everything was polished mahogany and heavy velvet curtains and massive marble vases spilling unwatered, undying flowers. Draco looked at home here.
She had no idea if he actually knew where he was going, or if it was merely that the sight of expensive things relaxed him.
At the end of the corridor were a set of polished ebony doors bearing a silver nameplate. Lucius Malfoy, Chairman in perpetuity. Draco set his hand to the latch.
'Ahem.' A sharp little voice interrupted them. 'Did Lucius give you permission to come to his office when he was not here?'
Both Draco and Hermione whirled around, surprised. Standing in an alcove to the left of the door, in front of a diminutive desk, was a small man, as bent as a goblin, with large bat-like ears. He wore the yellow-banded robes of a Ministry official.
Draco tossed his hair back out of his eyes and frowned. 'I'm going into my father's office,' he said. 'And who's asking?'
'Your father — ?' The small man blinked and stared. 'It's you? I–I thought
— Lucius didn't say anything to me about a visit from you, Master Malfoy,' he stammered.
'How upsetting for you,' Draco said. His voice was cold but polite.
'However, my father is not generally very free with personal matters when it comes to total strangers.'
'I'm Archibald Mortenson,' said the small man, tightly. Mister Malfoy's secretary.'
'And I'm his only son,' said Draco, 'can't you tell?' He leaned back against the door, relaxed and arrogant. 'Look at me,' he said. 'And look at this,' and he raised his hand with the Malfoy seal ring on it. 'Do you really think I'm not who I say I am?'
'I know who you are,' said Mortenson, showing yellowing teeth in a smile.
'Nevertheless, I am in your father's complete confidence. He treats me as if I were a member of his family..'
'As, so he alternates ignoring you with occasional bouts of verbal abuse?
Sounds like a hostile working environment to me. I'd ask for a raise.'
'I had heard,' said the secretary, 'that you and your father were estranged.'
'We made up,' said Draco. 'If you don't believe me…' he trailed off, his voice gone very languid, calmly thoughtful. 'You could owl my father.
Only it's quite late and he's doubtless asleep. If you wake him, I can't answer for his temper.' He smiled, pleasantly.
Mortenson looked at the floor, and then at Draco, hard. It was obvious that he did not find Draco at all charming, and there was something about his expression that Hermione did not particularly like. 'Do you know when your father was last here?' he asked Draco. 'Since you two are so close now.'
Most people, Hermione thought, would not have noticed the slight tightening in Draco's shoulders, his infinitesimal hesitation before answering. 'Four nights ago,' he said. 'He would have asked you to pull all the files on the Midnight Club.'
Something flickered in the small man's yellow eyes. 'Very well, Master Malfoy,' he said. 'If you need anything to assist you in your business, I will be here at my desk.'
He retreated back into the shadows of the alcove. Draco's shoulders relaxed, and he flipped the latch on the door and pushed it open.
Hermione followed him inside and shut the door hard behind her, aware of the secretary's lamprey-like gaze on them both.
Lucius Malfoy's office was the size of a professional Quidditch pitch. From the vast windows, hung with green brocade curtains, she could see across the river to the dome of St Paul's. The Ministry itself cast a ghost reflection into the Thames, its spires and turrets rippling on the water.
Muggles, Hermione knew, would see only a formless shadow. 'Draco,' she said, turning away from the window, 'was that absolutely necessary?'
Draco was standing by the desk, which was a mahogany affair roughly the size of a Hogwarts dinner table. A number of expensive toys littered the polished surface: a clear glass globe in which a tiny, perfect miniature of Malfoy Manor hung suspended, a strangely misshapen paperweight in the shape of a frog, and a heavy silver box sitting atop a stack of folded parchments. 'He keeps the Summoning powder in here,' Draco said, picking the box up and fiddling with the lid, without looking at her. 'Was what necessary?'
'That business with your father's secretary. I mean, we could have gone back to the hotel. I'm sure they have international Floo portals — '
'Which we wouldn't be able to use until morning,' Draco said. He had gotten the box open. He turned it on its side and tipped a handful of sparkling powder into his open palm. Crossing the room to the fireplace, he tossed the powder into the empty grate. There was a sound like a soft implosion, and fire leaped up in the grate, illuminating the room, turning the edges of his hair to unlikely gold. 'I'd no desire to wait, had you?'
'It's nothing to do with waiting,' Hermione said, glaring at his back. She felt very angry suddenly, without being able to quite understand why.
'You just wanted to prove you were still a Malfoy.'
'I am,' Draco said, 'still a Malfoy.'
'You don't have to be anything you don't want to be,' Hermione said.
'Deny thy father and refuse thy name,' Draco said, with gentle mockery.
'And to what purpose? Don't try to make me into something I'm not, Granger. I'm a Malfoy. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of my blood.'
'Your blood's full of poison.'
'Well,' Draco said, 'at least it's pure.'
God, don't you even want to live, just a little bit? she thought furiously, but didn't say it. She doubted he even meant his words to be stinging; probably he didn't, because for him, this was simply the way things were.
But it sparked a sudden bitterness in her, a small corrupting rage against someone she loved very much. 'And you wouldn't give that up, would you?' she said, 'Not even to live a little longer?'
'No,' he said. His hands were in his pockets; he was facing away from her, but she could sense the tension in his posture.
'Would you give it up to have Harry love you the way you want him to?'
she asked.
His shoulders stiffened and he turned to look at her. 'Because you don't think he does?'
'No,' she said. 'I don't think so. Do you?'
The flame in the grate turned a dark red, signaling its readiness. 'Why are you so angry at me?' he said, and he sounded a little bewildered, as if he couldn't quite take in what she'd said. 'What have I done?'
Hermione bit her lip, unsure if she knew the answer to that question. She was already beginning to feel that she had just done something horrible.
Without looking at him, she went past him to the fireplace and knelt down and drew her wand. She held it out towards the flames. 'Auditori,' she whispered.
There was a distant crackling noise that reminded Hermione of the static on a telephone line. She looked up at Draco, standing behind her.
'Something's happening,' she said.
He didn't reply.
There was another distant crackle, and then a familiar voice said something Hermione didn't understand. She struggled to remember the bits of Bulgarian she'd picked up fourth year. 'Viktor,' she called, 'It's Hermione. Hermione Granger. 'Chuvash li me?'
'Koi e?…' A moment passed, and then Viktor's head appeared among the flames. His thick black hair was tangled and there was what looked like soap on his face. He glowered at her. 'Hermione,' he said. It still sounded like Her-my-own when he said it, but she let it go. 'Is everything all right?
Is there an emergency?'
