*Discontinued* No Longer

Blue Satin

Harry Potter**

Though Theo usually arrived at the Slytherin table for breakfast either before or after Harry, today he was notably absent. He sat down and looked around the empty Great Hall. There were a few girls sitting together at the Hufflepuff table, a boy at Gryffindor, none at Ravenclaw, and one older girl at the far end from him seated at the Slytherin table.

The food had only appeared on the table as he entered the chamber, and he was surprised when an owl immediately came swooping in to drop a large box before him. Perhaps something from one of his mates? No, that didn't make sense. He'd see them all tonight, and surely were it something dreadfully important they would send it through Severus rather than send it by owl in front of, so far as they knew, the whole school.

It was a rather pretty white box, a pale blue satin bow on top and near invisible silver markings on it. He inspected it to find the return address, a card, something that would tell Harry who or where it had come from, perhaps the contents, but no.

Using a little bit of magic, he layered it over his vision to look inside the box. There was nothing that he could see through, because someone had gone to great lengths to hide it from him. It had to be from someone who knew of his abilities, because even with his considerable power, it would take quite a bit of time, magic, and concentration to achieve the same effect as simply removing the lid.

Cautiously, he tugged gently on a corner of the smooth, cool fabric of the bow's end. It was so quiet in the main hall that he was able to hear the quiet susseration of the satin coming free of the knot. Slowly, he removed the blue ribbon from the box, and set it on the table beside him.

He didn't have a good feeling about the package, there was something very ominous about the whole situation, and Harry wasn't all that keen on finding out what it was. The box was stunning, but weren't the prettiest lies the most dangerous?

His fingers weren't trembling, and his face was set into indifferent lines, but that was only because he was forcing them to be so. As if there were a risk of it exploding, or unleashing a deadly plague, or some other sort of Pandora's box, he very tentatively, very smoothly, very slowly, cracked open the box, and peered inside.

Still, he couldn't see anything, which was odd, because he could see nearly so well in the dark as in the day. Everything about this was a contradiction, every secret the box contained an anxious mystery, and every beat of his heart rang throughout him like a gong as he began to lift the lid from the package completely.

In the end he simply pulled it up very fast, the tension of the moment having gotten to him, but surely whatever was inside couldn't be worse than the possibilities he was imagining. The top came off easily, and that pretty white box, such an innocent looking thing all covered in silver detailing, was left gaping open at the top to reveal the inside.

He'd been wrong. Whatever his imagination could have come up with, it couldn't possibly have been worse than seeing the head of Asteroff Prince staring vacantly back at him, eyes filmed over with the dimness of death, and hair matted down in patches by his blood. The blood was caked in dark reddish brown, almost black stains on the skin of his face and thickly congealed where his neck abruptly ended.

It was like a nightmare, but Harry couldn't wake up from it. He could only stare down numbly in disbelief at the sight before him. The bluish lips that were parted ever so slightly, as if in surprise, and the silver gray strands of hair not matted down were sticking out, short and straight.

He numbly stared down at it, before holding the box to his chest, the beautiful blue ribbon and pretty white top lying on the table innocently behind him, and running out of the Great Hall.