10. Knives

The street stretched off into the distance, darkness alternating with light. The temperature had dropped after darkness had fallen, and now their breath steamed as they walked quickly and perfectly in step, her hand cool and slender in his. He glanced across at her for a moment. Under the streetlights her skin was pale and her dark-brown hair almost black. She seemed not to notice he was looking at her, or at least pretended not to. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, revealing her graceful profile, small, serious mouth, and green eyes concentrated on the street ahead of them. I'm lucky to be with her. She had on her favourite black leather jacket, an olive green embroidered dress, motorcycle boots over black tights. She was wearing more eye make-up than usual.

They were about a ten-minute walk from the station where she had met him off his train. She had led him along a succession of streets in an area of London he had never been to before, block after block and turning after turning. The stream of pedestrians dissipated as soon as they got away from the station and the parade of shops that led away from it. Behind the main road lay street upon street of terraced brick-fronted Victorian and Edwardian houses, some grand and recently renovated, others with tired, dilapidated facades or bearing the signs of cheap modernisation, chopped about to produce the largest number of flats.

'This is the street,' she said suddenly. On one side the street was lined by a tall brick wall topped by coils of barbed wire, obviously the back boundary of warehouses or some light industrial estate. The wall faced another row of terraced houses, similar to the other streets they had seen on the walk from the station, only more run-down.

'Do you reckon Armin will be there already?' he remarked.

'Probably,' she replied. 'We're not exactly early.' There was no trace of reproach in her voice. When he got off the train she had said nothing about how long she had been waiting for him on the cold platform, no questions about why he hadn't been on the earlier train. Instead she had reached up and thrown her arms around his neck, a slightly ironic smile on her lips as she leaned in and kissed him. Still, he felt the need to offer some justification.

'Yeah, sorry, that's my fault.'

Her only response was to glance at him with a faintly inquisitive look.

'It was a bit strange actually,' he continued. 'I met someone who said that they thought they knew me.'

She stopped walking suddenly, and he followed suit. They looked at each other on the dark street.

'Someone who thought they knew you?' Her gaze was now very attentive. 'Where was this?'

'In the churchyard at St Bride's Church. She was sitting on one of the other benches.'

'Oh, it was a girl?' A faint smile appeared on her lips.

'It wasn't like that,' he replied. He half expected a cutting remark, only she never did things like that.

'If you say so,' she said in a soft, tranquil tone. There was only the faintest trace of irony. After a moment she added:

'And so did she really know you, this girl?'

'Not sure,' he replied. 'We couldn't work it out. You know what my memory's like.'

She smiled and raised her hand, touching him lightly on the temple then on the cheek.

'Yes, I know, dear,' she said softly.

'She was quite interested in the fact that I work at Vlaminck's,' he added. Her eyes widened.

'Well, you work in a genuinely interesting place,' she replied.

'Ah, I don't know.'

'And did she know anything about the occult?'

'I suppose she knew a bit. Maybe she was just being polite.'

'Maybe.'

Another moment of silence passed between them.

'And what was her name, this girl?' she asked, her tone a little frostier.

'Hermione,' he replied. He liked the sound of the name as he pronounced it.

'Hermione?' she exclaimed, before adding in a more composed tone, 'That's not a common name.'

'Funnily enough, her reaction to your name was similar to yours.'

'What do you mean?'

'A bit surprised by it.'

She processed this information for a moment in silence.

'Yes, well my name is quite exotic in this country, I suppose. If we were called Sarah and Jane, no one would have raised an eyebrow.'

He saw her bite her lip for a moment. She seemed to suddenly feel the cold, and pulled her jacket tighter around her. She looked at him under the glare of the streetlight. A little bit hurt but not wanting to say anything. He reached out his arms and pulled her against him. She made no attempt at resistance.

'It was nothing. Really. Just an odd sort of an encounter. These sorts of things happen sometimes in London'.

She put her arms languidly around his neck.

'Let's not talk about it anymore,' she murmured. By way of reply he kissed her firmly on the mouth, almost lifting her up off the ground as he squeezed her.

'Ready to go in?' she asked as they uncoiled themselves from one another. 'We're just a few doors away.'

He looked down the rather forlorn row of houses.

'Which one is it?' he asked.

'It's the taller one, standing on its own,' she replied. A couple of houses down, the terrace came to an end. Standing in the middle of a piece of rather overgrown land, he could make out the pebble-dashed facade of a detached three-storey house. Straggly plants grew from its roof, which loomed above the neighbouring houses, and its chimneys pointed crookedly up into the night air.

'Ilaria!' exclaimed the girl who opened the door to them, hugging her on the doorstep and beckoning them inside.

'This is James,' said Ilaria as they stepped into the hall. A din of loud music and raised voices hit them straight away, together with the mingling of tobacco, cannabis and hot bodies.

'Pleased to meet you, James,' said the girl who had opened the threw her arm over his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek as if they were old friends. 'I'm Paola.'

They followed Paola down the long and narrow hallway and through an open door to the right leading into the house's living room. The room, which ran the full length of the house, had scuffed but lurid red walls and scant, tired-looking furniture, most of which was obscured by the bodies of the party guests, who were gathered in small groups turned inwards on themselves, each with a bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette or joint in the other. A few people were dancing rather haphazardly to the music, while others crouched or sprawled on the floor. At one end of the room was a table with a large metal tub on it, piled high with bottles of beer, half-sitting, half-floating in ice rapidly turning to water. Just helping himself to a beer was a tall, rangy man, dressed in black from head to toe. He had long, straight pale blonde hair that looked almost white under the lights.

'Armin!' James called out.

He turned round methodically, twisted the cap off his beer bottle and nodded to them before taking a long swig.

'You took your time,' he remarked in a deep, sonorous voice, as they met. 'I had time to close up the shop and still get here before you.'

'My fault,' said James quickly, but didn't go into any more detail.

'Drink?' said Armin.

'Absolutely,' James replied. Armin turned back to the tub of beers and pulled out two more. They went back into the throng of revellers and sought out a free section of the living room wall.

'So, how is the world of the occult?' asked Ilaria as they settled in against the wall. 'He never tells me much about how things are going at the shop.'

'Paradoxically, running an occult bookshop keeps me too busy to know what's going on in the world of the occult,' Armin began languidly. 'We might as well be selling spare parts for vacuum cleaners.'

James smiled and lifted the bottle to his lips. The beer was warmer than he expected. Despite his claims to the contrary, he could hardly imagine someone knowing more about the occult than Armin. He spent most of his life in his narrow, dusty shop, reading the books on sale on its shelves and reverently handling the unusual objects in the little room behind the counter.

'Actually, hermeticism is proving very popular this month,' James put in. 'Healing with crystals isn't doing so well though. We had a batch of faulty stock.'

'Very funny,' said Armin.

'We have a special offer on shrunken heads as well,' James continued.

'Who is this bloke?' said Armin to Ilaria, a look of mock outrage on his face. 'He certainly doesn't work in my shop.'

'If only that were true,' James replied.

'I can easily arrange it,' Armin retorted. 'I have a folder full of weirdos' CVs who'd snap up your job in a second.'

'Yeah, I've seen you out the back of the shop with your folder full of weirdos,' remarked James in mock disgust.

'Is that who comes into the shop then?' asked Ilaria, seemingly humouring him.

'Well, put it this way, they're not a very glamorous crowd, our customers,' said Armin. 'We don't have many alchemists and warlocks come in for a browse.'

'They're all dilettantes, then, your customers?' She made an effort to pronounce the word 'dilettante' as it would be pronounced in English, and succeeded.

'Not exactly,' replied Armin. 'Some of them definitely know what they're looking for. But more often than not it's teenaged boys who come in in little groups, trying to pretend to each other they know what they're looking at. They remind me of myself at that age, only I did know what I was looking at.'

'And do they think it's real, do they?'

'What's real?' An unfamiliar voice interrupted them. Standing in front of them was a tall, long-faced man with a dome-shaped, shaven head. He had small, inquisitive grey eyes and a thin nose. He was even taller than Armin, and more muscular looking. A mass of interlocking black tattoos crawled up his arms, forming unidentifiable shapes.

'Oh, just the occult,' said Armin.

The man snorted derisively.

'What fun,' he remarked.

'Can be,' replied Armin.

'What part of it?' continued the man in the same tone. 'Alchemy? Thelema? Communicating with angels? Conjuring tricks?'

'That's hardly an exhaustive list of what the occult is,' said Armin.

'Sorry, did I forget to mention healing with crystals, crackpot religions and reprints of mouldy old books of fake medieval magic?'

'Armin,' said James drily, 'looks like we have a sceptic here.'

'You could be right,' replied Armin in the same tone. Then he turned back to the dome-headed man.

'Calm down, friend,' he replied. 'No one's forcing you to consume it.'

The look of contempt on the man's face grew even deeper.

'It's all a con job,' he replied flatly. 'Not a shred of evidence for it.'

'And you've done the research, have you?' said Armin, his voice thick with sarcasm.

'My point is,' the main rejoined, 'is that the natural world is so much more potent than the pretend world of magic.'

'Well, maybe magic is about harnessing the powers of the natural world and using it,' remarked Ilaria in a quiet voice.

'Sounds great,' replied the man. 'Only it can't be done.'

'You know that, do you?' said Ilaria, a cold look kindling in her eyes.

'And what about using the power of will to control other people?' she asked in the same calm, but hostile tone. 'Do you think that can't be done?'

'That sounds more plausible,' said the man. 'There might be something in hypnotism. Or just plain charisma.'

'I mean more than just hypnotism.'

For an instant the man seemed to hesitate. Then he regained his composure.

'Well, you'd better give us a demonstration,' he commented coolly. 'I'll be the first one to believe you then.'

Ilaria looked at him contemptuously. Then her gaze relaxed.

'I don't do demonstrations,' she replied. The man leered in triumph.

'What a pity,' he replied and she looked away.

'Tell you what though,' he added. 'I can give you a demonstration of the power of will over the body.'

'Really,' said Ilaria with sarcasm. Her interest had been kindled though.

The dome-headed man glanced furtively around him. The party continued regardless of the man and the little audience he had drawn to him. Then quickly he drew a long, thin knife out of his pocket.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' said Armin in a low voice.

'You'll see,' said the man. He raised the forearm of his free hand, flexed his fingers then brought the knife to the skin on the outside of his arm. He picked out a small circle of white skin free of tattoos then ran the knife along it. Blood began to seep out straight away, black under the weak, garish light of the party. Then he lowered his face to his outstretched arm, put his lips around the cut and, with a look of self-satisfied scorn, began to drink. After what seemed like about a minute, he swallowed whatever was still in his mouth, his eyes closed. Then with a flourish he reached into his pocket, took out a black cloth and wrapped it around the wound. Finally he wiped the bloody knife on his skinny black jeans, put it back in his pocket and looked defiantly at Ilaria, James and Armin.

'Very clever,' said James.

'Let me see if I've got this right,' said Armin, 'you come over here to have a go at us for taking the occult seriously, and all along you're actually some sort of vampire?'

'I knew you'd say something like that,' said the man. 'I don't need some ridiculous label taken out of one of your comic books.'

'So why do you do it then?' asked Ilaria quietly.

'Because I've willed myself to do it,' he replied, fixing her with his gaze. 'Because the human body can do a lot of interesting things when the mind wills it to. And because I like the taste of it. It's food to me. It's purifying.'

'It's a pathetic little stunt,' replied Ilaria. 'Something a teenaged boy would do to show off to his friends.'

'Whatever your opinion may be,' said the man, scowling at her, 'it doesn't involve any sleight of hand or mass delusion. It's real. It's natural.'

'So if a human could do magic that would be natural too.'

He half smiled, half grimaced.

'You give me one example of true magic.'

'You'll know it when you see it,' replied Ilaria.

The man snorted.

'This is getting boring. If you've nothing else more interesting to say I'll be on my way.'

To everyone's relief, he shook his head disdainfully and pushed his way back into the crowd.

'After all that,' remarked Armin, 'I could do with another drink.'

'Very good idea,' replied James.

'I agree,' added Ilaria.

'I'll get them,' said James. By then the revellers had shed a few more layers of inhibition and were moving more rapidly and unpredictably, the mass of people opening and closing and reconfiguring itself as James weaved his way through them. The man who had drunk his own blood was nowhere to be seen.

He pushed past a group of teenagers on his way back, two boys and a girl, standing in a little knot in a dark corner of the living room. The boys were pale and scrawny and dressed in black. The larger of the two looked rapidly around the room with wide eyes: he seemed vaguely intimidated by the atmosphere; the other looked pointedly at James with a look of cold, empty hostility. But the two of them were rather anonymous compared to the girl who was with them. Her hair was black and bedraggled, and she was dressed all in white: a lace babydoll dress, ripped white tights and white doc martens that looked as though they had been painted with tip-ex. Although she had her arm draped over the cold-eyed boy, she looked straight at James, her mouth laughing and pupils dilated. She unhooked her arm from her friend, who scarcely seemed to notice, took a self-conscious drag from her cigarette then lurched towards James.

'Come and dance with me, handsome,' she said in a surprisingly precise, clipped accent, reaching out her hand and running it down his arm.

'Thanks for the offer,' he replied politely as he tried to side-step her, 'but I'm here with my girlfriend.' He glanced over his shoulder: Ilaria was already coming towards them from the other end of the room.

'You say that,' said the girl in white, a crazed, laughing look in her eyes. 'But I saw you looking at me from across the room, checking me out. You've got such nice green eyes.'

Ilaria arrived just in time to hear the girl complimenting his green eyes. She leaned coolly towards the girl in white, wrapping James's arm around her waist.

'Excuse me, that's my boyfriend you're talking to.' She was politer than he expected.

'Aren't you the lucky one,' purred the girl in white, the same delirious look on her face. The taller boy tried to pull her away but she slipped free of him. 'But I've got to ask: how did you get him? Did you put a spell on him?'

Ilaria stepped towards her.

'You don't know what you're saying,' she said. 'And you certainly don't know who you're dealing with.'

'I don't know who I'm dealing with?' snorted the girl in white. 'No, you don't know who you're dealing with.'

'You need to sober up and sort yourself out,' Ilaria continued in a quiet, but more menacing tone. 'Otherwise you'll look a terrible mess for school tomorrow.'

'Come on, Rachel,' said her friend, pulling on her arm. 'There's no point.' She started to yield, but then cocked her head very pointedly in James's direction and smiled at him.

'I could get you, you know, if I want. And there's nothing that she could do about it.'

Before he could reply Ilaria had stepped forward and grabbed the girl by the arm.

'Say one more word to him and you'll find out what I can do,' she hissed.

The girl in white looked down at Ilaria's hand then up into her eyes.

'I wonder which one of us is stronger,' she said in a soft voice. Then she closed her eyes. But almost as soon as she did so, her friend reached out his other arm and pulled her towards him, shaking her hard in the process.

'Rachel,' he said. 'Not now. Not here.'

The girl in white opened her eyes. Almost immediately the look of cool concentration blurred back into glazed delirium. She smiled into her friend's eyes then dropped her forehead down onto his shoulder, while the other boy looked on in amused silence.

'Come on, let's go somewhere else,' said James, himself tugging on Ilaria's arm. For a moment she stood still, looking at the girl in white and her friends.

'Cazzo di puttana,' she muttered to herself. Then she let James lead her away into the hall.

'Let's go upstairs,' he said. I don't much like the people at this party.

On the second floor they found a bedroom that was surprisingly empty, apart from a couple of mattresses strewn on its yellowish carpet. Ilaria sat down on the floor and propped herself against the wall. James handed her a bottle of beer then sat down next to her. She looked at him with a subdued, but pained expression and touched him lightly on the cheek.

'So many girls after you,' she said softly.

'You can forget about her,' he said. 'She was drugged to the eyeballs.'

'I know,' she replied. 'She was pathetic. But still … How am I going to keep you to myself?'

He took her hand gently and kissed it. Then he reached over and kissed her first on the cheek, then on her hair.

'You must be joking,' was all he could manage to say.

'But what about that girl in the churchyard?' she continued. 'This Hermione?'

'That was nothing like what just happened,' he replied. 'I think she genuinely thought she knew me. And she was sort of familiar.'

'She obviously knew what she was doing,' she remarked. 'A very convenient way to start a conversation with a desirable guy like you.'

It wasn't like that, he wanted to say, but he knew he would hurt her. Instead he looked straight into her eyes. Circled by eyeliner and with silvery lids, they were almost jarring to him. He touched her on the arm, just below where her sleeve ended, then ran his hand across her stomach, over the fabric of her dress, then down onto her leg. She looked at him for a moment, put her hands around his neck and closed her eyes. He ran his hand up her leg until it was well up her thigh. He reached in closer and kissed her hard on the lips. She kissed him back then drew slightly away.

'I want to too,' she whispered. 'But not here.'

He nodded, kissed her again, but briefly. Then they shifted their positions in unison until she was leaning fully against him, the both of them stretched out on the floor.

'I could fall asleep now,' she said softly against his chest.

'You can if you like,' he replied, twirling around a lock of her hair in his hand.

They had been lying quite still in the empty bedroom for some time when there was a soft knock at the door.

'Yes,' James called out groggily.

Armin stepped inside.

'There you are. Sorry to disturb you, I was getting a bit sick of some of the conversation down there.'

'No problem,' James replied. Armin eyed the empty beer bottles lying on the floor beside them.

'Did you want another drink?'

'Yeah, why not?' He turned to Ilaria, who was lying quite still in his arms. Her eyes were open but she seemed far away.

'Want a another drink?' he said gently.

'Uh …yeah … ok … thanks,' she murmured in reply. As he shifted his position he realised that his left leg had gone numb. He had to get up.

As they entered the hall he felt a blast of cold air hit him. The draft was emanating from one of the other bedrooms. He glanced through the open door and saw that the bedroom beyond it had a balcony where the cold air was coming from. He glanced back at Ilaria. She smiled at him from where she lay, but made no attempt to get up. The cold made him shiver, but he decided fresh air would do him good.

'Do you want to come outside for a bit?' he said.

'No thanks, I'm ok here,' Ilaria replied, then turned onto her side.

The balcony looked empty.

'Fancy a quick cigarette?' he said to Armin.

'Ok, but I'll go and get the drinks first,' Armin replied.

James nodded, crossed the bedroom and went out onto the balcony. He took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit one, leaning on the wrought iron railing and exhaling the smoke into the night air. From the second floor no light came from the yard apart from the glowing tips of cigarettes being smoked by a few party guests who had gone into the back garden. A few snatches of their muffled conversation drifted upwards.

Armin returned with the drinks. James swigged absentmindedly from his bottle of beer while Armin finished his cigarette. He wondered if Ilaria had fallen asleep, and whether she was still alone in the bedroom.

When they turned to go back inside, the way was blocked. It was the tall, dome-headed man, now wearing a long black trench coat. Standing a little way behind him was one of the boys he had seen earlier with the girl dressed in white. The tall man turned to his friend and gestured at them.

'Here are those magicians I was telling you about.'

The boy looked at them with the same strange, cold gaze but said nothing.

'Look, I never said we could do magic,' said James. 'I just said it deserves more respect than it's given credit for.'

The tall man didn't seem very impressed.

'I suppose if we throw you off the balcony, you'll be able to levitate back up here,' he remarked, stepping onto the balcony, his eyes glinting at the idea.

'Did you hear what I said?' said James in a louder voice.

'Yes,' said the man. 'You can't do magic, you just wish you could. In fact, you can't do anything in particular.'

'Yeah, in fact we really wish we were like you,' said James, feeling the anger rising up inside him. 'Sniffing around the butcher's shop floor for freshly spilled blood. Or roaming country lanes looking for dead animals that have been hit by cars.'

'Oh, I don't need to do any of those things,' replied the man coolly.

Quickly he drew his long knife from his coat and grabbed Armin by the arm, which he began to twist violently.

'Shame your girlfriend's not here with you. Perhaps she could stop me with the power of her mind.'

He raised the knife to Armin's arm and pressed the blade against it, causing a few drops of blood to spill out.

'What, you can't stop nature, oh great sorcerer?'

He dipped his finger in the trickle of blood and raised it to his lips.

'Nice Aryan blood. Should make for a good meal.'

He looked up at James, his teeth flecked with blood.

'See, this is nature up close: a predator and its prey.'

At that moment James felt a strange sensation in him, as if the blood had started flowing in a part of his brain till then shut off. He raised his hand: instantly the knife flew out of the man's hand and into his. The man let go of Armin's arm and stared at Harry, his expression a mixture of anger and curiosity.

'How did you do that?' he said.

Yes, how did I do that?

A word presented itself in his head, almost silently, like the hissing of a gas tap. Magic. He didn't want to say it out loud, as if it was his secret. Some secret, everyone saw what just happened.

'James?' Are you ok?'

It was Ilaria's voice. He turned and looked at her, the knife still in his hand. She stared at the knife, trying to work out what was going on, then at Armin, who was still dripping blood on the balcony.

'Isn't that his …' she stopped mid-sentence, her eyes nervously scrutinising James's face.

'Yes, it's his,' he replied in a strangely nonchalant voice. As if it's a normal thing for me to move objects around without touching them. He heard footsteps coming towards him. He veered around, expecting to see the dome-headed man coming for his knife. But he was still rooted to the spot, staring wide-eyed at his knife from the other side of the balcony. It was his friend, the cool-eyed boy who had been standing next to him. But he wasn't coming for him. Instead he pushed past James and walked away as if he had washed his hands of the man. His other companions were nowhere in sight. As he passed James, he shot him a curious little smile, not one of complicity, but somehow of encouragement. I'd humiliate him a bit more if I were you, the smile seemed to say.

'You want this back now, I suppose,' he said to the man, waving the knife in his direction. The man said nothing. James glanced down at the knife. Another whisper, as if in the back of his head. Sectumsempra. The word was written in black ink, in a taut, sloping hand, and seemed to be wrapped in a kind of black veil or mist. He didn't know what the word meant. But it conjured a picture for him. A picture of the knife slashing across the man's chest. The conceited bastard. He needs shutting up. He held the knife aloft and reached again for the strange word, but all of a sudden he had forgotten it. The black mist was gone, instead the back of his mind was enveloped in a kind of milky, opaque whiteness. He passed out.

Hermione broke out of her apparation. She plummeted down to earth, coming to a halt on the wooded bank of a small river. Through an opening in the intertwined alder branches she looked down at the water flowing in the moonlight. It was me they were fighting over. To try and stop her hands shaking she pressed one of them against the trunk of the nearest tree. He was fighting for me. Years earlier they had pitched their tent by a river that flowed through a forest. They had sat at its entrance as the evening got colder and colder, listening to the sound of the water and watching it through bare winter undergrowth, and the fear had seemed diminished. Harry, where you go, I go.

She turned away from the river, passing through the trees until she came to a clearing of uneven grass interspersed with bare earth. Throwing her bag to the ground, she crouched down and buried her head in her hands. She sat very still, apart from the slight swaying of her head as she cried silently into her hands. Finally she looked up at the night sky: the moon seemed to loom too close. She felt the soil loose beneath her hands, and scooped up a little of it. The dust was yellow and sandy. She reached into her bag and took out the wands. After contemplating the two of them, she lay Harry's on the ground and whispered priori incantato. Almost immediately the tip of the wand began to glow.

'Lumos?!' she said out loud, the disappointment and disgust palpable in her voice. At that moment she could almost have strangled Ginny herself. On the off-chance she repeated the charm, only to have the wand glow again. After a third attempt with the same result she gave up and picked up Harry's wand from the grass. She had visions of Ginny taking the wand out every evening since she had first asked her for it, casting the charm and then putting the wand away, chuckling spitefully. She sighed and cast the lumos charm herself. Light shot from both wands, only instead of being bold and warm, the light that emerged was scattered and quickly spent. She tried to cast a patronus from her wand, but it broke apart just as it was forming: every good memory she grasped at was tainted with regret. She looked around, and heard again the rush of the water and gentle swaying of the darkened trees. She shivered, now more from cold and exhaustion.

Using Harry's wand, she cast a pale circle around herself and muttered a few protective charms under her breath. What are they for? To keep the badgers away? There's no danger now, Hermione. It's not like back then. Inside the circle, she stretched herself out on the soft turf and closed her eyes. She had arranged to stop at Demelza's after she left the Burrow, but she wasn't ready to see anyone just yet.

In her dream someone was playing with her hair. She couldn't see the person's face and didn't want to look around to see who it was. As she began to climb back out of sleep, the sensation became more palpable. Someone really is touching my hair. The next instant she was awake, twisting round and recoiling in the dark. The person withdrew a few steps and seemed to crouch beside her. Hermione's heart pounded as her eyes readjusted to the darkness. Through the gloom she found herself looking at a slightly mocking smile. She looked more closely and saw lips dry and pitted with cold sores, a face sheet white and emaciated, dark, dull eyes and hair that hung down lank and unwashed. Slowly it dawned on her that she was looking at herself.

'You have lovely hair,' said the apparition.

'Who are you?' said Hermione coldly.

'A messenger,' replied the apparition.

'Who sent you?'

'You did, in a way.'

'I don't believe you.'

'That's up to you.'

'Why do you look like me?'

'Why do you think?'

Hermione didn't answer. Smiling, the apparition went on in a desiccated tone:

'You're terribly hard to reach. So rarely do you slip into my orbit. You leave me with no nourishment. Look at the state of me.'

The apparition reached out a thin arm. The skin was pitted with bruises, discolorations and dried-up blood.

'What do you want?' said Hermione.

'I am to give you this,' said the apparition, pulling out a sharp, slender knife. The knife glinted in the moonlight, and Hermione could see that it was stained with blood.

'I don't want it,' replied Hermione.

'You've earned it,' said the apparition. 'You'll need it to go through with your betrayal.'

'What betrayal?'

'Which betrayal, you mean.'

'Which betrayal?'

'Yes. That I leave up to you. I don't need to tell you their names.'

'Whom am I meant to have betrayed?' said Hermione, her tone more fearful.

'Who have you betrayed, who are you betraying, who will you betray,' said the apparition in a singsong voice. 'It's not strictly my business. I'm just the messenger.'

'Where do you come from?' said Hermione.

'Ever the curious one,' replied the apparition. 'For your information I don't even know where I come from. I have no memories, or none that I would choose to remember. I've got my eyes wide open in the darkness. That's all. Now take this.'

The apparition thrust the knife into Hermione's hand, its icy cold hand brushing against hers. Then it was gone. She let go of the knife, and it dropped to the ground and lay there in the dust. What on earth just happened to me? Was that real? She shivered at the memory of the sickly, devastated face of her phantom twin. Was it some weird manifestation of my conscience pricking me? Was it some kind of reverse patronus, the sort you might conjure up when you felt really bad? Does such a spell even exist? She looked down at the ground again. The knife was still lying there, obviously real. The idea of a reverse patronus was nonsense. She crouched down and touched the knife again. It had a black handle that gleamed like obsidian. Couldn't I just leave it here? Whose blood is on it? The blood looked real. She touched it gently with the tip of her little finger and lifted it up to her face. Then without thinking she put it to her lips and tasted it. It had the usual metallic taste of blood. What on earth am I doing? She sighed deeply, expelling her breath into the cold night air, as if that would cleanse her of the insanity that seemed to have grasped her. It's got my fingerprints on it too. I can't leave it here. A child might find it. She took the knife squarely in her hand, wiped it on the grass to clean the blood off and put it into her bag. Then she disapparated.

She followed the line of the river as it flowed through forest and open fields before passing into the outskirts of a large town. She apparated on a footpath that ran along by the river where it flowed along the edge of a suburban park. The river flowed in a concrete trench, marking the boundary between the scattered woods and undergrowth of the park and the gardens of suburban houses. The footpath eventually crossed the river on a low concrete bridge and continued past the garden fences belonging to the houses backing onto the park. She walked on through the night, her head bowed and her footsteps making almost no noise. After passing hundreds of different sections of fence, she stopped before a gate that seemingly had been sealed up. Looking around, she took out her wand and whispered an enchantment. A small door knocker appeared on the wooden gate. She knocked and waited. After a few moments, the gate opened and Demelza looked out in her dressing gown and pyjamas. She smiled at Hermione and beckoned her inside. For an instant she didn't dare step over the threshold into Demelza's back garden. Instead she stood in silence, her head slightly bowed and shivering.

'Can I ask you something first?' said Hermione, self-conscious of her voice in case it came out different. 'Do I look normal?'

Demelza squinted at her through the darkness.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean do I look healthy to you?'

'You look a bit pale and thin, but otherwise you look fine.'

'How pale and thin?'

'Just a little bit.'

She sighed with relief.

'Ok. Thanks.'

They crept through the garden and made their way towards Demelza's parents' house. The whitewashed back-end of the house loomed up mournfully over the ornamental trees in the garden.

'Did it go all right?' whispered Demelza.

'As well as could be expected,' said Hermione, a weak cough slipping out of her mouth.

They stood before the patio doors at the back of the house. Demelza squeezed Hermione's hand. Thanks, I need it. Her gaze ran nervously over her own reflection in the glass of the patio doors. The reflection was blurry and monochrome but it looked like her. Demelza slid the door open and they stepped inside.

'Did you get it?' asked Demelza.

Hermione nodded.

'What did Ginny and Ron say?'

'All sorts of things.'

They heard a sound come from inside the house.

'It's just the cat,' said Demelza, pointing at a black cat as it hurried past them into the garden.

'Quick, let's go upstairs.'

Demelza took Hermione by the arm and led her through the darkened living room into the hall. They padded up the carpeted stairs, which creaked occasionally, tiptoed along the landing and slipped through an open doorway into Demelza's bedroom.

A night light dimly lit the bedroom. Its decor could have been that of any teenage girl. Once Demelza had closed the door, Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out Harry's wand. Her hand trembled and she dropped the bag and a part of its contents spilled out onto the floor. There among the clothes, books and toiletries scattered on the carpet lay the knife. Hermione and Demelza pounced on the bag at the same time to clear up the mess.

'What's the knife for?' said Demelza.

'Umm, protection in the Muggle world?' said Hermione hesitantly, as she shoved the items back into her bag. Finally only Harry's wand was left on the floor. Hermione picked it up, looked at it in her hands for a moment then passed it to Demelza. Demelza took the wand and looked at it in her hand, perhaps assessing whether it was a wand worthy of Harry Potter. Then she passed it back to Hermione, who put it quickly back in her bag.

'Was it hard to get hold of?'

'Oh, it came at a high price,' said Hermione, with false cheerfulness.

'That bad?' said Demelza.

'Let's just say I'm kind of on my own for the time being.'

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'Not right now, thanks, I'm exhausted.'

Hermione sat down on Demelza's bed. Only then did she feel just how tired she was.

'Well, I've made up the spare room,' said Demelza. 'It's not very spacious, I'm afraid. My dad uses it as his 'office' normally.'

'That's fine,' said Hermione. She wasn't sure she wanted to sleep alone that night, but said nothing.

The spare room was at the end of the landing. It was a box room with a narrow window, furnished with a desk, computer and printer and lined with shelves. A sleeping bag had been spread out on the floor, where there was just enough space between the desk and the wall for one person to sleep. Demelza waited for her until she came back from a silent and furtive visit to the bathroom. She gave Hermione a quick hug then left the room. Once Hermione was alone she lay down in the sleeping bag.

She lay in the dark, staring at a smooth, blank section of the wall. The cacophonous din in her head from the night's events began to abate. The walls of the box room were cramped and grey in the darkness and her body was constricted by the sleeping bag, which acted like an excessively warm cocoon. The unfamiliar room was disorientating but tranquil. She almost dreaded the thought of ever having to leave it. 'You're my best friend', she had told him once, without ever imagining how much bad blood her words could cause. And in spite of everything that had passed since then, however much she abhorred what he had done, the words wouldn't leave her.