firescreen. Of course, there had been no fire in the grate then, and now there was, not to mention the ash she and Draco had trailed all over the Turkish carpet.
'…won't be very pleased,' Fleur was saying to Draco when Hermione snapped back to the present. 'But I couldn't just leave you there all alone, now could I?'
Draco had disengaged himself from her embrace and was leaning against the wall next to the fireplace, brushing soot off his sleeves. 'No one can ever leave me alone,' he said. 'It is an unfortunate side effect of my devastating charm.'
'Viktor's going to be awfully angry,' Fleur said, sounding as if she were looking forward to it. 'All he wanted was to come away quietly to the country and write his book. All this excitement…'
'Bother the excitement,' Hermione said shortly. 'I think we ought to talk about Harry.'
The doorknob rattled.
'Viktor!' cried Fleur, theatrically.
'Ah,' said Draco. 'Something hulking and Bulgarian this way comes.'
The door flew open. It was indeed Viktor, swathed in a red traveling cloak and looking livid with fury. His gaze swept from Draco to Hermione to light upon Fleur. 'Qu'est que tu as fait?' he snarled.
'Speak English in front of the guests, dear,' said Fleur. 'They are uneducated.'
'I told you not to bring them here!' Viktor shouted, as if Draco and Hermione weren't there. 'I gave Harry my word!'
'I didn't,' said Fleur.
'How Slytherin of you,' Draco said approvingly.
'I should have known when you sent me away to have a private word, you were lying,' Viktor went on, his black eyes snapping. 'Fleur, you are — '
'My father always told me it was vulgar to call women names,' Draco observed.
'Please do not address me,' Viktor said coldly to Draco, although his eyes remained on his girlfriend. 'This is between myself and Fleur.'
'There is no point protesting now that they are here, you know,' Fleur said, crossing her arms over her chest. 'What do you propose to do about it?'
'Send them back where they came from,' Viktor snapped.
'It's on fire where we came from,' Draco pointed out.
'You really have only yourself to blame for that,' Hermione said.
Draco glared at her. 'Whose side are you on?'
'Be quiet, all of you!' Fleur cried suddenly. Even Hermione had to admit that Fleur was magnificent in a rage. Her silver hair flew and her face sharpened, echoing her veela ancestry. 'Viktor, you have absolutely no right to send them away! They have come a great distance, seeking their friend — '
'Who has no wish to see them,' Viktor grated. 'I gave my word, Fleur. The word of a Krum is not given lightly.'
'I won't let you do this,' Fleur protested furiously. 'I forbid it!'
Vitkor's craggy brows drew together, shadowing his deep-set eyes. 'And you plan to do what about it?'
'You could withhold sexual favors,' Draco suggested. He was still leaning back against the wall as if he hadn't a care in the world.
'That will just make him angry,' Fleur replied, eyeing Viktor with scorn.
'True,' Draco said. 'I've been withholding sexual favors from him for years and look how angry he is at me.'
Viktor gave him a withering look. 'I told you not to talk to me.'
'You didn't say I couldn't talk about you,' Draco pointed out. He smiled with feline satisfaction. 'God, I love technicalities. They give me a warm, tingly feeling right in my — '
'I've got it!' Fleur crowed.
Everyone looked over at her in surprise. While Draco and Viktor had been arguing, she had slipped behind Viktor's desk and was holding up a handful of parchment.
Viktor let loose an anguished cry. 'My book!'
'Oh, Viktor, you finally wrote your book!' Hermione cried. 'I'm so proud of you!'
'It is almost five hundred pages,' said Viktor distractedly, staring at Fleur, who was holding the manuscript above her head and looking determined.
'It is a painstakingly researched account of the rise of the Resistance movement in the Bulgarian countryside.'
'Well, that sounds like a bestseller,' Draco observed. 'Right up there with
'Harry Potter's Guide to Hairstyles' and 'Arthur Weasley's Big Little Book of Birth Control.''
'Promise me that they can stay!' Fleur cried. She flexed her right hand, and bright small flames appeared at her fingertips. Of course, Hermione thought, she's a Magid too. 'Swear Hermione and Draco can stay or your book is ashes, Viktor!'
Viktor made a guttural sound of protest. 'No!'
'Payback's a veela, Krum,' Draco observed, and grinned, a little painfully.
Hermione shot a sideways look at him, and realized, with a thumping sense of horror, that he had gone a very odd dirty white color. And he was leaning so hard against the wall -
'Draco,' she said, her voice an urgent whisper. 'Is that wall all that's holding you up?'
'Be quiet,' he hissed back, but it was too late, Fleur and Viktor were staring at them both, arrested mid- argument.
Fleur lowered her hand. 'Draco, are you all right?'
'He's not all right,' Hermione said, scrabbling at her belt for the antidote flask. 'He's very ill — he needs medicine — '
'I do not,' Draco said, through his teeth. 'I'm fine.'
'Prove it,' Hermione said. 'Move away from the wall, then.'
Draco bent his head, his fair hair falling forward, and gave a look from beneath his veiled lids that made her think of sharp silver knives. It was a look meant to cut the skin off her bones with its disdain, and she flinched back a little. 'Fine,' he said, and took a step forward, and then another, until he stood in the center of the room.
For a moment Hermione thought he had been telling the truth, and he was fine. He stood with his back very straight and looked at her, and then a greenish color flooded up into the pallor of his face and he pitched forward without a sound. Viktor, dashing across the room with a Seeker's speed, was just in time to catch him as he fell.
When Ron walked into the chess room, followed by an uncharacteristically silent Rhysenn, he saw that for the first time since he had come to the castle there were other people there.
Not, he supposed, that they could all precisely be called people. A long table had been set up in the center of the room — it was a deep reddish mahogany, and ranged alongside it were low-backed armchairs chairs upholstered in dark green silk and metallic thread. The table was scattered with empty silver plates, wineglasses half full of red wine, and dishes of expensive-looking candy. Voldemort sat at the head of it, with Wormtail at his left hand. The seat at his right hand was empty — waiting for Lucius, Ron suspected. A number of watchful, wide-eared goblins sat in the high-backed chairs along one side of the table, and at the far end was seated a tall man with very dark hair whose deep-set, glittering black eyes regarded Ron with flat malice as he approached the table.
'Gabriel,' said the Dark Lord, inclining his head towards the black-haired man. 'This is my Diviner.' He swept a hand towards Ron.
The man he'd called Gabriel looked Ron up and down, his gaze considering. 'He's taller than I would have thought,' he remarked, and smiled.
