Residing in the ruins of a curious brick house on the corner of two nameless country roads of Nevada was a trio of rather interesting individuals. Placed in the middle of the harassed structure rested a pretty rosewood table, of the sort owned almost exclusively by the outrageously wealthy.
Kneeling upon the middle of the rosewood with a faraway look upon her face was Elleny Tamerlane, a paragon of ethereal beauty and brassy eccentricity. She gazed into the distance, past the exhausted landscape and abandoned buildings with a peaceful, vaguely mysterious smile. She stared languorously at the broken structures and charred ground, though she saw not destruction - but an elusive, veiled kind of splendor.
"It's…transfixing, isn't it?" She whispered quietly, not quite breaking her gaze at the land, "There was great power here once, I think. I can feel it in the ground… like a tremor running through it…a ghost of what stood here before."
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head towards the golden gray of the sky, letting the rays of sunlight cascading from between the grim, dark clouds wash over her body. Muted light streamed over her nearly colorless skin, adding a film of dusty gold to her face, and somehow making her pale features seem even more delicate.
Watching her, outwardly impassive, from the other side of the room, Draco Malfoy propped his shoulder against the remains of the northern wall, breathing in deeply, slowly. Her wonderment was a tangible thing, filling the air with an almost electric current that made Draco shiver at its strength and emotion, its life. Curtly turning his back on the poignant picture Elleny made, he stalked out of the room stiffly, his eyes dispassionate except for a small, nearly indiscernible flicker of pain.
His eyes once again hollow, he strode into the room and threw a heavy beige jacket at Elleny, quite abruptly shattering the tranquil spell she had woven about herself. As if slapped in the face, Elleny twitched clumsily, her eye's wide and uncertain, regarding Draco's stony expression silently as she pulled the jacket over her thin body.
"Are we leaving, then?" She inquired softly, raking her fingers through her tangled white-blonde hair before she shoved it into the jacket's overly large hood and slid from the table.
Draco shook his head roughly, "No, we won't be leaving here for awhile, I still have quite a few more…business matters to attend." His voice trailed off, and he looked brusquely away from her relentless gaze, "If it is a concern to you, however, our departure might be expedited if you could find Cairo for me. I believe he was somewhere around that—"
"Blacksmith shop. And obviously, I've returned," his whispery, accented voice drifted towards them from the shattered doorway, hanging loosely on it's frame, "it would be wise for both of you to avoid it, it has some very inhospitable…" he paused, ever so slightly, his gaze moving over both of them, before he finished evasively, "things, better left alone.", His piercing gaze boring into Draco's deep blue eyes, he inquired simply, "You required something of me?"
"Indeed, I did…do. If you would follow me, we could discuss this at a greater length." His gaze shifted to Elleny's unreadable eyes, and somewhat uncomfortably he regarded her for a few moments, "I believe it's time enough you were out of the sunlight, and I have a task for you, anyways. After I have finished speaking privately to Cairo, I will require your company for a few moments in what is left of the study. If you could await me there, I…" shifting his weight, he softened his arrogance with somewhat forced courtesy, "I would appreciate it…greatly." He mumbled something beneath his breath, wiping the back of his hand across his chiseled mouth before, without a spare word of civility, turning tersely away.
As Draco coolly strode out of the room, Cairo stalked silently behind him, flashing her a very slight smile before they disappeared around the broken northern wall. Elleny's unearthly pale eyes reflected their retreating backs in her usual quiet, controlled manner as she slowly climbed back atop her rosewood table, closing her eyes to the physical world.
Harry Potter awoke abruptly, his dream world shattering into small pieces that seemed to litter the floor of his dormitory, running an agitated hand over his eyes he stood up and quietly walked out of the room. Increasingly alarmed at his stream of disturbing, continuous dreams, he threw his invisibility cloak over himself and wandered towards a dim fire in the common room. As if reading his thoughts, a house elf appeared, snapping its fingers at the fire until it flared out of control and singed the agitated creature's eyebrows off. Having felt a good deal of the fire's power himself, Harry maintained quite a distance from both the house elf, and the fire, too lost in his thoughts to notice as it went about it's business, still murmuring harsh words under its breath.
It was softer than a whisper at first, easily mistaken for a breeze, but Harry's head jerked up abruptly, watching the shadows with narrowed eyes, as if something would imminently emerge from them. Laughter. Again, so quiet he barely heard it…and his head snapped towards the direction it came from. Elleny! His heart started to pound, it was the girl from his dreams, who looked alarmingly like a pale, blonde, Ginny Weasley. Rubbing his eyes, he stared stonily at the misty apparition, mentally convincing himself there was no way she was real, let alone in the common room.
"For all the stories of your heroism and daring," The voice drifted towards him laughingly, mockingly, "you look about as scared as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."
At least she didn't sound like Ginny, her voice was too whisper soft, almost…otherworldly, commanding in it's deceptive quiet. Too much knowledge resided in Harry's mind for him to doubt this apparition. Running a cold hand through his unruly black hair, he slipped the cloak off of his shoulders in a fluid motion, catching it in his left hand even as he pulled his wand out of his pocket.
"Listen," he said commandingly, "I'm not the one who is under question here. Who are you?"
She laughed quietly, and Harry's mind flicked to the image of a veela, "You know who I am!" Her bell-like laughter echoed in Harry's mind, and he realized she was speaking into this mind, "I heard it in your thoughts, 'ELLENY!' your mind screamed, 'like a pale, blonde Ginny Weasley!'."
Before he could stop them a stream of thoughts shot through his mind, totally uninhibited despite his last minute revelation, and he felt a cold hand on his neck, as if she was pulling them out of him. Blinking slowly, he cleared his mind and kept his expression completely passive, he coughed softly and gave her a hard, piercing stare.
"I don't have any idea what you think—" His angry tirade was abruptly shattered and he felt something graze past him, and realized dimly it was a spell.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU TIHNK YOU ARE DOING!" An almost inhumanly incensed voice, so loud it seem to shake the rafters, rattled behind him, and feeling himself go cold all over, he turned around slowly, grimly…