scrape at the earth with, or knew a spell that might work, but then again he suspected that it would not be wise to use magic here. Eventually he unfastened the belt from about his waist, removed the scarlet charm that hung there, and used the diamond-hard edge to scrape at the grave soil.
When he had enough dirt to fill his cupped palm, he dropped the runic band, took a small vial out of the inner pocket of his jacket, and filled it with the half-frozen soil. Then he capped it tightly, and put it back in his pocket.
He stood up, suddenly dizzy. He wasn't sure if it was because he'd been holding his breath, or just a reaction to where he was. The carved names on the gravestones seemed to be leaping out at him, printed blackly against his inner eye. He heard Draco's voice in his head, speaking to him in the corridors under Slytherin's castle. There's nothing you can do and there's no way to avenge them and they'll be there forever and you'll never see them again, not even if you die.
He realized he didn't want to be looking at the graves, didn't even want to be near them, and he began to back away, moving quickly, until he rounded the corner of another mausoleum and was out of sight of them.
He found that he was standing in a grassy square between four towering stone cenotaphs. He leaned against the side of one, letting his heartbeat slow. The sun had continued its swift and steady eastward rise and the snowy grass all around, the pale stone of the mausoleums, were tinged with a deceptively beautiful rosy light. Headstones stretched away in the distance, an unmoving and unbroken line, until he realized that in fact there was movement there — someone was coming towards him along the path between the graves. Someone not Draco. A girl.
Rhysenn.
Harry straightened up and stared. He remembered having seen Rhysenn descending the stairs at the Manor with Charlie on her arm, and thinking at the time that she was very beautiful, if much older, one of those women so elegantly dressed that she seemed more like a doll than a person. Now, however, she looked…very different. She wore a short, pleated gray skirt and knee socks, black patent leather sandals, and a soft blue sweater set.
She must, he thought, be freezing cold, although she gave no sign of it.
Her glossy black hair was wound into long plaits that fell nearly to her narrow waist, tied at the ends with incongruous bright blue bows. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her eyes very bright. She looked fifteen -
at least, her face looked like a fifteen-year-old girl's even if it did seem to be attached to the body of a twenty-five year old woman. 'I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I said I was just in the neighborhood?' she said, still walking towards him. 'Would you?'
'No,' he said, and took another step back. This brought him up against the side of the mausoleum, and he was forced to stop retreating. 'If you want Draco, he isn't here. He took a walk.'
'How fortunate that I wasn't looking for him, then,' she said. 'How fortunate that I was looking for you.'
'Me?' said Harry. She was very close to him now, and was coming still closer. 'Why me?'
She was only about a foot away from him now, so close that her face seemed to fill the field of his vision: her bright red lips and depthless tunnel-like gray eyes drew his gaze. He wanted to look away, and didn't want to look away. 'I just wanted to talk to you,' she said, her scarlet mouth curving up. 'That's all.'
Her eyes told him something else.
'What…about?' Harry was aware that his voice sounded a full octave higher than usual.
She laughed. 'How would you react if I told you that it's because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since your birthday party, and that I just had to see you again?'
'I don't know,' said Harry, very nervously. 'Why, is it the sort of thing you're likely to say?'
Rhysenn chuckled, reached up, and stroked his cheek. She let his fingers linger there, and he felt himself shiver uncontrollably as if he were cold, although he wasn't. 'You're awfully cute,' she said, the low timbre of her voice sending a pulsing vibration into his ears. 'Did you know that?'
'I've been told I don't,' said Harry, and glanced around even more nervously. 'Isn't it rather bad taste to be hitting on someone in a graveyard?'
'Well,' said Rhysenn, and shrugged, 'Look at it this way. You were depressed a minute ago, weren't you? And now you're not.'
'No,' Harry agreed, 'Now I'm afraid.'
'I get this feeling,' she said plaintively, 'that you don't trust me.'
'I don't.' He tried to take a deep breath, but her heavy perfume seared into his lungs and throat, and he coughed. 'Why should I? And, more to the point, what do you care what I think? I thought it was Draco you were supposed to be bothering.'
'Bothering?' she snapped, and pouted. 'You call this bothering? I'm trying to be helpful.'
'You could be very helpful by going away.'
She lifted her huge gray eyes to his. 'You don't really mean that,' she said, and Harry was unpleasantly surprised to find that he didn't. No part of his mind trusted or liked her, but something in the buried, reptilian part of his brain was urging him to let her stay and keep touching him with those hands that seemed to lace a shivering cold pleasure across his skin. He thought of Hermione, and what she would think, and felt terrifically guilty and ill all at once. 'And why do you believe what Draco tells you?' she whispered.
'Because I trust him,' Harry said shortly. He realized he was quite wedged into the doorway of the mausoleum at this point and could not possibly escape without pushing her away. And somehow the idea of putting his hands on her body, even to shove her away, seemed like a bad one.
'Are you sure that's wise?' Her breath ruffled his hair, and his shivered, his thoughts flying every which way like startled birds. This had never happened to him before — usually when faced by danger or uncertainty his mind sharpened to alertness. Now his thoughts felt fuzzy and muffled.
'What…' he began groggily. 'What are you trying to say?'
'I told you all your friends would betray you,' she whispered. 'Don't you remember?'
'Draco,' he said a bit groggily. 'He wouldn't….and he can't lie to me.'
'Are you sure?' Her hand was softly stroking his cheek now.
He nodded, which was not a good move because it brought his face into further contact with her hand. 'I'm sure.'
'And what makes you so sure? That he's trustworthy? Do you know something special? Something that other people don't?'
Harry tried to reply, but his voice had dried up in his throat.
'Are you feeling all right, Harry?' she asked. Her eyes, again, spoke to him, saying very different words, words that he could almost hear inside his head. I know what you'd really like…we could go somewhere, somewhere quiet, and if you liked, we could have sex.
Harry jumped away from her so violently that he banged his head on an ornamental carved angel. 'Ouch,' he exclaimed. 'What did you say?'
'Oh, your poor head,' she said, her eyes dancing with suppressed mirth.
'Let me see,' and she closed in on him and touched her fingers to his temple, and stroked the skin there. Harry winced, and tried not to breathe, but even with his mouth clamped shut he seemed to be inhaling the perfumed scent that rose off her hair — it was like jasmine and sandalwood mixed with something stronger. She wasn't beautiful, not really, but it didn't matter; he found that his heart was pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, and his throat was dry. He was very conscious of her shoulder brushing his, the swell of her breasts under the tight material of her top, the soft dent in the center of her bottom lip…
'I…' he began hopelessly. 'I don't think I…'
'Shhh, Harry,' she whispered, moving even closer, and he felt her exhale against him, her breath stirring his hair. If she got any closer, he thought half-hysterically, they wouldn't have to go anywhere to have sex. There was a tightness inside his chest that seemed to be growing and growing in intensity, and a radiating darkness behind his eyes. He felt ill and weak and at the same time conscious of a painful excitement. 'I won't hurt you, Harry. You'll like it…'
