contents of his stomach. His mouth sour and foul, he shakily fell to his knees. He couldn't remember the last time he'd vomited. He wanted to be back at Hogwarts. A wave of evil crashed over him, stronger than the magic from the package. With a shock, he realized the force which knocked him out of the room was probably related to the force of the spell he had cast. Another bout of evil crashed over him and he shook with the bad feeling it gave him about himself. This blowback, Draco rationalized, was what a wizard felt the first time he cast dark magic. This was the feeling of his soul, tainting.

He banished the pile of sick he had expelled. The rotten feeling of malaise, in his mouth and in his soul, he pushed to the back of his mind. He would deal with this weakness at a more appropriate time.

When he re-entered the room, there was no one else there. Rosmerta stood motionless, slack-jawed and dazed exactly where he had left her, with her heels and pantyhose discarded nearby.

Draco's barely-there Adam's apple bobbed nervously. It had worked. He couldn't belief it.

This time the tears that rushed to his eyes were of relief. For the first time since term had started, he began to foresee that things might turn out alright.

Cautiously, he approached her. He was so scared she would suddenly make a dive for her wand.

Finally he was so close he could feel her breath against his face. Each puff of air smelled like coffee, but unlike any coffee Draco had known. The hazel eyes, that normally sparkled so bright at anyone who approached her, stared at him lazily. He remembered the feeling of being under this force during Moody's, or the fake Moody's, campaign at Hogwarts during his fourth year. She was experiencing a sensation like floating inside her own mind, a complete release of all responsibilities. Right now, she was feeling...peace. Unobstructed peace.

He couldn't believe he did this.

"What's your name?" he asked, unsure of what to do to prove the potency of his curse but unwilling to blindly trust it.

"Rosmerta Heathcote Beery," she answered succinctly but distantly, her eyes fixed on the open door. Draco winced and mentally thanked his parents for their more tasteful name selection.

Draco felt discomfited in the dead face of this lively woman. "Look at me," he ordered in a shaky voice. She did, but her eyes were uncommitted. He shifted and tried to figure what it was that normally brought life to her face. "Smile," he ordered.

And so she did. Though he suspected she must be forty or older, creases only marred her skin when she smiled. Draco's gut twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the dirtiness casting the curse made him feel.

Startled at his own lack of regard, he willed away the heat spreading through his body and tried to ignore her bed, so close. He had something to do tonight

"Okay," he started. Then he cleared his throat, attempting to come up with the words he needed to say. "Okay. So I am going to give you a package. You are to keep this package stored safely here until the Hogsmeade weekend, next weekend, for the Hogwarts students." He spoke slowly and deliberately, praying so intricate orders as these could be followed by Imperius' victims. "You must carry the package with you on the day they are to come to the village. You will notice when a female student enters the bog alone, and you will follow her in there. Then you will place the Imperius curse on her, give her the package, and say exactly this, 'Deliver this directly to Albus Dumbledore. Do not stop for friends, shops or teachers. And do not open the package.' You must also instruct her to forget who gave her the package, and tell her she must act and speak as she would normally while she is under your curse." His breathing was coming harshly through his nose. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said airily, still smiling faintly.

"Good," Draco said jerkily. "Good. I'm going to, er, give you the package now."

As he touched the brown paper, the thrum of power that made it hard to think hit him again. His slight Occlumency prowess fell apart and the nausea and arousal he had subdued so that he could focus on this task hit him anew.

Feeling vulnerable and ill and excited, Draco wanted comfort. From this lovely specimen in front of him. Thinking was an utter impossibility with this dark magic flooding his system and her wide, relaxed features smiling at him.

Both his hands--one still clutching the package--wrapped around her shoulders. He minimized the space between them and tilted his face down to hers, expecting to meet soft lips tilted up to meet his.

And so was surprised when her face was still pointed as it had been when he had stood a greater distance from her. What the hell was he doing?

He gasped and jerked away, letting the necklace drop to the floor in his panic to get away. As soon as he released it, the fog dispersed.

"Erm," he stammered. "Go, er, get the package. It fell. Please." He wasn't used to this lack of response.

She rotated on her heels and bent over to pick it up. Draco's windpipe nearly closed as she revealed to him a partially exposed back. Apparently she had unzipped her robes before he had entered the room.

Draco was sixteen but had, what he felt, inadequate experience with girls. He had never seen so much pale flesh in real life and wanted...well, it hardly mattered what he wanted. Less powerful people may consider him the worst kind of wizard: a Slytherin, a Malfoy, a Death Eater, but he knew he was no monster.

As soon as her long, red nails wrapped around the package, Draco ordered, "Now secure it somewhere in this room where no one but you can access it."

She crossed the room to her nightstand and slipped the necklace inside it. Draco's eyes were glued to the clasp of her bra, to the way her narrow waist moved, to the way it sloped out to become her hips, where the zipper stopped. Her robes loosely hung off her shoulders but clung to her bum and Draco's felt his trousers tighten. No school girl had a figure like this. He might know it was wrong to do anything but no one alive could ignore this vision. He reckoned it couldn't be too bad to look when she made tips daily off the men who looked.

Okay, he knew he was much, much different than the pub tippers. But...he couldn't help himself.

The wards she put on the drawer were inadequate but he figured they would do, as she would only be responsible for it for a week.

When she completed her task, Draco knew it was time to leave. "Good. Now, there are some other things you have to do for me." He gulped. "First, you must forget this conversation ever happened. Forget you saw me downstairs, too. I was never here. Second, if you are ever questioned regarding this night, you must not reveal anything to anyone. And, while you are waiting for the moment to approach a student, you must behave normally. Do nothing differently then you would." She stared at him. "Do you understand?" he demanded after a bloated pause.

"I understand," she said. Her voice was warm honey, like the colour of her hair.

He was floored as he realized that this, this right here, might be the first step in killing Albus Dumbledore. Again, a joyous feeling hit him.

He would succeed, and then he would become the Dark Lord's most trusted, most faithful servant, which was the best he could hope for. The name Malfoy would once again inspire fear and respect as people acknowledged that he killed the only man the Dark Lord ever feared.

His heart swelled at the thought of seeing his father free, of seeing his mother without the fear she had been carrying since he had been granted this assignment--the fear which caused her to give him warnings of their Lord and of Draco's safety, warnings which only proved her disloyalty and served to get her punished. He could save them.

He had never been anyone's saviour; he could hardly think the word without giving it the same nasty, bitter inflection he reserved for words like, 'Potter' and 'Mudblood.' But it felt good, he decided. He wanted to glory in it...he wanted to share it.

"Come here," he ordered of the woman. Just one kiss, he promised himself. Just one kiss to seal the fate of his family in this war, at the side of the most powerful wizard alive. She walked up to him, which pleased and excited him unreasonably, as he knew it was just the spell working.

He cupped her cheek and forced her face to look into his. "Kiss me," he rasped, startled by how suddenly needy he sounded.

He has kissed three girls before: Parkinson and two girls a year below him, but none of them held half the appeal Madam Rosmerta did. He smiled as he leaned down to meet her, his heart racing and his mind stupidly thinking, "I hope I make this good."

Full, soft, pink lips pressed against his in a way that was like meeting heaven. Feeling as unreserved as he would if he were alone in the showers, he moaned softly and felt the magic around and inside him--the magic he felt when he cast this curse, the magic he felt in Borgin's opals, the magic in this woman and in her building--soar. This was what success felt like.

Her tongue fondled his as smoothly as if they'd rehearsed the motions a hundred times, but with a reckless passionate inherent in only first kisses. His long hands stroked her neck, then down her smooth spine. He unconsciously unhooked her bra when his wandering hands met the intrusion.

"Be careful, Master Malfoy. The most beautiful things have the greatest temptation."

The echo of the warning called him out of the embrace and he pulled back, holding the sides of Rosmerta's face between his thumbs. She strained against his grip, trying to meld their faces together again. After a moment, Draco realized what was happening, and murmured, "Stop." She did.

He felt like an utter moron for forgetting for even a second that the sweetest, most skilled kiss he'd ever shared was under a curse's compulsion, but Merlin, if Borgin had ever been right about anything, it was this. The pull he felt toward this siren was undeniable--and he didn't want to deny it. Barely taller than she, he looked down at her. All charming innocence from the neck up, all trollop below.

Two fifth year girls had approached him last year looking for someone to, "practice kissing with." As he was constantly ready to practice, and one of them was particularly comely, it had been no hardship to make use of one of Hogwarts' excess classrooms entertaining these girls. However, as soon as he had tried to slip his hands up one girl's shirts, her friend had called her a slut and threatened to tell the whole dorm about what she did if she let Draco's hands commence, thus ending that interaction. And Pansy and he had been "practicing" for years, casually--ever since the Yule Ball, really--but she had also been reluctant to take it further. She had started letting him feel around under her shirt sometime last year but refused to remove the article of clothing completely.

Draco knew he wouldn't encounter resistance if he took if farther with this woman tonight. He also knew that anything she could reveal would be thirty years fuller and more provocative then anything Pansy could show him.

These thoughts were bad. Draco knew they were. He even suspected that, were she cognizant, she would rather choose to take part in a plot to kill Dumbledore then in something like this. But...she would never know. Ensuring she had no memory of the event afterwards was surely a compassionate thing to do. Draco wasn't a monster. He didn't hurt people for no reason. Except for Weasley, Granger and some, or most, of his other peers--not that he would consider Granger a peer--when he wanted to. And he wanted this.

And assuming if--if--this plan didn't work, the cabinet plan didn't work, and Draco had to return to Voldemort during Christmas to say he had accomplished nothing, Draco would really prefer to not die a virgin.

He would've laughed at the idea as he thought it if his mouth hadn't suddenly gone dry. He tried to lick his lips.

"Drop your robe," he said softly. His grey irises were so dark as to almost appear black as anticipation crawled through his veins.

And she did, of course she did, and what she uncovered was more fabulous than the gardens at the Manor, more grandiose than Hogwarts itself, more satisfying than beating Potter at Quidditch would be. Each inch of milky skin revealed tested Draco's restraints. Clad in just her underthings, she looked more beautiful then he could ever remember her from his memories from before. His fingers twitched to touch her.

"Wow," he breathed, then blushed, then remembered she couldn't even think for herself right now, so he had nothing to be embarrassed about. That was as anticlimactic as it was freeing. Holding himself so high strung every day, especially lately, was taxing. To have let a throwaway comment like that go in front of anyone else would have deeply shamed him.

But here, it didn't matter. He gulped as he took her in. "Say my name," he said.

Those kindly, vacant eyes widened as she was given an order she couldn't complete.

"Draco," he prompted, and shook off his hood.

"Draco," she said.

"Again." He tentatively reached for her, as if to touch her like this would break the spell. It didn't, of course, and as he slipped the lacy straps from her shoulders, he felt like the two of them were creating a new kind of magic between them.

"Draco."

He bent down and kissed a breast. "Again," he ordered.

He bit down on the sweet nub and her next, "Draco," sounded a bit breathless to him.

He cupped, squeezed, rubbed his palms against her skin and kissed her again. She was unresponsive until he remembered to instruct her to kiss back. The kiss was as good as the first and he felt his hips jerking sporadically, sometimes finding friction against her and sometimes not. It was clumsy but to Draco it was very hot and, Merlin, what was he doing? What would his mother say? and soon he felt everything seize and then a conclusive warmth spread though his shorts. The muscles in his upper legs twitched and felt weak. Again, he felt like he should be embarrassed, but Rosmerta didn't seem to mind or even notice. He parted them again to catch his breath and waited to regain the capacity for speech so he could voice his will. Finally, he said, "Undress and lay down on the bed."

Her acquisition was so, disturbingly perfect. He had never felt so connected to anyone.

As she stepped out of her panties and revealed what lay below, he thought he would pass out. He'd had no sight before seeing Rosemerta like this.

She moved fluidly, without trepidation, toward the bed.

His heart was beating so hard in his chest it was painful. He couldn't believe this was happening.

Blaise had fucked Tracey Davis the first weekend back this term. He thought this was going to be much better.

Draco opened the front of his robes and pushed his trousers down. He didn't feel comfortable getting all the way naked in this strange bedroom, but he crawled on the bed like it was his.

She laid ramrod straight atop of the sheets. Draco shuddered at her bland expression. He wanted her to enjoy this. He tapped her calves. "It's okay," he whispered, but to whom, he didn't know. He pressed his nose against her knees and breathed in her redolent scent.

"Hold them like this," he instructed, and lifted behind the knees to part and position her legs in an optimal way. Draco was...inexplicably moved by this moment. Crouching in between these knees, touching her inner thighs, outer thighs, hips--but a distance from anything too intimate--Draco couldn't describe what he was feeling, but he knew it was important. And that this was the first time he'd felt anything like it.

He leaned up to kiss this pretty girl...only to be greeted with those dazed eyes.

Suddenly, the warm, delicious body under him felt like a corpse. Draco froze.

What the hell was he doing? This wasn't for the Dark Lord, or Mother or Father or Dumbledore. In fact, he was certain that all of those people would be disgusted if he could see him now, though his Lord may just take amusement from his weakness. He had no business dawdling here

Draco started coughing. Horrified, he begged not to throw up again. He squeezed his eyes shut and used his hands to navigate away off the bed, away from this body. He felt like...well, a rapist would be the most apt term. He had done more than what he needed to do. Now he needed to get out.

He barely remembered to order her to dress as she normally would for bed before scrambling out of the room, trousers in one hand. He didn't bother to get dressed until he had descended the stairs.

For the love of the name of Slytherin. Holy hell. What had he done? What had he almost done?

For his first to be a middle aged waitress under the Imperius curse...well, that would just break Mother's heart, wouldn't it? Draco could think of nothing that could disgrace the Malfoy name further than this.

And what it meant about himself...

He practically fled the building, nearly back to the gates of Hogwarts before he remembered to recast a Disillusionment charm.

The very east of the sky had started to lighten. He felt too tired to go to classes today.

The next Hogsmeade weekend, students slowly filled the castle, trading excited theories about an unknown accident that had landed Katie Bell, a Gryffindor on the Quidditch team, in St. Mungo's.

Safely stored away in detention all day, no one suspected him--but Draco knew what this meant.

He had failed. And he had wasted this week ignoring the cabinet, so sure he had been in the success of the opals. It should be Dumbledore trapped in the horrors of own mind, driven to madness and death from the necklace, not some girl who had nothing to do with any of it.

All of this had been for nothing.

This wasn't what he wanted. He had used dark magic, tainted his soul, assaulted a woman--all for nought. For the first time, Draco felt like a Death Eater.