The emtpy glass had fallen to the counter. Hermione picked it up and began rinsing it in the sink, biting back a response. She had no idea what to say really anyway. Snape had told her that Draco's reaction to the antidote would keep getting worse. If it got any worse than it already was she had no idea how she would deal with it.
'Draco…' she began, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her ear.
Before she could go on, a tapping sound came from the window. It sounded like an owl's beak. Wondering if it was perhaps a reply to their Gringotts inquiry, Hermione went across the room and drew the curtains back. It was an owl. She unlatched the window and the bird flew inside, shaking snow from its feathers. It flew directly across the room to Draco and dropped a rolled bit of parchment into his lap. It then hung about, keening softly, until Draco took a Sickle from his pocket and held it out; the bird snapped up the silver piece and flew out through the window.
Hermione closed the window behind the owl, latched it, and started back across the room towards Draco. He was staring down at the unopened letter in his lap. When he finally raised his head and looked up at her she was shocked to see that he had gone bone-white.
'It's from Harry,' he said.
The wizard decided to follow his wife the next time she left the castle. He did not have long to wait. She had a habit of walking in the woods, alone, at night, and the next time she set forth upon one of her solitary journeys, he wrapped himself in his Invisibility Cloak and followed her.
Cloaked in darkness, she made her way to the heart of the forest, clutching a witch-light lantern to guide her way. At the center of the forest was a clearing, and she stepped into that clearing and called out in a voice that made him shiver. And from the shadows between the rocks and the spaces between the trees evolved a host of other shapes. Other women, like his wife, all with their dark, dark hair and dark-burning eyes and all beautiful. And the wizard sank back against the tree and stared at them.
They came together, these women, and greeted each other like sisters, and then they sat together in a circle and discussed their situations. Each, it seemed, was a succubus, and each had recently married a mortal man at the behest of the greater demon they served. Each complained bitterly and intently of the boredom of these marriages, of the inadequacy of their human husbands, how loathsome they found them, how hideous compared to demon-kind. And as he listened to this the wizard felt his heart grow cold and shrivel inside him until he wondered that the blood still moved inside his veins.
The demonesses then waxed philosophical. It seemed that their term of servitude was coming to an end. They had been ordered to marry these men that they might bear offspring, offspring who would be half demon and half human, with all the strengths of each species and none of the weaknesses. Demon children who could walk abroad in sunlight and bear the touch of gold. Humans who would be immortal. The demonesses had minimal interest in this goal, but seemed to look forward to a time when they were free of their marriages and could return to their lives as succubi, seducing human men and draining them of their lives and powers.
'I shall look forward to murdering my husband when I go,' said the wizard's wife in a reflective manner. 'I plan to drain him of his life slowly while he spasms in my arms.'
At that the wizard was hard pressed to restrain himself from drawing his wand and damning the consequences. Only the knowledge that a Killing Curse could not work upon a demon kept him in his hiding place. He remained there while the demonesses laughed together about the murders they planned to commit, and remained there while they kissed each other in farewell and slipped away from the clearing, each returning confidently to a besotted and unsuspecting spouse. He remained there while the night waned into pallor and the sun rose over the forest, and when the day had broken, his heart had shrunk to the size of a splinter of glass and all his thoughts were thoughts of vengeance.
And now you really are shivering. Give me your hands, let me put them inside my cloak. There is no need to blush. It is easy enough for me to keep you warm when I cannot, myself, feel the cold.
'This book,' said Ben, when Ginny, who had left in search of food, came back into her bedroom with a plate of sandwiches, 'is full of historical inaccuracies.'
Ginny blinked and set the sandwiches down on the bed. Ben was sitting on the desk, Gareth next to him, reading Passionate Trousers. The dark head and the light, bent together as they read, made her think of Harry and Draco. 'I can't believe you're reading that,' she said.
'As if we hadn't invented Obliviate charms by the tenth century,' said Ben crossly. 'There's no need for…'
'Oh, you're at the bit where the Dark Lord Morgan is ravishing Rhiannon,' put in Ginny, with some relish. It was one of her favorite parts.
'Ravishing is one word for it,' said Gareth. 'She appears to have put up what only her mother would consider a struggle.'
'This book is strangely riveting,' Ben observed. 'Would you mind if I took it back with me?'
'Yes,' said Ginny. 'I haven't finished it. Although I might consider trading it to you for a little more information.'
Gareth looked sideways at Ben and raised an eyebrow. Ben shrugged.
'What kind of information?' he asked cautiously.
'Well, I was going to ask you what you're doing here, but I'm not sure that counts. I can't see why you would have bothered coming at all if you weren't going to explain yourselves eventually.'
'I just came for the food,' said Gareth equably. He drew his short-bladed dagger out of the jeweled sheath at his belt, reached around Ben, and stabbed it into a sandwich. Apparently, Ginny thought, unlike his descendant, he had no problem with peanut butter.
'A thousand years is a long way to come for a sandwich,' she pointed out.
'And not that I'm not happy to see you…both of you…but…'
Ben, relented, drew his cloak aside and reached into a drawstring pouch that hung from his belt. 'I came to give you this,' he said, and held out his hand. In it was something slim, branched and gold-green. He laid it on her palm.
Ginny blinked. 'A flower?'
It wasn't quite a flower. It looked more like a twig that had been torn from some kind of flowering plant. The stem of the twig was soft and dark green. Tiny, half-opened flowers, the pale yellow of fresh butter, budded along the stem.
'Flora fortis,' Ben said. 'Colloquially they call it Will-Power. It's sort of a hedge-witch remedy, but it works. Break off a bud every day and swallow it. If you keep the stem alive, it'll keep budding.'
'Oh. Thank you,' Ginny said hesitantly, 'but what exactly am I supposed to use this for?'
'I'm a bit unclear on that myself,' said Ben cheerfully.
'I suspect you'll know when you come to it,' said Gareth, who was busy removing all the cucumbers from his cucumber and tomato sandwich.
'You eat a lot,' Ginny observed, looking at him curiously. Gareth leaned behind Ben, so that Ben couldn't see him, and made a horrendous face at her. Ginny tried not to laugh. 'I assume the flower has something to do with strengthening will, maybe helping people fight off the Imperius Curse?'
'Good thinking,' said Ben, absently. He had returned to reading Passionate Trousers. 'I kind of like Tristan,' he said. 'I think she should run off with him.'
'I'm sure you do,' Ginny said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Gareth was reading over Ben's shoulder and swinging his feet; his right foot regularly thwacked Ben in the ankle, but Ben didn't seem to mind. It made Ginny feel oddly sad. She saw the way they were together, the way the lines of their bodies seemed to flow unconsciously towards each other like plants underwater, guided by a current. It made her sad because she wondered if she would ever have anything like that herself, and because they reminded her of Harry and Draco, as if she were watching some strange, mirror-warped version of the two of them when she looked at Gareth and Ben.
'Did I tell you anything else?' she asked in a small voice. 'Did I tell you anything about Draco, whether he's
