I did a mean thing by tricking you. Not very nice on my part, but…. It's part of the show!

Chapter 23

The waves that hit him were a force unlike any had felt before, and Loren was familiar with magic. This was like a song; sweet and melodic and it commanded his body to reach out to her. But the body beneath his hands felt strange. Unfamiliar. He watched as his disobedient arms made their way around her waist, and somewhere dimly his mind recoiled in the betrayal he was committing. It was that small thought that he held onto when he began trembling, and his vision slowly darkened. He shook his head once and looked at the face in front of him. Her blue eyes were wide and glassy, and looked at him unblinking. It, too, felt wrong.

His mind started racing, desperate to regain some control, to shake the fog that lingered all around him. This was wrong. All of it was wrong. She was wrong. Where was he? Where was his wife?

An unseen pressure started at his temples and he winced in pain. "Oh! My Lord, you must be ill. We must lie you down. Come to bed with me." The voice reasoned and he pried his eyes open again. Her eyes were so glassy they did not seem real. None of it seemed real, but yet her body beneath his hands was corporeal enough, and he felt his panic return to start clawing at his throat. He had to get out. Get away.

Loren moved his hands to her shoulders and the girl moaned lowly thinking his move amorous of her, making his stomach turn. The sound of her voice was wrong. Taking her firmly at her shoulders, he pushed her away from him with as much force as he could muster, and her body tumbled away from him.

As soon as his body was clear of her, the sensation that had been rising in his head, ceased and he shook himself but it left him unsteady on his feel. Her body moved slightly and she moaned as she moved to get up. Loren roared loudly for his men and in the clamor downstairs voices raised in response to his call along with heavy footfall that made its way up the stairs.

The door burst open to reveal Loren wobbling on his feet and the tumbled maid where the company milled inward. The girl sat up straight away and looked back at the men with fear in her eyes, panicked and stricken. "Oh, sirs! Blessed-be that you come! This beast set upon me, and when I refused him he struck me down!" She wailed, reaching for the nearest one, who moved to bring her to get feet

"Don't touch her!" Loren bellowed as he wobbled forward, still uncertain on his feet. "She is some manner of hellion, working some craft of spell when she is close to you." The effort of speaking made his body feel as though it was going to cause him to empty his stomach. The men parted and a few saw to their Lord, checking him over for injury and stabilizing him as he continued to stand. The other faction rallied in around the girl and she began hissing as she sat, trying to raise herself to crouch.

"Bastards and liars! Think you-me a foul temptress, but you are wrong!" She exclaimed, pointing her finger at Loren menacingly. Before she could speak again, one of the men in the company thumped her skull with the butt of his whip and she collapsed to the floor. Loren winced as her limp form which made a sick thud when she hit the floor.

The one carrying the whip shrugged his apology and removed his outer linen tunic and covered her head with it so she could not see them to work her magic. "My Lord we should bring her to the Inn Master that he might show us to the town jail. We can question her in the morning."

Loren nodded feebly and reached his arm to the chair for security before he sank into it. The room was spinning now, and Loren wasn't certain he'd be able to stand much longer. It had become increasingly difficult to keep his nausea tamped down, and his pallor paled.

"My Lord, should we seek a healer?" Another of his men asked with deep concern. The Lord shook his head.

"Get me to bed. Sleep will heal me." The men dutifully situated their Lord atop the covers of the bed and as Loren lay down he briefly felt as though he were falling backwards endlessly as his eyes closed, though he instinctually felt as though he should make fight to the dying of the light in front of his eyes.

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The bouncing of his knee had, at first, seemed like a perfectly normal expenditure of the pent-up anxiety that Lucius Malfoy found himself in desperate need to rid himself of. But as he sat across the potent and fixed stare of his fellow Lord, Tom Riddle, whose eyebrows were currently drawn down into a very deep frown, he realized that the motion he was making with his knee was shaking the whole table.

"My deepest apologies, My Lord." He mumbled, and ceased his fixated disquiet.

Tom Riddle took a dramatic sigh before he returned his attention to the letters Lucius had turned over to him, taking care to sip a heated mulled wine that emitted a delicate bouquet of spices in the air. His hazel eyes were sharp as they skimmed the correspondence, causing Lucius to gulp back his nerves.

Tom finished his review of the letter, and handed it back to Lucius with a grimace. "It seems the overtures from the Carrows were not well received." Lucius nodded gravely.

"It is by the fortune of the Gods that Amycus was not burned alive, My Lord." Tom nodded, considering the words again pensively.

"Truer words were never spoken, my friend."

"The healer was able to save most of the flesh of the arm, it seems." Lucius offered, and handed Tom another letter, which he accepted with an absence of as much interest as he'd had in the first. "Though its use may never be the same again."

"Dragon fire." Tom mumbled, and Lucius wisely held his tongue, thinking of the great Red Dragon, that again adorned his front lawn with its nonchalantly menacing fury. Visits from Tom were getting decidedly less-pleasant than they had ever been in the past, now that this creature was to be part of their frequent parlays.

Flicking the letter back onto the table, Tom leaned back into his chair, considering the information silently as he held his goblet in front of his mouth. "A vast underestimation of how greatly the Houses of Harben and Abdilgaard hold privacy within their esteem." He commented, and sipped his beverage once more, then settled it down. "What a pity they prove so difficult to win over. And more pity that they have the majority of Dragons at their command, and we have but our only ally." Lucius shuddered, and Tom gave him an appraising look.

"Forgive me, My Lord." Lucius held up a hand. "The acquiring of the red Dragon was a coup, indeed, but an ally? I am not yet certain that were I to turn my back on him, I would not find myself within his jaws awaiting a journey into his gullet."

Unexpectedly Tom laughed, and Lucius found himself chuckling hesitantly along with him. Once the humor had passed them, Tom returned to his serious thoughts once more. "Oh, most verily, Lucius. I suspect our red would lose no sleep once his feast of us was ended." He straightened and motioned to Lucius. "Now aside this melancholia, and bring me your good news, then."

Lucius produced one last letter of thick paper, plain and unassuming, but bearing the heavy golden seal containing a dragon within the coat of arms, surrounded by two rearing horses, swords and wheat beneath a jagged peak. The Lord accepted it from Lucius. "The Lady had granted her permission that Narcissa may adjourn to their House for Yule."

Tom hesitated at the statement as he slowly opened the letter. "The Lady has permitted? What mean you in this?" he questioned, and Lucius motioned to the letter again.

"It is the signature of the Lady of the House, in lieu of her Lord, nothing else." He said dismissively.

Before Tom could open the letter, a roar that shook the House sounded, causing the two men to startle at the abruptness of the noise which invaded their counsel. Tom nodded to Lucius and pointedly pocketed the letter. "I shall return this to you presently." He motioned back toward the front of the House. "I find that my…. Companion…. Has need to leave this place."

With that, Tom made to stand, and Lucius stood with him, bowing as the fellow Lord made to exit the room. Once out of the door, Tom strode through the House towards the entrance with great haste. Just prior to reaching the set of heavy double doors demarcating to the outside, he paused, and glanced in his inner pocket to remind himself that the letter was still within. For the first time in what felt like a long time, Tom Riddle smiled and gave a dark chuckle.

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The candles burned lower now than they had hours prior, and Ursa found that their waning light caused her eyes to fall tired and wish themselves to close. She rubbed them briefly before hearing a light knock at the door.

"Enter!" She bade, and the creaking of the doors sounded through the otherwise quiet room and the sound of footsteps entered her quiet reverie. Releasing her face from her hands she looked up to see the purposeful stride of the Master Rune Mora stalking toward her, and Ursa stifled a groan at the realization she was going to have to maneuver again with the cantankerous Master once more.

"Master Mora, to what do I owe the pleasure?" She contained her want to groan out her insincere invitation, and motioned to a seat at the other side of the desk for the woman. The Master accepted without courtesy, and soon faced Ursa without saying a word. The silence grew uncomfortable as the two sat across from the other and it seemed an aeon before the Master made to speak.

"It seems I am to owe you some apology, My Lady." The Master mentioned, as though it were a casual thought. Ursa Gresham considered this a moment before she scrutinized the Master further.

"Is that what is seems, then?" The Lady leaned back into the chair, positioning her arms over the rests in the kind of repose one would see if they were watching a great queen or empress. The Lady smirked just slightly, willing herself not to be too smug or goading, thought she was sincerely want to do so.

"Aye, it is." The Master conceded, her expression calm and her posture quite the same. "It seems you were not aware that you spoke untruths, My Lady." Ursa stiffened at the accusation briefly before she had to fight herself back into her calm.

"And what untruths have I told you, Great Master?" Ursa's eyes narrowed, but Rune remained impervious.

"That you knew the name of the woman brought to me within my visions." She informed her, simply. At this, Ursa felt her earlier irascibility creep back into herself, her heckles rising higher.

"Then by all accounts, I beg you enlighten me, Great Master." The Lady bit out the last of her sentence with great effort to control herself.

Rune leaned forward then, closing the space between them. "At the time I am bestowed with my visions, it is not always important what prominence they contain." She began. "So one could presume to acknowledge my interest when an unimportant, and seemingly irrelevant waif entered the sphere of my interest." The Masters blue eyes were locked with Ursa's, and neither one would be the first to back down and break the stare, and the woman marched onward despite the growing animosity.

"Imagine my great surprise that this slip of a girl, a miserably abused, but wholly unremarkable wretch, becomes the center of my magic focus for some number of days. Neither strikingly beautiful, nor brilliantly talented." She sing-songed the last statement mockingly, and Ursa took a deep breath.

"To discover that this nobody is someone who played, what you say, was an integral role in your father's House, struck me as odd-indeed. Especially when the name you gave me does not match the name I know her to have been given at birth."

And there it was, Ursa realized. She'd played right into the trap Rune had set for her, it seemed.

"But it was the truth." She blurted out, without thinking and her hand nearly darted to her mouth to cover it. Instead she clumsily straightened her posture in the chair. Rune Mora waved her off as she resumed.

"It is the truth, in a way. Both names are indeed the truth." Ursa's shock became confusion as Rune pressed onward. "It matters little, in the end, I believe. Suffice to say that the identity of the woman who serves your mother, is not the one she was born to be." The Lady was smart enough to piece together what the Master was telling her, but nonetheless it made little sense to her why there had been such an emphasis on its importance. "By all accounts you could not have known her true name, and thus my anger with you was displaced," The woman added dispassionately. "For that flagrant aggression, I do ask your patience."

Ursa chuckled. "I believe you came here asking for an apology, not patience." Rune's expression perked up just slightly, seeing that her quarrelsome nature was being met with a bit of Ursa's own ire to match it. Rune chuckled her capitulation.

"Indeed you are correct Lady-" She'd begun, but Ursa continued.

"So I believe it is yourself that has made the misstep, and not I." Rune chuckled then, and bowed her head just slightly, conceding Ursa's well-made point.

"In this, you are correct, good Lady." And the two of them shared a half snicker before the tense silence returned. Both still sitting, unmoving, Ursa leapt upon this chance she was present for.

"Tell me Great master, what is it I have done to earn such a great ire from you?" She pried, and for the first time since Rune Mora had been attending as a tutor to the House, she flinched slowly, with an expression of confusion slowly painting her face.

"Ire, good Lady? You think I harbor ire for you?" The Lady who faced her was then the one who turned under the confusion as she stared at the Master across from her. "Ah good Lady, it is my most comfortable demeanor that I am….. Prickly." Ursa chuckled and gave Rune a small smile.

"A more apt word was never spoken." She agreed and Rune joined her as they laughed.

"Though were I man, we could have simply christened me a 'prick.'" The two women laughed openly then at the fearlessly inelegant phrase until the tears flowed down both of their cheeks.

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The crackling of logs in the fire was the only noise in the room and a warmth emanated from the grate of the fire that radiated heat. The Lord who sat before it mused quietly that, despite it to still be harvest season, the Manor Castle which he occupied never seemed to manage to hold any heat within it, thus necessitating a fire in any used room through the whole of the year. An odd finding, that.

The flickering of the candles around the room brought their addition to the unnatural light that he sat by, pensively, their wicks burned of the finest wax was noiseless and yet elegantly painting the surrounding room with a waltz of dancing light.

Atop his lap under his scrutinizing gaze were several letters that remained folded and unread. The thickest of the letters had a heavy seal in gold that the Lord had placed at the very bottom of the pile, uncertain if he was ready to open it and read the contents within.

The first letter he plucked was a simple missive from Lucius; nothing more than a scrap of paper that had arrived tied to the leg of a black raven with keen and examining eyes. He had unwrapped it from the bird and placed it along with his day's correspondence to attend to at his leisure, and the bird had taken its leave by flight.

He'd sat at this chair some measure of time this evening before he readied himself to plunder the news he was to receive. The first piece he chose was the little slip from earlier in the day, and it contained only one short sentence.

Our endeavor was unsuccessful.

The Lord read it again, and again, and felt a red fury boil behind his eyes that brought his magic flowing through his hands with speed. He cast his rage out of himself with a growl and the fire in front of him flared with all of the violence of an erupting volcano.

The scrap of paper had turned to ash and dust in his hands as the Lord, taking heaving breaths, stood from his chair and paced back and forth.

This part of their plan had failed, but it was not the only way to set the wheels in motion.

The man rumbled his frustration in an animal-like sound that belied his normal smooth and velvety tones. He took a deep breath and bent down to collect the letters that had fallen from his lap when he had leapt from the chair, and moved the letter with the golden seal to the forefront.

He would simply have to switch his tactics. He reasoned. And he was nothing if not patient.

With gingerly motion uncharacteristic compared to his prior outburst, he removed the gold seal so as not to tarnish the paper it was adhered to, and without further thought tossed it into the cracking fire atop a blazing log. The wax bubbled and spit as it melted and evaporated, and the Lord felt satisfaction.

With gentle motions, he opened the letter in the low light to see an elegant and precise script written beneath. Perfectly symmetrical calligraphy showcased its author's many-hours of recitation at the task of refinement. Every letter at the dawn of each sentence had a lush flourish in the capitalization that spoke of elegance and finesse. It had been an age since he had read scripture as well formed as this, but his admiration of the sophistication in the writing was reigned in when he came to the last sentences of the letter, and his eyes fell upon the signature line.

He fought against the need to throw the letter into the fire and watch the flames consume its edges, as the hand it was written in bore heavy importance to his machinations.

The man carefully folded the letter to its original state and walked it to his desk to nestle it among the others he had collected there. Once it all fulfilled its purpose, he would rally his magic and in the faces of his adversaries he would burn everything that they loved while they bore witness to their helplessness at the destruction. In the end, none of this would matter.

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Hermione's giggle sounded through Draco's lips as he shushed her playfully, and she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down to meet her. "No one will hear us down here!" She laughed and deepened their kiss together, eliciting a moan from him as he wrapped his hands around her to fist the fabric of her vest along her back. His grasp desperate, and fists kneading into her muscles, which she arched into and moaned approvingly. "Your hands work magic, My Lord." She teased and her words send electricity through his midsection into his thighs and loins. The pressure that mounted there was unbelievably insistent, and he felt like he might implode if he didn't find something to relieve it. Yet he kept as much distance between their torsos as he could, feeling the foreboding possibility that if his body were to achieve its fitful desire it might be a point he could not turn back from.

Draco gasped and backed away as Hermione chased him with her mouth, her copper eyes suddenly shooting open at the loss of contact. Their hopefulness, yet insecurity at his disconnection evident. "Be I too brazen?" She asked shyly, and her brows furrowed slightly with worry.

"Only brazen enough, pet." He teased and she swatted his shoulder playfully. "I need but a moment to catch my breath, as your beauty steals it away." He whispered, and brought his knuckles along her cheek in a tender display. Hermione bit her lower lip and smiled sheepishly, this time able to keep her eyes on his for a few moments before she looked away. Draco tipped his mouth back down to hers and caressed her soft lips with his. He worked his kiss slowly and tenderly, a far cry from the desperation they'd felt only a moment before.

Hermione breathed in as she moved her hands gently to the soft skin of his neck. The sensation tickled Draco and he smiled while his flesh tingled all around where her ministrations played along him. The change in intensity made all the difference to calm the frantic urges that seemed to be leg by the unruly and impatient member within his breeches.

The dark all around them was broken by only the one torch at the wall, and the dancing light flickered the contrast all along her face. He could see that her cheeks had flushed, and he parted his lips from hers to kiss them individually, worshiping them with a lingering salutation of his lips. Her eyes closed and she sighed in the bliss she felt all through her body, her hands cupping his cheeks tenderly. Draco lay his forehead upon hers and she opened her eyes to meet his.

Her heart felt so full that she thought it might burst just then, and she met his expression of adoration with her unbridled joy. She leaned in tenderly and kissed him once again, opening her mouth to him sensuously. He felt a rush pulling at him within his chest and he hesitantly pressed his chest fully into her, feeling the inexplicable softness of her breasts pressed into him. He growled back a lustful groan and she gasped as her stomach leapt up through her body, a sudden urgency erupting there that she didn't realize could materialize.

"Oh Gods Draco," she moaned in a whisper, and he hummed at her in agreement. Her hands laced through his blond hair and he leaned her backward, arching her as they writhed together through their kisses. His lips cautiously migrated from hers and found the curve of her jaw, and he kissed along it toward her ear and her gasp of surprise spurned him as her hands fisted his hair. The sensation was electrifying, and the new sentiments being created washed over the pair in waves.

Though the pair had planned as well as they had been able, the darkness obscured more than just themselves. Holding his breath and listening from the last turn before the stairwell ended and opened up in the landing that Draco and Hermione used as a shelter for their affections, Tyt'o grimaced and closed his eyes at what he heard.

As he stood, still as stone, he ascertained that by the grace of the gods, Hermione was with him willingly. But his sweet words swayed her with every opportunity, and he heard the fluttering of her breathes, and her contented sighs at Draco's seductions.

Her brother fought back the need to commit violence that brewed within his fists, along with the burning of a flash of magic that begged to be freed upon some unwitting target. He considered revealing himself to catch them in the act, and drag his sister and her seducer straight away to his mother to be punished. Their father had still not returned, which was probably for the better; discovering his only daughter sneaking away with the heir of the House of Malfoy would be a disaster. Tyt'o was unsure if his father would be able to restrain himself.

The sound of breathing took over where the noise of wet mouths and kisses rose from, and it seemed that they had broken apart. Heartened that the pair seemed to be able to maintain some measure of decorum, much to the revulsion of her brother.

His sister's whisper to her furtive sweetheart indicated that the time was coming upon them to part. Tyt'o had lingered too long in his indecision! By some blessing he heard another wet kiss, to which he openly grimaced and very quietly ascended the stairs back up to the upper parts of the Keep.

The young man deliberated his path beyond this point, unsure how best to proceed. The reel in his mind of the vision he had seen under the tutelage of the Necromancer Mora played over and over in his memory, and Hermione's now-broken promise tainted his conscience with disappointment.

Reaching the first floor, the heir trudged in his thoughts up the grans stairs to the upper rooms, only to spy that the large wooden doors to his father's study were tinged at the seams with a light from within. Retreating back down the steps, he placed a hand at the door and pushed it open further.

Leaned over his father's desk, busy writing and intermittently sipping at a small cordial, his mother sat in a lush red velvet dressing robe and gown, her long wavy hair unbound and tumbling down over her shoulders and around her neck indecorously.

His footfall as he entered roused her out of her focus, and she looked up to see her eldest child walking towards her. His brow creased with heavy thoughts.

"What keeps you from a comfortable bed tonight, my dearest heart?" She asked, and Tyt'o tentatively sat in the chair opposite to her. His hand drew to his mouth, playing at his lower lip in deliberation.

"I seek your counsel, good mother." He started. "For I find myself disturbed." She lay down her quill and settled back into Loren's chair, appraising her son carefully.

"Then I am glad to give what I can for you, that we might find a way to ease your suffering." His copper eyes met hers, and he sighed heavily.

"Mother, I have had a vision that I am certainty will prove concordant to fact-" he began, and Ursa listened intently to her son as he began his narrative.

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