A Story of Blood
by
Crow
Chapter Three
Draco Malfoy smothered a sigh of frustration when he joined his mother for breakfast the next morning. She was in one of those moods. He could tell by the way she attacked her soft boiled egg, cracking the shell with violent taps of her silver spoon.
Draco sat down across from her and signaled to the house elf to bring him his cappuccino, anticipating the dark, chicory smell of the brew.
"Well, who was she?" Narcissa finally asked. Draco raised an eyebrow and opened up the morning's paper.
"Who, mother?" he said, as he turned the page.
"Lucius's trollop," she sneered. "Or have you forgotten her so quickly."
"Hardly, mother," he said, taking another drink of his creamy coffee. This should be good. "Her name is Mirat diBorghese. She's coming here at one to take me on a tour of the city."
There was a moment of dead silence. "And here I thought you were smarter than your father."
Draco put down the paper and stared across the table. "Say whatever it is you have to say, Mother. Then consider the subject closed."
She shrugged. "You will do whatever pleases you, as have all the Malfoy men have in the past."
She continued eating her breakfast unconcernedly. When she was through chewing she said, "I'm going to be spending quite a bit of money today, Draco. Sonia diFirenze...You remember Sonia—the heir to the diFirenze fortune I was making friends with while you were flirting with the slut? She is taking me shopping today. As we are the Malfoys, I need to impress her." She smiled sweetly at him.
Draco thought back to the auburn haired woman his mother had introduced him to at the party the night before. He had not been impressed, not until his mother had named the woman. Sonia diFirenze was his mother's age, as finely dressed and elegantly jeweled as any woman at the party. But something in the way she laughed—giggled really, Draco thought with a grimace—had put him off. She had been vacuous and easy to intimidate. A perfect match for his mother, he decided.
"Excellent, Mother. You did make quite the catch last night," he commended her.
"Yes I did. I spent a year abroad at an arts program during school and met her then. It gave me an opening. The diFirenzes are great art collectors. It's where they made their fortune."
"But it's her mother, Catarina, who controls the fortune."
Narcissa shuddered. "Yes, she's a hateful woman. Sonia is the opening we need to the clan's prestige and fortune. One day she'll control everything."
Draco nodded his head. "Then I leave Signora diFirenze in your capable hands, Mother. Spend what you will."
"Thank you, Draco. I am forever your servant." Draco chose to ignore the sarcasm in his mother's voice and returned to his paper.
Ginny Weasley gazed out the tower's balcony to the streets lining the Arno below. She watched in fascination as the tourists crowded the nearby Ponte Veccio, noses stuck in guidebooks and haphazardly folded maps, barely looking at the splendor around them. Not that she had spent much time as a tourist herself during her last visit to Florence. But since she and Harry had taken a Ministry Portkey to the side of the Hotel Lungarno this morning, Ginny had been unable to escape the sounds and smells of the city.
If Paris was a city that rationalized away sights of magic, then Florence was the exact opposite—the Italian motto of Do As You Will applied not only to pleasing yourself in food or wine, but in using magic as well. Muggle natives of the city turned a blind eye to any unexplained phenomena they glimpsed, and the tourists were just blind to anything not printed in their books. Italian wizards and witches could live and travel in the same world with Muggles, but, respectfully, they tried to keep a low profile.
Perhaps it was being closer to the heart of the city this time, with a breathtaking panoramic vista of the river and city and the spires of the Duomo to the east that lifted Ginny's mood. The Hotel Lungarno, Dumbledore explained, was owned by an old friend of the Headmaster's and would be a perfect place to base their "operations." Operations, that was the key word here. Three hours with Dumbledore, all they had done was talk, and still Ginny was no closer to really learning what the wily wizard had in mind. And now all she wanted to do was retire to her suite with its rich, dark carpeting and antique furniture. There was a walnut four-poster canopied bed calling her name.
She closed her eyes and smiled as the cool air hit her face. If she tried really hard, she could block out the sounds of Dumbledore and Harry talking in the room behind her.
"Are we bothering you, Miss Weasley?" Dumbledore called from the sitting room in an impatient voice. Damn. Ginny sighed and opened her eyes.
She didn't turn around. "No, not at all. Feel free to call me when we get to the heart of the matter." She could feel the tension behind her, but she wasn't sorry. Harry, for reasons she couldn't understand, still held Dumbledore in awe, an awe that left him ever patient and ever willing to play the Headmaster's incessant games. Games like pulling strings and calling them here for an unspecified time, for unspecified reasons. Ginny wasn't in the mood for games.
"Ginny..." Harry started, an edge to his voice. Ginny's shoulders tightened up and a familiar pain shot through her arm. She wasn't in the mood for a lecture either.
"No," Dumbledore interrupted. "She is right. This conversation is difficult for me. I don't know how to begin, so I'm not beginning at all." Ginny turned around, leaning against the railing with her arms crossed in front of her. She raised an eyebrow as if to say Well, then. Dumbledore sighed again and rubbed his eyes. Ginny suddenly felt sorry for the old man and quietly walked inside, taking an armchair opposite the wizard.
"The last time I was in Florence..." Dumbledore began again, then trailed off. He shook his head. "I'm going to stray from the 'heart of the matter', as Miss Weasley so aptly put it, if I'm not careful," he said. Ginny flushed in embarrassment, but he didn't seem to notice. "I believe I know what Pettigrew was after when you saw him, Ginny. If I'm right, we must stop him, at any cost." He looked at Ginny with grim determination. "Is that direct enough for you?"
She nodded her head. "Yes. Now you can expand and explain what it is he's after."
"I believe that Pettigrew is after a relic—the blood of a martyr almost 900 years old."
"And what does this blood do?" Harry asked.
"The martyr, St. Pantaleon, survived nine different attempts on his life. It is said that drinking a potion made from St. Pantaleon's blood will give the drinker near-perfect immortality: the ability to heal almost all wounds, repel any illness, and live...no one is sure how long."
"How do you know about this?" Ginny asked. "I've never heard about it before."
"I learned about the relic in the 1940s when the Resistance uncovered a plot to locate and steal the relic, which, at that time, was being held by the Roman Catholic Church."
"The church?" Harry asked. "You mean this is a Muggle artifact?"
"Yes. We don't know if Pantaleon was a wizard or not, but the odds are good he was. He was a physician who, with little formal training, was able to heal thousands of people. I believe he possessed magical abilities, whether he knew about them or not. His death only added potency to the power in his blood. Potency for us, but potency for the church as well. He died a martyr, killed for refusing to denounce his faith. The relic has power for both sides."
"Grindelwald was after the relic?" Ginny guessed.
"Yes, he and the Muggle dictator Adolf Hitler both sought the relic. In the period leading up to, and during World War II, Hitler developed an unhealthy obsession for occult objects, fueled, of course, by Grindelwald. They set their sights on finding and deciphering this relic. I was part of a team assigned to stop them."
"And you did, didn't you?" Harry asked.
"Yes, we did...at a great price. I lost one of my partners that day, a good friend, a good man," Dumbledore looked down at his hands and stopped speaking. Ginny, who knew all about facing the ghosts of the past, let him sit for a moment.
"So where is the relic now?" she finally asked.
"It's in the possession of a powerful family here in Florence, the diFirenzes."
Ginny's faced turned cold. "The diFirenzes? How could you let a family of Death Eaters have the relic after that? What were you thinking?"
Dumbledore glared at the girl. "Before you start lecturing me, Miss Weasley, you should first hear me out. Catarina diFirenze, now head of the family, worked for the Resistance, though her position has been kept a closely guarded secret—a secret we must still keep. What better place to keep the relic safe, we thought, then to hide it in plain sight with the Death Eaters?"
"That makes no sense," she argued, looking at Harry, who also looked confused. "You trusted this woman?"
"Yes, I trusted her."
"But you don't trust her now," she guessed.
"I...don't know."
"But if the Death Eaters have the relic, what keeps them from using it? What kept Voldemort from taking and using it?" Harry asked.
"Fear. Fear of the diFirenzes, no matter where their political leanings lay. Even Voldemort couldn't just take the relic from them. Catarina diFirenze is the Death Eaters's, and our, best weapon to unlock the relic's secrets."
"You mean you don't know how to use the relic?" Harry asked. Ginny glared at her partner. Why must he always assume Dumbledore knew everything?
"No, but I've seen how deadly the relic can be when used incorrectly," Dumbledore answered. "There are two pieces of information you need to use the relic: the directions for making the blood potion and the charm that sets the blood's magic free. It is rumored that Voldemort possessed a diary that told how to make the potion."
"And where is the book now?" Ginny asked tightly.
"We don't know. It was never found after his death."
"And the charm?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore shrugged. "Catarina diFirenze has spent her life trying to decipher the secrets of the relic. She's no closer today than she was fifty years ago."
"Why?" Ginny demanded. "Why is she playing around with something so dangerous?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "I don't know. Because no one has figured it out, I would guess, knowing her."
"But if the relic falls into the wrong hands..." Harry started. "Why not just destroy it?"
"She will not give it up."
"Excuse me?" Ginny said. "She won't give it up?"
"No," Dumbledore said, sitting back in his chair. "She won't."
"And that's good enough for you? Whose side is she on now, anyway?"
"Catarina diFirenze is on her own side, now and forever. Beyond that, I can't say," the old man said, looking at the two of them. "I do not know where the relic is, so I cannot just 'destroy' it. I can't make her give up the relic, and I'm am loathe to start an all-out war with her. There's no telling what she'd do then. What we need is to circumvent her plans with our own."
"And do we have a plan?" Harry asked, looking suddenly very tired. Ginny looked at her partner and felt sorry for him. Harry's entire life had been shaped by people working from the sidelines, hatching schemes or not sharing the whole truth with him until it was too late. Dumbledore was playing games again with them. And good old Harry, he was willing to go along with it once again, no matter what the cost.
"Oh yes, a plan of sorts," Dumbledore answered, looking pleased with himself. "We're going to steal the relic and learn how to unleash its powers ourselves."
"That's not a good plan," Ginny said. "It's stupid and dangerous." Dumbledore shot her an irritated look, but she didn't care. "We need to get the relic and destroy it. Period."
"That sounds like a plan to me," Harry murmured.
"It's never that easy," Dumbledore said. "It's never that easy."
If you'd asked Draco how he and Mirat were going to spend their day, it wouldn't have been visiting museums and churches in Florence. No, when Mirat showed up at his room precisely at one, dressed provocatively in a short skirt showcasing her long, shapely, tanned legs, dusty pink toes peaking out from a pair of Italian sandals, he thought they had other plans. Large sunglasses shaded her eyes from his, and he thrilled at the mystery of her. He couldn't figure her out.
That fact excited him, made him almost forget he was with one of Lucius's conquests, someone who was more interested in the Malfoy coffers than in him. But he was used to that quality in the women he slept with. He never let it get in the way of his pleasure.
So when she said their next stop was Naples, Draco raised an eyebrow but nodded his head and Apparated with her. Obviously, there was something...more personal...waiting for them at the end of their trip. But no, it was yet another musty old palace, the Palazzo Sangro di Sansevero.
Draco smothered a sigh. Mirat merely smiled and pulled him along behind a group of American tourists.
"Legend has it that this palace," the tour guide was explaining with a grin, "is haunted by a strange, spectral presence." Draco groaned under his breath before catching sight of a female ghost glaring at the tour guide. She was speaking heatedly to the man, though Draco could not understand the fast and furious Italian she threw his way.
"In 1590, Prince Carlo Gesualdo, overcome by jealousy and rage, murdered his young wife and her lover. It is said that he also killed his tiny son because of a resemblance, real or imagined, to the wife's lover. And yet, after the murders, Gesualdo went on to compose some of the most beautiful and innovative pieces in the madrigal repertoire. You'll hear many of them performed tonight during our concert."
The ghost spit at the tour guide's feet then moved on in disgust. No one paid her any mind.
"We are not staying for a madrigal performance," Draco told his companion.
"Of course not. There's something I want to show you. You'll like it," With a mysterious smile, she led him out of the palazzo and through a marble door next door.
"Another chapel," Draco drawled. "Who could have guessed?"
"Not just another chapel," Mirat corrected as they walked into the building. This was rather tiresome, Draco thought. He merely glanced at the sculptures and the frescos on the wall, mentally acknowledging their beauty but bored at this point.
As he followed Mirat through the chapel, his gaze, which had lingered on her legs as she strode through the building in front of him, caught a pattern of symbols forming in the frescos of the chapel. Alchemic symbols, he was sure of it. He stopped and his eyes moved from side to side, catching and naming them. They looked like symbols for making the Philosopher's Stone, he thought at first. But something wasn't right, the ingredients couldn't work in that combination...
"You noticed it too," Mirat said, watching him shrewdly.
"Yes. What are alchemic symbols doing in a Christian church?"
"Masonic symbols, actually. This chapel was built by Prince Raimondo Sansevero, a brilliant alchemist who brought Free Masonry to Italy. He was a general and advisor to the King of Naples. His real interests, however, were the studies of alchemy, mechanics, and the sciences in general."
"How nice," Draco intoned, as he walked off, caught up in the sights around him. There's the sign for quicksilver. Makes sense, he thought, you would need it in order to...
"Raimondo was an incredible man. Smart, ambitious...much like you," Mirat continued, watching Draco with approval. "He invented many fascinating devices for the time: an 'eternal flame,' using chemical compounds of his own invention; a carriage with wooden horses which, driven by an internal mechanical system, could travel on both land and water; and a printing press which could print different colors in a single impression."
"Impressive for a Muggle of his time," Draco murmured, barely listening as he continued scouring the room for more symbols. If only he had a piece of paper, perhaps... Mirat's tug on his arm turned his attention back to her.
"He was more than a mere Muggle. He was a genius. And yet, there were riddles he couldn't decipher. Riddles," she continued, "that he hid in the artwork of this chapel, so that one day someone might follow his work to its conclusion."
"How do you know so much about him?" Draco asked, turning his attention to her.
She shrugged. "There's more," she promised instead, leading him past the frescos and sculptures and down a flight of marble steps into the cooler depths of the basement below.
There were Muggles crammed into this lower chamber, and Draco grimaced. But when he caught sight of what they were focused on, he understood their fascination. He inched toward the two large alcoves in the wall. There, before him, were the remains of a man and woman. Their skin had been removed to reveal the muscles, arteries, nervous system beneath, their faces contorted into an eternal grimace. They were perfectly preserved.
"After Raimondo's death, they found this chamber and them," Mirat whispered in Draco's ear.
"Are they real?" he asked, itching to touch them. They certainly looked real. He scowled at the tourists who posed beside the couple, taking infantile pictures to show back home to friends and relatives.
Mirat nodded. "After their deaths, Raimondo replaced their blood with formulas of his own making."
"Why?"
Instead of answering, Mirat took Draco's hand and led him past the gruesome couple, down a hallway that was blessedly free from Muggles. Without a word, she turned and pushed him against the wall. She leaned against him and kissed him, her tongue forcing its way into his mouth, her body rubbing against his, her hands sliding down his chest and toward his belt. Draco blinked, shocked and confused, the musky perfume she wore clouding his mind and making it hard to think. Finally, with regret, he grabbed her hands and pulled her away from him.
"What game are you playing?" he asked. She moved to kiss him again, but he was too strong and she gave up.
"I want you to help me," she said, stepping back with a frown and idly smoothing down her skirt. Well, that was quick, Draco thought. She's not used to being turned down when she throws herself at a man. It made Draco feel more in a charge of situation that was quickly moving out of his control.
"Help you do what?"
"Finish Raimondo's work."
Draco looked back down the hallway toward the macabre scene in the antechamber. He thought back to the symbols on the wall upstairs. "Why me?" he asked.
"I like you," she started, then seeing the look on his face she stopped and sighed. "You're smart. You're good at potions." Draco's eyes narrowed at that personal bit of information, but he didn't interrupt. "You have the resources and the contacts to facilitate the work."
"What work?" he asked. "Mummifying bodies for bloody tourists to gawk at? Why in the world would I want to do that."
Mirat laughed. "That was just an experiment, silly boy. His work was far more important than mere tourist titillations."
"I'm thrilled for him. I still don't see why I'd want to get involved with this," he stopped and gave her a hard look, "or you, for that matter. I don't like trollops with personal agendas."
Mirat smiled at him, a large predatory grin that couldn't disguise the steel in her eyes.
"We all have personal agendas, young Malfoy. But I also have an offer for you. How would you like to live forever?"