'He is in the other room, my Lord. He has brought what we sought with him, and asks again your forgiveness.'
A sharp, indrawn hissing breath. 'Let him in.'
It was the same tower room, although the furnishings had multiplied.
Atop the long table against the wall were piled a dizzying array of magical objects. Silver flasks and phials, mortars of jade, clear alembics. Cauldrons whose cold contents glowed an eerie bluish green. He viewed the room at a new angle now, facing the two men who stood side by side looking down at the etched pentagram on the floor. Behind it he could see a wall lined with shelves. The shelves held all manner of things: jars of mummified parchment, charts of the heavens, crucibles, miniature braziers and urns, several stands of candles and what looked like an athanorum — an alchemist's oven. A tapestry depended from the south wall, almost brushing the long table: it depicted a skull with flowers growing from its empty eye sockets, and words embroidered beneath it:
I am the assassin against whom no lock can hold.
'It might not be the right mirror, my Lord,' said Lucius Malfoy anxiously, looking sideways at his master. He was wearing dark crimson robes today, banded with black. He had often worn red into the woods when he and Draco had gone hunting together years ago. 'It hides the blood,' he would say.
'It will be,' said Voldemort, 'the right mirror.'
A tall slotted door in the wall slid open, and Wormtail entered, carrying in his hand a medium-sized mirror. It was a beautiful thing: the reflecting surface made of polished silver and the body and the handle made of bronze. The handle was twisted like a tress, the border full of stylised engravings of whirlwinds and birds. It reminded Draco vaguely of the workmanship done on the scabbard of Harry's Gryffindor sword.
Wormtail went down on his knees in front of the Dark Lord, his head bowed. Voldemort stretched out a pale, long-fingered hand, and took the mirror from his servant. From his vantage point behind the Dark Lord, Draco could see Voldemort raise the mirror in his hand and glance thoughtfully at his own malevolent expression.
Then he opened his hand. The mirror slowly rose about a foot into the air and hovered there, directly in front of the Dark Lord, as if it was caught in a strong magnetic field.
The Dark Lord's voice was amused. 'Find the Heir,' he said.
His reflected face vanished as the surface of the mirror clouded over, as if a storm of blue smoke swirled up from its depths. When the blue shadows cleared, Draco saw with a jolt a narrow corridor, and walking along it -
himself. It was strange to see himself from this angle. The Draco-who-was-not turned a corner and stepped through a set of unfamiliar doors onto a barren battlement, adorned with carvings that looked familiar but he couldn't place just how.
'My Lord,' said Lucius finally, breaking the silence, 'What do you see?'
'I see your son.' Voldemort's voice was cold, and sinuous as a snake. 'I am watching your son in the mirror. It has been tuned to find him. I see him now. He bears the Weapon of Real Death. Did you know that?'
'I knew that, yes. Terminus Est. He has had it since the summer.'
Voldemort lifted the mirror higher. 'He is handsome, your son.'
Lucius looked uneasy. 'You asked for him to be made that way, Master.'
'Yes. People of great beauty and charisma make excellent leaders. People wish to follow them. I was handsome myself, once.'
Lucius looked even more uneasy. 'Yes, of course.'
'And Lucifer himself was God's most beautiful angel.'
Lucius was silent. Wormtail seemed pale and distracted. His gaze was on the floor.
Very slowly, Voldemort lowered the mirror. 'Have you read the Bible, Lucius?'
Lucius unclasped his hands, which had been resting against his black robes. 'Master, I would — '
'Perhaps you haven't. It was a staple in the Muggle orphanage in which I was raised.' The Dark Lord put his hand against the mirror in which Draco's face was clearly reflected, his outspread fingers touching the boy's face. 'And God so hated his only son,' he said softly, 'that he gave him to the world, that the world might have him.'
'Loved,' said Wormtail, breaking the silence unexpectedly.
'What's that?'
'The quotation,' said Wormtail. His voice was nervous and uneven. 'And God so loved the world — '
'Do you presume to correct me, Wormtail?'
'N-no. No, my lord.'
'I didn't think so.'
'Malfoy! Hey! Malfoy!'
At the sound of his own name, consciousness came back to Draco like a dash of cold water in the face. With a start, he focused his eyes, seeing the room reel around him before it settled into stillness. The first thing that came into focus was Ron's face: vexed and irritable, his blue eyes sparking like gas flames turned low. 'Malfoy, are you not listening?'
'You told me if I said anything it would be twenty points from Slytherin,' said Draco meekly.
'Yes, well, obviously not when I'm addressing you directly!' Ron looked ready to lunge across the table and shake Draco senseless. 'So are you willing to, or not?'
'Of course I am,' said Draco, without the slightest idea what he had just agreed to do. The room was still spinning slightly and his head was full of echoing voices. There was a sharp pain behind his eyes.
Ron looked surprised. 'That's settled, then.' He put down the parchments he had been holding, and grinned. 'All right, well, we look well on our way to having the best Seventh Year Pub Crawl ever. And if the new chaperon system works, we may be well on our way to being the first class ever to achieve immortality through not having to cope with a bunch of drunken fifth-years getting us all in trouble.' Ron grinned. 'Even Malfoy can't argue with that.'
'Well, it does interfere with my plan to achieve immortality through not actually dying,' said Draco, and then, at Ron's expression, added hastily, 'But… I can rethink that.'
'Anything else?' Ron asked. When everyone was silent, he waved his wand again and murmured, 'Orbus deceleratus,' and the whirling silver circle returned to its place in the center of the table, and was still. 'Meeting adjourned,' announced Ron, and set down his wand.
As the prefects filed out the doors, Draco felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Pansy Parkinson, her pug nose wiggling with curiosity. 'I can't believed you agreed to stay back from the pub crawl and make sure no low-formers try to sneak along to Hogsmeade,' she said, shaking her head.
'Whatever possessed you, Draco?'
Draco stopped in his tracks. 'I did what — I mean, I'm not exactly sure.'
'Blaise thought you were going to go with her — she'll be furious!' Pansy walked off, shaking her head, the bright pink ribbons in her hair trembling. Draco looked after her thoughtfully.
'Furious, eh?' he said to himself. 'Ah, well. Always a silver lining, I suppose.'
'Hey, Weasley! Wait up.'
Ron turned at the sound of the familiar voice, a dull sense of foreboding settling over him. Draco was walking towards him along the corridor, having ditched the other prefects some ways back. Ron stood where he was, eyebrows raised, as the Slytherin boy approached him. Whatever Draco wanted, he was sure it wasn't going to be anything good. Even short conversations with Draco were usually sarcasm rallies. No matter what their shared history, Ron just couldn't seem to muster up the warmth towards Malfoy that Harry could, not even a shadow of the easy camaraderie those two shared when they weren't in public.
Ron cocked his head, trying to define what it was about Malfoy that so annoyed him, even now — perhaps it was the way he wore his school robes, as if they weren't ordinary black school robes but something much finer.
