Two days earlier Harry and Ginny had arrived to Paris in the late afternoon. They checked in at their hotel, situated on one of the two islands surrounded by the river, la Seine, which flows through Paris. They were not too disappointed by the smallness of their hotel room. It was, after all, a real hotel room and not a transfigured dungeon, they said excitedly to each other. It was kind of cosy, and the bed that filled out most of the space was really all they needed. The bathroom was a bit creasy in the corners, but Harry remedied that with a flicker of his wand.

They walked out almost at once, eager to explore the city, and immediately  when stepping outside they caught sight of the backside of the cathedral on the island opposite theirs, which was the Notre Dame de Paris.

“That cathedral is full of magic,” said Harry eagerly. “I can sense it all the way from here. Look at the gargoyles at the side. It’s impressive!”

“Let’s go there tomorrow,” said Ginny, “and explore it properly - it might take some time. For now, I just want to move about in the city. Sit down at a restaurant and have something to eat eventually. Here, let’s have an ice-cream to start with.”

They stopped in front of an ice-cream café, where the counter was simply an open window at the side of the house, and managed to make themselves understood for their flavours. When the lady handed them the cones, Ginny said ’Merci, Madame!’ very gracefully.

“Fleur taught me some French this Christmas,” said Ginny proudly, “...and I revised before leaving.”

“That’s good,” said Harry, looking at her with an impassive face.

“What?” said Ginny, suddenly affronted.

“Nothing,” Harry said noncommittally.

“What?” Ginny insisted threateningly.

“I, too, know that ’merci’ is thank you,” said Harry evenly. Ginny tried to look grim, but started to laugh instead.

“Do you mean to say that I’ll have to prove my proficiency a little better before I boast of it? Yeah... just you wait and see. Oh... I’m so happy to be here, Harry! And this ice-cream is the best I’ve ever had - ever in my life!” Ginny exclaimed happily.

They crossed the river to the right bank of la Seine and started to walk up and down small streets and along the larger Boulevards, moving west, hand in hand.

“Fleur has told me so much about Paris,” said Ginny. “She and Bill visited it last summer. Fleur never lived here, but has made regular trips to Paris with her parents since she was little. It’s a pity I couldn’t ask her more closely about the places they went to, but I couldn’t risk betraying where we were going. I’m not convinced it was strictly necessary, but it was kind of fun to keep it a secret. I don’t think anyone understood that we were actually going abroad. I think mother suspected we might be going to Godric’s Hollow.”

“I’d like to go there with you some time, too. We can just take a week-end, you know,” said Harry.

“Of course we can,” replied Ginny. ”But it’s just a village... You’ll want to visit your parent’s graves, I appreciate that, but otherwise I guess it’s not especially exciting...”

Harry opened his mouth to tell Ginny that Godric’s Hollow was a wizard’s village in a beautiful part of the countryside, with quite a lot of attractions to his eyes, but he abstained, since he thought he stood no chance to convince her at the moment being. She was far too absorbed with taking in Paris.

Harry also fully enjoyed the atmosphere of the streets and the liveliness of the people moving about. The old, grey buildings with their ornate black balcony rails constituted a sombre, but elegant piece of scenery, contrasting with the colours of the small boutiques on the ground floor and with the splendid flower arrangements in the small squares and at the intersections of the streets. They took a detour through the white-pink clouds of a park full of flourishing Japanese cherry trees. Ginny could not resist the temptation to make the petals swirl around them as she ran a few playful, dancing steps with Harry.

They spotted the endless facade of Le Louvre - a former royal castle of France before it became a republic.

“Grandiose Muggle construction,” Harry muttered. “I sense no magic from that building, unfortunately.”

“There are interesting things inside, from the whole world. It’s a museum,” objected Ginny. They turned away from Le Louvre and moved north to the old Opéra Garnier de Paris in the vicinity of which the avenues were lined with jeweller’s and fancy shops. Harry lingered at the display of the treasures. There were elegant necklaces of solid gold, earrings with small, exquisite diamonds and rings of all kinds...

“A bit early to buy me one of those,” said Ginny lightly, “but one day... I probably won’t say no...”

Harry started, as if caught red-handed, blushed and squeezed her hand.

A considerable lapse of time later, they came out of a shop with their hands full of shopping bags. Ginny looked wide-eyed and Harry a little bewildered, but satisfied.

“That cost a fortune!” exclaimed Ginny. “I have no exact idea of the exchange currency between galleons and Muggle money but I could tell this was an expensive place. Harry, are you sure you wanted to...”

“Positive!” Harry interrupted her. “Your father helped me change some of the money in my vault at Gringott’s and I really enjoyed buying you those pieces... You looked dazzling! And I’ve never been able to buy clothes for myself. Always inherited of Dudley’s outlaid things. It feels great to own some good clothes of my own. And I like Muggle clothes better than wizard clothing.”

“Me too... It’s so old and outdated...I feel ashamed of mother and father sometimes...” said Ginny.

“You shouldn’t. It suits them. I only meant for us,” answered Harry. They carefully put all their purchases into Ginny’s handbag that had been magicked in a similar way to Hermione’s to swallow anything.

Harry and Ginny found their way down to La Place de la Concorde where a tall obelisk was raised. Harry scrutinised it.

“Why, those are magic numbers among the Egyptian hieroglyphs,” he exclaimed. “It’s an arithmantic riddle. Do you know if someone has solved it? Surely some wizard must have?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Ginny. “Look, Harry! Look up the Champs Elysées. All the lights! The width of it! I know it’s not, but it looks almost like magic.”

“Yeah... Muggles are good at compensating for lack of magic at times,” conceded Harry.

“And it’s all out in the open - not needed to be hidden or anything. That’s the most beautiful thing about it. You know, Harry, this is freedom - to be able to come here and walk about and look at everything. It’s marvellous!” continued Ginny.

They walked all the way up the fashionable boulevard of les Champs Elysées to l’Arc de Triomphe, at what time they really started to get hungry. They had been out for several hours already and it was getting dark. They did not bother to go down the tunnel leading under the immense roundabout that circled the Arc to get up into the building itself, nor did they care to see the grave of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Arc more closely.

Harry tried to explain about the Unknown Soldier to Ginny, but she did not get it. Why? Did Muggles not keep track of their own people so that they could bury them properly under their own names, she asked, puzzled. And what if this was a weak and cowardly man who had not done anything good or courageous that you now celebrated like a hero? How stupid was that? Honour where honour was due, right?

Harry tried to explain about the Muggle World War I and the amount of people involved. The Muggles were so much more numerous, he argued. There were thousands of Muggles to one wizard or witch; it was impossible for them to keep track and take care of each other as magical people did. And the consequences of war were so much more devastating, he explained, as they turned down an avenue that led away from the busy Champs Elysées to a calmer area.

When he was bored at Privet Drive, Harry had used to read a few pages now and then in uncle Vernon’s books of contemporary history which collected dust in the bookshelves. He noticed to his annoyance that he had not retained much of the history’s particulars, but he had got the general idea with having a grave for an unknown soldier.

“Regardless who he was and what he did, he was there, at the war, like so many others and died in it, like so many others,” he explained. ”They don’t celebrate him specifically. He’s a symbol for all those who died in the same way. It’s a tribute to the small man who sacrificed himself...”

“Yeah... for what?” Ginny interrupted sceptically. “It really seems meaningless.”

“I guess it was meaningless... the war, I mean... but it wasn’t entirely the fault of the Muggles, you know. The dark wizard - Grindelweld who Dumbeldore met in his youth and ultimately defeated - you’ve heard about him - Grindelweld was involved and started things in Slovenia. I don’t know exactly why, because Professor Binns always made me sleepy in class and he didn’t teach us very much about modern history anyway, but Hermione’ll be able to detail you all that when we come back.”

They continued to argue about the Unknown Soldier as they settled down at an open air restaurant where the avenue opened up on a crossroad.

“This must be magic,” mumbled Ginny as they received heat from a metal parasol over their heads.

“It’s not a heating charm - only electricity,” Harry muttered. “It needs flexes. On the ground. Careful not to tread on them.” They ordered and got their food, a steak with fries for Ginny, whereas Harry had ’gigot d’agneau’, leg of lamb.

“I’d be furious if they took my body and put it some place that did not mean a thing to me and where my family wouldn’t be able to come and mourn me. They could of course, but they wouldn’t even know it was me.” Ginny pursued their argumentation.

“The victims were so badly hurt in the World War I that they were unrecognisable!” objected Harry. “And they didn’t have the technique, nor the means to identify them - there were millions of dead bodies! They just had to bury them in heaps - would that have been better, do you think? Now this Unknown Soldier might be anybody’s friend, son or husband. The Tomb at the Arc is a symbolic place for everyone who wants to pay their respects to the victims. A bit bombastic to my taste, but all the same...”

“I still wouldn’t have liked it,” concluded Ginny.

“I wouldn’t mind being anonymous at times...” muttered Harry. “Anonymity is sort of restful. That’s a huge advantage of Paris over London. No one knows who I am - it’s such a relief. I don’t think I’d mind being buried without my name on a stone. I mean, I’d be dead! And I really don’t care about being remembered by anyone, except by the persons I love of course.”

“Exactly! You should think about your family. I would indeed want to have a place to go and visit you if…” Ginny interrupted herself. ”But let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s such a sinister subject of conversation! Do you see the Eiffel Tower sticking up behind that roof? Let’s go there when we’re finished.”

They indulged in having desert - an excellent crème brûlé. As they were to leave, Ginny retraced her steps back the avenue they had come down.

“I think I saw something here, but I was too hungry to check it out, earlier…” she said. “Yes. Look at the plate. ’Club Trocadero’. Discreet, huh...? Fleur told me about this. They stay open all night. It’s a really fancy hotspot of Paris. Let’s go there.”

“Tomorrow night, okay? Tonight, I just want to walk around with you and be only with you,” said Harry.

They made their way through the area of the Trocadero, opposite the Eiffel Tower, down the stairs to la Seine again, crossed the bridge and walked under the richly lit tower on its four knock-kneed legs of iron and further into the gigantic field that stretched out on the southern side. The queues for mounting the tower were too long to join. In the dusk of the poorer lit park, on a bench with the Eiffel Tower glimmering behind them, Harry and Ginny lingered a long time.

“Should we Apparate right back to our hotel?” Ginny murmured with her eyes half-closed.

“Hmmm, tempting...” said Harry. He straightened up a bit. “Ginny, don’t turn your head, but there’s a man under the trees behind you who has not moved on since we sat down. On the contrary, he has come closer. Let’s Apparate just a few quarters and see if we can get rid of him.”

“Maybe he’s just... peeping, you know ,” Ginny whispered uncertainly.

“Okay, don’t move: we Apparate on three...”

They disappeared and reappeared on a narrow street, Eiffel Tower out of sight. Not many windows were lit in the heavy houses along the pavement and there were no stores on the ground floors. They nearly fell over when they landed on their feet, as they were still entangled, and Harry grabbed Ginny by the arm to prevent her from falling.

“Let’s glide around some corners, in case he put a trace on us and comes after us. I sensed magic before. I think it was a wizard who was watching us. I don’t want him to be able to follow us to our hotel. We must return by foot.” Harry took hold of Ginny’s hand and they glided in the air only a few inches over the pavement with great speed, turned right, turned left and then right again. Ginny giggled nervously as they landed anew, while Harry looked suspiciously behind them, but saw no one.

“Where are we?” whispered Ginny. A high fence of black iron bars stretched towards the dark sky behind them.

“A cemetery,” said Harry after peaking between the bars. “Let’s go inside. If there’s someone looking for us they won’t search for us among the graves.”

They transfigured into white smoke, swirled through the bars and rematerialised on the other side of the fence, grateful for Professor McGonagall’s thorough lessons. When they looked out over the eerie landscape, they saw a Paris in miniature - only more chaotic, Harry thought. The graveyard was crowded with huge stones in the same grey as the houses of Paris, of different sizes and different shapes, with broader and narrower paths between them. Here and there, small mortuary houses dressed themselves.

Ginny flinched and grabbed Harry’s arm.

“Over there,” she whispered. “Ghouls! At least four or five of them, on top of that tall grave stone. They’re really close.”

Harry followed the direction of her finger.

“It seems like they’re waiting for something... Look! There’s a newly made grave beneath. They want some dead flesh...” Ginny shuddered.

“They can’t open the tomb. Are they waiting for someone else to lift the stone away?” Harry shook his head. “Come, this way. Let’s sneak along that other path so that we don’t attract their attention.”

As they started to move, an owl swooped silently right in front of them and Ginny stifled a shriek. The owl stretched its feet forward and caught a big rat that had found its way on top of a coffin-like, horizontal tombstone full of inscriptions. The bird swept away with the animal wriggling in its claws. 

Harry and Ginny moved slowly along a gravelled path that led to the centre of the graveyard which was vast. They had their wands out with a faint light shining from the tips. They reached a small shed and sneaked along its side while gazing over at the assembly of ghouls, now at some distance. The creatures seemed patient and only shifted their weight from one foot to another at times.

“What are they waiting for?” Ginny asked, puzzled.

A creaky voice behind them made them jump and swirl around to face a small grey-haired witch with a top hat and a long robe. They stepped back, brandishing their wands at her.

“The ghouls are waiting for Le Maître to free some Inferi that they might attack. I don’t think it’ll happen tonight, though. But tell me, what are two of my countrymen doing at this sinister place and at this particularly fateful hour?”

“Er... we’re on a holiday,” said Ginny meekly. The witch chuckled.

“Nothing more exciting than the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris, I agree with you. The paradise of Phantoms. It’s my favourite place in the whole world and, believe me, I’ve been about.”

“Do you live in Paris?” asked Harry with curiosity.

“Since fifty years, my boy! I found myself a French maîtraisse in my sweet twenties – we’ve stayed together during all those years. As soon as the French parliament allows same sex marriages, I will propose to her. At the rate it’s going, I don’t foresee it happening within the nearest decade, though. And the Ministries of Magic, both in France and in Britain, are even more reactionary when it comes to these issues than the Muggles are. We’re happy all the same, except that she caught a cold the other day and couldn’t come tonight. I told her strictly to stay in bed - you shouldn’t compromise with health. She’s a lovely girl, my almost-wife - a true parisienne. I would never leave her – that means I can never leave Paris. So I’m as good as French. Nice to speak the native language for a while though.”

“Who is le Maître?” asked Ginny.

“Not eager to meet the Inferi, are you? Have you come across some, young as you are?” asked the witch.

“I have,” answered Harry “...and those I met were aggressive and nasty, so I’m not anxious to see the like again.”

“Well, these will be tamer. Le Maître is the Dark wizard who amuses himself in this cemetery. It’s his territory so to say. But he’s quite harmless as long as you stay out of here between midnight and dawn when he arranges his Inferi races applauded by the Phantoms. He also provokes the vampires who have lingered too long in their nests. But as I said, tonight and tomorrow, he’ll have to abstain from his pleasures. There is a coven planned, a gathering of witches from all France. Tomorrow’s Maundy Thursday, you know... We’ll take off on our brooms and fly to the moon from here.”

Harry and Ginny looked at her in awe.

“Would you like to join us?” the witch asked Ginny, but seemed to regret her offer almost immediately. “A bit too young maybe…” she retracted, ”…and your boyfriend will not be allowed in.”

“Thank you for the invitation, but I think we have to get going,” said Ginny.

“Stay for a while. The meeting is not until midnight. I was early because I wanted to watch the stone-faced widower. He should appear any moment now...” The witch was eager to offer them something else in place of the coven.

“Who’s the stone-faced...” Harry began to say, but at that time a human shape became visible at the top of the same path Ginny and he had come down. The figure walked with short, slow, although heavy steps.

The man that revealed himself gradually as he came nearer the faint light of a lamp, was clad in a distinguished Muggle coat with a broad belt and large lapels. He wore a hat and gloves. His face was deeply furrowed and it was the saddest face Harry had ever seen. It did not shift or move in its expression, although the man turned and greeted the phantoms who glided in and out of the shadows of the tombstones on either sides of him, with dignified nods of his head, and Harry understood the name the witch had bestowed him with.

The stone-faced widower turned left before he reached the shed behind which they were hidden. They saw him stop in front of a white tomb stone and sink to his knees, as if his forces all of a sudden drained from him. The stiff man with the so dignified bearing prostrated himself on the tomb.

“That man is a Professor, teaching at the Muggle University of Paris, la Sorbonne. His subject is history, in particular the approach to witchcraft in the medieval age. He lost his wife forty years ago. He comes to visit her grave every weekend, every holiday, ever since she passed away.” They saw him rise again and draw a wand that he pointed at the tomb.

“Is he a wizard?” Ginny mumbled. “He looks more like a Muggle to me.”

“What’s he doing?” said Harry and watched intently as the man circled the tomb, emitting low, monotonous singing sounds.

“He was once a powerful wizard from an ancient, pure-blood, renowned French family,” the witch whispered to them. “He married a woman of Muggle birth and was disowned by his original family. They only lived together for a year before she died giving birth to their son. It was a mysterious condition that afflicted her - the healers stood empty-handed. They could not save her for all their magic, nor for all the gold the husband offered them. The widower was so devastated by his grief that he didn’t even want to look at his child and it was given away for adoption. The widower was ill for months and merely survived. He secluded himself in a library and all he did for ten years was to read and to come here.”

The man had stopped his incantation with an imperative twist of his wand, in response to which a glow appeared around the tomb. A yellowish substance arose and started to take form into a woman. Harry gasped.

“He’s conjuring her up. He conjures up his dead wife!” The substance started to solidify and you could make out the shape of a woman. Ginny stared.

“He not only conjures her up. He makes an Inferus of her. She is sprung not to life, but to materia and movement by his magic,” the witch hissed at them, relishing at their symptoms of shock. “It’s Dark Art, of course.”

A young, beautiful woman with bloodless skin and closed eyes materialised in front of the history professor. His expression did not change, but he closed his eyes and grabbed the woman by her waist. Music started to play in the air and they began to dance.

“They say that after ten years, he started to look for his son. He travelled across the whole world to trace him down, but did not succeed. When he came back a year later, he had lived up his entire fortune and he had to start to work as a history teacher. And that is how he has lived ever since. He lives as a Muggle and does not associate with wizards. He performs no magic, except when he comes to the cemetery and dances with his wife every free night of his.”

The ground was too uneven to dance on and the professor elevated himself and his wife in the air, swaying slowly to the music, his cheek touching the cheek of the dead woman. His face stayed like carved in stone, but tears were running along his temples. Harry remembered what he had heard about conjuring up dead people. It was advanced and extremely draining magic. No wonder this wizard could do nothing else. He lived only for this moment of the week, saving his magic only for this.

“What an incredibly sad story,” Ginny mumbled as she watched the couple, captured by the beauty and the madness. The music ended and the man crumpled to the ground as the woman dissolved and sank down into the grave. One single howl was heard from the man prostrated over the tomb. Ginny pressed Harry’s hand so hard it hurt.

***

It was long past midnight before they were back, leaning over the parapet of the bridge leading from the left bank to the island where lay their hotel. Their feet were numb and hurt at the same time. They had walked all the way from the cemetery over the hillside where the Pantheon was situated - another grandiose building for buried heroes – not anonymous but famous. The air was mild and Harry thought the witches of France would have a great broom-ride over Paris and to the moon.

Everything was calm by the bridge, but noise was heard from downstream la Seine where the Place St Michel lay opposite the cathedral of Notre Dame. The black water of the river that ran under the bridge emitted dancing reflexes at them. The air smelled of something indescribable, Harry thought - a sweet, slightly sickly, but soft and mellow odour that must be unique to Paris. The smell emanated from the very earth, from the foundation under the city, Harry realised. He had a vision of two lovers - The Earth and The City. The Earth had surrendered its surface to its lover, and The City embraced it back so fiercely - awarding it with the most extraordinary edifices and sophisticated adornments - that it suffocated The Earth at the same time. The panting Earth breathed its gentle perfume at defined places, like at this particular spot, close to la Seine, and in the parks, as if to remind its lover of its willing sacrifice. Harry shuddered, gripped Ginny’s hand and they moved on to their hotel.

***

They woke up the next day rested and excited to find themselves in Paris. Harry, usually an early riser, though not allowed to walk out on his own - because he had promised Mrs Steadfast - woke Ginny up gently with kisses. They did not linger long in bed, although they considered the option a few times, but went down to have breakfast which consisted of a café au lait and a croissant. They decided to start with the cathedral next doors and approached it from its back yards which were impressive, Harry thought, sensing powerful protections in the constructions of the arcs joining the core of the building. You could not circle the cathedral entirely, but they rounded two-thirds of it before they found themselves before its front facade which was breathtaking. Swarms of creatures hang from every ledge and bow, carved in the facade: frightening gnome-like faces, shrieking creatures and open-mouthed gargoyles. Surrounding and guarding the grand portals were serene faces of devout saints. Both Harry and Ginny were marvelled and awed.

They proceeded through the biggest portal into the cathedral where the air smelled of melted candle-grease and the atmosphere felt strangely homely despite the huge, solemn space. Harry had never felt so strongly protected at any point of his life. The cathedral embraced him entirely and he was convinced nothing dark could reach inside. It reminded him of Hogwarts, but was several times stronger. At first he was bewildered to know what it was - if he, perhaps, was only imagining things. He muttered something to Ginny and started to walk along the walls and realised that the old stone of the building was completely imbued with protective magic. How had it been done? Was it goblin material? He thought not. He felt the stone closely with his left hand and examined it. He sorted his wand discretely so that its tip merely passed his index whereas its base was left in the sleeve of his light jacket. Thus he could reveal carvings and inscriptions that were invisible to the ordinary visitor. He might be able to retrace some of the incantations that guarded this building and which had to consist of Ancient Magic.

Harry conjured up a notebook and a pen and started to take notes fervently. He had to do it by hand, the Muggle way, not to draw attention to himself. He cast an apologetic look at Ginny who waved indulgently at him as she was occupied scrutinising the gigantic rose windows in the south and north ships of the cathedral. Harry worked himself around the walls of the church room, scribbling passionately. Ginny wanted to mount one of the towers. Harry gestured for her to wait and usurped her patience for another half an hour before he joined her up the winding stairs.

From the small balcony on top of the church tower they had the opportunity to watch the terrifying gargoyles close-up. Harry wondered if they were real, but permanently petrified creatures, or if they were only magicked sculptures. Ginny could not make it out either, but she voted for a permanent stone imprisonment. They got a splendid view to the West over Paris, along the meandering river. The weather was clear and mild, and Paris was absolutely dashing in the sunshine. Only the Eiffel Tower looked duller in daylight than it had done when sparkling in the dark the previous night.

They spent hours at the cathedral and when they got out, Ginny was hungry again. The breakfast had not been particularly substantial. They moved back east on the right bank of la Seine, bought some baguettes with Brie and sausage that they savoured on a park bench in a charming square in front of a playful fountain. Then they made their way, strolling slowly along the streets, to the Place de la Bastille with the tiny sculpture of Amor on top of a high pillar in front of a modern opera building. They moved back west looking for a museum that Fleur had told Ginny about which showed pictures of a Muggle artist, that Harry had heard about too, named Picasso.

Uncle Vernon had been spiteful about him, which was enough to recommend him in Harry’s eyes. At first, they did not know what to think of the paintings at display, so different from the portraits and the landscapes on the walls at Hogwarts, but Ginny liked the colours and Harry was struck by the faces. The paintings conveyed strong emotions, yet the abstractly painted faces were not very emotive. How did the artist manage to express the strong feelings despite the fact that they were rather sphinx-like many of them? And no magic present. Amazing. As they went along, Harry started more and more to decipher the portraits. The emotions were coded not in the expression of the faces, but in small things like the posture of the figure, or only the shape of a part of the body, or in a combination of colours. Ginny was caught by a portrait of a crying woman.

“By Merlin’s all regrets, she’s in pieces... literally. I wonder what has happened to her? Someone has treated her badly. Or she just can’t stand life or something. Poor thing.”

The sculptures were still more confusing. Ginny did not get it at all. They consisted of ordinary objects - junk, to put it plainly - assembled to represent something that you needed to work hard to make out. Surely it needed magic to spring to life? Otherwise they were just dead Muggle objects. Or was it otherwise? Harry stared at the sculptures. They were good, somehow. The representations were excellent. The artist knew how to have different objects strengthen each other without prejudice from their original use. Harry’s fingers were itching to give them just a touch of magic.

He shook his head and followed Ginny out of the room, leaving an unfathomable goat behind. They were a little dizzy as they came out of the museum and debated, while they made their way back to their island, whether the artist might have been a squib.

“He was an inventor,” concluded Harry.

“You don’t invent art,” objected Ginny.

“I mean to say that he did not do like everyone else before him had done - he saw things in a new way,” explained Harry, “...there might be a word for it, that I don’t know.”

Ginny wanted to do some more shopping. It was only half-way through the afternoon and there was plenty of time before the pleasures of the evening. Harry supported the idea half-heartedly. Ginny, too, owned that she was quite tired. They bought some ice-cream at the same café as the day before and sat down on a bench facing the opposite island with Notre Dame on the throne of it. Harry looked dreamingly at the beautiful scenery. He had been on his watch today, but had not spotted the wizard he thought he had seen the night before at the park beneath the Eiffel Tower. A vague sense of being observed had stolen upon him at times, but not right now, he realised.

He was taken completely unawares by Ginny’s kiss and gasped as her cold tongue found its way into his mouth. He nearly fell off the bench, but grabbed her instead and kissed her back fiercely. For a while Paris was but a blur of soft noises and gentle scents around them. When the surroundings came back into focus again, they did not have to speak to each other to agree to return to their hotel.

***

It was past two o’clock am as Harry and Ginny rose from a late supé partaken at the Trocadéro club. They wore their new clothes and had received all the discreet attention of the waiter they could wish for. They moved on into the dancing floors - because there were several at the gigantic club - the one more elegantly decorated than the other.

Ginny enjoyed dancing more than Harry. At their excursions to the night club in Buxton they had developed a method that suited them both. The blinking, artificial lights in a discotheque allowed quite extensive amounts of magic to go undetected by the Muggles. Short Apparitions, for example. Harry would let Ginny dance by herself for a while. She usually attracted a little crowd of people around her, both men and women, and Paris was no exception. Harry knew she used some magic in her dancing, making her more glittering and subtle than anybody else. It was not so much to attract others, as for her own pleasure, although Harry could see that she enjoyed the attention she got as well. From time to time, Harry would Apparate right in front of her and dance with her. He would come from nowhere and sometimes people would start, but not question the reality of things. They wanted and expected magic on a disco floor.

It had happened once or twice that Harry had come across agitated men who wanted to intrude on Ginny’s personal space. He had used appeasing stars on those occasions with good effect at the same time he would step forward and politely reclaim Ginny for a dance. They matched each other well when dancing. Harry, too, was fond of using magic, with gliding and swirling movements mostly, making him look nimble and quick as he evolved around Ginny. He sometimes took her hand and swirled her around or pressed her against him and pirouetted with her, although that was not the fashion of modern Muggle dancing at all, but he did it so elegantly that it attired admiring gazes more than despising ones.

They danced for a long while in the greatest hall that was ridiculously luxurious and well-adorned, with the generous space of a gigantic vault above their heads. Ginny and Harry paused at the bar for a while before they moved on to a smaller room at the further end of the floor, which was stuffed with people. Harry started to grow tired of dancing, but knew that Ginny would not be so for a long time. He prepared to Apparate up to her again, when he felt that something had changed in the air. It was dense, like in Hogwarts, or even thicker. Harry was chilled to the bone.

Someone had filled the room with magical magma.

He brought his wand out quickly, cut a slit in the magma and Apparated up to Ginny. At the same time, he perceived a green light and when he turned around, he saw a young Muggle drop down on the floor. Harry looked up from where the light had come from and caught sight of a wizard with green hair, in a dark velvety robe and a brandished silver wand, slightly above the heads of the dancing people. The inhuman face was pale and contorted in an evil smile that seemed etched on the face, while the pupils were like pinpoints. The music was still on. In the corner of his eye, Harry detected a brandished wand and sensed, more than he saw, a curse fly on the green-clad attacker. The same reacted at lightning speed, parried the curse and without hesitation a new Avada Kedavra left the silver wand.

Harry watched the wizard he recognised for the man who had spied on them the other night, spin around and fall. The gimlet eyes of the green-haired wizard found Harry and the wand was immediately brandished and aimed in his direction. Harry Disapparated with Ginny to a corner of the room. A third person fell at the place they had just left and by this point of time people started to scream and crouch. Harry did not pause to think. He cut two slits in the magma, pushed Ginny in one direction and Apparated in the other direction. Two more persons fell at the spot they had left.

There are too many people in here, Harry thought. He noticed that the doors were closed and that the Muggles could not open them. They were trapped.

“Ginny, the doors,” he shouted. “Get them out of here.” As he spoke, he Charged up and rose in the air where he was forced to cut slits in the magma to be able to Apparate just a few meters. Harry started to fight for his life.