insist on charging a fee this time, however."
There, that would appease Nana. Business as usual.
"I always pay my way," was Draco's response. There was a smile on his face now.
Arne hesitated for a moment, not quite knowing why. Perhaps he had become a little too curious about the young couple's affairs. He had always managed to maintain a professional distance, as per Nana's edict.
Shrugging aside the odd feeling, he moved to let Draco enter. It wasn't until the door had shut, did Arne realise he had made a grievous error.
Whomever he had let into the house was not under the effects of Fida Mia. It was his blood-talent to be able to sense the existence or absence of the intricate spell. Where the young couple earlier had been swimming in a thick soup of complex magic, flavoured liberally with love and lust, this stranger was clean.
There was nothing on him. That was because it wasn't really Draco.
The realisation came too late. The boy had already cast his spell. Arne fell to the ground, paralysed. He watched as the young man unhurriedly walked to the front door and opened it. Two other men entered. One of them was small, balding and skittish. He gave Arne a brief glance that reeked of worry.
His companion was a marked contrast; tall and austere. Both were clad in enveloping black.
Arne's assailant was squatting on the floor next to him.
"Like I said, I need some information."
The information they requested was about the young couple that had been there Arne earlier. Specifically, they asked about the boy, Draco. It didn't seem like very pertinent information and from the look on the stranger's face, he seemed to know already.
"Thank you," said the boy, if it was indeed a boy. He was in charge though, that much was clear. The other two fell into step behind him.
For a moment, Arne thought they would leave. He held his breath.
"Travers, please take a souvenir from Mr. Hendricks, to show off to the newlyweds."
The tall man stepped forward. He didn't look eager, but he did not look like the kind of man who would be swayed by pleading either.
"What will you have?" he asked the boy. His voice was like the rest of him, grave.
The boy seemed to ponder this. He glanced around the cramped hallway, not finding anything of interest. It was then that he noticed Arne's unusual eyes. He smiled again.
"Something they'd remember."
Whatever they would do to him, Arne hoped they would do it quickly before Nana chanced to come home. The old lady was safe as long as she was away.
People often said that a person's life flashes before them when they die. That was nonsense. Unless a person was fortunate to die relatively calmly and slowly and with all their mental faculties in good working order, there simply wasn't the time to review a life in summary.
Given that wizards could expect to live well past a century, that also meant quite a lengthy summary and given such longevity, a good chance of senility.
Arne had lived a paltry twenty-four years, and so there was not a hell of a lot of life to review in the first place.
As Travers advanced on him, apart from distinct terror, Arne also felt regret.
It was a crying shame for any Hendricks to die without experiencing true Fida Mia.
When Nana Hendricks came home that evening, she found the door to the house open, her great-grandson dead, in the hallway, with a bag of money beside him, and the Dark Mark, blazing over the rooftops of the townhouses.
**
The bed was too bloody small.
Draco woke up on top of her, grumbled that the bloody bed was too bloody small and then would have gone back to sleep again, only he realised that he was probably crushing her.
He was also lying on her hair.
He tried to be all quick and nimble, Seeker-style, and flip himself over to the side. This was when he realised that he was too fatigued and that he couldn't have executed a double barrel role into a figured eight if his life depended on it, which it sometimes did.
Merlin, but the girl slept like the dead. Her dark lashes were perfectly still, resting on her cheeks, her breathing was deep and even. She had a natural pout when she slept and a rosy flush to her skin. Draco felt a strange sort of calmness as he looked at her. It started somewhere in his stomach, expanded into his chest, and then seemed to