The Toxicologist

The Sixth House

The House of Elements

Elementalists, masters of fire, water, earth, or air, manipulate their chosen element. Varied in their abilities, each member possesses a single element innate to their blood. They wield their elemental power to differing extents, with the strongest among them rumored to have the capacity to shake mountains or sink warships. However, all Elementalists rely on the physical presence of their element for manipulation; they cannot conjure fire, for instance, out of thin air.

Members of the Sixth House are known as Elementalists,Pyromancers, Firebreathers, Firedancers, Hydromancers, Ice Throats, Shipmasters, Aeromancers, Wind Riders, Dragon Tamers, Geomancers, Earth Breakers, Deep Ones

— Magical Minds and Where to Find Them! A Guide for 'Muggles' (Normal Folk). Alice K. Fisher

Four thestrals struggled up through the black sky, lugging an even blacker carriage, their bony wings buffeted by wind. Up and up they climbed, until the summer air froze, until the moon shone from a canvas of cloudless ink, a white hoof print iced onto the sky. Starless and vast, but a gale howled. Wind rattled the windows. 

Moonlight soaked the interior of the carriage, it lit up Lucius’ silver-blond hair, and turned everything eerie: the green curtains; the stupid velvet seats; it slung moonbeams over the panels of lacquered wood. Down below, the Millennium Eye winked and a dark river split the city.

These days, it was rare to see thestral-drawn transport, and not just because of the ‘you must witness death’ thing. Only last week Harry read of another bus driver who pulled into the space ahead of one such carriage — despite the sign that said: 'Invisible Horses; Keep Clear At All Times ’.

Harry sat with no mind to appreciate it. He perched on the edge of his cushion, knee bouncing, his breath thin; he could see spots. A mantra kept looping in his head, clumsy and wild because really fuck vampires fuck them fuck all of them fuckvampiresfuckthem.

His hand wouldn’t stop shaking. Harry clasped his right over his fisted left and shook his head slightly. Then shook it again. 

“Harry, you're just using this to confirm your own bias," urged Hermione. "They wouldn’t all do this! This is one vampire, one elder vampire. Understand she doesn't represent — she doesn’t know — she isn’t of this era at all!”

“That makes it acceptable, does it?" said Harry. "This crazy person is going to commit murder if we don’t instantly drop our lives and dance to her tune, she’ll kill Ron and you’re worried about...” 

Harry dropped his chin onto his chest. Despite the wind at the cold glass, whistling past the frame, despite the chill, for Harry the carriage cramped too hot. His skin flushed. He could hear his own laboured breathing, hated it. His chest kept hitching. Harry wanted to close his eyes and block out the world.  

“Harry, I hate that this happened,” begged Hermione, her voice all high and strange. “I hate it! But it’s not representative of vampires.”

“How are you defending them? Still!”

She did this. She did this every time and — he wouldn’t hear it. The tentative feeling of safety he'd rebuilt in his life was gone, tugged clean out from under him. Suddenly: nothing was safe, the tune was playing all over again, just differently, because this time they had Ron. Everything he knew about vampires was right after all and he knew it he knew it.

These animals come into our lives, and every time they tear it up.

“This isn't a ‘them,’ Harry. This is — this is one ancient woman.”

“Vampire. Say it.”

“I say it all the time!”

Lucius rubbed the bridge of his nose. He cleared his throat mildly.

Harry shot him a look, but it lacked heat. He didn’t know what to make of Lucius. After they left the warehouse, Lucius had been remarkably gentle with them (though scandalised to be touching Hermione). He had to blind them so they wouldn’t know where they were going, where they had been, as they fumbled down a metal staircase. He'd explained what he would do, even used muggle terminology, with some tension, when it was clear neither Harry nor Hermione knew a healer’s lingo.

“The term amaurosis fugax means 'transient darkening',” Lucius had said. “It is used by doctors to describe a temporary loss of vision. This is usually due to a disturbance of the blood flow to the back of the eye.” He studied their shivering, wet forms. “Or I can vasoconstrict the vessels. The result is the same. Do you have a preference?”

He intends to blindfold us using… life magic?

“Whichever has no lasting impact,” said Harry, his voice tight.

“Neither will. I promise.”

Lucius’ composure was beginning to crack. Visible tremors coursed through his body. He’d flinched whenever the Prince had spoken.

He was out of his depth, stressed, on his last. His son was missing. His legacy gone. No more Guild. His wife probably hated him. Voldemort shackled him (accidentally or otherwise) to some elder who had taken the liberty of torporing his visionary lord, and now Lucius was freefalling — into an unknown. Vampires had ruined his life. He was still a pureblood bigot, but… Harry was willing to play ball.

Lucius leant his head against the rattling door of the carriage, watching Harry in the light that had the strange character of a foreign, distant place. Occasionally, he would lift his hand to steady himself, as wind rocked them. Harry could not place his expression.

“Your timer does not begin until dusk today,” said Lucius, settling a surprising part of Harry that had needed to hear it. “Perhaps it behoves us to take a moment, and decide our first steps.”

Harry struggled to make himself still, make his mind focus. His thoughts kept jumping around. He wanted to keep his hands busy. He forced himself to sit up, his spine aching. He hated this; he was normally good under pressure. 

You’re fine. Shut up and sit up. You’ve just never been good at thinking through stress when someone you love is in danger. 

Light-headed, embarrassed, Harry turned to look out of the window to mask his expression. Don’t go off half cocked. Don’t make this fucking worse. 

“I’ll call Dung and cancel everything,” said Harry shakily. “Then we can talk strategy.”

“A splendid idea,” said Lucius, with no trace of irony. Harry glanced at him; the vampire was studiously studying his own nails.

Harry was starting to see why he was the mediator. (If anyone could mediate Voldemort.)

With a trembling hand, Harry slid his phone out of his trouser’s pocket.

Merlin, this signal. What’s going on? They were only three thousand feet up. Harry wiggled the phone around the window. There weren’t even any clouds.

With some fidgeting, a bar of signal came in. Harry exhaled. He could do this. He could think. He would make calls to the people in his life still awake at this ungodly hour. Namely, Nixon and Dung —who seemed never to sleep— and beg off everything, for three days. Take one step at a time. Harry would have to wait to cancel his tutorials. What even were biochem’s Sunday opening hours?

He stopped fiddling with the curtain when a sachet of potpourri fell on him. The packet had been tucked away, hanging from a discreet hook. Powdery flowers spilled over his lap and dusted a scented line across the rich wooden floor.

Lucius' gaze buffered.

“Sorry,” said Harry. 

Delicately, he returned the forlorn sachet to its hook. But as he fixed the curtain, movement caught his eye.

There — in the sky. What was that?

Harry pressed his face to the window, sliding forward in his seat. His breath fogged the glass.

“Potter?” Lucius sounded tense.

“I swear I just saw…” Harry trailed off, stark in disbelief. 

Lucius lifted his finger immediately, nudging the drape of own window. “What did you see?”

Outside the night stretched on, absent of anything. The moon shone clear. Harry craned his neck, then leaned over Hermione to look out the other side. 

“Harry? What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing, apparently,” said Harry, frowning. All around him the umbra slept, remote and empty.

Lucius’ gaze fastened on the sky. After what felt like an age, his muscles relaxed. He shot a lingering glance at Harry. Then Lucius handed Hermione the case file, and brought her up to speed.

Harry searched the sky a minute longer, his heart hammering. It couldn’t be anyway. Not above London. We’d have pandemonium. Bloody air sirens and helicopters would come out. 

For a moment, he thought he’d glimpsed, below the carriage —as if through a heat wave or haze, the air all distorted— one huge leathery wing. A dorsal wing, black as night, and wavering below a translucent surface, like water or glass. Too wide in span to be a thestral’s — and besides, they were up front.

Harry could feel the throb of his heart in the still quiet. The air didn’t waver again. No trick of the moon or queer rippling, and no black wing. The night stretched clear and bright, though just as windy.

Harry sat back, unsettled. Don’t let him think you’re crazy. He couldn’t fathom giving Lucius Malfoy a reason to judge him. It had to be the pills.

Luckily, his signal was back. Harry rang Dung first.

He picked up on the first ring, somehow. 

“Time off?” said Dung, disturbed. “Ere… why? What have you gone and done?”

Harry looked up to the roof of the carriage, and exhaled noisily. “Liquidised Saviours and opened a direct competitor.”

Dung hitched a breath. “You pushing daisies, Potter?”

“Huh?”

“Curious about the undiscovered? Pondering a visit to the afterlife?”

“Look, obviously it’s not that. I can’t explain now, but it’s — it’s to do with the Malfoy case.”

Dung paused. When he next spoke, he sounded as flabbergasted as a house elf receiving a sock in the mail. “You rang the fucker up and apologised?”

“Better. I got the ‘fucker’ right here.”

“Oi! You little wanker. Don’t call him that to his face. Can he hear me?”

Harry raised his eyebrows, and gave the curtains a sassy look. “ No ,” he lied. Across the seat, Lucius cast him a withering glance. “But I’m on the case now, so could you put my other stuff on hold? I’ll be busy for a few days.”

“Yeah, yeah; nice and easy,” said Dung eagerly. “Remember to give him the business card. The one with the wings.”

I would rather eat my own excrement.

Nixon, too, was glad Harry phoned. 

“Potter,” said Nixon. “I was going to call you today. We can’t get the body down from St. Martins.”

Harry blinked, sat up straighter. “What?” 

“The body. It’s stuck here.”

“The one in Voldemort’s church?”

Lucius’ stiffened, trying not to show he was listening.

“Yes. We’ve called everyone, even elementalists from the Guild. Nothing. We can’t budge it. The victim’s pinned up with magic, and no one seems to know what kind. You were able to sense something the others couldn’t.”

“About that,” said Harry quickly. “I’d really appreciate if you didn’t mention it to anyone. It’s um — my alchemy is a bit funny.”

Nixon fell eerily quiet.

Harry fidgeted in the silence. “That okay?”

“When are you available, Potter.”

“Um, later today. I can always look at the body again? I mean if it’s just… hanging out there.”

“It’s hanging.”

“I’ll come by today,” said Harry. I wonder if I can use the death sense differently. “I’ll have Hermione with me, if she can come onto scenes still? Don’t think it’s been six months.”

“Bring your grandmother,” said Nixon. “At this point, bring the tooth fairy. I want this thing down.”

He hung up before Harry could press him about the other point. For a minute, Harry stared at his phone screen, frowning. 

He Googled the university’s hours. Then, when he could do no more, Harry spread his legs, planted his boots, leant forward, and said, “All right, let's think. What eats brains? How are brains significant? And for a stab at a motive: what people and groups hate Voldemort's church?”

Hermione set down the file Lucius had given her, full of those gory photographs and coroner reports he'd shown Harry. Her voice strained. “Oh. I – Erm. Well.”

Harry looked up, and noticed the bob of her throat. He presumed she’d fallen silent so he could make calls, but Hermione sat white as a sheet. She kept combing her fingers through her hair, her posture rigid; she clutched at her purse; glanced at the folder on the seat, like it could ambush her. You forget sometimes: most people live a life never seeing stuff like this.

“Hermione?” said Harry after a while. 

Distractedly, she wet her lips. “I imagine the groups harbouring resentment against Voldemort have shifted, especially recently. Ever since his embrace, his church has become a target for anti-vampire hate groups.”

That checked out. Harry hadn’t known about Voldemort beforehand. Becoming a vampire had put his Deatheaters directly into Harry’s (and several other people’s) sphere of interest. Sounds like he and Ron weren’t the only ones to take an automatic dislike to him.

Hermione was giving him a look. “ Naturally we wouldn’t know people like that to ask.”

What? Oh. Naturally… Harry nodded. He didn’t know of an organised group anyway, not anymore, none standing since all the police shutdowns. His poor comrades, his brothers in arms. 

Oh, wait, except… 

He had been silent too long. Hermione uttered, "I highly doubt our network extends to fanatics who'd resort to violence. People with an unfair opinion is one thing; another entirely to go out your way to hurt someone. Our company is more sensible than that. Not only would it be tremendously illegal but unquestionably barbaric. Isn’t that right , Harry?”

Ye-eah. About… that. 

Lucius leaned back with a smile. “Please enlighten us, Mr Potter. I'm sure your calendar is a parade of like-minded companions. Perhaps some who even share your… unique brand of passion?”

Hermione scoffed. “Harry might be stubborn, but he's not out befriending dangerous radicals. That's absurd.”

"Yeah,” said Harry, sweating. “That’s crazy. But, you know, just the other day I was saying that we live in such a funny world —”

“Spare us the protestation,” snorted Lucius. “No one here suffers any doubt that your associations could be as colourful as your opinions. No need to feign innocence, Potter.”

“You’re wrong,” said Hermione. “Harry tell him.”

“I should mention… something,” said Harry, his voice all high.

Hermione turned to look at him, dark and deliberate. “What.”

Harry cleared his throat. “A correspondent. Purely a formality.”

“Who.”

“Edward.”

“Edward,” she said dangerously. “Who is Edward.”

Even higher pitched, Harry said, “Some guy! Ha. He drops by every so often to chat. He doesn’t really like vampires. Once or twice, he’s even alluded to a group —I don’t know its name— it’s underground. I’m sure it’s nothing more than a whisper network, people who join hands politically and muck around with the newspapers.”

“And if it’s not?” said Hermione, her eyes flashing. “If it’s more?”

“We would have a lead?” said Harry nervously.

Hermione snarled. “Harry, this is serious! What if it’s a hunter group? In addition,” she added, appalled, “Why would you know such a horrible, horrible person?”

Take a wild guess.

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, avoiding eye contact as he mumbled, “Well, you know, things happen. People have different… perspectives. It's not like I actively seek them out, but sometimes you end up crossing paths, unintentionally.”

Lucius offered an indulgent smile. “Ah, the marvel of continually stumbling into secret meetings. Life’s greatest accident. I am prone to these myself.”

“I’m not in a group,” snapped Harry.

“You might consider christening it ‘The Undeadeaters’.”

“I haven't a clue if they've formed a club," Harry promised hastily, letting Lucius' chuckle wash over him. “I swear, Hermione—I’m not in a group. It's just me catching up with this one guy occasionally.”

“I, too, had but one guiding associate…”

“Edward’s not like Voldemort!” said Harry. 

Edward wasn’t. He just — knew his way around breaking in, could decipher a bunch of languages, and toted around some not-so-legal blades and firearms. So, he was probably some kind of spy. 

Hermione's eyes widened with disbelief. “You just implied he might lead a fanatical hate group!”

“I didn’t mean to imply anything!  I don’t know if there’s a group or not.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He reached out to me,” said Harry quickly. “You can't control who you run into, right? It's not like I planned it. 

Hermione's eyes bore into Harry, her voice tense. “Where. Did you meet. Edward .”

Harry fidgeted.

“Harry.”

In a tiny voice, he squeaked, “At a group.”

Lucius laughed.

“A GROUP.”

“A club! At a stupid club we don’t go to anymore. Me and Ron got invited. But it got shut down! I promise. Or, more likely, it moved… This was years ago. It’s probably changed hands, or doesn’t exist. We only went during that year — after that — time — our heads were in a crap place.”

Hermione said nothing, something complex and conflicted behind her eyes.

After a long pause, into the silence, Harry said, “Should I contact him?”

“NO!” cried Hermione at the same time as Lucius’ terse, “Yes .”

Hermione whipped her head, incredulous. But: “You will need to,” said Lucius, calmly. “Dismissing such a conspicuous lead would be, at best, careless, and at worst catastrophic. If there is even a sliver of possibility a faction exists, capable of this level of violence, we must confirm or deny its involvement. Conveniently, Potter has the perfect alibi for infiltrating such a group. He hates vampires. And everyone in the country knows it.”

Yes, Harry's disdain for vampires was widely recognised. You could have put it a little more tactfully, though. Beside him, Hermione sat deathly quiet.

“Reach out to this Edward,” said Lucius. “See what you can find.”

Harry nodded. “I’ll have to wait until after dawn. He’s busy around this time.”

Hermione set her jaw and looked out the window.

We can research brain-eaters when we touch down and get better internet.

“Other than that, do we have witnesses?” asked Harry, looking more to Lucius. “Literally anyone might help. You said you had one woman who was upstairs during an attack? Her husband was sorting breakfast, or something, when —”

The carriage jolted, a strange diagonal lurch. Lucius inhaled sharply.

Harry went still. He was peripherally aware of Hermione, her breathing shallow, looking between them. “What was that?” she said.

“Turbulence?” said Lucius.

“There’s no clouds,” murmured Harry. He slid to the window.

It turned so silent, rocking together side by side. Harry peered out the window, Lucius on the other; Hermione over his shoulder.

The night sky stretched on. Harry kept his eyes open, wide open, trying to evolve into some creature that could see further. But the moon lit up the night; the carriage cut through the air, nothing to see. 

After a minute Lucius said, hesitantly, “Yes. Antonin’s wife. She has a home in London.”

And then, “Potter?”

It took Harry a while to notice, wide-eyed and slack-mouth, so busy searching the sky; that in front of his lips, the condensation he was exhaling against the glass had frosted. A thin, spidery crystal on the window. 

“Malfoy,” he said slowly. “Who knows your schedule?”

When Hermione exhaled, her breath plumed white. She went almost cross-eyed in surprise, then slowly looked at Harry.

“Only my wife,” said Lucius. “I suppose, anyone in the building we have just come from, but that is why I took the carriage, so —”

Outside the window, something huge and black traced into view, before dipping again.

“Whoa! Guys!”

“I can’t see anything,” said Hermione quickly. 

“It’s right there!” 

“Where?” bit Lucius.

“There!”

The wing — again, as if underwater. How couldn’t they see it? Something separated the carriage and the wing, like a semi-translucent divide. It made the air ripple, a wide spear of ghostlike water.

Then the ‘something’ changed. Harry felt all the small hairs on his neck stand up at once. Beyond the window, the weird distortion vanished, and Harry was no longer looking at the wing as if behind glass.

Hermione inhaled sharply, a scream lodged in her throat. “Is that —”

Lucius let out a strange, breathy sound, his eyes wide. He jerked away from the window.

“Dragon!” cried Harry.

Barely a second, then a screaming, screeching sound of teeth on metal, of struts bending, wood snapping. A fissure broke the floor, from door to door, cracking the cherry wood. Harry felt something give. 

Oh, Merlin. The carriage turned violently. Hermione fell into him and slapped a hand over her mouth.

Lucius gripped the side of the carriage, white-knuckled, his face pallid. His cane rolled over the floor. 

"But they don't attack carriages!" said Hermione.

The bottom of the cabin started to shake, as of an immense jaw taking hold. On either side, the wood frame groaned. Harry clambered up onto the seat. “Well this one does!” 

They banked sharply. Ahead, through the rectangle viewing pane, the thestrals flapped wildly, screeching and tossing their heads.

The carriage shook violently. Lucius cried out, his legs and arms spread to catch his body. Panic slammed Harry's chest.

A guttural roar reverberated through the night, rising from below. Harry's eyes widened. His gaze locked onto a massive silhouette that emerged. From beneath the carriage, enormous.

Definitely a dragon. The tendons stood out on Harry’s neck. His breath burst in and out. A line of scales came into view, obsidian in the moon, gleaming next to his window, and Harry realised he was looking at a belly, a large scaled belly, the wings above them, slicing the air with terrifying precision. 

Then the dragon dropped back and lowered its weight in the midair. It flewparallel to the window. Then turned its huge snout to the carriage, did something strange with its shoulder, tucked its head, a glow building within its cavernous maw. Harry realised a second too late what it was doing.

Fire erupted from its jaws, a torrent of searing heat that slammed the doors and sped over the roof. But it didn’t stop. Gout after gout, the heat slammed them. The cabin became an oven. The metal around Harry sizzled, the door handle glowed red. Harry released it with a shout; Hermione screamed.

“The floor!” Harry barked. He threw himself onto Lucius’ bench.

The dragon's roar echoed, a deafening bellow, and then, with a thunderous impact, the creature slammed into the carriage. The force rippled through, jolting them mercilessly. Beams snapped beneath, a cascade of cracking wood. The fissure opened. Harry's knuckles whitened as he clung to the seat, the world tilting on its axis.

Metal screeched, a shriek of tearing and rending. The carriage groaned again, and then, in a heart-stopping moment, the windows shattered as the back half of the cabin was torn away. Cold air rushed in, carrying the acrid reek of smoke and burning wood.

Oh God, where’s — Harry’s heart raced. His stomach felt rock hard.

"Hermione!" His shout barely reached over the roar of the wind.

She was gone.

The realisation struck him like a physical blow. In the blink of an eye, Hermione had been ripped from the carriage, swallowed by the night. The remnants of the cabin dangled, glass shards trembling.

Harry stared at the broken edge and empty air, his jaw slack, his gaze dull.

“Harry!”

Without thought, he lunged, groping his fingers blindly on empty air. Panic surged, a wild torrent of fear, but then—his hand closed around something. A slim wrist, fingers clinging desperately to the sizzling handle of the door. 

“Hermione!” Harry sobbed, his voice lost in the tumult. “Hang on!”

He strained against the force of the wind, his muscles burning. Lucius, gripping the carriage's edge, extended a hand to steady him.

He got a hold of her forearm. Hermione let go of the door with a pained cry. He could see the top of her head but little else. Hermione's bushy hair was visible, flattened by the wind. His grip tightened. A tendon bulged in his neck; more of her form gradually emerged. She hung from him, almost diagonal against the wind. Her red dress whipped around her legs. Her hair obscured her face. Harry grunting under the effort, he and Lucius fought against the gale's pull, inching her back into the broken half of the smouldering cabin.

Lucius, his voice strained against the deafening wind, attempted to shout over it. 

“Land anywhere! Now!” he bellowed, the words snatched away. His eyes, wide with urgency, darted toward the driver, who wrestled with the reins in a desperate bid for control.

The carriage hurtled through the night, a dark projectile whipped by wind. Harry clung desperately to whatever handhold he could find, and to Hermione. Lucius wheezed, rather frozen in shock. His cane was long gone.

Over the broken lip of the floor: a sheer drop into nothing. Open midair. Harry skidded his boots from the ledge. Wind billowed his shirt. Lucius’ hair whipped into a frenzy, swept the tattered curtains into banners. The sky was passing so fast that it bent the air into an invisible current. Harry’s field of vision blurred. Even the moon distorted, its silvery glow scattered by the rush. 

We’re going to die. The reality of it loosened something in him. Lucius closed his eyes, biting his fist. Hermione was making a high, keening sound.

The carriage plunged towards the earth. 

The metropolis of London materialised rapidly, the intricate puzzle gaining detail: brightness and noise and smog and a dazzling array of car-streaked roads and a gold network of lights. The city sparkled. 

Beyond the open end of the carriage, the world tore away in a surreal panorama of motion. Still with his eyes closed, Lucius barked over the roaring wind. “Cut them loose!” he cried.

Harry whipped his head to him, horrified. He can’t mean the thestrals? The wind thundered. The driver, grappling with the reins, failed to catch his order. 

Voice hitched in urgency, Lucius repeated the command, the whites of his eyes stark as he opened them. “Sever the thestrals!” he shouted. 

Harry followed his terrified gaze. The vulnerable carriage became engulfed in darkness. A shadow fell upon the broken wood, the tattered curtains, and darkened Harry’s slack face. The wind smelt different: laden with an overpowering musk like scalded leather. Harry could smell breath, hot and fetid.

Right next to Harry, beside his half-hinged door, flapping loose in the wind, was a neck of matte scale, a sheen in moonlight; and a crest flared at the back of a skull, a huge crest pulsed bright with blood, like a stegosaurus. But right here, two feet from Harry’s face, before his hot, slack face: an enormous black head, the ridge of a snout, and a single molten eye.

That eye held his, barely a foot away. Right next to the carriage’s flank.

Primaeval, the moon reflected in the eye, from the glossy convexities of its cornea. Harry’s breath stopped.

This is a dream. Wake up.

The dragon's amber gaze brightened. Harry could make out the thinnest membrane of its eye. An otherworldly intelligence, that pupil dilated at it fixed on him — but slid to Lucius. Its nostrils distorted the air around it. Sulphur hooked Harry’s nose. Out the back he could see the dragon’s body and tail, the intricate ridges and air grooves across its jet-black scales.

“Sever them!” Lucius's voice begged, a desperate plea. Now the driver heard him; this time, hands trembling, he fumbled forward. 

The dragon dipped its head, lifted a wing — and knocked the carriage.

“Fuck!” Harry cried. He hurtled into the broken door, thrown almost loose into the air. His shoulder cracked against wood, screamed in protest. He scrabbled. He tilted clean over the edge, and came so close to the dragon’s scaled neck that he choked. Hermione crashed into his back. Haryy pawed at the door, his fingers clutching clammily at the handle as his boot slid off the edge. Lucius bounced in his seat with a shout.

The dragon looked up. Tilted its moon-drenched cranium. Met Harry’s gaze. Curved its shoulder and arched its back. 

Time seemed to slow.

Harry had all the time in the world to see that shoulder shove upwards, and knock the wheel spoke. Unstable, not yet seated, Harry and Hermione were torn from the wreckage, the force of the impact hurling them into the sky. 

Lucius’ cry of alarm was swallowed by the wind.

Harry dropped. His legs flew out. Gravity of three thousand feet. His hand spasmed, shot out — locked around the door handle as his body was sucked into the air. He lurched. Stopped. Pain shocked through bone — but he halted in the midair, weight screaming up in his arm. Hermione’s fingers clamped his wrist, bruising. 

They dangled together as the carriage veered.

The dragon circled back, a dark silhouette against the moonlit sky. The driver, struggling to maintain control, called out desperately to Lucius.

"Descend, man! Descend!" Lucius was bellowing.

But the dragon swooped quicker with terrifying speed. Its massive form bore down upon the carriage, wings beating with primal fury. With a thunderous crash, the dragon slammed into the carriage once more, sending shards of wood and metal flying.

Hermione swung below him, her eyes wide with fear, her wrist slipping from his grasp. Harry’s chest burned with the effort to hold them both. 

"Harry!"

The dragon drew up to the back of the carriage, level with both their exposed bodies.

It's eyes locked with Harry. A too-intelligent gaze. Its monstrous silhouette eclipsed the moon. The air crackled acridly, all sulphur-reek and a tang of burning embers. The dragon opened its colossal wings, stretched wide in a show of power. It didn’t strike the carriage.

It opened its mouth. Pointed directly at his head, Harry watched the cavernous maw widen, the image scalded onto his retinas forever: a trembling membrane at the walls of its mouth, saliva stretching in a globule line from roof to tongue, a rattling in-breath, and a hell glow from the back of its tonsil-less throat. 

In a heartbeat, the dragon's breath surged—a torrent of white-gold-red fire. It licked brightly up its throat, dazzled Harry’s eyes, shot out a maelstrom, and in a single, unending gout of flame — 

Harry let go.

The door handle slipped through his fingers. The world spun as he and Hermione tumbled, morphed into a turbulent blur.

“Potter –!” Lucius’ voice vanished. 

Oh Merlin, oxygen. It ripped right out from him. The air pressure and speed of descent made it nearly impossible to inhale properly. Harry couldn't get any. He could barely suck in a shallow gasp, couldn't orient himself. He freefell at crazy speed. He pawed Hermione's body, clung to her, spun, turned, hurtled faster and faster. A hundred calculations and thoughts and ideas and it was all pointless their skulls would crack and brains would go everywhere, they’d die instantly. 

Hermione was doing something, he couldn't see what. Her hair was everywhere. His legs were whipped above his head, and he hurtled down. London approached in a rush. A mosaic of lights and fractured black, Harry’s body was ripped up then down. The sky, then the city, the sky again. Harry spun. He spared a wild, hysterical thought to note the dragon hadn’t pursued them. It had gone after the carriage, after Lucius. 

Not that it would matter. Harry imagined his friends — Ron would be killed, Hermione would die here, with him now. His mother’s face swum. Would he see her? Was she in Heaven? James would live for years still. He wouldn’t even know Harry died.

“Harry, let go! I need my hand!”

Harry’s heart pounded. He couldn’t tell what was happening. Was he holding it? He thought he was clinging like a limpet to Hermione’s back, a topsy-turvy confusion of limbs and air.

Harry cracked and cauterised hand open, felt it well up with blood, almost couldn’t let go, and realised he’d burnt it gripping the door handle, his skin peeled open, sloughing at his thumb web. 

Hermione straddled his waist and hooked her arm around his neck like she was wrestling him, a Hermione-shaped anaconda. She locked her elbow, any manoeuvre she could impose on the fall to stay attached to him. Her hand, Harry could see it as the wind rushed him, as central London appeared, her hand glowed purple. Wild runes wreathed her fingers. A black hole appeared in her palm.

From that hole: her platypus. It appeared — in the air. Surprised and confused, its flat beak jerked downwards. Squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak.

“Oh, would you –” Hermione cried, but managed to grasp its flailing paw. “Harry! Take his back legs!”

“What?” Harry howled. He clung to Hermione. 

“TAKE HIS BACK LEGS!”

Harry grasped the platypus. It squealed in horror. It struggled, it spasmed. Oh god we’ll kill him too.

Harry’s world lurched. He grasped the platypus and — his stomach went up.

His dinner tried to come up. 

He was no longer falling.

The platypus had transformed — a remarkable, awful thing. In the midst of their free fall, the creature's body stretched and bloated, contorting in a horrifying way. Its flesh blew out, like a soap bubble, its brown pelt expanded, its astonished eyes stretched. All of it stretched. The animal ballooned. Harry's hands, still gripping the creature, felt its skin morph into a makeshift parachute. The sudden deceleration jolted him, but slowed their descent and altered their trajectory.

The wind howled around them as the platypus, resembling a bizarre, oversized balloon, helped counteract their plummet. Hermione, melded tenaciously to Harry, adjusted her grip. The purple lights on her hand flickered and flared, casting an eerie glow across Harry’s eyes.

Through the rush of air, Harry glimpsed the twinkling lights of Marble Arch. The cityscape approached with alarming speed, but the furry parachute seemed to be working, providing a fragile buffer against the inexorable pull.

"Hold on tight, Harry!" Hermione's voice cut through the wind, determination evident in her tone. "Don't let go!"

Harry had no such fucking intention. He grasped the platypus like he would die, because he actually would. 

They spun slowly down toward the sprawling metropolis, hung below their elasticized platypus skin, like a paper lantern. The platypus wheezed, its beak stuck up into the air. The white of its eyes reflected the sky.

They descended. Floated above the nighttime landscape of London. A sense of relief washed over Harry, as they neared Hyde Park. The greenery below seemed like a sanctuary amidst the urban sprawl. 

“We'll land on the grass!” Hermione shouted over the rushing wind. 

Harry couldn't help but wonder how they were going to land. The platypus parachute, while slowing their fall, wasn't a conventional means of descent. He braced over the treetops, preparing himself for a shattered ankle or leg. Gloriously preferable to death.

With a surprisingly soft thud, they landed on the grass, in Hyde Park. Harry rolled. He tumbled three times, then stopped. The platypus came to a halt beside him, and deflated, with a long airy sound of release.

Tears streamed down Harry’s face. Beyond the field, past some trees, the beeping noise of a truck was backing up. Cars trafficked on a distant road. Black iron lamplights cast pools of light all the way up the park, but not here. In the wilder half of the park, the green was lit by moonlight and pocketed in tree shadow. A wood to the left, a clump of bushes ahead.

Trees shifted in the breeze. Harry looked at Hermione, their eyes meeting in a mixture of astonishment and relief.

“Are you all right?” Hermione asked breathlessly.

Harry nodded, sucking in lungfuls of air. The park washed over him, the sound of vehicles and nightlife drifting through the trees. The pounding in his chest gradually began to slow. He could kiss the ground, all its knobbly hard lumps and spongy grass. He sat down, right onto his rear, onto blissful damp. “Yeah. You’re amazing.”

Hermione turned pink. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and she bent over, to catch her breath. “Well, you know. Familiars are quite versatile.”

Saying so, she scooped up the creature with shaky arms. It instantly protested, emitting a series of chipping squeaks out of its beak. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Hermione gasped, as it squirmed. She pressed her glowing hand to its thrashing forehead. In a blub-blub-blub, bathwater plug sound, the platypus suddenly vanished — sucked up into her hand, in a spiralling whirlpool of purple light, fur and, finally, with a protracted pop, its beak.

Harry stared. The purple lights surrounding Hermione's hand faded. The feat left him momentarily speechless. 

"Did you just... absorb your platypus?" Harry finally managed to say.

“Temporary containment,” Hermione answered breathlessly. “He's — safe inside. I’ll — release him later and apologise.” Her body went abruptly rigid. “Harry, look out! The carriage!”

Harry spun around in time to witness the wreckage of the once-majestic carriage. Like a comet it smoked across the sky, approaching fast as a bullet, its downward trajectory angled… right where Hermione was standing, and Harry was sitting, like a lemon. The driver waved wildly, warning he couldn’t stop, both of his hands up. No thestrals in sight.

Harry dived one way, Hermione the other. With an earth-shattering impact, the carriage collided with the green. Metal screeched against the earth. Debris scattered everywhere, littering the grass behind.

The horseless wreckage skidded across the field, before finally coming to a halt, wood and metal struts in its wake. Two steaming lines scored the grass. Battered and beaten, the carriage slumped against a mulberry bush, and dropped its wooden springs as though they were arms. It released a long, angry sigh.

Harry came to the driver tentatively. “Sir?”

With an aggressive shrug, the carriage bucked, and loosened its only passenger. The driver tumbled off, landing on the grass with a stagger. Shaken but miraculously unharmed, he rose to his feet, and dusted himself off.

Four thestrals gracefully touched down behind, Lucius clung to one of them. His body lay plastered against its bony back, arms locked around its neck, his long hair blown in disarray. A lock was stuck to his lip, his eyes covered.

Harry started to run over, but slowed. Lucius slid from the thestral with a stagger. He took a moment to collect himself, leaning on the thestral for support. Hermione rushed to him, her expression filled with genuine concern.

“Are you hurt?” she inquired, her eyes scanning him for any signs of injury.

Lucius straightened up, attempting to regain his composure. “I've had better landings, but I'll survive.”

The driver stood in the moonlight inspecting the wreckage. He approached the carriage hands up, crooning, as though to a wild animal.

Harry watched in astonishment as the battered carriage huffed and turned from him. It dragged itself away, toward the tarmac path, a series of metal creaks and groans. Protesting each rotation, the loose wheel spoke squeaked.

"Where's it going?" said Harry.

"To an MOT centre, I expect," said Hermione worriedly.

The carriage screeched off into the darkness, toward the trees and the distant road, dragging its door behind.

The trees creaked. The leaves rustled. 

“So,” Harry said at last, his gaze on the sky. “Someone’s after you.” 

He turned to shoot a pointed look at Lucius. “With a dragon. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.” 

Lucius, his face drained of colour, lips pressed into a thin line. He swallowed hard. “It would appear so. I have not been attacked thus, until now.”

“We can’t take to the skies,” said Harry. “We should stick near police and infrastructure.”

“I concur,” said Lucius tightly.

“Did you know the killer had a dragon?”

“No,” said Lucius, and then, “I swear it.” 

“We shouldn’t presume it’s the killer,” sad Hermione uneasily, looking up at the sky.

How did they even get a dragon into the UK? The beast hadn’t followed them for long, not over central. Still, it was out there. How weren’t there sirens? Harry searched the sky, already beginning to shift in their constituent parts, and bleed a lighter colour, charcoal and lighter grey.

Dawn approached. Lucius looked edgier than ever. Harry couldn’t even take a solemn moment to enjoy the vampire’s discomfort, because he felt bad for him. Harry was wired and on edge.

This has gotten too weird. How did a dragon creep up on us? The night’s so clear.

Also, fuck using a dragon. Who does that?

They regrouped while their poor, singed driver (who, it turned out, was named Roland) calmed the thestrals. They whickered to each other dreamily. 

Lucius healed Harry’s hand, again surprising him with how gentle he was. His cold skin over Harry’s glowed green, a pale but healthily flickering light that omitted from his palm and which, after a minute, sunk light into Harry’s burned skin. It reknit the hot flesh, dried and vanished the blood. Harry took his hand back, frowning. Lucius opened his eyes, his pale lashes lifting to find Harry’s gaze on his.

Hermione, however, shook her head. “I’m not injured.” 

Lucius stood, undeterred. “I should remove the alcohol from your system.”

Hermione blinked. “That’s possible?”

Lucius’ jaw tightened. “Of course it’s possible. Now, if you would…” 

He didn’t look happy to be touching her, though. Hermione stepped back. “Really, it’s fine. It must be taxing.”

Lucius watched her. After a beat, he dropped his hands.

In all, Harry was desperately relieved that it hadn’t been worse. But they’d only just left, and got immediately one-shot by a dragon. What the hell? He didn’t even know the breed of the monster, he’d never seen anything like it.

Did the killer send it? Or someone else? Who would not want them investigating this? Who would even know where they were? We’d only just climbed into the sky.

Harry double took Hermione’s feet. “How did your heels stay on?”

“Oh. They’re practically welded.”

She trembled on the grass, her red party dress mottled and damp. Harry stripped off his jumper and made her pull it over her head.

Hermione exhaled sharply, her eyes on the heavens, concern in her gaze. “Oh, Harry , perhaps we should just go to the Ministry? Tell them what the Prince is threatening?”

Alarm detonated, thick and dizzying. It locked up Harry’s throat. He was surprised by the force of it, but wasted no time in arguing, “Hermione, no . I know how this works. You know the television side of vampires; Ron and I know how quickly people disappear — and the police, the Ministry, no one can do anything about it. They might catch the culprit later, but the hostage is dead. We’re not risking it. Not unless we’re stuck on the last day, the last hour, even, and we’ve nothing left.”

We’re sort of fucked then, though. I’ll buy a bazooka.

Hermione chewed her lip. 

Lucius offered, “At least for the time I have known her, Violetta has proven to honour agreements.”

“Well that’s… that’s good,” said Hermione.

“We should stay in the city,” said Harry, stuffing his hands into his pocket, and realising he’d lost his phone. With a look to Lucius, “You said we had a witness? A vampire? Could we visit her this late?”

Lucius nodded. “If we are quick; I must return to Wiltshire before five am. She, too, will sleep soon.”

“She one of your church people? Could you use her Floo?”

“Yes. She is not a Deatheater, but her husband was. I will Floo from hers.”

“Good.” Harry cast a final, stressed look at the sky, his gaze on the strips of cloudmist, the black ink and its absence of stars.

Hang on, Ron, we’ll get you.

They taxi’ed over to Lady Dolohov’s address, an experience Harry thoroughly enjoyed; for Lucius refused his seatbelt, and was told off by their Turkish Uber driver. 

Roland, the carriage driver, had wanted to fly the spooked thestral troup back to Malfoy Manor, so he parted with them; and besides, Hermione was in a dress.

The taxi dropped them off on a dim street outside of a Victorian townhouse. A lone Narnian lamp shone outside, someone having an eye for the eccentric. It cast a huge light in the gloom, a spot of orange over the sidewalk.

Harry helped Hermione out of the taxi’s door, wobbling a bit in her heels. The night air smelled crisp, and of well-maintained flower baskets; but also the salt of the Thames; whiffs of fine dining; and a woody undertone from Hyde Park. This close to dawn and London still moved. But the city sounded distant to Harry, muffled beyond Park Lane and these residential housetops, with their silent penthouse gardens. Mayfair slept.

Lucius crossed the street, his flaxen mane gleaming as he moved into the light. 

He raised his knuckles to the black door, and knocked, rapping below a reflective silver 66. Rat-ta-ta-tat.

Bolts slid back, high up on the door. Two dark eyes peered through a slit. “Lucius,” came the hiss. “What are you doing here? Who are they ?”

Hermione opened her mouth to speak.

“Friends , Wilhelmina,” interjected Lucius. “here to resolve this unhappy business. We need to ask you a few questions. You may rest assured we are alone, and not followed."

The shadowy eyes narrowed. "How do I know it's you?"

"I am not doing this again," said Lucius, looking over his shoulder. "Open the damn door."

"What's the password?"

"There is no password. There has never been a password."

"Well, that’s suspicious, too. How can I know it's you?”

"Wilhelmina, just — do your — you know what ," Lucius snapped uncomfortably, as if embarrassed. Harry eyed him inquisitively.

There came a pause, and a strange sound, as of someone sniffing the air.

"Oh. Right."

The locks slid open one by one, all the way down the door. Lady Dolohov appeared the lamplight, dressed in mourning blacks, looking both relieved and begrudgingly resigned. 

"Come in, then, but be quick."

Everyone filed in. No sooner than Harry stepped up though, he froze.

What was that? Deja vu?

Under the glow of the lamp, a ginger cat observed him. The cat's ears perked forward, tuned to the slightest rustle of leaves.

Harry looked further up the street. No one.

Harry paid attention to strange feelings. Always had; it's what made him a good detective. Once upon a time, it might have made him a good Auror.

He blinked. The feeling was gone, quickly as it arrived. What was it? His hand on the door? The orange light? No, he couldn't tell. It was gone.

"Harry?" Hermione called.

Harry shook his head. He stepped through the door, and closed it behind him.

The townhouse revealed itself to be a realm much higher, longer and deeper than it appeared from the outside.

It was moonlight and candle flame. Dust motes and green grave bookshelves. Gloom clung to the corners, and some rooms hung black as pitch, but others blazed in light, moonbeams sifting through sheer curtains and slanting over polished floors. Victorian portraits slept, slouched in their frames.

“Don’t touch anything,” said Lady Dolohov.

“Thank you so much for seeing us,” Hermione said. “Please forgive the unexpected call.”

“Let’s hope that all we have to forgive.”

Gilded candelabras suspended from the corridor, each silver bracket glimmeringly wrought into the shape of beasts. The house could not be crossed in any rational way. No single central corridor made sense of the place; one moved through each room, door by door, floorboard to creaking rug. As Harry followed the trio ahead, a grandfather clock suddenly donged, and made him jump.

In one marble dining-room a chandelier broke the moon, scattering shards of light across a grand piano and a polished dining table. Harry could smell the floor wax. Lady Dolohov moved through this, too, her boots clicking below the long skirts that she gathered up, so she could press deeper into the house, which continued to open room by room, door by door. 

Harry was about to break the silence and ask how much further they should walk, because Hermione was flinching every hobbling step, and sweat had broken out on her upper lip. But abruptly, they entered a room which snatched from Harry all his words.

The red paper walls were patterned with foxes; delicate gold foxes, stylised in iridescent paint. More foxes were carved into the skirting. But from the walls they poked their shining snouts out, hiding behind gold-leaf trees, a wealth of painted foliage that climbed the wall, to spread a shimmering canopy across the ceiling.

There'd been foxes in the nursery when Harry was a boy. Some dead greataunt had muraled them: a forest of green winding branches and woodland critters. Foxes poked out from trees, nosing the air with handsome black snouts. They snuffled loudly after Lily enchanted it, and came awake at night. But James stripped the enchantment down after Harry cried for six nights straight, because a painted snake had followed him about the room. Lily returned the charm when he was older, though by that time Harry hardly played there.

Harry could often hear the scratching of the foxes, their scritch-scritch-scratch against the skirting. They fell obedient when Sirius came, and quiet, because the scratching reminded him of his family's house elf, and he told the foxes that if they did not behave, he would get out Harry's box of acrylics and paint out their eyes.

Harry would hear the bark of real foxes outside. He dreamed of them nosing back and forth across a trail. How marvellous to trot as a fox, and go underground whenever he pleased. No one could tell him what to do, or when to play in the nursery, when to catch his father’s snitch endlessly in his room, while everyone else argued downstairs.

He would slip from the nursery with no mind for the locks. The spaces between things let him pass in remarkable ways. He could stealth unchecked between rooms, slide through cracks others could not, like a fox. One could make themselves all long and thin if you knew how — and go into the long place. Between bookshelves or drawers, even the gap between his door and desk. You could suction your head to fit it into the impossible. Into cracks between worlds.

His father would always be asleep, because the quests took it out of him, as Sirius said, so James of all people deserved some rest .

Harry would slip under the blanket and James would mumble with his face smeared into the pillow. He would kick out in his sleep and Harry would kick too, pressing his feet into his father's back until they grew warm. James would eventually roll around and crush Harry, and they would lie like that all night, snug as a pair of bugs.

Grandmother Dorea used to say it was unnatural, sleeping face-down, and it would lead to James being smothered to death. Harry put his hand on his father’s back, sometimes all night, to see if he was alive.

When morning came Lily was angry, because Harry had been let out of the nursery. Harry defended his father hotly, but it made his mother all the angrier. She supposed James had woken Harry up, and taken him from bed late at night. He couldn’t have gotten out, the door was locked! He doesn’t need to hear about what you’re doing. Don’t bring our son into your —

Lupin and Lily started to agree on things —but all the time— until even the small things started up James and Sirius, shouting over the coffee table. The Great Canyon, Harry dubbed it, once he learned the word; a place over which both pairs of adults could row at the other.

Harry would race into the damp grounds drowned in fog, and rush through the separating mist, his trouser legs climbed by water, his trainers soaked. At a distance, the gardens still possessed the illusion of being grand and neat like Grampa liked it. Once upon a time, people came to clip and shear and bend the topiary into animals and dragons and nymphs on the ponds. Now, only old Martin had been kept on, to wage a bitter war with the plants. Martin shot the gnomes but the gnomes came back, and then the rabbits came too, grazing the lawns at their leisure and everyone poking up holes. The mighty rhododendron bush soared over the dovecot and covered the great wall, and in the orchard the trees grew wild and the apples were eaten by blackbirds.

Harry hadn’t thought of the nursery in so long. Something about the long place he used to go into disturbed a dark place in his mind, and blew forward a thick cloud of memory dust.

Harry’s skin pebbled in a shiver. He took a step backwards, then another. He backed up all the way out the room, until he could flee the fox-papered walls, with their long snouts, hurrying after the others, until he was further up the hall. 

Lady Dolohov stopped in a massive study where a huge fireplace crackled, its bright yellow flames tufted pink and violet. Bookshelves whispered from the wall.

An immense Persian rug spread across the wooden floor, spanning the long room right up to the fireplace. A writing desk stood in front of the books; but over there, closer to the fire sprawled a leather lounge, two pairs of Oxford green sofas and a studded armchair to match.

Harry eyed the Guild insignia distractedly: the glass paperweights and bookstops bore pyrographic embellishments; even the writing table lay cluttered under branded inkpots; the grand symbol of Life winked from the spines of books. Amid all this First House crap hung a banner for the Church of Eternal Life, a gothic version in black and silver, which didn’t improve things any. Voldemort and his church had become synonymous with the First House. Harry wondered if he was still the leader, now he was a vampire.

“I’ve already told you what I know.”

Lady Dolohov looked gaunt, even for a vampire. Her blouse hung loose at her neck, the crinoline sagged beneath her bustle. She'd lost weight rapidly, and recently. 

Lucius tsked. He moved toward the lounge at the end of the room. “Tell them , Wilhelmina. And quickly; it's not long before dawn.”

Lady Dolohov didn’t move, and did not gesture to the chairs. She stared at Hermione and Harry. “I will. Once I know who I have let into my home.”

Lucius stopped walking toward the sofas. Harry’s attention tightened. He hung by the wall, having wanted a wide view of the room.

Hermione stepped forward, her hand outstretched. “I’m Hermione G—”

“She’s a clerk at the Ministry,” shot Lucius, his hand suddenly there, halting her.

Lady Dolohov stared at Hermione’s open palm. Two bushy eyebrows climbed into her charcoal hairline, the hair swept back like owl feathers, and pinned. “You work?” she said.

Don’t sound too disturbed. Merlin.

Hermione withdrew her hand. She touched the side of her neck, a nervous gesture.

“That’s — er, correct,” she faltered. “Not as a clerk —naturally I can see how someone might mix it up— it’s rather entertaining actually, recently —”

“Who were you again; what family?”

Harry tensed, his body coiled whipcord tight. Lucius caught his eye. 

"Oh, yes, sorry, I should have said, I tried — at least — I should have pressed the point really, I usually would," Hermione said in a single breath. "It's Granger. You won’t know my parents.”

Lady Dolohov scoffed. “I doubt that,” she lifted her thick, winged brow daringly. Her eyes shone with invitation. “Try it. I know everybody.”

There came a soft sound — of Hermione stressing out an exhale.

"They're not mages," she said.

Lady Dolohov stiffened. A shadow passed across her expression — sharpened it. "Pray, were you expelled from a mermaid's ovisac?”

“My parents are muggles,” said Hermione, a flush spreading across her face and neck.

Harry pulled away from the wall. 

"Muggle. Muggles? You are muggle born?"

"A regrettable affair," said Lucius, stepping forward. "Though hardly the centrepiece of our evening."

“And I suppose you are the illusioned hobgoblin?” snapped Lady Dolohov, glowering at Harry down a hooked nose. “Shall I brace myself?”

“Nothing so fantastical,” said Harry, his voice low. “ Lord Potter. A pleasure to meet you.”

To Lady Dolohov’s surprise, Harry bent his head while soliciting her hand; she gave it to him reflexively. 

Harry could not set himself to kiss that cold skin; he skimmed his lips over her knuckles instead. 

Lady Dolohov straightened a touch, and smoothed her hands across the front of her overskirt.

“Potter? I wasn’t aware you still clung to your Lordship. I must confess, your reclaiming of it in a private forum appears rather shrewd and clandestine.”

Like the Dolohov’s have never done anything underhanded.

“It’s still mine,” said Harry slowly. “Whether I use it or not.”

Lady Dolohov studied the positioning as Harry moved to stand solidly next to his friend, Lucius like a shadow, her narrowed gaze focussing on it.

“Truly?” she said carefully. “I thought the Wizengamot had severed the name Potter from all its noble standing — its political clout, and its fiscal privileges.”

Harry fixed her with a steely, unyielding gaze, devoid of any semblance of concession. The realisation that he lacked a solid argument, however, was evident.

God I hate society.

Apropos nothing, Harry said, 

“Didn’t you owe my grandmother’s line a lot of money?”

An awkward silence hung.

Lady Dolohov stared at him for a protracted moment. Harry didn’t move. He stared back. A twitch started up in her eye. Lady Dolohov sniffed — and swept her skirts over the rug, down the length of the study, to stand by screen that separated part of the room. Six foot high, it was one of those Japanese things; wood framed and pastelled, with paper panels and cherry blossom motifs.

“It happened here. This is where I found him.”

Around the screen Hermione faltered. Harry almost walked into her.

Blood. A lot of it. A huge stain blackened the Kilim. The interweaving warp and weft had oxidised, turned the rug brown and hard. 

The fabric was drenched in blood. A crust cracked and dried. The design of the beautiful red and indigo threads emerged from the blood — which Harry could see was stylised in symbolic animals framing a central design.

Unique for a Persian rug; there was no single picture woven into its centre. Instead, an elaborate comic strip spanned the room, divided into chequered squares, each panel woven under a different image all telling a single biblical story.

The flames flickered over the rug.

“Well, that’s ironic,” said Harry.

Hermione paused from where she crouched by the blood. “What is?”

Harry tipped his chin. Beside her, on Hermione’s right — a panel had been split in two, depicting two cities. They both writhed in flame. Vibrant colours had been used, for the fire as well as the smoke rising. The cities erupted in chaos, fire and brimstone falling from the sky.

The next scene showed a man fleeing the cities with angels guiding him to safety.

Harry scanned the blood-splattered squares until he reached the end: the ruins of the two cities, their aftermath, with desolation, charred remnants, and divine retribution.

“It’s the story of Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Harry. “Both were cities, or houses , destroyed by God.”

“Why?” Hermione asked warily.

Harry slid a slow, pointed look to Lucius. “Because their inhabitants were wicked.”

Lucius offered him another of those withering looks. Harry studied the rug some more, but then found himself inspecting the wall.

It lacked a painting. Harry almost missed it: a bent hook slouched on the wallpaper. A frayed thread —as of string— caught the light, and curled around the hook. Below it a mark: a graze on the wall, as of something dragged down under force.

“Where’s the painting?” he asked.

Lady Dolohov raised an eyebrow, momentarily taken aback. She pulled away from beside Lucius, to come study the wall. A hint of surprise flashed in her eyes, mingled with a touch of grudging respect. "You notice fine details, Mr. Potter. It’s stored upstairs. A piece of immense value, I had to take it down as it's going away to be cleaned. It suffered a blow during the…”

She gestured jerkily, and pulled her shawl tighter to her body. “ —the event.”

“Could I see it?” said Harry.

Lady Dolohov frowned, scrutinising him. “It is leaning against the table, in the Blue Room. Lucius — if you would?”

Hermione stepped around the blood.  She cast a quick, discerning glance at the tiny hook, her eyes widening in surprise. "How did you spot that?" She bent to get a closer look, her fingers gently tracing the contours of the hook.

Harry gave a nonchalant shrug, feeling uncomfortable. “Ron's got a knack for spotting things I don’t. He’s got a better eye for detail.” 

Hermione paused in her examination of the hook, her eyes meeting Harry's.

The rest of the room perplexed him. It didn’t really look like someone had broken in. The books by the window stuck out from the bookshelf, but not in any order, they’d just been pulled out slightly, in a vertical line down, from top to bottom; Harry found smears along the windowsill, but not of a forced entrance. Rather, someone had run their fingertips over it searchingly.

“What was he looking for?” Harry wondered aloud, his gaze flicking between the books and the windowsill.

“Antonin never came in here,” said Lady Dolohov, as Lucius struggled back into the room. “He was fetching breakfast. The kitchen isn’t anywhere near this side of the house.”

Well someone came in here.

“He must have heard someone,” said Lucius testily from the doorway, behind the painting. “Imagine that. It’s almost as though he was imminently attacked.”

Harry frowned. “This isn’t the search of a man looking for an intruder.” He bent down, touching the wall behind the bookcases.

“We check for damp in our home,” offered Hermione hesitantly, seeing Harry’s fingers sliding over the wall. “My father traipses around doing similar things when he’s worried there’s water somewhere.”

He heard… water.

“Would one of you — help—”

Lucius’s voice cut through, a touch strained. He attempted to manoeuvre the huge edifice into the room. “You did not mention it was quite so large,” he hissed.

“Why would it be small?” said Lady Dolohov. 

Harry squared his weight and helped set the painting down. He drew off the white sheet.

The painting was... graphic. A woman and her maidservant struggled to restrain a man, while the lady, grim-faced, sawed through his neck.

"This is a Caravaggio!" cried Hermione, horrified. "This is worth millions and you just — you put it on picture hooks! A string!"

“Enchanted string,” said Lady Dolohov hotly, looking flustered. "I did say we were sending it away for cleaning. We look after it!”

Half of it hung destroyed, soaked and discoloured, from the frame. There were fingermarks, nail tears. The canvas billowed out, unpinned from its gold frame. Or, rather, ripped out; ragged holes where someone had scrambled at it. 

“Isn’t this picture meant to be in Rome?” said Harry, disturbed.

Lady Dolohov touched her neck, poked her pinned hair. “Our Lord gives generous gifts,” she said defensively.

“Completely, inexcusably and utterly illegal gifts!” said Hermione. “Voldemort stole The Oath of the Horatii!”

Lady Dolohov sniffed. “Just look at the British Museum. All art is stolen!”

God, if it's this was a Caravaggio, then Harry vaguely knew it. The lady in the painting was a Biblical heroine, sawing off an Assyrian general’s head in an act of vengeance.

“Lord Dolohov really liked vengeance,” observed Harry.

“It was just this room,” huffed Lady Dolohov. “We never come in here. He was not a vengeful man.”

Well he came here now. Could Antonin really have heard water? Enough to draw him in? Was the killer already inside?

Harry paced slowly around the room, closing his eyes. He could sense something, but barely an echo. 

“Do you feel something?” Lucius asked.

“Not really, maybe,” said Harry. It was too old to tell. “I need a body close.”

“How morbid.”

Harry passed his hand through the air over the blood stain, and was again treated to a small but unremarkable tingle. There’s something here.

Lady Dolohov tugged at her shawl. “I was in bed when it happened;it takes me longer to rise from torpor than it does him. Antonin could move his body as soon as the sun set. By the time I’m pottering around, he’s already up.”

“Did you feel anything upstairs?” Harry asked.

"Nothing of consequence. I woke up with a dreadful head cold," said Lady Dolohov. "Sinus troubles, a bothersome stuffiness, if you must know. Hardly the most delightful way to greet the night."

Hermione frowned. “That’s odd for a vampire.”

"How fortunate that you're such an authority on the matter.”

"Oh, that wasn't my intention—" Hermione stammered.

But Lucius was frowning. “You felt stuffy ?” He pulled the sheet back over the painting, but not before looking at it miserably. Harry supposed the Malfoys liked expensive art.

Lady Dolohov waved her bony hand around her face. “You know, inflamed sinuses. Lucius, leave it here, I’ll have the men come pick it up from this room.”

Lucius set the painting against the wall. “Vampires do not get stuffy. We aren’t affected by nasal congestion.”

“Well I am,” snapped Lady Dolohov. “That night I certainly was.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Lucius sighed. He took out a handkerchief from a buttoned pocket inside his black robes, and wiped his rings. “Aside from your ‘stuffiness’ did anything of note occur? Do hurry. Dawn, Wilhelmina.”

She nodded seriously, a calculated look. “My cat fell off the wardrobe.”

"I said out of the ordinary!" Lucius snapped.

“Well that is unusual; my cat doesn't do that. She landed flat on her back. As if she didn’t turn fast enough.”

“Is your cat the little ginger one?” said Harry.

“No,” said Lady Dolohov, disgusted. “Why would I want a ginger anything? Ambrosia is black — she’s a polite colour.”

Indeed, a black cat rounded the door at that very moment, and slid against Harry’s leg before hopping onto the Welsh dresser.

Harry watched it. "Did your cat exhibit any strange behaviour before or after the incident?"

"No. She's a sensible creature." Lady Dolohov moved to light one of the candles on the dresser, shaking out a match. The cat arched up into her hand. "I was waiting to catch the news—we have one of those dreadful Muggle contraptions upstairs, since Antonin favoured it. I was in the en suite, keeping an eye on the clock. I like watching the news when I wake up. But the absurd television folks decided to start the broadcast early."

"Pardon?” said Hermione. "The news aired ahead of schedule?"

"Indeed," Lady Dolohov asserted firmly. "And then my daft cat decided to take a tumble off the wardrobe. Well, she leaped down, but evidently lacked commitment in the landing department."

"Lady Dolohov,” Hermione asked, “which House do you cast from?"

The proud woman gestured towards the stacked shelves and the prominent banners. “The First House. Life , of course. One would think such basic observations wouldn't require confirmation.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed. "Sorry, I don’t — I didn't want to assume both you and your husband were healers."

“Of course we are. The First House flows strongly through our veins.” 

Her terse statement carried an air of conviction and a touch of familial pride.

So she wouldn’t have felt something from upstairs then, not unless the magic cast was heavily aligned to life. Therein lay the problem of being strongly aligned to a House. Harry would know.

"You didn't hear anything?" Harry questioned. "No sounds of struggle, or, er..." How did one delicately mention 'screams'?

"Nothing," Lady Dolohov affirmed, her voice strained. She smoothed her hands across her overskirt. "I came downstairs, and—well, you saw how he was, if Lucius has shown you the pictures. Now, you may let yourselves out; I am to bed. If you would leave this room soon I would appreciate it, as my bedroom is immediately above.”

The black cat jumped down onto the rug with a thud, and followed its mistress out into the corridor.

"Harry," said Hermione, her eyes widening in thought. "I get horribly clogged sinuses when I'm summoning."

Harry nodded sympathetically, but his eyes were on the cat as it vanished. “Gross.”

“No, I mean,” she struck his arm. “This is a summoner!”

Lucius turned his profile to look at her.

“A summoner?” Harry said doubtfully. He studied her swaying stance, her wide fever eyes, the crazy hair. The realisation dawned that Hermione might still be drunk. “Violetta seemed to think it was a necromancer.”

“But does she have evidence?” declared Hermione, making a cut motion on her hand.

“Probably,” said Harry slowly, eyeing her askance, moving towards the study’s door. “She probably does.” 

In the hall, cool air hit them. Lucius nodded his head; Harry followed his gaze to a door at the end of the corridor. Detective Granger continued talked rapidly. “For all we know someone in her court is advising her falsely; trying to frame necromancy to hide the scent! There are no members of the Twelfth House left to say otherwise — except you of course,” Hermione waved. “But maybe that’s why she needs you? The Prince can’t trust anyone and she wants you to confirm it’s not necromancy.”

“But Hermione, it is necromancy.” 

“It is not!” 

Lucius exhaled noisily.

“It is. I can feel it,” said Harry, as they passed back through the portraits and ornate candelabras. “I mean it’s faded now, obviously it’s been a while.”

“You’re imagining it, you can’t possibly — I can feel leftover summoning magic.”

Or, you’re more drunk.  

Hermione and Ron were the only people in the world who knew about Harry’s House, or so he’d thought until Snape told a bloody elder vampire. Unlike Ron, though, Hermione didn’t know the lengths Harry went to hide his magic; for years she had let her stance on drugs known, and he didn’t want to worry her. Or be lectured.

Besides, touch wood: apart from a few hallucinations and nausea, he had none of the withdrawal symptoms Dung warned him about. Apart from the jump scares, dogs in alleys and heads upside down, this was doable. Harry was starting to think he had gotten off scot free. 

“It’s death magic,” said Harry, resolute. “Nothing else.”

“But that’s not possible,” said Hermione, tailing him. “Not that you — sorry, I — it’s not that I don’t believe you, Harry, but this is very obviously summoning magic.”

Lucius led them to the dining room they’d passed earlier, with its sifting moonbeams and airy curtains. Harry slid his hand over the grand piano’s lid, as light reflected off the polished wood.

“Is it obvious?” said Lucius tersely. He passed through an oblong of silver light. The vampire’s hair glimmered. 

Harry hated agreeing with him, but, “Other things can create pressure in someone’s head, ‘Mione, that sense of sinus clog,” said Harry carefully. “Like strong magic going off in your lounge?”  

Harry sat down, pulling out the piano stool carefully so as not to scrape the marble floor. “Also there’s gotta be other Houses which muck up your nasal canal. I know the Ninth House —”

“They affect the weather, Harry,” interrupted Hermione. “They’re literally called ‘Stormcallers’. It’s not that people feel that House’s magic, it’s the ozone change. The resultant storm gives muggles a headache, or… stuffiness when the wardens are gathering magic. And anyway, those casters need to be outside for their magic to work.”

“Well other Houses, then,” bit Harry.

“There’s not,” said Hermione impatiently. “It’s just Summoners. Besides which, nasal congestion is hardly the only clue informing my —”

“Are you sure you felt anything?” said Harry. “It’s faint for me. Like, really faint.”

“Of course,” said Hermione testily. “I don’t have a whiff of anything else in my parentage, so I wouldn’t be picking up on another House. Besides which —”

“Well neither do I,” said Harry hotly, running his fingers over the piano uncomfortably. “We’ve no summoners in my family. I wouldn’t get a Sympathy link to your House. At most, I might feel mind magic, maybe , but that wouldn’t do this. Mind magic doesn’t leave physical tells.” 

Except turning people into vegetables.

“Well perhaps your great grandparents? What magic did they have?”

“A Sympathy link doesn’t go further back than your parents,” snapped Harry. “I wouldn’t be able to sense anything that they couldn’t cast.”

“Well, you must somehow, Harry, because I can only —”

“I can’t! I can’t sense anything except necromancy. Maybe you can sense something, beyond summoning! Why didn’t you think of that? We don’t know how muggleborns work.”

“How we work?”

“You know I don’t mean like —”

“Muggleborns are no different than anyone else!”

“I just mean there’s no scientific explanation for how you exist. Magic is hereditary. You can’t spontaneously develop magic that doesn’t come out of at least one of your parents. People have tried for millennia. But here people like you are, spontaneously, a summoner pops up among muggles.”

“People like me,” Hermione echoed, darkly.

Harry threw up his hands. “In a good way!”

Hermione pointed to the wall. “A huge summons entered that study,” she ground out fiercely. “No —Harry!— don’t interrupt me. Look: everything matches. Not just sinuses. Einstein used relativity to show us that the faster you move, the heavier you get. Obviously . A high tier summons has a huge mass when it’s pulled through our world because of how fast it’s travelling and—“

“Hermione,” said Harry, closing his eyes. “I’m still a little… Big crayons, please.”

As Harry opened his eyes, his attention landed on the elegant curve of the piano's front panel. At the key slip, something caught his eye—a seam, as of a concealed compartment. Surprised, he tested the wood, and found a latch.

“Fine,” said Hermione. “What I mean to say is: summoning curves space-time.”

Harry dropped his hand, his tiredness vanishing in a cold slap. “What?” 

Lucius approached them with a measured stride. His aristocratic features betrayed little, but Harry could spy a hint of curiosity.

“The mass of a summoned creature is immense when it comes through,” said Hermione, “at least relative to the summoning spot. It’s why we use such warded circles for tier four and five summons — we have to take precautions for the gravitational changes they exert on their entry. Between here and their realm, there's a lot of space.”

Harry didn’t know what any of that meant in regards to nasal congestion, but he felt his world narrow down, in excitement. “What do you mean 'their’ realm? Is that where your platypus comes from?"

"Yes, we call it the Hunting Grounds. It's where they all live."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing. Hermione never talked about summoning. "I always wondered where they came from, how your summoned animals got here. But it’s just — everyone’s so secretive. I figured it had to be more complicated than it looks: you know, Pokemon balls and neon ghost trails.”

Lucius was completely lost, his expression warped in bewilderment.

If she was less cross, Hermione might have laughed; Harry could see her mouth tighten, lift — refuse to. “A little like that, actually. The summons is very far away when you Call. It’s in another dimension entirely, and it gets pulled towards earth’s physical plane very fast. In terms of the science, it might be better for you to think of the summoned creature as an object — an object that can withstand incredibly high pressure. It's sort of... sucked here."

Like a Pokemon. Bloody hell.

He'd never seen Hermione summon, not formally, it was a private act for most summoners, and they tended to do it together. He'd seen her Call 'quick pets' for simple tasks, those sprites that didn't require chambers or a ritual. But magic was coveted in any House, and people refused to share their lore, which the Guild only worsened; they kept everything separate, the Houses ‘culturally distinct’, its members only allowed to form cabals or covens with their own. People frowned on sharing. Even outside the Guild, you married your own House for type — the Weasleys all being summoners. Harry felt a stab of anxiety thinking of Ron, and put it from his mind.

“Is it in a compressed form when it travels?” Harry asked. “Like a spirit?”

“Yes. During the Call, the creature doesn’t move with a physical body; it breaks down and travels more like a wave—that’s probably the closest comparison for you—and it gets pulled to our dimension. The flight path has a lot of science to it, but we say the creature is in its éxodos form.

“There's all sorts of debate about how a summon dematerialises, travels and reforms on a quantum level, but ultimately the process spikes a change in gravity. It's why we have all these rules and legislative bodies that govern summoners.”

“Because you mess up gravity.” Harry boggled. He glanced at Lucius. “They fuck up gravity.”

“Marvellous,” said Lucius.

Hermione laughed. She put her hand to her head, sheepish. “Yes, quite considerably actually. When a big summon is pulled through, local time slows. Only a little, but it's measurable in the room. We’re all taught Einstein's theory of general relativity: it predicts that where gravity is stronger, time passes more slowly. It's called time dilation."

"The clock!” said Harry. “Lady Dolohov said —"

"Exactly," said Hermione eagerly. "You see, it fits! Our clocks always go wonky in summoning chambers; we have to reset them after we're done. We use powerful seals to contain the gravity shift so it doesn't harm the summoner or earth’s environment —you know those glowing diagrams directors always use for us in movies? They're actually quite accurate— but I expect Lady Dolohov’s cat thought it had a microsecond more to twist and flip.”

“And she would have got crazy head pressure,” said Harry. “As well as miss the news! Time literally slowed down for her in the house, compared to the city. So it’s… a summoner?” Harry said, something not feeling right.

“Yes. It has to be,” urged Hermione. “I don’t know what you can feel Harry, but it’s not necromancy. If you don’t believe me, let’s talk to an expert on the matter; if anyone knows what other kinds of magic could change gravity, a high summoner will. The summoning guild sponsors most of the country’s research into gravity-affecting magic.”

Lucius cut in: “Under no circumstances should you venture to the Summoner's Guild after dusk.”

Hermione blinked. “Pardon?

“What?” said Harry. “Why?”

The imperceptible straightening of his spine seemed more forced than natural; despite Lucius’ effort to conceal it. His tone was painfully casual. “Are there not regulations concerning unauthorised access? Moreover, considering the deserted nature of the place during these hours, your endeavours will prove fruitless. We should redirect our focus to more pertinent leads.”

Harry could spot the restlessness, the shifting from one foot, the subtlest fidget where Lucius would normally turn the handle of his absent cane.

“Oh, it’s perfectly permissible,” frowned Hermione. “Gate access is granted when accompanied by a summoner. And, actually, our archmage has to deal with Mithras at the moment, so he’ll be awake.”

Lucius tightened even more.

“What aren’t you telling us?” said Harry.

Lucius met Harry's stare. “You must be familiar with the stories?”

“Can’t say I know much about the Guild.”

“Oh,” said Hermione crossly, “those are just ghost stories the senior students make up to scare the apprentices. I’ve heard all about them.”

“I haven’t,” said Harry urgently. “What are they?”

Lucius studied him. “Legend has it that a shadowy creature has perpetually haunted the core of the Summoner's Guild. The prohibition of entry after nightfall, imposed merely fifty years ago, appears to have been lifted. Too soon, if you ask me. A monstrous entity is said to roam the corridors during the deepest hours of the night. Those unlucky enough to cross its path within the Guild's dimly lit halls have mysteriously vanished, adding to the ever-expanding roster of the missing.”

Hermione gave a subtle roll of her eyes, dismissing the notion with an air of scepticism. “Talk of demons, a monster in the basement—really, it's just media sensationalism. There’s nothing there, Harry.”

Lucius's voice dipped into a low register. "This is no jest, Miss Granger. You have only recently joined. There is even a nursery rhyme, a cautionary tale woven into the fabric of every young pureblood summoners' upbringing. It's parting moral: 'Avoid the Summoner's Guild after the sun sets.'"

“That’s complete nonsense!” scoffed Hermione.

“There’s a monster in the basement?” said Harry anxiously.

“No. Of course not.”

“Have you gone there after dark?”

“No, but —”

“Well it’s dark now, Hermione.”

“And rather late,” said Lucius. I must leave.”

“You’re leaving us?” said Harry, surprised. He swung his head to look up at him, bouncing his knee slightly from the stool.

“Miss Granger assures me you will survive the fabled beast of the Summoner’s Guild,” Lucius drawled, offering Harry a steady gaze. “Despite its ability to get out of its glass case.”

Harry picked at his cuticles, smoothed down his shirt. “What do you mean, glass case?”

“Oh?” said Lucius mildly. “You didn’t know? The Summoner’s Guild is a museum. It houses an ancient collection of the worst creatures known to the world.”

Oh god.

“Quite well, potter? They say people go missing every year.”

“Stop scaring him. Harry doesn’t like creature horrors.”

Harry just thought all the murders were a mage doing it. What if it was a magical beast, as he’d first thought? Not some summoned creature or a raised zombie. Not a werewolf, exactly, but some free-thinking, flesh-sucking, bone-stalking, Dementor-like…

A latch clicked. Harry jerked. He had almost forgotten: the compartment in the piano. He’d been playing nervously with the key slip.

Harry hesitated before he slid out a hidden tray, and a folded parchment sprung out.

“What’s that?” asked Hermione, instantly.

“Don’t know,” said Harry. He glanced up at Lucius, who didn’t move to stop him, perhaps as curious.

Beneath the parchment were various other notes and smaller cards of paper, scribbled lavishly in anatomical doodles and medical annotations. Harry looked through the slips, tucking the heavier parchment under his arm. A chill moved down his spine. 

Torture reports. Meticulous records, down to financial reports for the price of equipment; expense accounts; the cost of one alloy over another in the use of chains; the type of rope for pulleys.

Harry unfolded the large parchment, thick and yellowed.

Titled only by a date, in spidery black ink. June 2020. Harry calculated quickly. One month before Voldemort's embrace. (Disturbingly, Voldemort died on Harry’s birthday, not that it mattered. And completely unrelated to Dark Lords, that had been the worst birthday ever.)

He read aloud.

The work is good. To do unto the devil as He would enjoy, in this modern and sick age, it brings me some cheer.

Our Lord states we must hold for absolute truth. This work is a confession, an outspoken, unflinching step into our future, our Church's destiny. 

But what do the vampires seek? It troubles me. Why do they trawl the empty corridors and dead annals of the astrals? What in the records of the Eleventh House could interest the undead so?

I have found something curious under the torture of one of these creatures. The vampires hunt for survivors of the Eleventh House. Their search is fevered and it is secret.

Why? What makes the vampires so obsessed? My Lord is apathetic to the mystery now, as He is wont to become when the subjects are to change. But the labour this Oxford Prince has poured into her hunt astonishes me, to say nothing of Violetta’s fixation of a dwindling mage House. We can even confirm from her tireless search and the data her creatures have gathered: we witness here, in this generation of Longbottoms, the end of the House of Ghosts.

My Lord will not mourn their passage. Not as He does the Twelfth House. But it is His way, to mourn things unmourned.

I am curious as to the mystery of the vampire’s fixation, and it is a pity to let curiosity die. But my Lord is insistent. We move on.

The vampires are of no further use to us. It is not in vampirism we will find the answer to eternal life.

Imagine if, as healers, we confined ourselves exclusively to the study of deformity and held no comparison to a healthy organ. We must concern ourselves now with what a healthy soul looks like. No more of these damaged dolls.

The vampire is not human, perhaps in body, yes — but not in soul. Our Lord has seen it; he has come to know that they are corrupted. The very stuff of their soul is damned, warped by the embrace. No wonder those rancid elders guard their body’s secret so brutally. (Fortunately they guard their young less well.) Theirs is a shame unto the Heavens no illusion nor silvered tongue will hide, not from the eyes of the Almighty.

This is why there is no cure, why we cannot alter their code as we might any other living thing: the vampire’s soul is different. It no longer bears a human soul. Not remotely, not anymore. The embrace changes it. It can never be whole again, in its present or its past. Such a reaching infection of the soul alters the body in turn —these manifestations we see of the vampire (its long life; its cold skin; its teeth) are just by-products, lesser interests— the real rot of its situation lies at the core. It is truly a thing of death.

The work will end soon. We will return to phoenixes, centaurs and other long-lived creatures.

After a long moment Lucius said, “This is Antonin’s hand.”

Hermione had fallen silent throughout. “This is horrible,” she said at last. “Nasty, cruel.”

“That’s Voldemort for you,” muttered Harry. He folded up the parchment and slid it back into the compartment, closing the offending drawer.

“I don’t understand,” said Hermione. “If Voldemort abandoned these tests on vampires, how did he cross into Violetta’s notice? This note says he was apathetic about it.” 

“I do not know how apathetic he was,” said Lucius carefully.  “Something spooked him during the winter. The Dark Lord was absent for weeks.”

The trio held silent a minute. Lucius, as if shaken from a momentary trance, drew in a sharp breath. "I must depart. Immediately. Avoid the Summoner’s Guild."

“But it’s nearly dawn,” Hermione began. “You can’t really think —”

“Do. Not. Go there. You may avail the carriage today for your land travels, if you can find it; I shall use the Floo Network here and return to Wiltshire.”

Lucius fixed them both with a look, then left. His footsteps echoed over the marble, down the wood of the hall. 

Walking around the blood stain once more in the study, the embers dying in the hearth, Harry couldn’t shake a lingering sense of magic.

“I swear I can feel necromancy,” he muttered, rubbing his neck. “What if… what if Twelfth House magic changes gravity, too? It’s not like anyone knows. What if we’re both right? Maybe it’s a summoner and a necromancer?”

Hermione frowned, but she didn’t outright reject it. Quick lights fired in her eyes. 

Seeing his opportunity, Harry barrelled on. “I just want to find out if these markers could occur with my magic, or in other Houses. The gravity, the time delays. We shouldn’t outrule it. Why don’t we test me with some clocks around?”

Hermione thinned her lips. “That could be extremely dangerous, if your magic affects base fundamentals. You haven’t explored your magic, for understandable reasons,” she added quickly. “What if it touches on a dimension beyond our own? If necromancy does, in any way, it wouldn’t just be earth physics we’d have to worry about.”

“Couldn’t you cast protective wards at your place? We can try not to bugger up local gravity and mess up magnetics or whatever.”

“Harry, that’s barely—we don’t even know what your magic does —there’s no research around necromancy. Nothing is left to us from the Twelfth House. No records, no literature, no one knows how death magic works. We’d be casting a lure straight into the dark. At the very least we’d need a proper ritual chamber.”

Harry waited; and then he leaned in, raising his eyebrows. “... But could we? I mean, if we had a proper chamber that stopped the world going wrong.”

Hermione worried at the inside of her lip, the light of the fire haloing her large hair. “Theoretically, we could go to the Summoner’s guild and borrow a room.”

“Theoretically?”

“You can’t just use any chamber. For exploratory magic of this scale you have to use the big one. It’s the only hall whose wards are overclocked enough to withstand the volatility of unranked tiers. Since your magic might do anything.”

“And how do we book the big one? Can you just go in?”

“No, you can’t. For Chamber One you need direct permission from the head of our House. And, erm, Shulgi is a particular personality.”

“But he’s the guy you have a rapport with, no? You met him and stopped thinking the Guild was evil.”

“Ye-es,” Hermione dithered. “It’s such a big ask from a new member, Harry. What if this goes wrong? What if —”

“We need to talk to him anyway,” said Harry. “We need to ask if gravity can be wobbled by any other Houses.”

Hermione chewed her lip. “I suppose it would help to know if there are members who have been banned for dangerous summoning. Those records are only available in-House.”

“So! Where is the Summoner’s Guild?”

“All the different Guild headquarters are in London. The Hall of Summons lies under Green Park.”

From a different taxi they ordered, Harry buckled his seatbelt, and settled back into the car. Hermione leaned forward to speak to the driver. Harry felt a prickle of awareness. He glanced back through the window.

Beneath the Narnian lamp, lit by orange light, sat the little ginger cat. Its eyes, gleaming green, held his, and for a fleeting moment, Harry felt an unspoken connection with his feline spectator. The cat's presence seemed more than ordinary.

But then it blinked, and stood, and walked back up the road, disappearing into the early morning mist.