'He is probably off writing,' Fleur said. 'This is his country house. We came here a few months ago because he wanted a quiet place to finish his book. It has been very dull for me, although as you can see I've been experimenting with flower magic.' She waved a careless hand towards an enormous vase of tulips, then reached up and pulled on a small tasseled bellpull next to the bed. 'Viktor will be happy to see you up and around.
He was worried.' She pointed to a trunk at the foot of the bed. 'All your things are in there,' she said. 'Your clothes, your little bag, your sword too — well, everything except this,' and she drew the Malfoy Family Code of Conduct out of her pocket and held it up. 'I was reading it. It's very amusing. Did you know Malfoys are forbidden on pain of death from wearing powder blue?'
'Hey!' Harry took a step forward and almost fell over the trailing legs of his pajamas. 'That's mine. Give it back.'
'How ungrateful!' Fleur exclaimed, and tossed the book at him. Forced to make a split-second decision, Harry let go of his pajama bottoms, and caught the book. The pajama bottoms fell down. Fortunately, he was wearing boxer shorts underneath them; less fortunately, the shorts were unfamiliar to him, and had a design of enormous interlocked D's on them.
'What the…?'
'Those are my regulation Durmstrang boxer shorts,' said a voice from the doorway; it was Viktor, who had come into the room very quietly and was looking at Harry with an amused expression. 'They suit you.'
'Viktor!' Harry grinned, dropped the book on the bed, and pulled his pajama bottoms up. 'Fleur told me what you did, and I'm really — '
Viktor waved an ink-stained hand, looking acutely uncomfortable. 'That's all right,' he said, ducking his head slightly. He looked just as Harry remembered him — tall and duck-footed, although his hair was longer now, and fell to his shoulders in shaggy, unkempt locks. His brows still beetled, and he was dressed in a rusty black pullover, stretched out of shape, and worn Quidditch cords. There was ink on his sleeves, too. 'Do not distress yourself.'
Fleur got up from the bed, went over to Viktor, and put her arms around him. 'You're so modest, darling,' she said.
Harry boggled somewhat. He had, of course, already figured out what Fleur had to be doing in Viktor's house but it was still bizarre to see. Still, if it meant Viktor was finally over his crush on Hermione, this could be nothing but a good thing. And it wasn't as if Fleur and Viktor didn't have anything in common: they were both wealthy and well-known in the European wizarding community. Of course, Harry couldn't think of anything they had in common beyond that, but he was sure there had to be something.
'I was hoping that perhaps you could read my latest chapter,' Viktor said to Fleur, his voice gloom-ridden. 'I am afraid that it is boring.'
'You're always worried it's boring, and it never is.' Fleur let go of Viktor and glanced over at Harry. 'What about Harry, then?'
'He could read it too,' Viktor said, brightening. 'It is always good to get a fresh perspective.'
'Er,' said Harry.
'Viktor,' said Fleur irritably. 'I mean, what are we going to do with Harry?
Now that he's awake, there are all sorts of things we must know — is he in danger, was he fleeing someone, where are his friends, should we notify them — '
'No,' Harry said quickly, almost falling over again. 'Please don't tell anyone where I am. Especially not Draco or Hermione. You haven't, have you?'
Viktor shook his head. 'We thought it best not to.'
'Promise me you won't,' Harry said. 'It's important. Please.'
'I don't — ' Fleur began.
'I promise,' Viktor said, shooting his girlfriend a dark look. 'What can we do to help you, Harry?'
'Get me to train station or a Floo Hub,' Harry said. 'And as soon as possible please.' He looked at their blank expressions, and bit his lip. 'I'm sorry to be like this, but it's important.'
'But,' Viktor said, looking confused, 'Where is it that you are going? You were in the International Floo Hub, you must have been planning a journey of some distance.'
'Romania,' Harry said. 'I'm sorry, but I can't tell you exactly where or why.'
He bit his lip, suddenly miserable, and felt that he would hardly blame either of them if they bunged him out on his ear. He knew his secrecy must be annoying, and they must be worried, and -
'Is this to do with the Dark Lord?' Viktor said finally, breaking the silence.
'Has the time finally come?'
With the smallest of movements, Harry nodded.
'All right, then,' Viktor said with a resolute nod. 'We will help you however we can. Get dressed, Harry, and then come down the hall to my study — I've got maps. If it is Romania you want, we will figure out how to get you there.'
It was the second time that year that Sirius had stood looking at a murder scene and thinking, in a dazed sort of fashion, that the human body really did contain a surprising quantity of blood.
The body of Conrad Avery lay sprawled across the marble-topped desk in his study, as if he had been killed while in the act of sitting down to write a letter. Papers were scattered everywhere, ink bottles knocked over, their contents drying blackly on the rug. Sirius hoped fervently that Avery had been dead before the horrific wounds that laced his body had been inflicted. His clothes were slashed to threads and across his bare chest and arms and throat enormous gashes had been sliced, as if with the side of a scythe. Blood was drying in sticky pools below the desk, on the rug and the patches of bare floor. Avery's dead eyes bugged from his head and his mouth was twisted in a grimace of terror.
'Alastor was right,' said Remus, breaking the unpleasant silence. 'Look like a Vivisectus Curse. I've only seen those in history books…'
Sirius began pacing around the room. 'Third murder this week, isn't it?'
'Fourth.'
'Dark Mark?'
'No. I doubt it's the Dark Lord, Sirius. He always incendio-d the bodies, unless he was trying to provoke a response.'
'Maybe he's trying to provoke a response now.'
'What response would that be? Other than 'eeew.''
'Maybe Avery betrayed him. Maybe this was about getting a message out to the rest of his group?'
Remus shook his head. 'He would have taken to headquarters then, and tortured him in front of the rest of them. Voldemort isn't even given to making this kind of mess. Avada kedavra and get out, pretty much.'
'I seem to remember he was more about the mess when he was younger,'
Sirius said, beginning a circuit of the far side of the room. The rug squelched wetly under his feet as he passed the desk.
'That's why the curse is in the history books,' said Remus, pushing his sandy hair back from his forehead with a tired look. 'Still…'
'Maybe it was suicide,' said Sirius with a dark grin, moving around towards the back of the desk. 'Maybe his house-elf killed him like in all those mystery novels.'
'Alastor found the house-elf decapitated in the cellar.'
'Maybe it was so horrified by its crime it cut its own head off.'
Remus rolled his eyes. There was ink on his face where he had rubbed his cheek after using his Quik-Notes Quill. Sirius decided not to tell him about it. 'Sirius…'
But Sirius was staring at the wall beside the desk, all jokes forgotten. What he had first taken from a distance to be indiscriminate splatters of blood had sudden resolved themselves into a recognizable pattern. 'Remus,' he said. 'Come here.'
Sirius stepped closer to the wall as Remus came to join him. Words, written in blackly drying blood and ornately scripted, ran along the wall just above the fireplace mantel. Take heed; for I hold vengeance in my hand,
