want to know. It seems like you can't bear not having the truth…'
'I've been lied to so much, you see,' Ginny said, but it didn't seem like he was listening. Perhaps he already knew, or understood.
'And truth is a beautiful thing,' he said. 'In principle. But it's also an unyielding thing. And the truth between two people always cuts two ways.
Maybe I'd find out that we'll live and grow old together and maybe that would make me happy. Or maybe I'll spend the rest of my life waiting for him to die because I'll know what day it'll be. You can have too much truth, Ginny.'
She nodded. The feeling of sadness had come back, worse than ever. 'I know you're right,' she said. 'And I'm glad I'll see you again.'
He smiled. 'I might not be too happy to see you at first,' he said. 'Don't take it personally,' and with that he was gone, flipping himself over the windowsill and vanishing into the night as if he had never been there at all.
Mr. Blackthorpe and the security trolls couldn't bundle Draco and Hermione out of the room with the dead girl in it fast enough. 'To my office,' the incubus manager snapped, glaring at them both as if the dead girl was their fault. 'Now.'
Draco considered briefly insisting that they be allowed to stay in the room, but he could tell from Blackthorpe's manner that he had reached the end of his patience. Any more requests, Draco was fairly sure, and his father would be called in. As a matter of fact, his father would probably be called in anyway. It looked like the time to use Hermione's Portkey might well be at hand — a very unwelcome thought, since they had not yet found Harry.
Hermione's hand on his arm startled him out of his reverie. He glanced down at her. She was pale, unhappy-looking, but composed. He slowed his walk slightly, so that they dropped behind the rest of the group.
Blackthorpe, in whispered and slightly hysterical-looking conference with the hulking security trolls, didn't notice. 'Hermione, are you all right?'
'I'm fine,' she whispered back. 'But I'm worried about you. You're two hours past the time you should have taken the antidote again. We have to get back.'
'I feel fine,' he said. His heart had quickened inside his chest. If the antidote was really wearing off, he could try — it might not work, but at least he could try -
She dropped her hand from his arm. 'I could Portkey us — '
'No,' Draco said. He moved away from her a little bit, not much, but he caught her hurt look. He dismissed it and willed his mind blank. It was hard, concentrating like this and also managing not to walk into a wall, but years of fencing practice had given him a better than decent ability to concentrate under adverse circumstances. Trailing one hand along the wall for guidance, he thought as hard as he could of nothing: in his mind, he was suddenly wandering in shadows, turning to seek out the barest sliver of light. A whispering din surrounded him, like the dry muttering of the ghosts in the Gray Places. He listened hard -
A sharp pain, in his hand. He'd cut his finger. It hurt. 'Ouch. Stupid bloody padlock. Twisted the blade. Have to use another — Sirius would laugh if he — '
'Draco!' Hermione's voice sharp in his ear, snapping him back to the present. 'Are you all right?'
He turned on her, furious. 'I said I was fine!'
She bit her lip. 'You don't look fine.'
He glanced ahead. Blackthorpe was still enmeshed in conference with his guards. They seemed absorbed. Draco turned on Hermione, 'I'm going,' he said. 'Stall them as long as you can in his office. Tell them — tell them I ran off to check out a suspicious noise. Tell them whatever you want.'
Hermione's hand shot out to grab his sleeve, her voice a startled whisper.
'But I'm not supposed to speak — '
But he was gone, spinning on his heel and running back down the corridor. He raced around the nearest turn and slowed his pace: his chest hurt, just a little bit. If he had the antidote -
But the antidote blocked his ability to find Harry. Who was nearby, Draco could feel it. He leaned heavily on a chair propped against the wall (black laquer and walnut wood, with carved inlays — probably Louis XV and doubtless expensive) and tried to blank his mind again. It was easier this time. He remembered, eight months ago in Malfoy Manor, thinking that the connection between himself and Harry was like a thin cold unspooling between them as they walked away from each other. And it was still there: faint and barely tangible, as if he followed a cord made of nothing more substantial than dust motes.
There was a staircase around the next corner; Draco took the steps two at a time, ignoring the tightening pain in his chest. He jumped the bottom step, hit the stripped-wood floor with a clatter of boots, and was running down the hallway. There were several doors, unmarked, but it didn't matter: he knew which one he needed. He could feel Harry nearby now, as if they stood in the same room. Nerves and shortness of breath made his fingers shake as he tried the door: it was locked, of course.
Draco stood back and put his hand against the door. He took a deep breath. He knew perfectly well that he wasn't supposed to do this. He was not meant to be using magic. Not for something like this — not for anything. He knew that, but it didn't matter. He could feel how close he was, and at the same time he could feel the pressurizing rise, the power uncoiling inside him that wanted to be used. Harry always envisioned it as a beast on a chain, barely controlled. Draco had never questioned his own control. He didn't question it now. He merely opened his hand against the surface of the door, and pushed.
The spell seemed to tear out of him as if the bones of his arm were tearing through the skin. He felt the blaze of it down through his veins and into his hand, taking him by surprise with its force. To Draco's great astonishment, the door gave a great jerk under his hand, and ripped itself off its hinges with a grinding noise. It toppled forward and Draco, taken completely off guard, tumbled after it. He staggered forward, tripped, and sprawled on the floor at Harry's feet.
The wizard had planned to kill his succubus wife immediately, as it were, but when he learned that she was pregnant, his plans took a different turn. It was not that he had a sentimental attachment to the idea of a daughter. It was that she was something of his, his blood and his breeding. Surely, then, her fate should rest in his hands.
He had a cage built inside the largest of his halls, and all its bars were made of solid gold. The succubus he had cast inside it, heavily bound in chains of gold. And there she withered and there she died, poisoned by the metal all around her, but even as she died the baby inside her body waxed and grew healthy. At last the child was delivered and once it was cut from her body, the succubus crumbled away to dust, which the wizard scattered on the wind.
He went then to look upon his daughter.
She was a baby not quite like other human babies. She had been born with a mane of long dark curling hair, and her eyes, heavily lashed with black fringe, were as gray as windowpane glass. She had long nails the color of blood and skin like white snow. The wizard took her and set her down in a patch of sunlight, and she began to weep there, and to wriggle in pain, but she did not die.
'You are mine,' said the wizard. 'And yet you are also not mine, for the ichor of demons runs in your veins alongside my own blood. There is always the chance that you will revert to the maternal strain. Precautions must therefore be taken before you can begin to be useful to me.'
His daughter looked at him with wide uncomprehending eyes. Eyes that were his own eyes, set in the face of what he hated. And perhaps his voice was not steady as he called for his servants, and perhaps his hand was not steady as he held his wand, but it made no difference to the effectiveness of his spells. He had had nine months to work on them and they were perfect.
He cast first a spell that would bind the child, utterly, to that side of her inheritance which was human in nature, and which was more specifically Malfoy. For as long as she lived she would be unable to lift a hand to harm anyone of Malfoy blood. Her obedience also he bound. She would be obedient to the head of the Malfoy
