Ron almost fell over. Gabriel had fangs. Not just sharply pointed canines, but fangs. The slid down over his bottom lip when he smiled, lending him a predatory air. Ron stared in fascination. 'You're a vampire,' he exclaimed, more astonished than frightened.
Gabriel arched an eyebrow. 'I hope that wasn't meant to be an example of your Divinatory powers,' he remarked. Now that Ron knew what to look for, he could see the signs of vampirism: the very pale skin, red mouth, and blackly burning eyes. Gabriel's gaze slid past Ron to Rhysenn. 'Hello, sweetheart,' he said.
'Gabriel,' she said, and went across the room and sat on the vampire's knee. He tipped up her chin and kissed her mouth. Ron watched in sickly fascination, wondering if anyone was going to get bitten anytime soon.
'I never get kissed,' Wormtail remarked, to no one in particular.
'Silence, Wormtail,' said Voldemort coldly. 'We are not here to discuss the particulars of your romantic successes, or lack thereof. You claimed earlier that you had news for me?'
'I do,' said Peter Pettigrew. He turned to the small creature on his left who, Ron saw now that he was looking more closely, was not actually a goblin, just a very small, very ugly, human man with enormous ears and lamprey-yellow eyes. 'You were at the Ministry tonight, Mortenson?'
'I was at my customary place in the Malfoy wing,' said Mortenson complacently.
Voldemort raised a pale eyebrow ridge. 'A spy in the house of Lucius, Wormtail?'
''I am not a spy,' said the little man, 'I merely watch Lucius Malfoy and report on his activities to Mr. Pettigrew.'
Voldemort lifted a piece of Turkish delight out of the box at his elbow and ate it thoughtfully. It was the first time Ron had seen him eat anything other than dice. 'Clearly not a spy then,' he murmured. 'Tell me, have you learned anything useful from your observations? Because if you have not,' and he bent his gaze on Wormtail, 'someone clearly asking for a matched set of prosthetic silver appendages. Only this time, perhaps, Wormtail, you'd like to lose a leg? Or even your head?'
'I can't live without my head,' Wormtail whined.
'No system is perfect,' said Voldemort.
'I want to know about Lucius,' said Rhysenn in a breathy voice. She was leaning back against Gabriel's shoulder. He had one hand in her hair and the other hand held a wineglass full of dark red fluid. Ron doubted that it was merlot.
'Mr. Malfoy did not return to his office today,' Mortenson began. 'Neither did his companion — '
'The blond young man I was telling you about,' Wormtail said eagerly to Voldemort.
'I recollect,' said Voldemort. 'I believe I told you that if Lucius wants to take up with underage boys that is his lookout.'
'It's probably just Draco,' Ron said, then clamped his mouth shut. What on earth had possessed him to speak?
'I know what Draco Malfoy looks like,' said Mortenson, aggrieved. 'I know because he came by the office today.'
Voldemort looked almost interested. 'Did he?' he asked.
'He did. And- he brought his girlfriend with her.'
Rhysenn arched an eyebrow. 'He has a girlfriend?'
I can't believe this, Ron thought. I've been kidnapped by the forces of evil, dragged hundreds of miles to a remote mountain fortress, I'm surrounded by demons and vampires, and everyone is still discussing bloody Draco Malfoy's bloody sex life. There is no justice.
'A girl with long brown hair,' the little spy clarified. 'He called her Hermione.'
'She's not Draco's girlfriend,' said both Ron and Rhysenn, simultaneously, although where Ron had blurted out the words in fury, Rhysenn sounded merely as if she thought the supposition was very funny. 'She's Harry Potter's girlfriend,' Rhysenn clarified, with a disdainful little smile in Ron's direction.
'Actually, they broke up,' Ron felt compelled to point out.
'Did they?' asked Wormtail, looking curious. 'I really thought they were going to get together. All that time I was a rat, I remember thinking…'
'Shut up,' Ron said.
'I suppose Potter was womanizing,' Gabriel said, his hand still resting firmly on the upper part of Rhysenn's thigh. 'Teenage boys, especially when they are famous and can do what they like…'
'Actually, she broke up with him,' Rhysenn gossiped merrily. 'She felt he wasn't being entirely honest with her about his emotions — '
'SILENCE,' Voldemort bellowed. 'Have you all gone mad?' His flat eyes were glittering. 'Have you forgotten — '
'The Cup, my Lord?' said Mortenson, and there was something eager and ingratiating in his voice that Ron did not like. 'The fourth of the Worthy Objects?'
'What,' said Voldemort, his voice deadly, 'of it?'
'She had it with her,' said Mortenson. 'It was Transfigured into a flask that she had belted to her waist. But it was the Cup. I recognized it instantly, my Lord.'
— Elizabeth Bishop
Hermione sat on the edge of the bed in Fleur and Viktor's room, turning the silver antidote flask over and over in her fingers. She had managed to wake Draco up and get him to drink some of it before he'd sunk back into unconsciousness; Viktor had carried him to the bedroom, and laid him down on the bed before Fleur had shooed him out, muttering, 'This is all your fault.'
The bedroom was suffused with a soft, mellow light, a light that made Hermione think of warm autumn evenings and sleeping cats. The torches on the walls burned with a rosy, shaded glow and there were fine red openweave curtains all around the bed. The light that came through them was tinted and threw a deceptive, healthy flush across Draco's sleeping face.
'He's not getting any better,' Hermione said, in a small dull voice. 'I'd thought the antidote was going to fix things, but it hasn't. I just don't know what to do.'
Fleur was sitting on the bed beside him, her head inclined. Her long hair spilled down and over her shoulders and veiled Draco's face behind a curtain of white silk. When she raised her head and looked at Hermione, her blue eyes were very dark. 'Poison, you said?'
'Poison,' Hermione confirmed.
Fleur put her slim fingers against the pulse in Draco's throat, her expression thoughtful. Hermione watched the two of them, so similar in looks, the torchlight burning up their pale hair. A matched set of fair-headed Flemish angels. Hermione had had plenty of occasion to watch Draco sleeping over the past few days, but the change in his
