WARNINGS for this chapter: gore, dubcon, sex orgy.

Chapter 26: The Love Room

"Hey, look!" said Dean Thomas, taking a seat in front of Parvati. "Malfoy and what's-his-name. Ooh!"

Potter and Ewen had entered the Great Hall, looking positively too happy for a Monday morning.

"Arling. His name is Ewen Arling," Parvati said firmly, like it was time everyone knew that name. Draco could hardly disagree. It had been two weeks since their visit to the Hufflepuff basement, and even if the two were so kind as not to snog in public, they had been seen too often and too happy together for any doubts to remain. There wasn't a day that an 'Ooh' didn't sound over the Gryffindor table, when Potter and Ewen lingered in the aisle before they parted to join their houses, and each time there was sure to be someone who would question Ewen's judgement.

"How can anyone even like Malfoy?" said Weasley, loading his plate with sausages.

"He's a good dancer," Granger said without looking up from the book that lay dangerously squeezed between her own and Ginevra's coffee cup. "And I haven't seen that venomous smirk of his for a while now. Ewen must be a good influence."

Granger knew Ewen from Arithmancy lessons, and would sometimes jump to his defence, together with Parvati.

"He is!" Parvati gestured vigorously with her fork. "And Draco, he is— he is all right, really!"

"Draco?!" Weasley almost choked on his pumpkin juice. "Are you friends with Malfoy now?"

"No. But he's been hanging out in North Tower more often lately, and he's nothing like he used to be. He's polite, and he listens, and he's being nice... It's like he's a completely different person."

"The power of love, is it?" Ron said and produced a venomous smirk. "The fucking murderer," he mumbled under his breath, chewing.

"Or," Granger looked up finally from her book, and Ginevra evacuated her cup just in time before the cover knocked shut with a swing, "he just doesn't need to pretend to be someone else any more! Latent homosexuals who actively deny their same-sex attraction tend to develop toxic behavioural patterns, including various forms of political extremism."

Granger went on about repressed homosexuality, and Draco listened to his childhood, his subconscious, and his political affiliation being taken apart down to the last fold of his underwear. He tried to concentrate on his soft-boiled egg, dug the spoon into it, and spilt a blob of gooey yolk over the edge of the broken shell. He felt a pull at the back of his throat and put down the spoon. His breakfast was over.

"If I had to snog Parkinson just to please my father, I'd become a serial mudblood killer myself!" Granger finished her lecture.

"Oh, come on," said Ginevra. "Not all repressed homosexuals develop a Death Eating Disorder."

She looked innocently down at her jam sandwich, but everyone else looked at Draco.

"Erm. I left my Herbology notes in the dorm, I think," Draco said, standing up. But before he could extricate his robes from under Weasley's bag and Thomas's shoe, the morning owls stormed the hall, no fewer than four swooped down on their part of the table, and one landed right next to Draco's abandoned egg. Draco detached a small plain envelope with the address 'Mr Harry Potter, Gryffindor table, Great Hall' from its foot, and offered the owl the rest of his breakfast. The note inside started with

Dear Mr Malfoy,

Draco shuddered, and stuck the note hastily back into the envelope.

"What is it, Harry?" Granger was the only one who got no owl.

"Nothing." Draco turned over Ron's bag, climbing over the bench, and headed out.

"Hey, Harry, sorry, I didn't mean to—" he heard Ginny shout after him, but he had already reached the end of the Gryffindor table, and whatever it was she didn't mean sank in the clank of cutlery.

Had Potter also got one? Draco glanced over to the Slytherin table, but Potter was enjoying his breakfast, not a shade of concern in his face and no sign of opened correspondence anywhere near him. Draco did not look back to the staff table, but he felt the sender's gaze on his back as he exited the hall.


Dear Mr Malfoy, Mr Arling told me about your and Mr Potter's request for his services in retrospective divination. I am happy to inform you that we are working on a solution, but kindly ask for your patience. The reason I contact you today is a different one. I happen to be in possession of something that belongs to you, and would like to give it back to its rightful owner. Please, see me in my office this Wednesday at eight p.m. I hope you are enjoying the company of the Gryffindor students. Yours sincerely, Rebecca Benveniste

Draco had dared to open the note again only when he got back to the dormitory. He had, in fact, forgotten his Herbology notes there, but now that he read the message, he forgot Herbology altogether. What in Merlin's name could Benveniste have that was his? He had never met her in person before the start of this school year, and had only a blurred memory of having seen her once from a distance at the Ministry. Not under the best of circumstances. He'd rather forget that, too.


On Wednesday evening, Draco gulped down his dinner in a record time of nine minutes and hurried to the seventh floor. Wednesday between seven and eight was one of the few time slots when the Room of Hidden Things was not taken. Apparently, too many students knew about its existence now, and were not stupid. If every DA member still at Hogwarts took it for one hour once a week, that was enough to fill all the evenings between the end of classes and curfew, Draco calculated. Unless they were shagging each other, of course. That would bring that number down somewhat. But if one added other initiated strays, like himself or Goyle, as well as all those who shagged more than once a week, then it was not surprising that on weekends the room was taken, too.

Draco rushed to the tapestry of Barnabas teaching trolls ballet, which for some reason invariably made him think about Ewen's and Potter's dance practice. He tried to focus on his plans as he approached the opposite wall. No door appeared.

"Damn it!"

Someone else had been quicker.

Draco lingered at the tapestry, trying to decide what would be cleverer, to Disillusion himself so no one could see that he was waiting, or to stay visible, so everyone could see that there was a queue. But before he could make up his mind, Ginevra crashed through the wall, with sweaty and elated Boot in her wake.

"Thanks," Draco said, as he pushed past, leaving their blushing faces behind as fast as he possibly could.

The Room of Hidden Things now accommodated an improvised greenhouse-cum-larder that Draco had set up when he came back from France. Seba had completely recalculated his Emerald budget and brought the number down to eight. As compensation, he stocked him up with excellent shrivelfigs, exceptional mistletoe berries, daisy roots, ripe and stiff like a summer fling, a flower box of young valerian and another one of wormwood.

Every time Seba failed to bring him off, he kept adding interesting extras. In three days' time, the remaining space in the trunk was filled up with alihotsy, peppermint, five different species of fungi, a pound of frozen caterpillars, and a whole potted Mandrake. Now Draco's task was to keep alive everything that was still alive, and to keep frozen all that was supposed to stay frozen. And above all, he had to keep all that hidden from curious eyes. Whenever he got a chance, he came to water the plants and to refresh the charms, but recently, the chance had not presented itself that often.

When Draco arrived at his secret herbological facility, a small puddle had already formed under the old Fantabulous Demon Box, deserted by its demons long before Draco had found it among the abandoned clutter and turned it into a makeshift refrigerator. Draco dried the floor, levelled up the freezing charm, and was now thinking how to improve the lighting, because the valerian plant did not seem to be happy at all.

"Draco!"

Draco's heart jumped out of his chest.

"Ewen!"

Ewen was standing right there behind him.

"You scared the hell out of me!" Draco blurted out.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you." Ewen spoke like they'd just come across each other in the Great Hall. "Don't you want to say hi first?"

"Hi. How did you get in?"

"As usual. Through the door."

"How? It is not supposed to let you in."

"You're not happy to see me?"

Happy? Happy?! Oh yes, there was something sorely familiar in the way Ewen crept up from behind. But right now that was not the point. Right now, Ewen didn't even have to be a seer to see his secret hideaway, and if on top of that he were to start using Legilimency, which he surely would any moment. Draco couldn't let him. He swung through his inner compartments, and found one. Dull, cold, empty, but safe.

"Of course, I'm happy to see you," he said, but it sounded empty. "How did you get in?" Better get this sorted outright. "What do you know? What am I doing here?"

"That's what I wanted to ask."

"Stop it! You wouldn't have made it past the door if you didn't know."

Ewen shrugged and made an innocent face.

"I think the room lets me in, because I want to be doing the same thing you are doing. Because I want the same thing you want."

"And what do I want?"

Draco felt a gentle intrusion into his inner space, but there was nothing to take there.

"You bloody Occlumens." Ewen laughed. "It's not difficult to guess though. You want to be Draco Malfoy and you want to be yourself, and you're still thinking that it's the same thing." Ewen's gaze wandered over the flower pots. "But honestly, I have no idea what it has to do with the conservatory you've built up here."

"Good. It better stay that way."

Ewen walked slowly around Draco's installation. Draco watched him.

"Why were you looking for me?"

"I missed you."

Draco heard a voice from a far corner of his soul 'I missed you too', like an echo, but it died out before it reached the part that exerted executive control.

"I missed you too," he said, but it didn't sound right.

Ewen chuckled.

"You two, you fooled me like— I can't believe I bought it! Teaching you dancing like a baby! I thought you suffered some severe brain damage in the war. What a relief, it was just Potter!"

Draco couldn't help smirking.

"And then, damn, I was almost on my knees in front of him. And he was like 'what?' You hadn't even warned him!"

"Sorry."

"Well, I'm glad we've clarified that." Ewen stood in front of him and held him steadily by the shoulders. "You're back, Draco! That's great!"

Ewen's hands slid slowly from his shoulders down to his waist, but it was like he was touching someone else. The brain signal landed in a section that now seemed even farther away than the one that screamed 'I missed you'.

"I asked it before, but I was asking the wrong person." Ewen looked at him intently, not like he was trying to read his mind, but like he was trying to write into it. "Would you like to give it another try?"

Draco's mouth went dry. Who was the wrong person here actually?

"I thought you were giving it another try with Potter."

"I'm giving it a first try with Potter, obviously. What about you?"

"I—" The countless pieces of Draco's soul were silent. Some of them had no opinion, others did, but didn't dare speak up. Which one of them was himself, Draco could not figure out. He could barely feel the warmth of Ewen's palms through the layers of clothing and... Potter's skin. "You can't be serious."

"I'm very serious."

"You— Look at this!" Draco ran his eyes over his body.

Ewen made a step back and looked. "What about it?"

"This is ugly! This is disgusting! This is not me!"

"Can I have a proper look?"

"If you must." Draco thought Ewen wanted to use his inner eye, but it turned out that he meant it literally. All Draco's clothes vanished in an instant. "Wha—! You—"

Ewen checked him out.

"This is not ugly at all. This is, well..."

"Fuck!" Draco covered his face with his hand.

"Rather virile. A raw kind of handsome."

"Handsome?! Are you saying Potter is handsome?!"

"Oh my god, Draco. Are you jealous of your own body? This is ridiculous."

"This is not my own body!" Draco felt the bitter pain that always used to drive tears out of his eyes. But Potter's eyes didn't tear easily.

"Oh dear." Ewen enclosed him in his arms, like some puppy that needed a cuddle. "This is just packaging, Draco, it's just a shell. It's you in there. As long as I touch this skin, and you feel it, it's yours."

"Now, that is exactly the problem! This so-called skin. It's not skin! It's an exoskeleton! You're touching me, and, well, I sort of know that you're touching me, but that's about it. Feeling is different."

"Hm." Ewen looked puzzled. "So, when I do this, you don't feel anything?" Ewen caressed his nipple.

"Nothing noteworthy."

"Hm." Ewen ran his fingers back up to his shoulder. "It's a very special kind of skin then." He looked into Draco's eyes and smiled. "I guess, we'll have to get under it."

Four sharp fingernails sank into the soft spot between Draco's shoulder blades. The pain shook him like an electric shock. All of a sudden, he was terribly aware of his nudity, and his total exposure to Ewen's touch, every inch of his skin anticipated another attack, and blood rushed to, of all things, his groin. Ewen looked down.

"That looks promising."

This made no sense whatsoever. But when Ewen dragged his claws all the way down his back, the pain ran along like a wave and turned into shimmering heat.

"We'll figure it out, no worries," Ewen said and charmed Draco's clothes back in place.

Draco adjusted himself, speechless.

"So," Ewen walked proudly around the refrigerated Fantabulous Demon Box, and flicked his wand at the lamp that Draco had been trying to tune to the needs of the valerian. The light turned brighter and warmer, not unlike the fake sunshine in the Hufflepuff common room. "That potion is not for body hair removal, is it?"

No! Draco could not believe it. For one moment he let his wards down, and Ewen had already plunged into the middle of his secret zone. "Leave!"

Ewen stopped dead and stared at him, frightened.

"Don't meddle in this!" Draco shouted. "Stay out of my mind! If you can't stay out of it, leave!"

Ewen's lips mouthed an okay, and he backed off a step.

"I just thought, I could help?"

"Don't help!" Draco was shaking between rage and horror. "You know what it was like? When they went digging in my memories all around that bloody vanishing cabinet? You know what it was like to erase you from every picture? To forget you, not to think about you? When the only thing I wanted to think about was you!"

"I— I'm sorry, Draco, I'm really sorry," Ewen hurried back to his side, whispering, but stopped half-way, not daring to come closer. "It was terrible for you." He closed his eyes, and his mouth twitched. "Thank you. Thank you for keeping me out of it."

"How about staying out of it yourself this time?"

"What do you mean 'this time'?"

"I'm a bloody Death Eater, Ewen. The safest thing is just to stay away from me."

"A Death Eater? But, Draco! The war is over. You can think about me as much as you want! And we should do things together as much as we want, and whatever plots you're brewing here, if this is something that's going to part us again, and land you under investigation, or worse, stop now!"

Ewen's monologue gave Draco some time to collect himself. He breathed in deeply.

"I will. Or I won't. But it will be my decision, not ours, and you will have to trust it, if you want to stay anywhere near me."

Ewen's shoulders slumped, he came closer and leaned against Draco's forehead. He tickled Potter's scar with his eyelashes. Then he planted a kiss on his temple, and pressed him tight to his chest.

"I'll stay away from your mind. But I won't stay away from you."


Exhausted, miserable, and defenceless, Draco climbed the stairs of North Tower, and only hoped that the thing that Benveniste was going to give him was not too heavy to carry and not too brittle, so that it wouldn't smash if he happened to drop it out of sheer enervation.

The Divination classroom was empty and dark, but light streamed from behind a bookshelf. It came from a door that stood ajar, but before Draco's knuckle touched it to knock, the door flew wide open.

"Good evening, Mr Malfoy. Please, come in."

It was a long and narrow but altogether rather small office with a single window at its far end. The walls were covered with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. A stainless steel Pensieve stood on the desk next to the window. Professor Benveniste was sitting in a tall leather armchair next to the crackling fireplace, and gestured for Draco to take a seat on a fluffy joke of a pouf that looked like legacy from Trelawney's times.

Draco complied politely, and the door shut behind him with a subdued thud.

"You look tired. Can I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Thanks, Professor." Accepting tea from Benveniste was pointless, that much Draco knew from his Divination classes. When she began to speak, he would forget to drink it, and in the end the tea would be cold, and absolutely unpalatable.

Benveniste eyed him intently, and a small amused smile played on her lips. Draco raised his eyebrows questioningly and waited for her first move.

"As I wrote to you, I'd like to give you something back, if you care to have it. I have been planning to do so since the beginning of this school year, but I'm glad I didn't. It would have landed in the wrong hands." Benveniste gave him another long interested look.

"Why didn't you, Ma'am?"

"I don't know. Just," she shrugged, "intuition." She was leaning against the back of her armchair, one elbow propped on its wooden arm, and was piercing him with her gaze. "May I first ask you what you remember of the events of the thirtieth of December last winter?"

"The thirtieth of December? Nothing in particular. Why?"

"That day you visited the Varesnake Forest, if that helps you remember."

Oh, that!


"Draco, you may make yourself useful today," He said.

Mother was sitting at the table, straight upright. Father sat next to her, trying but failing to maintain a dignified demeanour. There was no one and nothing to hide behind. Between Draco and Him was nothing but thin air, ripe and ready to carry a deadly curse.

"Yes, my lord," Draco said.

"It seems we're running out of space. This home is a trifle too small for our great mission after all."

"My lord, as I said, we could—"

"You will, Lucius." He turned back to Draco. "For the time being though, I want the chaff separated from the wheat. Leave Ollivander and the girl, and dispose of the useless."

"Yes, my lord."

"You can have Greyback for help, but don't let him get carried away. I want a quick and clean disappearance."

"Yes, my lord."

He walked up to Draco and peered into his eyes.

"Don't get distracted, Draco, and don't worry. While you're at it, your parents and I will have a good time."

Draco shot a glance at his mother, but she kept staring in front of her, like a statue.

A few minutes later he and Greyback stood outside with half a dozen prisoners, tied together in two bundles and trembling with cold and fear.

"We usually take them to Varesnake Forest. That's where," Greyback grabbed Draco's arm and both prisoner bundles, and they were sucked in and spat out into a clearing in a grove of old oak trees, "my friends come together to recycle them."

"We have no time for barbecue parties," Draco said, pulling his arm from Greyback's grip and brushing off the dirt.

"Who's speaking of barbecue? We'll have them raw." Greyback walked around the prisoners, sniffing, and stopped in front of a curvy dark woman. "As they are! How I waited for this moment, darling!"

The woman gave a trembling groan. Greyback licked his lips.

"Hey, Draco."

"Mr Malfoy to you."

"Mister?!" Greyback giggled softly, "You're no bloody mister to me, and now be a good boy and keep the rest together, while I'm dealing with this chick."

"I love you, June," whispered a tall man with dishevelled curly hair, who was tied back to back with her.

"Mr Malfoy!" called the woman. "It's a mistake! I'm Gibbon. I'm related to Rory Gibbon—"

"Shut up! We've heard that tale enough!" Greyback gave Draco a wink. "She's a mudblood, no worries. She was married to a Gibbon, but we found her with this scum here." He kicked the curly man in the knee. "Earth to earth, mud to mud."

Greyback looked at Draco expectantly.

"If you don't want to help, I'll manage without." Greyback bared a row of yellow teeth. He approached the woman, who was whimpering like a wounded dog. "You wait, I'll take it slowly with you. I'll just finish off these tossers first."

Draco could just do nothing at all and wait, that was the easiest. He'd only have to keep at a distance, not to let the spurting blood stain his robes. They could vanish the remains and clean up the mess afterwards. But what Greyback was planning with the Gibbon woman was not only going to be messy, but also noisy. Draco had heard enough screams coming from the cellar, muffled by the walls of the Manor, but insistent enough to make him sick. Now there were no walls, just thin air to carry the screams, untempered, pure, and Draco felt a familiar pull at the bottom of his stomach before Greyback so much as tugged at the curly guy's sweater.

"Stop it! The Dark Lord wants it quick and clean."

"Fine. You do the other five quick and clean, and I do the woman."

"You don't. The Dark Lord—"

"You don't tell me what the Dark Lord wants. We have a deal, and this is my helping, and you shut your whiny maw! Quick and clean, my foot!" Greyback looked at Draco, like he was some house-elf that had failed to make a decent coffee. "Can you even do it?" He pulled his wand, shook it wildly in the air, pointing at nothing in particular, and squeaked mockingly: "'I didn't invite him, I didn't know he was going to come!'" He looked angrily at Draco and rasped, puffing clouds of smelly breath into the frosty air: "Now, I'm here, and I can kill, and you can't. I wonder why He-who even sent you along. Oh wait!" Greyback stopped dead, grinning wildly. "He didn't send you to do the job. You're part of the meal! Hey!" He came closer, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth. Draco clutched his wand. "Want to know what it's like to be like me? Now, that will teach you killing!"

Draco kept retreating as Greyback approached. He heard whispers among the tied up prisoners and caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. They were struggling with their ropes.

"Daddy will disapprove of course," Greyback was coming closer and closer, "but who listens to daddy these days? The Dark Lord will be amused, I'm sure."

"Stupefy!" Draco sent a beam of red light over Greyback's shoulder and hit two of the prisoners in the bundle that started an attempt to escape. "You're getting distracted, Greyback. Keep an eye on your prey." As Greyback turned around to check on the mudbloods, Draco hit him in the back with another stunning spell, and Greyback fell onto the crispy carpet of frozen foliage.

Draco walked back to the prisoners. Now he was alone, it was for him to finish it. He thought of his mother's stony face, and tried not to think of his father. Quick and clean.

"Mr Malfoy, Mr Malfoy," the Gibbon woman was pleading again, "my daughter is in Slytherin. You must know her, her name—" Draco cast a Langlock at her, she went on humming insistently, but was no longer able to drop names.

Don't listen to them. Don't talk to them. Draco checked out the other five, who were still nameless, and he was determined to let it stay that way. He decided to start with the bundle that now held two stunned bodies and a third one twitching helplessly under their weight. Wrap, push away, wall up, aim.

"Avada kedavra!"

One body turned from stunned to dead. It wasn't even that difficult.

"Avada kedavra!"

Draco rolled the bodies out of the way.

"Avada kedavra!"

The third one stopped twitching.

The Gibbon woman was mooing desperately, but something was wrong with her voice. It was not horror. It was more like she was calling. Draco looked around and thought he saw a figure move between the trees at a distance. Next second, he heard twigs crack somewhere on the other side. Who was there? How many were they?

There was no time to find out. Draco untied the dead bodies and retied them arm to arm with the still living, in a circle around himself. He would hide behind their backs, he thought, but the dead kept caving in and the living were not too motivated to hold them up.

"You stand up, or I cruciate your bloody arses!" He shot a short Cruciatus at the woman and Imperiused the other two.

The figures kept shimmering between the trees, closer and closer by the second. A spell shot across the clearing, but hit a tree not even near where Draco was hiding inside his living fortress. What was the spell again?

"Provoco inferium!" Draco prodded his wand between the ribs of the corpse that hung tied between the curly guy and the woman. The corpse stiffened and gleamed with blue light. That looked good.

"Hey? Who's there?" called a voice from the thicket of trees. A few masked and hooded figures appeared on all sides. The Gibbon woman snarled vigorously, her tongue still tied up.

Don't talk to them.

"Rennervate!" The corpse shuddered and opened its eyes. They were milky white. The two men still alive, and still under the Imperius curse, gave the half-baked inferius a confused look.

"Imperio!" And the first undead warrior stood up to defend his master. Draco moved on to the next one.

"This is Frolik! Hey, Martin, what's going on there?"

Hearing his name must have woken the curly guy from his imperiused stupor.

"Help!" he groaned, and pulled at the ropes, but he was now held firmly in place by two freshly made inferi. "Oh, my god!" he gasped, looking left and right.

Still incapable of normal speech, the Gibbon woman started squealing hysterically. The other man was still dizzy and confused.

"This is Greyback. He's stunned," another voice sounded at the edge of the clearing. "Who's hiding there?"

"It's Malfoy," shouted the curly guy.

And then it began. For a few minutes Draco felt invincible. The attackers were too slow, trying not to hit the living. Draco took them out one by one. Stupefy, Avada Ke—, Petrificus Totalus, safely from behind the backs of three mudbloods and three inferi. He even imperiused one of the besiegers to attack his friends, which caused ultimate disarray in their rows, and they retreated.

For a few minutes everything was quiet, except for Gibbon's desperate calls, but Draco did not dare leave his fortification.

"Silencio!"

He listened to the slightest rustle. Suddenly, a shadow passed over him. Just as he caught a glimpse of a dark figure on a broomstick above his head, a red flash hit him between his eyes, and he blacked out.


Benveniste was waiting for the answer with unperturbed patience.

"Erm, yes, I went there. For a walk."

"Hm. Romantic!" Benveniste said with amused surprise, "With whom, if I may ask?"

"If you'll excuse me, Professor," Draco said and hoped that his tone made it sufficiently clear that she was intruding on a private matter. "I can't remember losing anything that day, in any case."

Benveniste kept looking at him, unblinking, with her constant impenetrable smile.

"You are an excellent liar, Mr Malfoy." It sounded like a genuine compliment.

"Ma'am!" Draco countered perfunctorily.

"I'm sorry, but I happen to know what you're not telling me. A skirmish with a dozen rebels, and six prisoners, three of them dead, and then undead?"

"Did you read my thoughts?" That was weird. Draco hadn't felt any intrusion into his mind since the beginning of their conversation. Either she could do it imperceptibly, or— Or was she one of those rebels?

"No, I didn't read your thoughts. I— How should I put it? I wrote them."

"Pardon?"

"We planted that memory, after removing everything you knew about what really happened. We did it with your consent and for your own safety."

"Who— who is 'we'?"

"My former colleagues at the Department of Mysteries and myself."

Draco tried to grasp it.

"So, I didn't go to Varesnake Forest?"

"Oh yes, you did. Everything up to the point where you stunned Greyback was as you remember it." Benveniste produced a vial with silvery fog out of the folds of her robes. "This is the true memory we took from you. Do you want to have it back?"

Now that he knew the memory he had was a fake, he had no other choice, did he? Benveniste stood up, moved to the table by the window, and emptied the vial into the Pensieve. Seconds later Draco stood in the middle of the forest next to Greyback's senseless body, six prisoners, two stunned, the rest shivering, and himself.


"Mr Malfoy, Mr Malfoy," the Gibbon woman was pleading again, "my daughter is in Slytherin. You know her, her name—" The Draco in the memory cast a Langlock at her, but twisted his ankle on a slippery stone, and missed, "—is Sabrin."

Sabrin? That shameless upstart that could not say a sentence without a bad word? It was as if Draco could hear what the Draco in the memory was thinking.

"She's said so many good things about you! You tried to get her on the Quidditch team," said the curly guy.

He had tried, yes. If Potter had been allowed to play seeker in his first year, then Sabrin should have all the more. But Urquhart wouldn't listen. The Malfoys belonged to the past, and he could have just as well been talking to a wall.

The Draco in the memory walked past, without looking at Gibbon and her boyfriend, to the bundle that now held two stunned bodies and a third one, twitching under their weight and cursing. He pointed his wand at the limp body of a short man with a grey beard clotted with dried blood. Wrap, push away, wall up, aim.

"This is Rayaan. He taught Sabrin to fly when she was four ye—"

"Shut up!" Draco shouted at Gibbon.

He raised his wand again, pointed it at the other stunned man, but instead of the killing curse, out came a row of profanities.

Why did he let them talk? Why did he listen? The curly guy was looking at him with his big blue eyes, like Roderick the owl, and dry electric pain shot across Draco's chest. He couldn't do it.

But not doing it was not an option. Draco thought of his father, humiliated and broken, sitting in front of Him.

"You don't have to do everything yourself," Father used to say, "If you cannot do it, never admit it. Keep a sharp eye on those around you who can, and then, delegate."

Greyback was out of the question. Draco considered his options.

"Rennervate! Rennervate!"

Rayaan and the other stunned man came back to their senses. Getting them back to their feet was less easy, but after a few insults, threats and levitation charms, Draco had both prisoner bundles upright and hanging on his arms. He apparated to the Ministry.


"These have failed to present themselves to the Muggle-born Registration Commission."

The young purple-haired witch at the reception glanced left and right at the shivering mudbloods.

"First floor?" Draco asked. That's where the Commission had its head office.

"No, please take them straight to the dungeons, Mr Malfoy. Lift number one."

The prisoners stumbled towards the lift, as Draco shooed the bewildered onlookers out of the way.

At least they took it seriously enough to give him the priority lift. Lift number one was reserved for the Minister and official visits, and did not stop. Draco pushed the lot hastily into the lift and just about reached the button eleven with his elbow. The golden grills thundered shut and the floor sank under their feet.

"Level nine. Department of Mysteries," announced the familiar sweet voice, as the lift slowed down.

"What the—!" Draco slammed the button for level eleven again, to no effect. The grilles opened. A figure stood on the landing of level nine. Before Draco could see the face, a flash of red light hit him between the eyes and he blacked out.


Draco pulled his face out of the Pensieve. Benveniste was sitting in her armchair, now turned to the table, with her usual minuscule smile.

"Who was that?"

"Me."

"Why?"

"You'll see presently." Benveniste frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

If this was what Benveniste meant to give back to him, he now felt more like he'd lost something. Until that moment he had lived with the memory of one fight he had fought brilliantly and entirely on his own skill. If not happy, the thought of the dead bodies standing up for him was intensely satisfying, and he kept reliving the moment again and again, when he needed a pep talk.

"I didn't raise any inferi." He would never be able to relive that moment again. It was gone.

"You didn't kill anyone to begin with."

"I didn't? Oh." Now he had to adjust to a new past. "That's why they didn't find the killing curses when they peeled my wand."

"Correct." Benveniste sat still with her arms resting on the arms of her chair, like a sphinx. "You're not a murderer, Draco, no matter how much you try."

Was he supposed to feel relieved now? Was relief what she wanted to give back to him, after taking away the triumph?

"So, how does the story go now?"

"You'll see, but—" Benveniste stopped him as he was about to dive back into the Pensieve. "Some of the things you'll see are, how should I put it, deeply private. Since this is your experience, I have no right to withhold it from you, but I strongly hope that you will handle it with appropriate discretion."

Draco nodded, lowered his face into the silvery pool, and fell headfirst down an icy-cold black well. It was dark, but as he was falling, he caught a hint of an enticing smell, ever more insistent, ever more irresistible. What was it? Freshly polished parquet floor, steaming hot citrus, and... and... All of a sudden Draco lay on the stone floor of a circular room, with a fountain in the middle. The smell came from the fountain, and Draco felt inexplicably drawn towards it.

Draco checked for his wand, but it was gone. He was about to get up, but a woman in black robes stepped over him, rushing towards the fountain, almost stumbled over his legs, but paid no attention to him whatsoever.

"What's this?! What the—! Who opened this? Who—" She searched frantically for something at the side of the basin, but fainted before she found it.

Before Draco could get up, another figure marched over him. It was a man in similar black robes, holding a towel over his nose and mumbling something unintelligible into it. He searched for something next to where the woman lay unconscious, failed to find it too, apparently, lifted the unconscious woman onto his back, but dropped the towel as he was doing it. He didn't faint, but became crimson in the face and it seemed like every step away from the fountain cost him an insurmountable effort.

Draco looked around, and saw the most disconcerting picture he had seen in his entire life. Mattresses, blankets and other textiles were spread all over the room. On the mattresses and between them on the bare stone floor, there were people. Some of them were lying, or sitting, others were rolling or clambering over each other, but all of them, all without exception, were having sex. In couples, threesomes, sets of four, or in disorderly heaps of unattributable legs, arms and genitals.

Draco's prisoners were all here. Right next to him, the curly guy was lying on his back, his face stiff and red like strawberry jelly. Every so often, he let out a moan in a piercing falsetto. On top of him sat the Gibbon woman, if one could call that sitting. A pair of blue polka-dotted knickers hung loosely on her knee, a failed butterfly tattoo fluttered on her right buttock. Whatever the woman was doing there produced soft slurping sounds, not unlike wet farts. Saliva was spraying between her bared teeth and bubbling at the corners of her wide strained grin, her eyes bulging out.

For a moment, Draco wondered if he and Ewen had also looked like a pair of rabid dogs while doing it. He tried to look away, but there was no point. Wherever he turned, there were grunting, squealing, growling, sweating, salivating and ejaculating members of the species homo sapiens caught in a wild orgy.

No, really. There was a good reason why people hid away to shag.

The lovers, however, seemed completely unperturbed by Draco staring. The witches and wizards in black robes that kept rushing up and down, stepping over their copulating bodies, didn't seem to bother them either. The black robes had obviously found the tap that they'd been looking for, and were now struggling to turn it off. The flow of the pearly liquid in the fountain had slowed, and the basin was emptying rapidly. Benveniste stood over the scene, giving orders and flicking her wand every now and again at the resistant pieces of plumbing.

Suddenly, Draco felt watched. Two faces had turned to him, as he'd started another attempt to get to his feet. A witch and a wizard in black robes exchanged glances and simultaneously charged at him like owls at their prey. Draco first thought they were going to rape him, but they only grabbed him under his arms and pulled him away from the fountain and out of the circular room into a small side chamber, where without losing another word they slammed him onto a chair.

"What happened?"

The witch and the wizard exchanged glances again.

"Where am I?"

The wizard looked at the witch questioningly. She replied with a meaningful silence.

"Who are you? Who are all these people?"

"The boss?" asked the wizard.

"Until further notice," replied the witch, and left.

Judging by their exceptional willingness to engage in casual conversation, the witch and the wizard in black robes were Unspeakables. Department of Mysteries, that was the last thing he had heard in the lift before he had blacked out. That would be it. But all those fucking mudbloods?

The wizard stood motionlessly at the open door.

Was he a captive now? Draco stood up and moved towards the door, but the wizard blocked his way.

"It is better if you wait here, Mr Malfoy. For your own safety."

"What is so dangerous?"

"The fountain."

It must have been drained by now, and a bunch of Unspeakables had started to dismantle it. Through the door opening Draco could see the witch that had brought him to the side chamber speak to Benveniste. A second later, Benveniste stood in the doorway, and the wizard in black robes hung like a shadow behind her.

"My name is Rebecca Benveniste," she said, sitting down on another chair in front of him. "Pleased to meet you, Mr Malfoy. I've heard a lot about you."

A lot? How much? The Draco in the memory felt hot with shame. This was not how he had imagined the first encounter with a parent of his lover. His ex-lover. That made it even worse.

"You are in the Love Room of the Department of Mysteries. Most of these people are Muggle-born sorcerers hiding from Death Eaters and the Muggle-born Registration Commission. We've intercepted your attempt to deliver some of them, that is how you got here."

Draco glanced past Benveniste's shoulder into the room. The Gibbon woman and her lover were now rolling on the floor, laughing and kissing.

"Why are they all, erm...?"

"Engaging in sexual intercourse?" Benveniste sighed apologetically, like they hadn't managed to fix a leaking roof or a shattered window, before the guests arrived. "That's an unfortunate accident. The fountain runs concentrated Amortentia. We had turned it down, but someone had managed to turn it on again while we were away. Plus a warming charm that overshot the mark somewhat. By the time we were back, the fountain was steaming and the air was saturated with the vapours. Some got an overdose by simply breathing it. Others could not resist taking a sip."

"What do you mean 'by the time you were back'?" Amortentia would take hours to saturate the air in a room this big. "How long have you been gone? How long have I been here?"

"Sixteen hours."

"SIXTEEN HOURS!"

Benveniste raised an eyebrow.

"You will have to stay here quite a while longer, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean 'longer'?!"

"As long as necessary."

"Am I a prisoner now?"

The minuscule smile reappeared in Benveniste's face.

"Have you heard about the room that is locked at all times? In fact, the description is not quite accurate. We have removed the doors altogether. This room has no entrance and no exit."

"How did you get me in here then?"

Benveniste and the wizard, who was still standing like a shadow behind her shoulder, gave him an amused look.

"This is a mystery, Mr Malfoy, a great mystery."

"You— you cannot keep me here! You have no right! Where is my wand? I demand that you give me back my wand! This is against—" Draco jumped up from his chair, and made for the door, but the wizard flicked his wand and Draco flew back, past the chair, and crashed into the wall behind it.

"Paragraph five of the Code of Wand Use. Yes, and some of those people over there were held prisoner and tortured in your basement. Could you remind me the number of the paragraph that that is against?"

"That's not my basement," Draco said, getting back to his feet.

"Well, this one is mine, and you will mind your tone, sit, and listen to me before you demand anything!" Benveniste's tone forbade contradiction.

The Draco in the memory slumped back into the chair.

"This room is the safest place in this country at the moment. Only those initiated to the great mystery of Love can find the way in and out, and given the general lack of interest in the subject among the friends of your family, it is very unlikely that they will find us. It is in your best interests to stay here, Mr Malfoy. We'll give you back your wand as soon as we're sure that you will not hurt any of the other people here. With your history, we have some natural doubts, you see."

"Great! Then what am I doing here, if my so-called family friends are not interested in the subject? With your doubts and my history, why did you bring me here in the first place?"

Benveniste was not in a hurry to answer. She gave him a long penetrating look, then turned to the wizard in black robes, who was still standing in the door opening. She didn't say anything, the wizard understood, turned his back to them and stood one step out of the side chamber. Benveniste turned back to Draco, and made him listen to another long silence.

"What awaits you out there is atrocious."

There's a surprise! "Of course it is! After the Dark Lord ordered me to do it quickly and I've been missing for sixteen hours."

"You will be tortured."

"I suppose so."

"Have you been tortured before?"

"I've been lucky so far."

"You will be tortured on a scale that— You're really better off here."

"Maybe I will be tortured, maybe I won't, who knows? But what I do know is that my parents are probably being tortured right now, because He made it very clear when I left for this little errand, that I'd better be back soon."

"There is one person who knows that you will be tortured."

"What d'you mean?"

Benveniste gave him another silent look.

"Wait. Why are you even worried whether I'll be tortured or not? I'm a Death Eater."

"You're right, Mr Malfoy. I do not normally save Death Eaters from such predicaments. Muggle-borns is our main target group." A small smile shone on Benveniste's lips. "But one person, whose happiness means a lot to me, wept his eyes out the other night until I promised him to take measures to avert your deplorable fate."

What person?

"Are you saying—?" Holy shit. The bloody meddling idiot! Draco couldn't believe Ewen had managed to stick his nose in this. "Does he know that I'm here?"

"No."

"Does he know about this place?"

"No." Benveniste gave him a halfwink, as if she smiled with one eye. "But you can never be sure what he really knows."

How? Just how? They had been avoiding each other for months. How had Ewen managed to hitch into his mind again? Or had he been following him the whole time, invisible?

"What he does know though," Benveniste continued, "is that in a couple of months from now, a fight will be fought in your house, and that fight will turn the course of the war, and you had better not be there when it happens."

"Better for me or for the course of the war?"

"Both."

"Will I be killed?"

"As I said, you will be tortured."

"Damn it." Draco couldn't sit any longer. He paced around his chair, stumbled over its leg, almost overturned it, put it back up, and stayed standing behind its back, just to put someting more solid than thin air between himself and the impossible demands life kept making upon him.

He wished he hadn't heard it. He had lived one day at a time, trying not to think about the future, and that was the only way not to lose his mind completely. Maybe he could just pretend as if he didn't know what was going to happen? He searched his mind for a compartment to hide from the implications of what he'd just learnt, and he found one, ignorant and stubborn, like his five-year-old self. "I don't care what Ewen knows. I don't know what will happen, and I don't want to know it. But my mother and my father are with Him RIGHT NOW. And the only thing I want is to get out of here as soon as possible."

Benveniste stared at him motionlessly for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder, and the wizard in black robes stood immediately at her side.

"All right. It is your choice, Mr Malfoy," she said, "but we cannot let you go just like this. If you don't want to know about the future, it can be helped. We can erase this conversation from your memory, but we'll have to erase quite a bit more than that. All you know about this place and what we are doing here will have to go, too."

"Wonderful! And what will I tell Him? How will I account for the sixteen hours?"

"We'll have to think of a replacement."

"That would be nice. And it had better be one that will give him a reason to keep me alive!"

Benveniste fell silent again. The wizard in black robes cleared his throat.

"If I may suggest something, Ma'am?"

Benveniste looked at him inquiringly.

"We have intelligence that the Dark Lord is planning to raise a large army of inferi. He has recently been interested in wizards who can manage undead troops. If we can show that Mr Malfoy may prove useful in that department, that might considerably raise his life expectancy."

"Hm, not bad." Benveniste gave Draco a probing look. "But he'd first need some dead bodies to make inferi from."

"We could have Mr Malfoy kill some of the prisoners he brought. He was supposed to do it anyway." The wizard gave Draco a genuinely understanding look.

"But then we're making him a murderer. Isn't that—"

"Great idea! Make me a murderer, please," Draco interrupted. "I was supposed to become one last summer. Better late than never!"

Benveniste heaved a deep sigh and shook her head.

"I don't envy you, Mr Malfoy, but as you wish." She looked at the wizard in black robes again.

"Of course, Ma'am," replied the wizard, before she said anything.

Both of them drew their wands.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr Malfoy."

A red flash hit Draco between his eyes and he blacked out.


The next moment, Draco was standing in front of the Pensieve and staring incredulously into the silver fog. Benveniste sat in her armchair, the corners of her lips curling slightly.

"How did he like it?" she said.

"What? Who?"

"You know who."

"Oh. The story with the inferi? He believed it. He— he laughed."

"Nice. Very nice," Benveniste said, and handed him a small crystal vial.