together, and then her ankles, before she could protest.
She writhed in sudden anguish. 'What have you done to me?' she wailed.
'Gold,' he said, with some satisfaction, for threads of gold metal had been woven by him by enchantment into the ribbons. 'And may it burn your skin to the bone, demon witch. May you writhe in the anguish you planned for me, before I hurl you out into the sunlight and end your hell-spawned existence.'
She wept and pleaded then for mercy, and begged him in the name of his love for her to spare her life. But he had stopped his heart to her pleas.
All his love for her had curdled into the purest hate. Hate that once was love is the strongest sort of hate. Hate that does not forget or know forgiveness; hate that is unmerciful.
At last she subsided into silence, and lay limp in her agonizing bonds. 'My Lord,' she said, looking up at him, 'I know now that you will show me no mercy. And surely you can claim my death. But there is something that you do not know. I carry your daughter, Lord, in my body. Your blood runs in her veins as well as mine. Will you not, then, show mercy to her?'
'Love,' observed Tom, kneeling next to the dead girl, 'that curious condition.'
He took a moment to admire the picture she made. All red and white and gold, pale bare skin and hair torn out of its braids and just a little blood.
At first he had been irritated that her struggles had resulted in ripped and shredded clothes, but upon reflection the disarray added to the overall symmetry. She could have been Leda after the swan's ravages -
although Leda had survived that rape, and this girl was quite, quite dead.
A swift spell had broken her neck, and she'd collapsed forward into him, pliant and willing: his hands that were not only his hands had held her up, carried her to the bed, and inside him that tiny part that was still Seamus had wept and beaten its fists against him and finally fallen sick and silent long before he was done.
He ran the back of his knuckle gently along her freckle-dusted cheekbone, up to her temple, his fingers stroking the soft hollows behind her ears. He sat back on his heels — he was reluctant to go, to leave her, she was so beautiful lying the way she was, with her hair all about her; he had never forgotten that hair, the precise color of it, like blood in wine. The marks of his fingers were darkening on her throat. Where her shirt had torn at the shoulder, he could see the blue tracery of veins against her peach-pale skin.
Earlier that day he had found a bruise on his arm, just below the elbow, dark against Seamus' winter-pale skin. It had startled him for a moment.
He had no idea how Seamus had gotten that bruise — playing Quidditch, climbing trees, something innocent and pointless and foolish — and for a moment he had swum dizzily in the disorientation of knowing that he inhabited a borrowed body, that he was powerless over its history. And even as he wore Seamus' bruised skin, so he retained, somewhere in the depths of the living, thinking mind he had stolen, the memory of Seamus' love for Ginny. He had felt the ache of it, like the ache of the bruise on his arm, an ache like hunger. An ache he hated. An ache he did not understand.
It was easier when he thought of it as hunger. Hunger he understood; hunger could be cured. Surely love, too, could be cured by feeding it what it wanted. He leaned now to kiss her unresponsive lips, and searched inside himself for that bruise, that ache-of-love, but he felt nothing.
Elated, he sat back, his fingers trailing along her lips where his mouth had just been. If only he could — but no, he could not stay. He had only bought an hour with her, and she would be missed, whoever she was really; the brothel owners would come seeking her, and would be angry to find her dead, all her usefulness spoiled. Still, she had been useful to him at least.
He had fed the hunger that was the love inside him, had stuffed it on a surfeit of death and desires fulfilled, and in doing so surely he had destroyed it. He was strong now, whole and perfect, all vulnerability burned away. He had to be.
With a last touch of his fingertips to her fiery hair, Tom rose to his feet, drawing his robes close about him. He knew exactly where he had to go now.
'Irregular,' muttered the green-skinned demon who had turned out to be the manager of the Midnight Club. He wore long silk robes of deep purple that had been altered to accommodate his vestigial arms, and a red bowler hat with an ostrich plume. He stood behind the enormous mahogany desk in his gleaming walnut-and-cherrywood paneled office, tapping nervously at the open letter on his desk with the tip of a bronze quill. Beneath the brim of his hat, gold antennae quivered with agitation.
'This is all most distressingly irregular.'
'Oh, yes,' Draco agreed cheerfully. He was sprawled in a gold-and-burgundy watered silk armchair with gilded armrests, his long legs flung out, his feet up on the mahogany desk. His cloak was open, and he was twirling a small green drink umbrella between his fingers. The drink it had come from sat untouched on a nearby table. 'I told my father that myself, Mr. Blackthorpe. He was most displeased. He told me off for back-talking. He's quite right, of course. He is a business genius, after all. And he doesn't like back-talk or disobedience. Why, just last week our head gardener accidentally planted a whole copse of Festering Fireweed upside-down. Well, I bet you can guess what my father did about that.'
Blackthorpe looked up at him, his mouth set in a thin line. Behind him, two hulking troll-like men Hermione assumed to be his bodyguards, glanced at one another and frowned.
'No, Mister Malfoy, I can't guess.'
Draco leaned forward with a beautifully engaging smile. 'He had him killed,' he said, and snapped his fingers.
Everyone in the room jumped, Hermione included. She bit her lip. She had promised Draco she wouldn't say anything until he cued her once they were in the office, and she hadn't. It was more difficult than she had thought it would be. Still, a grudging admiration for him kept her silent.
As if the past eight months had never happened, he was suddenly his old self again, all razor looks and smiling malice. It was an impressive performance.
That was, of course, assuming it was a performance.
'Sorry if I scared you gentlemen,' Draco said, not sounding sorry at all.
His eyes were sparkling. He had unknotted his dove-gray silk tie, and against the bare hollow of his throat, Hermione could see the bright gleam of his Epicyclical charm. 'Didn't realize you were so jumpy.'
Blackthorpe cleared his throat. 'It isn't that I don't want to respect your father's wishes,' he said, glancing down again at the letter on his desk.
Draco had done a good job on it. The signature was unmistakably Lucius', and the mark of the griffin seal ring, pressed into black wax on the parchment, was impressive. 'It is merely that Lucius usually conducts his inspections on a more…scheduled basis. We had an understanding — '
'Indeed.' Draco sounded bored. 'That was, however, before the recent security breaches came to our attention.'
Blackthorpe 's deep green skin paled to an unpleasant shade of chartreuse. 'Security breaches?'
Draco smiled like a knife cut. 'You hadn't heard? Photographs,' he said.
'All sorts of photographs, anonymously mailed to the Ministry. My father had quite a job covering it up, I can tell you. He had to cast six or seven Obliviate charms on the secretaries who opened up a packet of photos of Frances Parkinson cavorting about with a Polyjuiced version of the Every Flavor Boys. I'm sure you know how disastrous this kind of exposure could be for you, my good demon.'
'I'm not a demon,' said Blackthorpe tensely.
'Ah,' said Draco delicately. 'Skin condition, then?'
'I am an incubus!'
'Of course you are,' Draco said soothingly. He settled himself more comfortably in the armchair, still twirling his drink umbrella. 'You know, I'm awfully hungry. Have you got anything here to eat?'
'No,' Blackthorpe snapped. He was visibly distraught. 'About these security breaches…'
Draco shifted in his chair. 'Nothing to eat? I'll take chocolate. Biscuits?
Scotch pancake?'
