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Draco Veritas Part Three of the Draco Trilogy By Cassandra Claire
Draco Veritas Chapter One: Through Silver and Glass
*** It was December, and it was freezing cold in the Potions dungeon, but Snape didn´t care. "Can anyone tell me what this is?" he demanded, holding up a transparent phial of steaming green liquid and surveying the class critically. "Longbottom?" Neville, who had been trying in vain to warm his blue-tipped fingers over his cauldron, looked horrified. "I don´t know, Professor." "Did you not complete your reading last night, Longbottom? The assignment was ten pages in the Lieber and Stoller book." "I know, Professor, but my toad, Trevor, went missing, and I--" "Ten points from Gryffindor!" barked Snape, who was in fine form. He didn´t even look cold, Draco mused. Perhaps he´d mixed himself up a Warming Potion before class. Snape´s ink-black eyes darted over the students. "Potter?´ he inquired. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Harry pale and look startled. Next to him, Hermione went red. Every time she knew an answer and Harry didn´t, Draco had the feeling that she might actually implode with the effort of trying to will the knowledge in Harry´s direction.
It´s an Imperceptus Potion, Draco thought lazily at Harry. Makes you invisible. Harry sat up straight. "An Imperceptus Potion," he said. "It makes the drinker invisible." Snape looked disappointed. "And the ingredients?" he snapped. Mugwort, Draco thought. Crushed dragon bone, powdered asp´s blood, tansy, peppermint... "Mugwort," said Harry. "Crushed dragon bone, powdered asp´s blood, tansy, peppermint..." And a pair of my very own boxer shorts, the ones with the little Snitches on them, Draco added.
"And a pair of..." Harry began, and choked. His face went red and then white as he succumbed to a prolonged coughing fit. Hermione gazed at him in alarm. Draco looked innocently at his quill, twirling it in his fingers. "Yes, Potter?" Snape´s eyebrows had shot up to his hairline. "A pair of what?" Harry was still coughing. "Beetles?" he suggested weakly. Snape looked annoyed. "No, Potter," he said. "The sixth ingredient is not a pair of beetles. However," he added, "five out of six is not disgraceful. I will not take points from Gryffindor." He set the phial down on the desk in front of him with a slight bang. "Now, does anyone wish to volunteer to come up here and be made invisible?" he demanded. Draco looked over at Harry and grinned. Never, and even Harry´s telepathic voice sounded annoyed, ever, help me again. Hey, Gryffindor didn´t lose any points. No, but I think I lost ten years off my life. Oh, shut up, Malfoy. Go be invisible or something. Then again, you´d probably drop dead if you had to spend ten minutes without your own reflection. Draco shrugged modestly, then realized that Hermione was looking from him to Harry and back again. She bit her lip irritably and turned back to her notebook as Ron was called up to the front of the class to be made invisible. Ron looked suspiciously at the foaming green liquid, and drank it with the air of someone about to be murdered. The sound of rustling paper caught Draco´s attention. When he turned sideways he saw that Hermione was holding up a note, folded so that only he could read it. I TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK TO HARRY DURING CLASS! Draco shrugged apologetically, but Hermione continued to glare at him until Ron distracted the entire class by glowing violently purple for a moment, and vanishing.
"That´s the best Weasley´s ever looked," said a silky voice at Draco´s elbow. It was Blaise Zabini, looking at him from beneath her long dark eyelashes. "Just what I was going to say," Draco replied quite truthfully. She laid two fingers on his sleeve and smiled up at him, her beautiful face lighting up. Her eyes were huge and gray-green. "Aren´t you clever." Draco smiled at her and sat back in his chair. He was vaguely conscious, without actually looking at her, that Hermione had shot him a disgusted look. He was used to this. Ron had popped back into visibility -- "Worse luck," Draco muttered towards Blaise, and she and Pansy Parkinson giggled - and was making his way back to his desk, looking green. Hermione pulled him down into his seat by the sleeve and patted his shoulder. "And now we have another potion," said Snape. He indicated a stoppered vial of red liquid on his desk. "This one is called Soporus, and it does what....? Yes, Granger?" Hermione put her hand down. "If you drink it, it makes you remember your dreams." Snape did not even bother telling the class that this was correct. "Very well." He cleared his throat. "Draco Malfoy, come up here." Draco was surprised. The Potions Master rarely called on him for much of anything, preferring to torment the Gryffindors and slower Slytherins. He rose to his feet, however, and made his way up to the front of the room, where he stood looking inquiringly at Snape. Snape unstoppered the vial of scarlet liquid and handed it to Draco. It looked like blood. "This will make me remember my dreams?" Draco asked, looking at Snape suspiciously. "Just the most recent ones," Snape said. His expression was quite blank. "Go on, then." Draco gave him one last suspicious look, and drank the potion.
For a moment, nothing happened. Draco looked out at the class, who stared back at him expectantly. Hermione had her head to the side, looking curious, Ron looked as if he were hoping against hope that Draco might explode, and Harry had one eyebrow raised. Blaise and Pansy were staring with parted lips. Neville seemed sunk in gloomy ruminations about his toad. Draco was about to turn to the Potions Master and announce that nothing was happening when he noticed that the back wall of the classroom seemed to be curling in on itself and rushing towards him like a wave. Blackness hit him, and he fell into it as if he were drowning. *** The dream rose like a fever, washed over him, blinding him. It carried him forward. Stone walls rose up around him and a floor of marble slid beneath his feet. He was somewhere, and nowhere. He raised his head and glanced around. It was as if he looked through a pane of black glass. The world before him seemed smoky, distant, touched with darkness, as if its light had been smothered under heavy cloth. He looked around and saw that he was in a cylindrical stone room with narrow ancient windows, as if he stood at the top of a tower. A long oakplank table ran across one wall. It was lined with bottles and silver phials studded with what looked like costly gems. There were other items scattered there: a key made of bones, a Hand of Glory, a wicked-looking dagger. A tapestry covered most of one wall: it depicted a circle, quartered by a cross, and in each quarter of the cross was a symbol Draco could not decipher. Underneath ran a motto in Latin that Draco couldn’t quite decipher, though he thought he recognized the word for “worthy” or “honored.” In the center of the room was a square table, carved out of onyx. At each corner of the table was a golden disk. And next to the table stood two men. The one on the right was immediately familiar. Tall and pale-haired, with narrow cold gray eyes, dressed in viridian robes, his black-gloved hands clasped across his front. Lucius Malfoy, his father. The other man was dressed in a black cloak. His hood was up, hiding his face, although in its depths Draco imagined he could see the flicker of two
coal-like eyes. His right hand was bare, and Draco recognized it: the ghastly white skin and red nails. Once that hand had crushed his own until he screamed in agony. When he moved his left hand a dull sequin seemed to glitter there, catching the light, and then another, and another. He was wearing a scaled glove, like lizardskin, and in that hand he held something that wriggled and twisted. A serpent. "I do miss my Nagini," the Dark Lord said. "There are none more like her." "No," said Lucius quietly. "Master...the matter I came to speak with you about...it remains unresolved." The Dark Lord let out a hissing breath. "The boy?" Lucius nodded. "The boy is unreliable, Master." "It was your task, Lucius," said the Dark Lord, "too see that he was not." "We lost ground this summer," said Lucius. "It was unavoidable, considering the recent unpleasantness." "Then regain that ground," said the Dark Lord tightly. "You have been in contact? Not just to tell him you are alive?" "Yes. Almost constant contact. He is aware, although, of course, I have not told him everything." "Do whatever you have to do, Lucius. He is your responsibility." The Dark Lord made a sudden movement, seizing the snake just below its head and squeezing tightly. When he released it, it lay limp, apparently dead. Lucius´ expression darkened as Voldemort lifted the limp snake and dropped it into the cauldron. "You know what will happen if you do not succeed with this." "He is a child, and children are unreliable," said Lucius. "A security risk. I told you that before when I did not want him involved." There was a cold silence. Lucius paled slightly. At last the Dark Lord spoke. "Do not presume you know what is best, Lucius," he said softly. "I have taught you everything you know. But I have not taught you everything I know."
Lucius licked his dry lips. "Yes, Master. Of course." There was a flicker of movement and the snake´s head appeared at the lip of the cauldron. It was not, apparently, dead after all. Voldemort held out his gloved hand, and the snake crawled onto it, ringing his wrist like a bracelet. "And has Wormtail sent word?" "He is still gathering the materials, Master," said Lucius, speaking suddenly very quietly, so that Draco had to strain to hear, "He has not yet returned from -" But it was no use. The words vanished into nothingness, and the vision followed. The room shut like a flower, the cauldron and the jeweled phials and the two standing men whirling away from him on a current of darkness, and Draco started upright, his heart racing and his eyes flying open to fix on Snape´s face. The Potions Master was staring at him in consternation. "Malfoy! What´s the matter with you?" The room slowly swam into focus. Draco realized that he must have reeled backward into the wall. His shoulder hurt as if he had struck it hard, and his eyes burned. He could see the entire class staring at him in shock. Harry had half-risen to his feet and Hermione and Ron were pulling him back into his chair. Hermione looked stricken with worry. "Nothing." Draco pushed the professor´s hands away. "I´m fine." "Did something happen?" Snape pitched his voice low, so only Draco could hear it. "Did you see something?" The serpent, the cauldron, the Dark Lord, the tower. Draco shook his head. "No. I just got dizzy." Snape´s eyes narrowed. "You saw nothing?" Too late, Draco realized that he should have made something up. I should have said I dreamed I was a lemon floating in a giant gin and tonic. Anything.
Silently, he shook his head. "No. Nothing." "Very well." Draco could almost have sworn that Snape looked disappointed. Worried, even. "Go back to your seat, Mister Malfoy." *** "Another letter from Monique?" Hermione said in a teasing voice, reaching over the table towards Ron who was looking expectantly up at the black owl perched on his left shoulder. Her name was Nefertiti and she had been a gift from his parents when they had learned that he had been made Head Boy.
(Pigwidgeon had gone to Ginny.) Now she pecked at his ear and dropped a letter into his hands: it was printed on lavish gold-and-white stationary and was heavily scented with jasmine. "What can I say?" Ron unrolled the paper and examined it with a grin. "Monique just can´t get enough of me."
"Oh, you´re just stringing her along," said Ginny with a smile, reaching past Ron to get at the pumpkin juice. "You´re not serious about her." "There are some aspects of this relationship I'm very serious about," Ron said gravely. "And she's got quite a Wonderbra supporting those aspects," said Hermione, with a sideways evil grin. "I think she´s just after me for my money anyway," said Ron, who had set himself to the task of turning the unfortunate Monique´s letter into a paper Firebolt. Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Does she know there isn´t much?" she inquired. This was true. While the discovery of a cache of medieval magical treasures underneath the Burrow had made the Daily Prophet, the Weasleys had seen no profit from it, since the entire collection had been spirited away by the Auror´s College for purposes of study and research. Of the whole treasure hoard, the only things they'd managed to keep were the Gryffindor Galleon that Ginny had given Harry for his birthday and a few pewter trinkets. And if they had expected an enormous windfall from Mr. Weasley´s appointment as Minister of Magic, they were disappointed there as well: few Ministry officials made a great deal of money, and the Minister was no exception, especially when he had seven children. The Weasleys remained what they had been since Fred and George´s joke shop had succeeded: pleasantly well off, but not by any means rich. "Did you see this?" Hermione interrupted. Her owl had just delivered that day´s Daily Prophet, and her head was bent over it, her mouth turned down in concern. "Inquiry into Lucius Malfoy´s death has been closed," she read out . "The Ministry has ruled the cause to have been suicide." Ron looked disgusted. "It took the Ministry six months to figure out that he topped himself? Geniuses." Harry shook his head. "He didn´t kill himself. Sirius said so." "So he summoned up something nasty," said Ron. "And it ate him. Maybe he did it on purpose. Who knows? Me, I feel sorry for the something nasty. Getting served a Malfoy for lunch would make anyone mad enough to blow things up."
"Ron, be nice," admonished Hermione. Ron looked staggered. "About Lucius Malfoy?" "Well, just - think how Draco must feel." "Riiight," said Ron slowly. "Because he looks so upset." Against her better judgement, Ginny looked over at the Slytherin table. As always, the action at that table revolved around Draco; he was inevitably its focal point. No longer flanked by Crabbe and Goyle (who had left school after pulling only one O.W.L. each) he was bookended instead by Dex Flint, the Slytherin Keeper, and Malcolm Baddock, a slender, darkhaired boy who had replaced Goyle as a Chaser. He was leaning over Blaise Zabini, his chin on her hair. On a ribbon around her throat glittered an amulet in the shape of a silver snake, a gift from Draco. Her brilliant red-gold hair spilled down over her shoulders.
It´s the red hair, Ginny remembered Draco telling her at Harry´s birthday party, I can´t resist it. Vaguely, Ginny heard Hermione say defensively, "Well, so, maybe he´s hiding how unhappy he is." Ron ignored her, and gently tugged at Ginny´s sleeve. "Don´t look over there," he said. "It´ll just upset you." "I´m not upset." She dragged her eyes away from Draco and grabbed up her fork. "I´m fine." She jabbed the fork blindly at the plate in front of her, hardly able to see anything. "Maybe that´s why he got like that in Potions class," Hermione added. "No." Harry put his fork down. "I don´t think that was it." At the mention of Potions, Ginny glanced instinctively over at the staff table, but Snape was not there. Neither was Dumbledore. Her eyes fell instead on her brother Charlie, who was engaged in a lively conversation with Professor Lupin, using his fork to punctuate his remarks. The sight of Charlie made her smile. She had been thrilled that he had accepted the job as Care of Magical Creatures professor. As if he sensed her eyes on him, he looked up and waved. "Are you eating off my plate, Ginny?" said a voice on her left. It was Neville. Ginny looked down and realized that she had, in fact, been jabbing her fork into Neville´ roast turkey, and not her own. "Oh dear - I´m so sorry -" she spluttered. "If you wanted some, you could have just asked," said Neville, looking aggrieved. "Not upset, eh?" said Ron into her ear. Ginny let her fork fall. "Don´t we have practice now?" she said hopefully, in Harry´s direction, too embarrassed to look at Neville, and suspecting, irrationally, that somehow Draco was watching her from across the room.
Harry looked over at her and smiled. "Yeah, we do," he said, and Ginny got to her feet, grabbing up her broom, thankful for any excuse to get away. "I´ll see you all down there," she said, and fled. *** Harry, Ron and Hermione trooped down to where the rest of the team waited at the entrance to the Quidditch pitch. Seamus, who had been made a Chaser just that year, was already there, standing next to Ginny and the third Chaser, Elizabeth Thomas, Dean´s younger sister. A little ways away stood the Creevey brothers, who, Hermione suspected, had been made Beaters primarily because they were brothers, and there was a certain superstition regarding the luckiness of having siblings team up as Beaters. They greeted Harry and the others with a cheerful waving of broomsticks. Hermione dropped back towards the stands, content to watch, her copy of Quidditch Through the Ages on hand in case Harry needed it for reference material. Not that he ever did. He had been nervous about being made team captain, but he needn´t have been; he turned out to be as good at strategizing as he was at flying. Hermione suspected he kept an elaborate mental map of the Quidditch field in his head and referred to it at will. "All right," he was saying now, consulting some notes he had scribbled on a bit of parchment, "I think this time we should work on coordinating better, and telegraphing our moves less. Seamus, you need to be quicker on the turns. Elizabeth, I´ve got an idea -" "Actually, I´ve got an idea," interrupted a drawling voice. "Why don´t you all just bugger off, since you´ve got no business being here in the first place?" It was Draco, of course, in green Quidditch robes, surrounded by the rest of his team. He was flanked by his Chasers: Blaise Zabini, Malcolm Baddock, and Graham Pritchard. Behind him, looking menacing, were the Beaters: Tess Hammond and Milicent Bulstrode, the largest and ugliest girls in school. Bringing up the rear was Dex Flint, a sharp-faced but handsome fifth-year who played as Keeper.
Draco reached out a lazy hand, took the parchment out of Harry´s grip, looked at it with mild disinterest, and let it drop into the snow. " We have the Quidditch pitch booked for practice right now," he said, in a voice like syrup poured over broken glass. "I know you Gryffindors aren´t the brightest lot, but I did at least think you could tell time properly." Harry didn´t change expression. "We signed up for this practice last week," he said flatly. "Go and check the book." "Yes, I saw that," said Draco, lazily twirling his broomstick. If he´d had a moustache, Hermione was sure he would have twirled that too. "When Charlie handed me the book. See, Madam Hooch never would have trusted me to write in it myself, but your Weasley friend, well he just hasn´t been around that long, he doesn´t know. He didn´t even notice when I wrote right over your name. You know, you´ve got a very girly signature, Potter. You should work on that." "You dishonest creep," said Elizabeth, her two pigtails trembling with rage. "I´m a Slytherin," said Draco, giving her a smile that would have melted solid steel, although it didn´t have much effect on Elizabeth. "It´s in the job description." "This trick won´t work more than once, Malfoy," said Harry, his green eyes narrowed. "Charlie won´t trust you again." "It only needs to work once." Draco shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder about you, Potter. Where were you when they were handing out brains?" "I don´t know," said Harry, his voice dripping acid. "I´m afraid I accidentally got in line for 'shred of moral decency´ instead." "It must have been quite a long line," said Draco. "Apparently you were also too late for 'good looks´, 'fashion sense´, and 'witty repartee.´" Ron started forward. Harry hauled him back by the collar of his robes. "I think you´ve been spending too much time in that dungeon, Malfoy," Ron spat, struggling to get free of Harry´s grip. "The lack of natural light must have rotted your brain."
"Oh, right, because you lot live in a tower," said Draco, his voice filled with heavy sarcasm. "A great, big, pointy, thrusting tower. Just the right place for little boys who maybe feel a little....inadequate? Overcompensating, are we?" Harry hit him. Draco staggered rather theatrically back into the arms of his teammates, then straightened up and started for Harry, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows as he went. Hermione closed her book and sighed, bored and irritated. Oh for goodness´ sake, she thought . Not this again. *** The door to Dumbledore´s office was closed. Charlie sighed. He had rushed over from lunch in an attempt to catch the Headmaster, but it appeared he had wasted his time. He had been trying to get to Dumbledore for several days in hopes of getting the Headmaster to agree to his suggestion that a small group of students, with parental permission of course, be allowed to study dragons. After all, Charlie thought irritably, what was the point of hiring someone with a specialty in dragons as a teacher if you weren´t going to let him teach anything about dragons? "Dragons are vicious," Snape had said at the last staff meeting. "They are capricious. They like to set things on fire." "But that´s what so great about them," Charlie had replied cheerfully. "I see nothing 'great´ about students being set on fire," McGonagall had said in a freezing tone. "That would depend on the student," interjected Professor Sinistra, who taught Astronomy. Charlie privately rather thought that Professor Sinistra fancied him. She kept sidling up to him in corridors and admiring his dragonhide trousers. Lupin had been on his side in the debate, but it hadn´t helped much. Eventually McGonagall had agreed to allow Charlie to take the matter to the Headmaster. Which was easier said than done. It was very difficult to know where Dumbledore was going to be, except at mealtimes, when he flatly refused to discuss anything having to do with work.
Charlie was about to gather himself together and leave, when he heard voices emanating from the corridor that led to the Headmaster´s office. He instantly recognized Snape´s unpleasant tones. "I´m telling you, he had a reaction like nothing I´ve ever seen before," he was saying. "It was most alarming." Dumbledore spoke next. "But he came around? And was coherent?" "Yes, he was quite coherent, and claimed he had only been dizzy, and had seen nothing. Perhaps he did see nothing." "Perhaps. But this is Draco Malfoy we´re talking about. If he had seen something, he would be unlikely to announce it in front of the class." Charlie took a step back into the shadows. Seven years of sneaking around the Hogwarts´ professor´s offices instantly overcame five months of being a Hogwarts Professor. He froze where he was, and listened. "I think I should call him into my office," Dumbledore said. "He won´t like that." "No. But the situation is worsening. The risk of betrayal -" "We don´t know that that risk exists!" "It does exist, Severus. You, of all people -" "Perhaps you should call Potter into your office instead." "We´ve gone over this." Dumbledore sounded tired. "If we tell him, we are risking an unprecedented tragedy, possibly needlessly, and I -" Dumbledore broke off as he and Snape rounded the corner of the corridor, and stepped into full view. His eyes met Charlie´s, and for a moment, there was almost a flash of concern in them. Then he smiled. "Hallo, Charlie," he said. "Oh. Hello, Weasley." Snape gave Charlie a very unpleasant look. Charlie had a feeling Snape knew he had been listening.
Dumbledore, however, only beamed at him. "Can I help you with something?" Charlie looked down at the parchment in his hand: his proposal for the dragon class. It suddenly seemed very far away. He held the papers out towards the Headmaster, muttered something about "dragons", "permission", and "very unlikely to eat anybody," and left with his head still spinning. Risk. Betrayal. Tragedy. What was going on? *** "This is getting ridiculous," said Hermione disapprovingly. She was holding a damp sponge in one hand and applying it to the corner of Harry´s left eye, which had stopped bleeding several minutes ago. "Is it really so important that you two keep pretending you hate each other?" "Yes," said both Harry and Draco in unison. Then, in unison, they grinned, Draco slightly painfully due to the blue-black bruise rising on one cheekbone. "I mean, it´s gotten to the point where not only will Madam Pomfrey not fix your battle scars, but she´s even forbidden me to do it!" Hermione threw up her hands in despair. "Can´t you at least not hit each other so hard?" Harry tried to hide his amusement. "Yeah, Malfoy, you´re supposed to pull your punches." "Me? What about you? You kicked me in the shin!" "I slipped on the ice and my foot accidentally went into your shin." "Twice?" There was a rap on the door, and then it opened, admitting Ron´s bright red head. He peered around the broom closet they were using as a temporary infirmary. It wouldn´t do for anyone to see Hermione treating Harry and Draco´s wounds. "Success," he said, slipping inside. "Everyone believed the fight, and they´re all talking about it in hushed tones. That
whole 'signing up for the same time for practice´ business worked really well." He jerked his chin at Harry. "You better get back to the pitch though, they´re waiting for you." "Urgh," said Harry, wincing and touching the edge of his wounded eye. "You don´t want to captain, Ron, just this once?" "No," said Ron firmly. "I don´t want them thinking Malfoy did you any serious damage. Besides, the Slytherins are all still lurking around, looking like they want a fight." Draco looked pleased. "As they should." "Blaise Zabini looks particularly threatening," Ron added. Everyone looked at Draco, who cocked his eyes towards the ceiling, his expression neutral. "Well, she is my girlfriend." "Thanks for reminding us," said Harry. "I think I might have otherwise missed the point when she threw herself at me screaming 'You hit my boyfriend! I hate you!´" "Yes," said Draco noncommittally. Everyone kept staring at him. He continued to look expressionless. Nobody understood how he and Blaise had started dating, how serious they were, or in fact, if he even liked her. Talking to Draco when he did not want to tell you something, Hermione reflected, was liking trying to converse with a particularly uncommunicative wall. "All right," said Harry finally, standing up. "I guess we´d better get back." He nodded over at Draco. "Next time, you win. We have to keep it even." "Right." Draco touched the tips of his fingers to his temple in a mock salute, and Harry headed for the door. "Wait a second," said Hermione, and he paused. "Aren´t you forgetting something?" and she lifted up her face to be kissed. "Oh, right," said Harry, and reached around her to grab his Firebolt from a peg on the wall. "Thanks."
He left, followed by Ron. Hermione stared after them in disbelief. "I--," she began, and then her face crumpled. "Argh!" she exclaimed, and she threw the bloodstained sponge she had been holding at the wall. "Honestly!" Draco ducked the sponge and came up looking sympathetic, or at least as sympathetic as he ever did, which meant that he wasn´t smirking. "He still doing it?" "All the time," said Hermione, her face a mask of unhappiness. "He just acts like I don´t exist. I can´t remember the last time he walked me to class, or..." her voice trailed off. "And when I try to talk to him about it he just says I´m imagining things and that he´s busy. I know he´s busy...what with being Quidditch captain, and Auror classes, and that´s why he turned down being Head Boy, but..." "But you´re not imagining things?" Draco finished for her. "I don´t think I am," she said. "You´re not," he said quietly. She looked at him, and bit her lip. She knew he meant it. He didn´t lie. "What is it?" she said in a tiny voice. "Is there somebody else?" Draco said, "I don´t know. I doubt it." "Then what?" Her voice cracked. "Can´t you ask him?" Draco looked down at his hands, and then up at her, and she read the reply in his face. The odd sympathy of thought and feeling that had tied them together the summer remained with them, although it was harder to call up than it had been. She knew what he was feeling - desire to do this for her, the wish that she not be unhappy, the fear that whatever the answer was, it would hurt her, and the knowledge that however much she wanted it, he could no more extract information from an unsuspecting Harry only to betray that information to her than he could fly without a broomstick. It was more complicated being Draco, she reflected, than he was often given credit for.
"I´m sorry," she said. "I shouldn´t have asked." "He loves you," said Draco. The look in his eyes was distant. The dark green of his Quidditch robes should have made him look sallow, but it didn´t. It brought out the winter pallor of his skin, his eyelashes so black against it, eyes as clear and gray as mirrors. He looked like an angel, she thought, although one of the heavenly kind or one of the fallen sort, it was hard to be sure. She remembered him at the Manor, reaching around her throat to fasten her necklace. I waited so long to hear you say that...if things were different... She shook her head to clear it. She was thinking these thoughts because she was unhappy and because Harry seemed as cold and as remote from her these days as a Durmstrang glacier. "How do you know?" she asked. "I think I would know if he stopped," said Draco simply. "He´s always loved you...it would be a reversal of everything he is." He leaned forward then and touched her cheek with his fingertips. "You know as well as anyone what he´s been through," he said. "Just try to talk to him..." He sighed and dropped his hand. "Forget it. It´s not in my nature to give advice to the lovelorn. Ask someone with a more successful romantic life, that´s my suggestion." "You´ve got a girlfriend," Hermione pointed out. "Right." Draco sat back, his mouth twisting into something that might have been a smile, or not. "So I do." *** The late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the small window in Hermione´s room, throwing a square of dark gold light onto the bedspread where Ginny sat, watching Hermione rearrange her books. Being Head Girl, Hermione had been given her own room this year. Being Hermione, she hadn´t spent much time decorating it. There was the bed with a flowered coverlet, three full bookshelves, a writing desk, and a vanity table with a mirror attached; pictures of Harry, Ron and other friends were stuck into the frame. There was another picture of Harry and
Hermione together on the bedside table. There were no pictures of Draco. Perhaps, Ginny thought uncharitably, he didn´t show up on film. "Well, I think," said Ginny, resting her chin on her hand, "that it might be time for Desperate Measures." Hermione, who was wearily moving around the books on her dresser, looked alarmed. "Desperate measures?" she faltered. They had been discussing the Harry Problem, and she had been growing increasingly more tense. "Yes," said Ginny, assuming a serious expression. "Short skirt. Tight top. That sort of thing." Hermione looked even more alarmed. "You think the problem is that he´s not attracted to me?" "No!" Ginny protested. "No, of course not." She got up and went to stand next to her friend. "I just think he´s distracted and worried, and so it´s harder getting his attention now than it might normally be. And you, you´re busy too, you´re Head Girl, and taking who knows how many extra classes, and when was the last time you and Harry did anything together just for fun?" Hermione shut her eyes. The lids were tinged with blue. Ginny felt a stab of worry; Hermione really must be unhappy about this. The circles under her eyes were dark, too, and Ginny guessed that Hermione was more tired than she was letting on. "October," she said finally, hesitantly. "We went to the museum at Stonehenge together." "So it´s been a while," said Ginny quietly. Hermione just nodded, looking miserable. She was dressed today as she often was when out of her robes: in a pale blue cashmere sweater, a pleated blue-and-gray skirt, with her hair swept up into a ponytail. Despite the modernity of her dress, however, something about her reminded Ginny of the portraits of Rowena Ravenclaw in her History of the Founders book. There was a translucent beauty to Hermione that had nothing to do with the shape of her face or the regularity of her features. Her beauty was in the light and intelligence that showed through everything she did. That Harry appreciated it and loved her because of it, Ginny thought, said good things about him. Of course, Draco had been in love with Hermione too.
But she would not think about Draco. "You really think..." Hermione said, looking down at her sensible lace-up shoes and gray tights, "I should...dress up?" Ginny shrugged. "Well, he is a boy."
Hermione smiled wanly. "It´s just that - well - he´s Harry." "I know," said Ginny, "and he´s the hero of the wizarding world, and he´s your best friend, and blah blah, but he´s also a boy, and I think he´d like it if you wore this," and she pulled something out of Hermione´s top drawer and tossed it to her. Hermione nearly fell off the bed. "I am not wearing that!" "He´d probably like that even better." "It´s a nightgown!" "Oh. I thought it was a dress." "Ginny! Be helpful!" "Okay, okay." Ginny eventually found a low-necked black sweater and a black pencil skirt in Hermione´s trunk that passed her inspection, especially after she´d used several Shortening Charms on the skirt. "I feel silly," said Hermione gloomily, surveying her outfit. "This so isn´t me." "You look adorable." Ginny got up off the bed and gave Hermione a quick hug. Outside the window, snow had begun to fall in thick white flakes. "Everything will be fine. Harry loves you." "I know," said Hermione. Her voice was quiet. "But lately it seems like he´s gone away somewhere and I can´t follow him. He can be very...remote sometimes." Ginny said nothing. She knew what Hermione meant. Sometimes Harry was just Harry, and then sometimes he seemed like something else again, something distant and powerful and frightening. She remembered waking up in the Chamber of Secrets to see Harry standing over her, drenched in blood, holding the ruby-studded silver sword in his right hand, scarlet to the hilt. And he had only been twelve then. Of course Harry was a hero, and heroes weren´t like everyone else.
"Ginny," Hermione said softly. She was leaning against the wall next to the window; now she turned her head to look through the glass, and the gray winter light caught the edges of her hair. Without looking at Ginny, she said, "Did you ... love Draco?" Taken aback, Ginny was silent for a moment. Then she reached for her bookbag, which was propped against the trunk. "I have to go," she said. "I´m supposed to meet Elizabeth in the library." Hermione turned her head. Behind her, the snow continued to fall, silently, covering the windowpane with a white icing. "Ginny -" "Good luck," Ginny said, hoisting her bookbag over her shoulder. "It´ll be fine, you´ll see." Hermione nodded, and was silent for a long moment. "I just feel so guilty," she said at last, so quietly that Ginny almost didn´t catch the words. When she did, she stared at her friend in incomprehension. "What on earth about?" Hermione looked weary. "Nothing. Never mind."
*** There was no one else in the Slytherin common room; everyone was at dinner. Draco, not feeling hungry, had stayed behind, although the common area was hardly one of his favorite places. The long, low, underground room never seemed warm, not even in when there was a fire blazing in the ornate marble fireplace, as there was now. The low-hanging greenish lamps cast a sickly sort of pallor over everything. Draco slumped deep into the forest-green velvet armchair he had pulled up to the fire, lost in thought. He was still disturbed by the vision of his father he had had earlier that day during Potions class. He was almost entirely sure it had not been an ordinary dream - he recalled the pain that had shot through his hand upon waking, and remembered Harry telling him of the prophetic dreams he had dreamed about Voldemort, how Harry had woken up with pains in
his scar. And he himself had dreamed bits of Slytherin´s life, and sometimes still did. Ordinary dreams were one thing; this was something else. It had looked so real, as well. He tried to imagine where his father and the Dark Lord might be, but there had been nothing specifically identifiable about the stone room. It could have been anywhere. And his father´s voice had been so familiar. The careless drawl that he had inherited. The boy is unreliable, Master. Draco tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling, which was carved out of alternating strips of marble and green malachite. Keep your head down, Draco, and let the Heir of Slytherin get on with it, his father had said to him during his second year. That school of yours needs ridding of its Mudblood filth. Of course he must have known that I was the Heir of Slytherin, Draco thought. He was just using that story as a convenient cover-up for what was really going on. He stretched and looked down at the Transfiguration book in his lap. They were learning how to transform various elements into each other. Aqua ad pulvis transmuta. Saxum ad viscerum. Turn water to dust, stone to flesh. But he was too tired to concentrate, and the words danced on the page. He heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor then, and the dungeon door swung open as students began to stream in, returning from dinner. He tensed, before remembering that Blaise had a study date with Pansy Parkinson in the library. He wasn´t up to dealing with her right now. "Hey, Malfoy." It was Malcolm Baddock, the dark-haired Chaser who vaguely reminded Draco of Harry at that age. If Harry had been as cunning as a ferret and as mean as a snake, of course. "Letter came for you." He tossed the sealed parchment into Draco´s lap. It unrolled at the touch of Draco´s hand, and Draco quickly moved his arm to block it from Malcolm´s view. "Thanks, Baddock." Malcolm nodded and moved away, and Draco had leisure to study the missive. He had already guessed what it was, and was not disappointed: a finely drawn map, showing the front door of the castle and the route he should take from it to a designated meeting place. At the bottom of the map were inked three words in bold lettering. Meet me here.
With a sigh, Draco crumpled the map into a ball in his fist, and went to get his cloak. *** Hermione looked over at Harry where he sat in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, a copy of The Defeat of the Wizard Grindelwald open and unread on his lap. They had been sitting and 'studying´ for about two hours, and Harry had yet to turn a page. His eyes were wide and unseeing, fixed on the fire, his head bent, his unruly mass of dark hair falling to hide his eyes. He hadn´t said much of anything to her since she´d come down to the common room to study with him, and hadn´t seemed to notice her new outfit at all. So much for Ginny´s theory, she thought darkly. I could have come down here wearing a live badger and he wouldn´t have noticed. "Harry," she said finally, breaking the silence. "Are you even reading that book?" "No." Harry looked up, impatiently pushing a lock of dark hair out of his eyes as he did so. The light caught and sparkled on the gold watch she had given him for his birthday - a pocket watch which he had had set into a band so he could wear it around his wrist as his father had done. "I can´t seem to concentrate." He pushed his hair back again -it had grown down to the point where it almost touched his collar, and tumbled forward when he bent his head. This gave Hermione an idea. "I know what you need," she announced. Harry raised an eyebrow. "A haircut," she said. He almost smiled. "A haircut?" "That´s right." She got up and crossed the room to where he was sitting, put her hands on his face and tilted his head up to hers. Gently she smoothed the long locks of hair back from his eyes, letting the loose curling ends slip through her fingers. His hair was rougher than Draco´s, more textured.
"This is just an excuse to play with my hair," he said. "Isn´t it?" He was actually smiling now. She could feel his awareness of her suddenly snap into focus, of the place where her sweater dipped down into the V of her chest, of how close her bare legs were to him under her short skirt. He shifted in his chair. "Hermione...are these new clothes?" It was her turn to smile. "Maybe." She held out her wand hand. " Accio scissors," she said, and in a moment was holding the embroidery scissors that she kept in her trunk. She picked Harry´s book up off his lap and set it down on the table, with her wand on top of it. "Are you ready?" she asked. "I don´t -" Harry began, but snip went the scissors and he subsided into a meek silence. Hermione tried to cut the hair evenly, but she had to admit to herself she knew nothing about cutting hair, she just hoped she wouldn´t lop off an ear or leave a bald spot anywhere. Harry was uncharacteristically quiet; either enjoying the attention or stupefied by boredom, she couldn´t tell. She certainly wasn´t bored. She was acutely aware of everywhere she was touching him. Her hand steadying him under the chin, her other hand in his hair, his leg between hers, her knee against his thigh. She could smell the faint scent that came off him, the clean soapy boy-smell that was Harry. His green eyes looked up at her, framed by the dark lashes she both envied and loved. "Here," he said suddenly, his voice a little hoarse, reached out, and put his hands on her waist, drawing her closer. Now she was straddling his legs and he was just about eye level with her chest. Oh dear. Is it working? I think it might be working. Harry shifted in his chair again. "Sit still," she said. Her voice came out on a squeak. He released her waist and caught at her wrist with his right hand. The scissors fell out of her hand and bounced harmlessly on the carpet. "Hermione--" he said, and pulled her towards him. And then she was kissing him. She leaned into the kiss with an urgency that was nearly painful, and to her surprise he opened his mouth under hers, welcoming the kiss, welcoming her touch. Her hands fell from his hair to his shoulders, and then slid to lock around his neck. She felt her knees give, and she sat down in his lap, looping her legs over his. She
could feel the pressure of her chest against his, his heartbeat through the thin cotton t-shirt he wore. "Hermione." His voice was rough in her ear, his hands rougher on her back. He set his mouth to her cheek, her ear, the smooth line of her jaw, the sensitive skin of her throat. His fingernails almost raking her skin, he slid his hands to her waist, and then roughly up under her shirt, finding and tracing the lacy edges of her bra. Hermione shivered with the feeling, and also with surprise - this wasn´t like Harry, to be so aggressive. But he was here at last, really here, and as his fingertips traced circles of fire over her skin she gave up wondering what had gotten into him, and tumbled into the moment. There was only Harry, his fingers on her skin and his mouth on her mouth and she Overbalanced. With a tiny shriek, she grabbed at Harry, and succeeded in pulling him over with her as she toppled off the chair on to the floor. They landed on the carpet in a torrent of gasps and laughter and it was several moments of tangled legs and arms before Hermione realized that the only one laughing was her. Harry wasn´t laughing at all. He was staring down at her with a look of frozen horror on his face, and such a blaze of pain in his eyes that it stopped her laughter dead in its tracks. "Harry?" she gasped, struggling to sit up. "Harry, what´s wrong?" He shook his head, pulling away from her. "What are we doing? What were you doing?" "What was I doing?" Hermione stared at him. "I was kissing my boyfriend." Harry put his hands over his face. "My boyfriend," she said again, and this time there was anger in her voice. "Who barely talks to me any more, who won´t look at me -" "That´s not true," said Harry sharply, taking his hands away from his eyes. He fumbled for his glasses on the table, and put them on. "I´m just busy, that´s all." "And I´m not busy? I´m Head Girl, Harry, and I´ve got extra classes and study groups, and I still have time for you. I have nothing but time for you, but you don´t seem to want to spend any time with me." "Hermione," Harry said tightly. His eyes behind his glasses were cold and removed, and his jaw was set in a hard angry line. He had never looked at
her before like that. Are we having a fight? she thought numbly. Is that what this is? But everybody fought. This seemed like something else. "Hermione, let it go." "Is this about this summer?" she asked, her voice cracking. "I know we went through hell, Harry, and I know how awful it was -" "You don´t know," he said, and his voice was like the ice that sparkled on the windowpanes. " Then tell me." Harry seemed to hesitate for a moment. He was sitting with his back against the armchair now, leaning away from her, hair wild and disarranged, flushed from kissing and from anger. His eyes met hers, and held and for a moment, just a moment, she felt the old connection spring to life between them, as vibrant as a living thing. Then Harry looked away, and it was gone. "Just let it alone, Hermione," he said. "Please." "No," she said. "I won´t do that." "Then we have nothing to say to each other," he said, and got to his feet. Hermione looked at him in disbelief. "Harry--" "Just leave me alone!" he shouted, and the shock of Harry shouting, actually shouting at her, stunned her into silence. She sat where she was, not moving, as Harry grabbed his red cloak up off the back of his chair and stalked out through the portrait hole. *** Harry barely registered his surroundings as he flung himself down the stairs, through the darkened hallways, and through the front doors of the school. He was too full of unreasonable rage, born out of a pain so inarticulate and blinding that it might as well have been physical. His hands still tingled with the feeling of Hermione´s skin under his, and his
mouth still tasted of hers, and he still saw the expression in her eyes when she had looked at him from the floor. Then tell me! But I can´t do that. The cold air hit him like a Bludger as soon as he stepped outside. He pulled his cloak tightly around him, but it still stung his eyes, his mouth. He went down the stairs and his boots crunched on the snow that had piled there. He had no idea where he was going. The world was beautiful and cold and glittering silver and black, the sky a flawed diamond chased with iron. The edge of the Forbidden Forest loomed dark and jagged in the distance. Harry wanted to disappear into it, into the cold and the darkness. He wanted to be alone and not to have to think or talk to anyone. He had never felt this way before. There had never been a problem that had not been eased by the presence of Hermione or Ron. He did not know when the subtle shift had taken place inside him, but it had, and while he could bear Ron´s company, for Ron did not ask him questions, being with Hermione filled him with guilt and shame and pain. He set off across the snow. More snow had fallen after dinner and the ground was white and trackless and empty, marked only by shadows. He might have been the only person left alive, making his way in solitude across the skin of a deserted world. He reached the edge of the Forest, and remembered having been here as a first year, terrified, trailing an angry Draco Malfoy in his wake. They had been eleven. It seemed a hundred years ago. He raised his hand to push back a tree branch, and the moonlight caught and glimmered on the watch that banded his wrist. He paused and stared at it. Its gold face, the black numbers, the watch his father had worn until the day he died, and Sirius had taken it off his dead wrist, and then Hermione had made it work again, for him. He knew by heart what was engraved on the base. For Harry, from Hermione, your best friend. Hermione. An arrow of dismay shot through him. What have I done? He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to go back to the castle, but his foot caught in a bent tree root, and he fell forward into the snow.
*** The map led Draco to an old stone wall at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, in the center of a deserted clearing. A tree had grown up through the center of the wall, splitting the stones apart with its roots. Draco leaned back against its trunk in the shadow of its bare leafless branches, and looked out over the frozen landscape. The sky had darkened to cobalt, marked here and there with the thumbprint of a black cloud. Everywhere the snow stretched white and cold and sparkling, coated with shimmering ice. The lake was an iced-over diamond, softened to a muted blue by the gathering darkness. And in the distance the castle rose, dark and shadowy and ancient, looking as it must have looked a thousand years ago when Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor had lived there as children. Sometimes, looking out at the castle, memories of that other life came to him, as easily as the memory of a dream. They had been present here together for the building of the castle, the two young men, still almost children, riding horses side by side through the dry blue waters of the cornflower fields in summer. Just by touching his hands to the old stone wall, he could hear their boys´ voices echo in his head.
Come down off the wall, Salazar, why break your neck? Why not? You know why not. Do you love me so much as all that, Godric? I love you well enough. Draco opened his eyes. He wondered if Rowena were still alive, would she cry to know what had become of Slytherin, her first love, forever trapped in Hell? He wondered briefly what Hell was like. A burning place, as it was usually depicted? Or a frozen land of ice and snow, warmed by no fires, lit by no light at all? While he was considering this, there was a loud snapping noise overhead, and a girl fell out of the tree and landed on top of on him.
He tried to get his hands out of his pockets to catch her, but the sound of the breaking branch had startled him and slowed his responses. He did take a step back, but it wasn´t enough. She fell directly onto him and they rolled sideways down a slight incline into a snow bank. When they came to a stop, he found that she was half-lying on top of him, her knees almost pinning his arms to his sides, her familiar gray eyes sparkling with amusement. "Hallo Draco," she said, sitting up. "Are you all right?" Draco blinked up at her. She was dressed, as she always was, in what amounted almost to period costume. Today she wore a rich dark wool dress, low-necked, with slashed sleeves just visible beneath her violet cloak. The cloak fastened at her shoulder with a gold pin in the shape of a poppy. There were jewels caught in her hair, emeralds and garnets, and when she moved they caught the moonlight and glimmered like Christmas lights, an effect that was probably intentional. He sighed. "Rhysenn. Yes. Fortunately I cleverly used my spine to break our fall." "You don´t sound pleased to see me." "I´m surprised I sound anything. I can´t breathe." This was true. Instead of sitting on his stomach, Rhysenn was sitting squarely on his ribs. She was light, but his breathing was still constricted. Instead of shifting, she merely pouted. As always, she reminded him of a tightly wound musical instrument. A violin, maybe. She was that delicatelooking, and vibrated to that high a pitch. "I had a really clever comment all worked out," said Draco wistfully. "Then you fell on my head and I forgot what it was." "Tell me anyway." "I can´t, the moment´s past." Rhysenn shook her head and the gems glittered in her hair. "You think too much," she said.
The snow was beginning to soak into the back of Draco´s cloak. He shivered. "Such men are dangerous," he said. Rhysenn didn´t reply. Her eyes were glittering, flat gray and amused. "Do you want the message I have for you," she said at last, "or not?" Draco yawned. Snow went into his mouth. He tried not to splutter. "Have I got a choice?" "Not really." Rhysenn was smirking. This was her favorite part, when Draco had to play hide-and-seek to find the parchment concealed among her voluminous clothes. Usually Draco played along, but tonight he was feeling unaccountably irritable. He put one hand firmly on her waist, and slid the other up under her dress, along her outer thigh, and found the rolled-up parchment tucked neatly into the top of her stocking. He pulled it free, and held it up in front of her. "Got it." She looked irritable. "How did you know...?" "You´re a woman, and therefore predictable." "Oh!" Rhysenn emitted a very girly squeak of annoyance, and got up off Draco´s chest. She stood over him, hands on her hips, a position which would have afforded him a good view up her skirt had he craned his head. He decided to be gentlemanly, and didn´t. Instead, he stood up, brushing the snow off his cloak as he did. When he looked up, he found himself staring squarely into her eyes. There was nothing girly about her gaze - it was sharp, cold, calculating, ageless. He wondered again how old she was, something she had never been willing to tell him. "You´re horrible." "Don´t," said Draco, standing up, and brushing the snow from his sleeves with the parchment, "pretend like you care what I do." Rhysenn grinned then, showing sharp white teeth. "You´re right. I don´t." She darted forward then, and pressed her lips to his cheek; it was like the brush of hot ash against his skin. He shivered. "Merry Christmas," she said. "I´ll see you again before your birthday." "I don´t doubt it. My birthday is in July."
"That´s what you think," she said, and disappeared. Draco glared at the spot from which she had vanished. He had told her before that it was impossible to Apparate on and off Hogwarts grounds, but she didn´t appear to care. He looked down gloomily at the letter in his hand. He had become used to the look of these missives from his father. Fine vellum parchment, neatly rolled, tied with a black ribbon and stamped with a death´s head seal. His father couldn´t stamp it with the seal of the Malfoys, after all - that seal ring glittered now on Draco´s left hand, against the fine black leather of his winter gloves. With a gloomy sigh, he prepared himself to open it, when the sound of crackling ice made him glance up in alarm, his gaze searching the half-lit glade. And lighting upon Harry, sprawled a little ways away from him, face-down in the snow. *** 'Lo, Potter." The voice emanating from above Harry´s head was liquid with amusement. "Making snow angels, are we, or just very, very tired?" "Shut up, Malfoy." Harry rolled over onto his back. He was looking up at Draco now, who seemed a black silhouette against the sapphire-blue evening sky. White ice crystals were caught in his silvery hair, and his gray eyes matched the color of the iced-over lake. "I fell over." "That much," said Draco, "is evident." He held out a slender hand, gloved in sueded black leather. "Get up, then." "I don´t want to," said Harry, mutinously. "You´ll freeze," Draco pointed out. "So what?" "Right," said Draco. "Excellent point." With that, he flopped down in the snow next to Harry. Harry craned his neck to look at Draco with a feeling of great irritation. Why couldn´t Draco simply leave him alone, wasn´t it clear that he wanted to be miserable on his own? "You´ll ruin your fancy gloves," he said.
"Got six more like them at home," said Draco equably. "Now what´s up with you? You look like someone set you up on a date with Snape." Harry laughed bitterly. "Ah, the bitter laugh," noted Draco. "That means girl trouble." He spoke lightly. His voice was careful and even. Harry lifted his head and propped his chin on his hand, his eyes scanning Draco´s expression, which was noncommittal. Even after all this time, the subject of Hermione was not one that was entirely comfortable between them. Draco was careful and respectful and reticent on the topic. This in itself was enough for Harry to know that whatever issues Draco had harbored in regards to Hermione, he still harbored them. Harry suspected that this was what lay behind Draco´s estrangement from Ginny, but there was no way to be sure. Whatever it was, Blaise apparently didn´t mind it, or had convinced herself that it didn´t matter. "Yeah," Harry heard himself say, with some surprise. "You could say that." Draco´s eyebrows went up, but he didn´t say anything. "We had a fight," Harry added. Draco stayed silent. "Hermione and I," Harry clarified. "Right, well I didn´t think you meant Hedwig." Harry grinned despite himself. This seemed to solidify some resolve of Draco´s. He stood up, and held out a hand to Harry again. "Get up," he said. "We´re going for a walk." This time, Harry took the proffered hand. "Where to?" he asked as he got to his feet. "Hogsmeade." " Hogsmeade?" Harry tried to pull his hand out of Draco´s, but Draco was now yanking him determinedly towards the Forbidden Forest. "Why?"
"We´re going to get drunk." "But - the Three Broomsticks only has butterbeer. I'm not a house-elf!" "Just shut up, Potter, and trust me." *** The sun swept down behind the mountains that framed Hogsmeade, lighting the picture-pretty little village with a rose-quartz glow. Snow was heaped and piled like icing sugar on the roofs of the houses, which were strung with magical Christmas lights, flashing emerald and garnet through the snow-spangled air. Smoke curled up in plumes from the chimneys below, tracing the darkening sky with faint dark markings like streaks of watercolor. "Pretty," said Draco, pausing on the path that led into the village. The ornate gold You are now entering Hogsmeade sign that marked the village outskirts was wreathed, like the rest of the town, in dancing red-andgreen lights. Draco stared at it. "No danger of forgetting it´s nearly Christmas in this place." "Christmas," echoed Harry. His tone was hollow. He might as well have been talking about some ghastly recent tragedy. "I haven´t bought any gifts for anyone yet." Draco looked sideways at him. "Do I take this to mean I will not be getting the model train set I asked for?" "And the wedding," Harry continued gloomily. "That´s coming up at New Year´s and I haven´t gotten them anything, either." Draco blinked snow from his eyelashes. "Have you heard from Sirius?" Harry shook his head. "Not much. I think he´s busy with preparations." "Any word on the bagpipe situation?" A very faint smile touched the corner of Harry´s mouth. "I think that´s still a stalemate."
"Not for long, if I know my mother," said Draco, but he could tell Harry had stopped listening. He was staring off towards the town, his green eyes dark and remote. The weather suited him - the white snowy backdrop made his black hair and red cloak stand out dramatically, and the cold flushed his pale skin with a healthy glow. But his mouth was set in a tense unhappy line that spoiled what would have been an otherwise attractive picture. "Oh, bear up, Potter," said Draco. "You look like your owl just died." "Hermione hates me," said Harry. His hands were working nervously at his belt. Not at the actual material, but at a circular reddish ornament, too small to be a bracelet, that was looped on like an extra buckle. Draco had noticed it before but had never asked Harry what it was. Whatever it was, he was very attached to it - Draco could not remember seeing him without it since September. " Hates you?" Draco shook his head, but Harry didn´t seem inclined to elaborate. "I doubt that." "Who cares what you think," replied Harry, his voice without inflection. "Another excellent point," Draco said. "Right. No more out of you." He came up to Harry and grabbed a fistful of the back of his cloak. "Come on." He pulled, and Harry followed, without much resistance. They headed down the hard-packed snowy path into the village, passing warm lighted windows that smelled of gingerbread and cinnamon. Eventually they came out into Hogsmeade´s small commercial district, bracketed by Zonko´s joke shop on one end and the Three Broomsticks on the other. Zonko´s was closed but the Broomsticks was open, and as they passed through its doors and into the noisy, warm, crowded space inside, Draco said a spell under his breath that melted the snow from their clothes without leaving a puddle. Always thoughtful, that´s my motto. Behind the bar, pretty Madam Rosmerta winked and smiled at the boys. "Hallo, Draco," she said. "Harry." Draco nodded at her. "We´re just passing through," he said significantly. She arched an eyebrow. "Well, have fun then."
Harry looked at Draco in confusion. "Malfoy, what--?" "Just come on." Draco transferred his grip from the scruff of Harry´s neck to his wrist, and pulled him along in his wake. They crossed the room, half-full of witches and wizards sitting and drinking quietly at the long oak tables, then passed by the huge decorated Christmas tree and under the stairwell, until they fetched up at - a wall. Which was entirely blank except for a gold-framed painting of a very attractive young girl, bearing a not-passing resemblance to Madam Rosmerta herself, perched on a swing. When she caught sight of Harry and Draco she gave them a coquettish wink. "Well, aren´t you two pretty," she said. "Come to visit with me for a while?" Draco shook his head, smiling slightly. "Buttercup," he said. "Oh, not another one," said the girl in the picture, looking annoyed, but the portrait swung forward anyway, revealing a blank black entryway through the wall. Draco started off, and Harry, looking bewildered, followed Draco into the passageway. A huge space opened up before them. It was an elegant room, all sparkling teak wood and dark oak and polished brass. A long bar ran across one wall, and behind it were shelves lined with row after row of liquor bottles: red Dragon´s Blood gin, black Giant wine, viscous green Troll beer. A tall glass vodka bottle the height of a man stood to one side of the bar; inside it tiny broomsticks whizzed around in circles. The words ABSOLUT QUIDDITCH wound in scrollwork across the top. A tall witch stood behind the bar counter, wearing a shimmering silver top, and pouring a thin stream of pink liquid into a glass held by a fat wizard in an orange robe who sat cross-legged at the bar. As Harry´s eyes adjusted to the dimness he realized two things. One: that the bar was, aside from the bartender and a few waitresses, inhabited solely by wizards; there was not a witch to be seen. Two: that the girl behind the bar was not wearing a shimmering silver top after all; in fact, she was not wearing any top. She was clothed solely in her long glimmering hair and a pair of gold hotpants. "Welcome to the Sleazy Weasel," said Draco indicating the bar with a sweep of his arm.
"Gah," said Harry, taking a step back. "I - I never - I´ve never seen--" "Now you have," said Draco. He grabbed hold of the back of Harry´s robes again and steered him firmly towards the bar. Finding an empty pair of stools next to the plump wizard with the pink cocktail, he plonked Harry down into a seat and leaned over the counter. "Oi!" he said. "Drinks, over here." The topless waitress turned around. "Draco!" she said, obviously pleased to see him. She hurried over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I haven´t seen you in ages." Harry made a gurgling sound. "You come here a lot?" he said to Draco. "Believe it or not, my father used to conduct business deals here," said Draco, accepting the barmaid´s kiss with the air of one to whom all homage is due. His eyes flicked expertly down the bar. "Right, then. One Mai Tai," he said. "With an umbrella. Green. And one..." He glanced over at Harry. "One Bloody Mary, double shot of Dragon´s Blood." The bartending witch grinned. "Umbrella?" "Sure. A red one." She winked at him. "Anything you want. And clever you, you got here before the show this time." Draco just smiled. The show? thought Harry. His eyes darted to the side and lit upon a small stage towards the shadowy end of the room. There were several tall poles set up on it, and far behind them was a small group of wizard musicians. All men, as well. The one with the clarinet looked disturbingly like Snape. Harry had seen enough bad movies to know what the poles were for. He slowly, disbelieveingly turned his head towards Draco, who was rummaging in the pockets of his cloak with an air of great unconcern. "Malfoy," he said, a bit creakily. "Did you just take me to a wizard strip club?" "Yup," said Draco, and tossed a handful of Galleons on the counter. "That should hold us for a few rounds."
Harry shook his head. "I´ll see you toast on the fires of hell for this, Malfoy." "Did you say a toast?" The silver-haired barmaid was back (obviously a veela, Harry thought) with a smoking red drink in one hand and a swirling green drink in the other. She set them down in front of Harry and Draco and smiled. "How about a toast to the two best-looking boys at Hogwarts?" Despite himself, Harry felt a blush creeping up from his collar. He was not immune to veela charms, even now. Draco, however, just grinned. "Angelique," he said, "you´ve never even seen any of the other boys at Hogwarts." The veela girl grinned back. "I´m just in it for the tips, love," she said. Draco handed her a galleon. She tucked it carefully away in a place that nearly made Harry fall off his stool. When he righted himself, he made a grab for his drink, and drained it handily. It went down about as easily as a pint of gasoline, but even as he choked and sputtered he could feel the liquid spreading its alert and burning energy through his veins. He gestured weakly with his hand. "Another," he said, between coughs. "Another of the same, please." *** They had each downed four drinks and the "show´ still hadn´t started. Not that Harry seemed to care. He was sitting hunched over his fourth Dragon´s Blood cocktail, staring down into it as if it held the secrets of the universe. Gently, Draco poked him in the shoulder. "Buck up, Potter. The night is young and we have umbrellas in our drinks." Harry turned unfocused green eyes on him. "What is it with you and drink umbrellas?" "Well, there´s a good story there. Actually it´s not a good story, it´s just a long one. Let´s talk about you instead. How did you come to be lying facedown in the snow outside the Forbidden Forest?"
"I told you. I had a fight with Hermione." "And she banged you over the head with a shovel, dragged you out to the Forbidden Forest, and left you there?" Harry blew out an exasperated breath. "No. I sort of - ran off. Things were getting to intense and - don´t you and Blaise ever fight?" Draco snorted. "Not exactly." "What does that mean?" Draco shook his head, "I don´t want to talk about her." "But she´s your girlfriend." Draco was unable to restrain a shudder. "Don´t remind me." Harry looked at him with his mouth open. "Don´t you like her?" "Nobody likes Blaise," said Draco, with finality. "Why not?" "Ha!" Draco sat back, his eyes sparking. "´Where to start? 'Get me a present.´ 'Take me to Hogsmeade.´ 'Buy me that bracelet.´ 'Make love to me right here on the floor.´ 'No, not like that, like this.´ 'Stop wasting time and get your trousers off´.´" "Which do you want me to do first?" asked Harry, poking his fourth fifth? - drink with the tip of the red umbrella. Draco snorted. "No, that´s what she´s like. She´s got the worst personality in the whole House, and as you can imagine that´s up against some pretty stiff competition." Harry looked at him curiously. "Then why are you dating her?" Draco knocked back his drink so fast that Harry was worried for a moment that he was going to topple off his barstool. He slammed the empty glass down on the counter. "What are you talking about, Potter? She's fantastic."
"Er," Harry said, bewildered. "All right. It's just...whatever happened with you and Ginny? I thought you were going to...you know. Date. Maybe." "We were what? Okay, Maudlin Man, this encounter session wasn´t supposed to be about me. It was supposed to be about you." Harry drew himself upright with a fair bit of difficulty. He took a moment to focus his eyes on Draco. Then his green gaze sharpened, and hardened, and he no longer looked drunk at all. "Fine," he said. "Let´s talk about me." Draco idly ran a finger around the cold rim of his glass. "What did you and Hermione fight about?" he asked, making his voice neutral. "Why don´t you tell me?" said Harry. Draco blinked. "Eh?" "She talks to you," said Harry, in a cool voice. "I know she does." Draco met Harry´s gaze with his own. "Do you care?" "If it helps her, I guess I don´t." Draco abandoned the cagey approach. "She says you´ve been ignoring her," he said. "She says you barely speak to her any more." A slow flush spread upward from Harry´s collarbone, across his face. "That´s not true," he said. Draco didn´t say anything. "It´s not bloody true," Harry said again, the tops of his cheekbones dark red with rage. "Right," said Draco. "Tell me, what classes is she taking?" Harry blinked and opened his mouth. 'What?" "What classes is Hermione taking this year?"
Harry´s mouth remained open. "Potions," he said slowly. "Advanced DaDA with Lupin...." "And the classes she doesn´t have with you?" Harry looked down at the bartop. "Arithmancy," he said. His voice was unsure. "Medical Magic. Wards and Protection..." "She dropped that," said Draco. His voice was hard. "In October. She´s taking Runic Studies instead." Harry looked away from him. His jaw muscles were set. "What´s your point?" "You have been ignoring her. Why?" "I have not--" "Oh, give it up, Harry," yelled Draco in exasperation. "Is there somebody else?" Harry banged his fist down so hard on the bar that the glasses rattled. Draco was conscious of the fat wizard on his right giving them a peculiar look. He was also conscious that his last question to Harry might easily be misunderstood if one hadn´t carefully listened to the conversation previously. Oh well. "There is nobody else!" Harry shouted. "There never will be anybody else, not for me, not ever!" The fat wizard nudged Draco in the ribs with his wand. "I think he really means it," he hissed in Draco´s ear. "Come on, give him another chance." "Oh, shut up," said Draco, not turning around. He was looking at Harry. The dark red color had faded from Harry´s skin and now he was very white. " Sorry," he said. "It´s not your fault." "Damn right it isn´t," said Draco. "And don´t think I like being gobetween for you and Hermione either, because I don´t."
"So why...?" "I don´t like seeing her unhappy," said Draco, with finality. At that, Harry was silent. He stared off at the row of bottles lined up against the wall behind the bar. The magical liquors inside swirled with different colors: shades of lavender, turquoise and lemony gold. "Maybe I´m being selfish," he said finally. "But it´s because I love her and I don´t want to lose her even if I don´t...even if I can´t..." he paused, and Draco waited, knowing this was no time to interrupt. "Even if I can´t give her anything right now," Harry finished. "You´ll drive her away," said Draco. Harry was looking down into his empty glass now. The torchlight fringed his black hair with gold and lit a bright spark of fire at his throat. The Epicyclical Charm. "Might be the best thing for her," he said. "Bollocks," said Draco firmly. "She loves you." "Love," said Harry flatly. His voice held no intonation. "Maybe." "Don´t be a daft bugger. Of course she does." The bartender set another drink down in front of Harry, who looked at it out of bleary green eyes. Draco tried to recall the number of glasses of alcohol Harry had now consumed. He had a feeling it was out of the single digits. "Voldemort´s coming for me," Harry said. "You know that." Draco leaned back. "I don´t know any such thing," he said, although in the back of his head was the memory of a burning pain lancing through his palm, and a man´s voice saying, The boy is unreliable, Master. "Of course he is," said Harry. "He´ll try for me again. Why would he stop now? Slytherin´s out of the way, and the younger I am and the less experienced the better his chances." "Potter..." Draco let his voice trail away. "You don´t know." "I know." Harry´s voice was certain. "Then....are you afraid?"
"No. I´m glad." Draco blinked. "Come again?" "I´m glad," said Harry, and his voice held something, something savage and primal. His hand was tight around the stem of his glass. "I´m glad. I think about it all the time, Malfoy, about confronting him, my chance for vengeance this time, my chance to free my parents... I dream about killing him. I wake up with bruises on my hands and I know I´ve been hitting the wall with my fists while I sleep. I´ve been angry before but I´ve never known hatred like this, this fierce and constant, it never leaves me, and how can I be around Hermione when I feel like that? If she knew how I really was, how full of poison and hate...she thinks I´m above those things, better than that, and I wish I was, but --" He shook his head as if clearing it of cobwebs, and his black hair flew around his face. Hermione had been right. It wanted cutting. "But I´m not." Draco was staring at him. "I didn´t know..." Harry´s breathing was ragged. "I keep thinking about my parents down there... in that place..." Draco spoke through a tightened throat: "Did you use the Pensieve I gave you?" "No." Harry shook his head. "I can´t...." The alcohol had roughened the usually smooth edges of his voice, and given it a wild desperation. "I can´t bear it, I can´t..." and he leaned forward, and buried his face in his hands. Draco stayed frozen, his heart beating painfully against his ribs. This was his fault, his fault, he was the one who had told Harry about his parents in the land of the dead, giving him a tool with which to sharpen all his feelings of loss and rage and despair into a now-unbearable point. He had thought the gift of the Pensieve would help, but it hadn´t, since Harry couldn´t bear to use it. He was a fool to have thought of it in the first place. He reached out, and gently touched the now-dry shoulder of Harry´s dark cloak. "Potter." Harry didn´t move. "Potter, I´m sorry. I -"
Harry fell off the chair and slid bonelessly to the ground. "Oh, hell." Draco was off his chair and kneeling down next to Harry in a flash. He put a hand on Harry´s shoulder and rolled him over. He seemed unharmed, and blinked up at Draco with sleepy half-open emerald eyes. "Harry? Harry, are you all right?" "Fine, thank you, Professor," said Harry, smiled, and shut his eyes. "And one day I will remember why I let you drink so much." Draco sighed and sat back on his heels. Only then did he realize that the whole bar was staring at them. Even the scantly clad waitresses were looking at them curiously. "Come on, Harry, get up. No, don´t fall back down again. Yes, I know, gravity is a harsh mistress. But we have to learn to work with her. Now come along..." *** "Look, he´ll come back." Ginny gave Hermione´s hand a comforting squeeze. The two girls sat together just outside Hogwarts' great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. Both were warmly wrapped in fur-lined cloaks: Hermione´s dark blue, Ginny´s pale gold. A few flakes of silvery snow were caught in Ginny´s scarlet curls, and her dark eyes were wide and anxious as they fixed on her friend. "You two hardly ever fight." "I know," said Hermione, through a tight throat. "That´s what makes it so awful." "Fighting all the time is worse by far, believe me," said Ginny, and rolled her eyes. "Draco and I -" She broke off. Despite her miserable state, Hermione found her ears pricking with interest. "Draco and you what?" "Nothing," said Ginny with an elegant shrug. Hermione studied Ginny out of the corner of her eye. Ginny´s scarlet hair and gold cloak stood out like beacons against the snow. When students argued over who was the prettiest girl in school, it usually came down to an close choice between Blaise Zabini and Ginny. Ginny, in Hermione´s opinion, was easily as pretty, but she didn´t try as hard as Blaise did. Hermione wondered for
the hundredth time what had caused her rift with Draco. They had been quite close when they´d all returned to school in September, and then, quite suddenly and with no explanation, they were no longer speaking. In fact, unless it was at a Quidditch match, they seemed to try never to be within a hundred yards of each other. Ron had been ecstatic. Hermione, although she tried to hide it, had also been pleased. And Harry had barely noticed that anything was happening at all. Harry. Hermione´s heart turned over, and she against raised her eyes to the dark tree line in the distance, searching for a familiar dark head and scarlet cloak... Ginny saw them first. "Look," she said, and rose to her feet, her gold cloak swirling around her. Hermione squinted where Ginny was looking, but her eyesight wasn´t as sharp as the other girl´s: she saw only a vague dark approaching shape. Ginny sniffed. "They´re back...might have known who he´d go running to." She turned. "I´m going back inside." Hermione caught at her hand. "No. Wait." Ginny waited, reluctantly. The dark approaching shape resolved itself into a clearer figure. Hermione could now see that it was Draco, bareheaded, his silvery hair bright against the dark horizon. But he was not alone; he was carrying Harry, whose scarlet cloak stood out against the snow like a splash of blood. Hermione was down the stairs in seconds. In the icy silence of the night the sound of her feet crushing the iced-over snow was like the sound of breaking glass. She reached Draco´s side and almost barreled into him in her haste to get near Harry, "What happened? Is he all right?" "He´s fine." Draco´s eyes were shadowed, his lids touched with silver in the moonlight. "He just drank too much, that´s all." "Oh." Hermione let her hands drop to her sides. She couldn´t look at Harry´s sleeping face, he looked so vulnerable and so childlike in the icy light. She looked up at Draco instead. "So he passed out?"
"Well, he woke up briefly, but he called me Professor, and then he demanded to be taken to Buckingham Palace because he was late for high tea with the Queen. When I didn't let him run for the train he became abusive, so I knocked him out and here we are." Hermione shook her head. "With friends like you, who needs severe head injuries? I cannot believe you let him drink that much." Draco looked at her with big eyes. She sighed. "On the other hand, you did carry him all the way here." Draco shrugged. "I couldn´t leave him on the floor of the .. ah... Three Broomsticks. I did a Legerus spell to make him lighter." "Did you now?" It was Ginny, who had come to stand behind Hermione. She pointed her wand at the unconscious Harry. "Finite incantatem," she said. There was a brief flash of light, and Draco stumbled forward and nearly lost his balance as his burden assumed its normal weight. Hermione reached forward and caught at Harry, and together with Draco she helped lower him to the snow-covered ground, where he made a faint sleepy noise, rolled over, and put his head on his arms. Draco straightened up and looked at Ginny. His light eyes were flashing with rage. "That was stupid, Weasley," he said. "I might have dropped him." "Like you care," said Ginny, tossing her thick red curls. "You could have done a Mobilicorpus spell on him and gotten him here. You didn´t need to carry him. You were just showing off to impress Hermione." Hermione stiffened in surprise. What had gotten into Ginny? She looked at Draco, almost afraid what she might see. His eyes were narrowed as he looked at Ginny, his mouth a thin hard line. "What a rich and inventive fantasy life you lead, Weasley," he said coldly. "I can only assume that it´s because your ordinary life is so colorless and boring." "At least I have a life," snapped Ginny.
"Right and it consists of waiting around outside school at two in the morning for other people´s boyfriends to show up, because you haven´t got your own." "You don´t have to prove how hateful you are," Ginny said icily. "I already know it." And she turned on her heel and walked back up the stairs, yanking the heavy front doors open with venomous force before disappearing inside. Hermione turned and looked at Draco. The angry look had disappeared from his face, and there was an odd light in his eyes. Without looking at her, he said, "If you start asking me what happened between me and Ginny and telling me what a great couple we were, I will bury you up to your ears in snow." "Can I ask you how you can possibly stand dating Blaise Zabini instead?" "Have I ever answered you when you asked me that?" "No, but I thought tonight might be different." "It might, in fact, be the night your boyfriend freezes to death, unless you get him inside." Draco looked pointedly down at Harry, who was still lying on the ground the with head pillowed on his arm. Hermione doubted he was in any danger of freezing, since he was lying on his cloak, which she had charmed with a Warming Spell back in October. "He looks so cute," she said. "Debatable," said Draco, and stepped back. "But he´s all yours now. Have a good night, and don´t let him throw up on you." "Aren´t you going to help me get him inside?" she asked. "No," said Draco. "Get Weasley to help you." She knew he meant Ron; even when he called Ginny "Weasley" there was a notable difference in tone when he was referring to her than when he was referring to her brother. "I don´t know where he is," she wailed.
"I´m sure you can find him," said Draco, and walked past her, taking the stairs up to the front door two at a time, the moonlight flashing off the silver embroidery on his cloak. She wondered if he were going after Ginny. Ginny hadn´t looked like she wanted to be gone after. Still, with those two, you never knew. *** Ginny was halfway up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower when she heard his voice behind her. "Weasley. Wait." Despite herself, she turned around. Draco stood at the foot of the stairs, wrapped in his black cloak. The snow in his hair had melted and made little rivulets down the sides of his face, running into his collar. Behind him, through the window, she could see the night sky printed with a thousand silver stars the color of his eyes. She said, "What do you want?" "I think it would be best if you didn´t mention tonight to anyone," he said. "At least in regards to Harry." Ginny narrowed her eyes. "I already promised along with everyone else that I wouldn´t mention that you two were friends." "I know," Draco said. The unspoken comment hung between them: But that was before. "I meant about his drinking too much. The teachers won´t like it and it could affect whether they let him play. He´s had trouble already with his marks this year. You know that." "Do you care about anyone besides Harry?" She heard the ice in her own voice, and was surprised. Where did I learn to talk like that? The answer was immediate: From him, of course. "And Hermione, I suppose. But then, we agreed not to talk about that." "I´m not asking you to promise anything for me," Draco said. "But Harry is your friend as well." Ginny felt the muscles in her shoulders and back tighten. "You don´t keep your promises," she said in a low voice. "Why should I?"
"I never promised you anything," said Draco. His voice was calm. He pushed his hair back from his forehead and the torchlight caught on the seal ring he wore, and glittered. "You implied that -" "You chose to read an implication into my behavior," said Draco. His eyes were narrowed slits of silver light. "That´s not my fault." Ginny felt a painful band of cold tighten around her heart. She knew this was not true. Draco had not pretended his feelings for her. But they had already had this conversation, and it was no use trying to get him to say anything different or new. But when she thought back to Harry´s birthday party, Draco´s hand on her hand as they descended the stairs, and his eyes when he looked at her, and all the letters she had written him over the summer, rage boiled up in her, so violent and so tragic that it was almost pain. "You´re a bastard," she spat, without thinking. "Just like your father." Draco stiffened. A brief flicker of emotion darkened his eyes: it could have been hurt or rage, or simple surprise. Then it was gone. "Actually," he said, and his voice was bitter, "I´m a bastard in a way that´s entirely my own." Ginny had nothing to say to that. She turned around and went up the stairs, and Draco did not follow her. *** It was near dawn, and the room had begun to fill with light. "The sun's coming up," she said, rolling over in the darkness until her bare shoulder touched his. "We should be getting back." "No." His voice was distant, sleepy. "Let´s stay here. Let them find us. Who cares?" "Oh, Ron." She propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. He lay with the sheets tangled around him, red hair pasted against his forehead with sweat. This room was one of the few at Hogwarts that wasn't drafty in the winter. In the pale gray dawn light that streamed
through the high window, the mark on Ron´s forehead where Rowena Ravenclaw had kissed him stood out pale and silver. "You know we can´t do that." "I know." He pulled her down so that she lay crosswise on top of him, and kissed her mouth. "Nobody can know about this," she said urgently. "About us." "Yeah. I know that too." His lips found her throat. "I don´t like the lying, though." "It´s just for now," she said, her voice a little hoarse. Her resolve had begun to weaken and she found herself leaning into his kisses. When he stopped she made a disappointed noise and looked down at him beseechingly. His blue eyes laughed up at hers. "I thought we had to get back?" he said. "Well," she whispered, "maybe not quite yet," and she let him pull her down into his arms. *** Author notes: NB: Elizabeth Thomas is named in honor of our beloved Ebony. Malcolm Baddock, Milicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini, and Graham Pritchard are all Slytherins in canon, and Dex Flint is obviously Marcus´ younger brother. The unpleasant Tess Hammond is a creature of my own imagination. References: "I don´t know," said Harry, his voice dripping acid. "I´m afraid I accidentally got in line for 'shred of moral decency´ instead." Buffy. Fortunately I cleverly used my spine to break our fall." Blackadder. The night is young and we have umbrellas in our drinks." The Tick. ´Where to start? 'Get me a present.´ 'Take me to Hogsmeade.´ 'Buy me that bracelet.´ 'Make love to me right here on the floor.´ 'No, not like that, like this.´ 'Stop wasting time and get your trousers off´.´"
"Which do you want me to do first?" Blackadder. "You think too much, such men are dangerous." Julius Caesar, Shakespeare.
Draco Veritas Chapter Two: New Skin for the Old Ceremony
Draco sat in the embrasure of the window in his small bedroom, watching the sun rise over the Forbidden Forest. The sky was a pale wash of mother-of-pearl, scorched with fire just over the treetops; the crystalline winter air was without any clouds. Dawn light poured in through the archshaped window, the shade of blood and roses, touching his pale face with a color it would otherwise not have had. It was light enough now to read without a torch or candle lit. In his hand was the parchment that Rhysenn had delivered to him the night before. It was a sheet of clean white parchment bearing a single word in stark black unfamiliar writing.
Venio. Slowly he let the letter fall from his hands, and as it fell it burst into flames, so only ashes landed on the bare stone floor, and settled into the gaps between the stones. In a few moments, the letter might never have existed at all.
*** Hermione jerked awake with a start. Her lids felt heavy and her eyes were dry with exhaustion. She turned over, careful not to wake Harry, who was asleep beside her on top of the coverlet. He had fallen asleep with his red cloak wrapped around him and she had given up trying to get him to
loosen his death grip on it: she figured it was warm enough in the room, he wouldn't freeze. She turned so that she was lying on her side, and looked at him. He was sleeping, a heavy drugged sort of sleep. One arm was flung wide, the hand resting on her pillow and half-open, the fingers curled in. It made her think of a baby sleeping: a trusting, undefended sort of gesture. His other arm was curled in against his stomach, his fist shut tight over the lightning scar that bisected his right palm. His black hair rayed out over her pillow; the shut lids of his eyes were bluish with tiredness and his jaw and chin were also bluish, where he had not shaved. A lancing pain went through Hermione as she looked at him: fear mixed with protectiveness mixed with love. Through the clear pane of his unconscious face, she could see through to the child he had been, the little boy with the too-big clothes and the uncooperative hair, tough and stubborn and trusting and brave. She remembered the first time she had ever put her arms around him. Harry, you're a great wizard, you know. He had shaken his head. I'm not as good as you.
Me? Books! And cleverness! There are more important things -- friendship and bravery - and, oh Harry - be careful -She remembered seeing him after that, in the infirmary. She had been quite sure he was dead, and when she had seen him alive again a sort of terror had possessed her and kept her from embracing him - a terror perhaps that having not lost him in that instance, she was once more vulnerable to losing him again. She carefully moved closer towards where he lay on the bed, so that her hand rested on his side and rose and fell with his breathing as he breathed. He seemed to tense under her touch, and very slowly his eyelids fluttered and rose, and he opened his eyes. Without the glasses, they were clear windows of green glass, fringed with black lashes. She held her breath, waiting. Would he be angry - would he remember their fight - would he remember last night, after she had brought him upstairs to her room? Although all he had done was fall asleep immediately, pushing away her hands as she tried to help him off with his boots, his wet jacket.
But his green eyes were still foggy with sleep, and he smiled at her tiredly but without surprise, as if he had expected to see her there when he woke up. He turned so that he could hold his arms out, and she went into them and let him clasp her tightly, feeling the residual dampness of his cloak under her hands, his soft breath stirring the hairs at the nape of her neck. They lay like that for several minutes without speaking before she felt his grip on her slacken, and he released her, moving his right hand up to touch her face. Very softly, she said, "How are you feeling?" He cleared his throat, and winced. "I'm in bed with my shoes on and I feel as if someone took a lemon wedge, taped it to a two-ton weight, and dropped it on my head. Other than that, I'm fine." He smiled at her. "And you're here, which cancels out the bad stuff." The smile turned into a puzzled look. "Did we.... do anything last night?" Hermione smiled at him sweetly. "What, you don't remember our first time?" Harry sat up like a shot, and then clutched his head. "Owwwww," he moaned, and looked at her imploringly. "We didn't! Tell me we didn't." Hermione crossed her arms and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Why, would that be a bad thing?" "If I didn't remember it, it would be a very bad thing," he replied. Hermione flipped her curls back and shrugged. "You were far too out of it to do anything other than collapse on the bed after being sick all over some books in the common room - I think you owe Neville an apology." "I wasn't sick on you, was I?" Hermione smiled. "How romantic. No, you weren't sick on me. You weren't sick on Draco either, which is disappointing. I wonder how he would have handled that." "Badly, I suspect." Harry put his hands up to his temples. "I barely remember anything from last night after..." He went suddenly very pale. "After..." She watched as awareness flooded into his expression, followed by shock, followed by horror. "Oh, God," he said, sounding numb. "Oh,
God. Last night. What you must think of me. I don't know what got into me--" "About a quart of vodka, from the look of things." "I think it was gin," he replied distractedly. He looked at her, pale and remorseful. "Hermione, I -" "Went to a strip club. I know." Harry looked as if he might fall off the bed. "You know? How do you know?" "You," she said, and poked him with a finger, "talk in your sleep." "Oh." Harry looked very embarrassed, which she had always thought was rather cute - his ears turned red and he bit his lip. "I, uh -" "Who's Angelique?" "Angelique?" Harry floundered. "She was, um, the bartender." "The topless bartender?" "Y-yes. Well, she had a lot of hair." "Really." Hermione's voice dripped scorn. "And was Snape really there playing the clarinet?" "Hermione!" Harry cast aside the pillow he had been holding with a gesture of despair. "I don't know how I ended up at the Sleazy Weasel, it just happened, and I'll make it up to you, I'll buy you and Ginny copies of the Playwitch swimsuit calendar -" "I heard Charlie was February," said Hermione, intrigued. "-Just forgive me." Hermione blew out a breath of exasperation. "Oh, Harry, for God's sake, I don't care about that. So you went drinking, so you went to the - uh, Sleazy Weasel, what a ridiculous name, I don't care, I know exactly where to lay the blame for all that, and that's on Draco. But I don't even blame
him, he was just trying to cheer you up and if it had worked, for Heaven's sake, I'd be the first person thanking him. I've been so worried -" "I'm not just sorry about that." He stood up and took her by the wrists, lifting her to her feet. She rose along with him, and stood, tilting her head back to look up at him. She remembered when she had been taller than he was. No longer. "There's also what happened in the common room. I'm sorry about that. I was a total git, and - forgive me, please." Hermione hesitated. Harry's hands tightened. She could feel his grip braceleting her wrists and looked up to search his face. Behind the sheer green color of his eyes was concern, and even a rising panic. He was afraid she wouldn't forgive him, and why? Because he knows that whatever it is he's hiding from me is something serious, and if I knew what it was, I would be angry. Very angry. "Of course I forgive you," she said. She heard her own voice as if at a distance: remote and a little cold. "There's almost nothing you could do that I wouldn't forgive you for and you know that." A little of the fear went out of his expression, but some anxiety remained, like the afterimage of sun against closed eyelids. There was always that darkness there in his eyes. Hermione thought of it sometimes as the darkness of that broom closet under the stairs, the shadow that could never quite leave him. "Then what..." "I don't know what's bothering you, Harry," she said. "But something is. You think I can't tell?" She pulled her wrists out of his grasp, took his hands and turned them over. Along the side of his right hand was an ugly bruise and on both palms were the faded half-moon imprints where nails had been dug into the skin. "You're beating yourself up about something, literally as well as figuratively. And if you don't tell me what it is that's tearing you apart, then you put a gulf between us. And if one day I can't reach you across it, then you have no one to blame but yourself." She raised her eyes to his face, and for a moment saw the shutters drop from his expression, exposing for a moment the Harry she knew vulnerable, bewildered, fiercely loving. Then his eyes slid away from her face. He said, "Just give me a little more time."
She sighed. She felt very tired, but then again, she had hardly slept the night before. "Do what you need to do, Harry." "I love you," he said. His tone was hopeful, a little defensive. But she reacted to the declaration anyway, as she always had. She raised her face and he kissed her gently, the light stubble along his jaw and chin brushing her skin. She put her arms around him then, and he held her, his face bowed down into her hair, his hands clasped across her back. But even as they stood locked together, seemingly as close as two people could be, Hermione felt the distance between them and knew that it had not been breached. *** Breakfast. Ginny poked morosely at her plate of eggs and toast. She wasn't sure why she was in such a low mood - perhaps it was nervousness over the match that afternoon, or perhaps it was the fact that she hadn't slept well the night before. She had lain awake in her bed, thinking of Draco's face when he said, "I never promised you anything." His expression so blank, those gray eyes so illegible. She thought the blankness was worse than the coldness he sometimes showed. At least coldness was a feeling. The blankness was just - nothing at all. And it was exasperating. Sometimes she wondered if people fell in love with him so easily because he could be so unreadable - like a beautiful, empty house. You could dream anything into it. She wondered if Blaise knew how to read him, or if anyone did. Harry, maybe. When he tried. Argh. Ginny ate another bite of eggs, and refrained from looking at the Slytherin table, which she had gotten good at. Draco was impossible. Totally impossible. There were lots of other attractive boys at school. Seamus Finnegan for instance. There he was across from her, eating porridge with a fork. With his dark blond hair, blue eyes, and Irish accent, Seamus was certainly appealing. Not a bad Quidditch player either. So why wasn't she interested in him?
"Ginny?" Seamus was giving her a peculiar look. "Have I got something on my face?" Ginny realized she'd been staring. "Oh. Uh. No."
"Yes you have got," said Dean, looking around. "A bloody great lot of freckles." "Have not," said Seamus amicably. This was true - Ginny, being a Weasley, knew a lot of freckles when she saw them. Seamus had only a few, on the bridge of his nose. "Have to." "Have not." Ginny abandoned Seamus and Dean to it. They were capable of going on like this for ages. She looked hopefully around the table once again, as if Harry, Hermione or Ron might have spontaneously appeared there since she'd last looked, but no - they were all still late to breakfast. Next to her, Lavender and Parvati burst into a fresh spate of giggling. Ginny was able to catch, amidst the giggles, the words Draco, so and cute. She threw her fork down and looked up to see that they were indeed staring over at the Slytherin table, where Draco was engaged in conversation with Malcolm Baddock. Ginny sighed. Ever since Hermione had, probably unwisely, told Lavender and Parvati that Draco Malfoy wasn't so bad when you got to know him, they'd felt free to express the crushes on him that they'd probably had all along. Just watching him get up and down from the Slytherin table at mealtimes had become something of a spectator sport for them. "You know, in a way it's lucky he's in Slytherin," said Parvati a bit mistily. "Green really suits him." "Oh, for goodness sake." Ginny rolled her eyes. "Listen to you two. 'Here comes Draco Malfoy, let's all pitch our knickers at him in a mad fit of passion.' I mean, really. Whatever happened to Gryffindor pride and --" "There's no point pitching our knickers at him," interrupted Lavender severely. "He's dating Blaise." Ginny put her milk glass down with a thump. "Sarcasm is just lost on you, isn't it?" She wondered, not for the first time, what they would say if she told them that she'd shared several passionate lip-locks with Draco over the summer and that he wasn't anything special. She dismissed the idea:
firstly, because they wouldn't believe her anyway, and secondly because it wasn't exactly true. "Anyway, since when are you two close with Blaise?" Parvati shrugged. "You can't infringe on another girl's territory, even if she is a Slytherin. It's the Girl Code of Conduct." Ginny raised an eyebrow. "The Girl Code of Conduct?" "It's like the Wizard Code of Conduct," said a familiar voice in her ear, "only with more corsets." Ginny turned around to see her brother in the process of taking the seat beside her. "Ron!" she said, astonished. "You look awful." He did look awful, or at least as if he hadn't slept all night - his hair was a mess and there were nearly-black circles of exhaustion under his blue eyes. But his grin radiated good humor. "Thanks, Gin. I know I can always count on you to fluff up the old ego." He held out a hand. "Eggs," he added. Ginny handed him the plate of eggs. "Did you not get any sleep, or what?" Shoveling food into his mouth, Ron did not answer. A moment later Harry and Hermione had joined them at the table. Neither of them looked particularly rested either, although this surprised Ginny less. Last time she'd seen Harry he'd been unconscious in the snow, and she surmised that Hermione had probably been up taking care of him all night. "Hallo!" she sang cheerfully. Harry winced. Hermione, whose skin seemed nearly translucent with tiredness, smiled at her wanly. "I'm so glad we have a match against Slytherin today," added Ginny breezily. "Harry and Ron just look ready to mop the field with them. I've got a suggestion, Harry. When it looks like Draco's just about to catch the Snitch, why don't you throw up on him?" "Eurgh," said Harry, looking green. "We'll do fine," said Ron, discreetly shoving the water pitcher in Harry's direction. "Rehydrate, Harry." While Harry dutifully drank the water, Hermione looked at him anxiously. "Oh, go to Madam Pomfrey, would you?" she said finally. "I just know she
must have Hangover potions around somewhere, and I haven't got time to make you one before the game. They take at least a day to prepare." "All right." Harry waved his hand feebly. "I'll go. I'll go before History of Magic." "That's good," said Ginny. "Because right now you look like you couldn't fly if they shot you out of a cannon." "You're just annoyed because I went drinking with Draco, and you don't like him," said Harry, irritability making him forthright. "Shhh," hissed Ginny, almost upsetting her milk glass. "His fan club will hear you." "Draco has a fan club?" said Harry with frank amazement. Ginny jerked her chin down the table towards Lavender and Parvati, who were now giggling with a few of the sixth-year girls. "Yes, and they're having a meeting right now." Ron snorted. "Is there some problem with the bridge they normally meet under?" Hermione choked on her pumpkin juice, then giggled. "Ron..." "Yes?" Hermione gave him an innocent look. "Nothing." She put her glass down and smiled. "I was just about to say that I've got some Pepperup Potion in my trunk if you need it. You look a little tired." "I'm not tired," said Ron, and yawned hugely. "I'm fine." Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You do remember we have a prefects' meeting at two o'clock don't you?" "Good point," said Ron. "No Pepperup potion for me. It'd be too cruel to deprive me of the opportunity to sleep through one of those meetings."
"And the mystery of why the ever let you be Head Boy deepens," said Hermione, shaking her head. "What'd you do - take a leaf out of Fred and George's book and blackmail them?" Harry reached over and thumped Ron on the back. "Ron here happens to have many fine leadership qualities," he said. "Yes," agreed Hermione. "He's currently leading the House in least amount of homework done, most amount of butterbeer consumed, and most number of letters received from suspicious French tarts with silly names." "Right," said Ron, "because Hermione isn't a silly name at all." "This isn't about my name -" Hermione began indignantly, then jumped. "Ow! Ron!" She glared at him. "I cannot believe you kicked me under the table. That is so immature." Ron smiled at her pleasantly. Ginny remembered the time that someone Draco, she privately suspected - had changed the lettering on his Head Boy badge so that instead of reading "Ron Weasley, Head Boy" it read "Ron Weasley, Smug Bastard." Ron had not been amused, despite the fact that years ago, when Fred and George had done much the same thing to Percy, he had thought it was hilarious. Perhaps, she mused, Harry hadn't been at all thick to turn down the Head Boy job after all.
*** The roof of the Prefects' Hall disappeared into raftered darkness overhead. The round table that sat in the middle of the room, around which generations of school prefects had sat, was scarred with the marks of years - the incisions of quills, sliced initials, stains of spilled ink. In the center of the table was a slightly raised silver ring, about ten inches in diameter.
The north wall of the room held two stained-glass windows, one gold, one blue; the south wall's windows were green and scarlet. Ron stood at the head of the table, his back to the east wall. There was a long white finger of clear window behind him, mazed with frost, and through it, more whiteness was visible - snow, caught in the bare branches of trees, the colorless spark of sunlight off icicles. In front of all the whiteness, Ron's bright hair and scarlet jumper stood out like burning banners. "This meeting will come to order." He rapped on the table with a hand, and grinned. "All right, everybody, sit down." He jerked his chin towards Draco, who was still standing by the door. "Malfoy, get over here and sit down. You're late." The other prefects - each house was granted two prefects a year, from fifth year on up, making twenty-four in total - turned and looked at him. Pansy Parkinson, the other Slytherin prefect, rolled her eyes and pushed the chair next to her out so that he could sit down. The back of each of the Slytherin prefects' chairs was embossed with a curling silver snake. "Sit," she said. He didn't. His eyes scanned up and down the table and came to rest on Ron. "Where's Hermione?" Ron looked irritable. "She couldn't make it. This is going to be a short meeting and she's empowered me to act on both our behalves." "Really." Draco came around the table slowly and flopped into the chair next to Pansy. This put him directly on Ron's left side. He pitched his voice low, "You don't know where she is, do you?" Ron, shuffling parchments, pretended to ignore him. "She wouldn't just miss a meeting for no reason. She loves meetings even more than she loves me." "She loves syphilis more than she loves you, Malfoy," hissed Ron. Justin Finch-Fletchley, sitting farther down the table, raised an eyebrow. "Did someone say something about syphilis?"
"I was just telling Ron that with a little ointment, his symptoms should clear right up," said Draco blandly. "I hardly think syphilis is an appropriate topic for a prefects' meeting," said Pansy, shaking her head so that her earrings jangled.
"That's true," said Draco. "I think we should discuss more important issues, like this conspiracy of silence that pretends that the Astronomy Tower is actually used for astronomy, when we all really know that people only ever go up there to snog each other senseless." "I have used the Astronomy Tower for astronomy," said Justin irritably. "Yes, well, you're just a sad no-hoper, aren't you, Finch-Fletchley?" "Congratulations, Malfoy," said Ron loudly, speaking over the chorus of irritated whispers that had followed Draco's last remark. "Five minutes into the meeting, and you're already disruptive. And you wonder why everyone takes an instant dislike to you."
"I just figured it saved time," said Draco, but he raised his hands up, and shrugged, smiling peaceably. It was a polite, bland smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'm ready to talk business." "No, you're ready to shut up and listen. Say one more thing and it's twenty points from Slytherin." Ron raised his wand, and waved it towards the center of the table, where the Hogwarts emblem was emblazoned inside an etched silver circle. "Ascensus orbis," he said, and the silver circle detached itself and rose into the air, spinning lazily. Ron watched it until it hung, spinning, about a foot above the table. Then he spoke. "This meeting is now in progress. All right then, first order of business.... Motion to have all school prefects engage in search for Trevor the Toad --unanimous vote of nay. Sorry, Neville." Neville, who was not a prefect but had been allowed to sit in on the meeting to hear the result of his request, looked resigned. "All right, then, the Seventh Year Pub Crawl," said Ron, shuffling more papers. "Last year it was a disaster, with at least six underclassmen having taken Aging Potions to try to fool the security barriers, and two sixthyears drinking an entire bottle of Giant wine and hexing each other. One of them still has vestigial antennae sticking out of his head. We can't allow this kind of thing to happen again this year." "Well, what can we do about it?" asked Padma Patil. As she spoke, the spinning circle turned blue for Ravenclaw. "I think we need some more specific rules," said Justin, and the sphere turned gold. "Like, that Fizzy Lifting Drinks can only be consumed inside." Everyone chuckled. Nobody at the table had been at the previous year's Pub Crawl, but they'd all been told about Eric Sorenson, the seventh-year who had floated almost to the height of the Hogsmeade church spire and had to be retrieved by townspeople on broomsticks. "Well, which establishments are involved this year?" asked Padma. "Fred and George are turning Weasley's Wizard Wheezes into a winery..." said Ron. "Weasley's Wizard Winery?" asked Draco as the sphere turned green.
"Uh-huh," said Ron shortly. "The Three Broomsticks, of course, the Hog's Head and the Shifty Lemur, plus Florean Fortescue is bringing his ice cream cart up with Butterbeer sorbet, Honeyduke's will be providing free candy, the Book Nook will have herbal teas for those who wish to enjoy the event in an unintoxicated manner -" "Wimps," commented Draco quietly. "-and the chip shop will be open as well. Now, it's really a pretty simple event. Everyone gets a parchment as they leave, explaining when each establishment will be offering refreshments, and of course the events will be staggered. Who wants to hand out the parchments?" Everyone looked shifty, but eventually Pansy volunteered, mostly, Draco suspected, because she didn't have a date for the event. "All right, now the main question is keeping the younger students from trying to sneak along. Sixth years especially think they're too old for the Yule Ball," he added, shooting a look at the sixth-year prefects, who grumbled quietly. "Now, in terms of solving that problem..." Ron's voice slowly faded from Draco's consciousness as the exhaustion of not having slept much the night before had begun to press in on him. He was having a difficult time keeping his eyelids from drooping. Shading his eyes with his hands, Draco looked down at the table, hoping it would seem as if he was lost in thought, and shut his eyes. The sound of the other voices in the room receded like a wave drawing back, and the darkness of sleep gathered him in. ***
"Where is my servant?" "He is in the other room, my Lord. He has brought what we sought with him, and asks again your forgiveness." A sharp, indrawn hissing breath. "Let him in." It was the same tower room, although the furnishings had multiplied. Atop the long table against the wall were piled a dizzying array of magical objects. Silver flasks and phials, mortars of jade, clear alembics. Cauldrons
whose cold contents glowed an eerie bluish green. He viewed the room at a new angle now, facing the two men who stood side by side looking down at the etched pentagram on the floor. Behind it he could see a wall lined with shelves. The shelves held all manner of things: jars of mummified parchment, charts of the heavens, crucibles, miniature braziers and urns, several stands of candles and what looked like an athanorum - an alchemist's oven. A tapestry depended from the south wall, almost brushing the long table: it depicted a skull with flowers growing from its empty eye sockets, and words embroidered beneath it: I am the assassin against whom n o lock can hold.
"It might not be the right mirror, my Lord," said Lucius Malfoy anxiously, looking sideways at his master. He was wearing dark crimson robes today, banded with black. He had often worn red into the woods when he and Draco had gone hunting together years ago. "It hides the blood," he would say. "It will be," said Voldemort, "the right mirror." A tall slotted door in the wall slid open, and Wormtail entered, carrying in his hand a medium-sized mirror. It was a beautiful thing: the reflecting surface made of polished silver and the body and the handle made of bronze. The handle was twisted like a tress, the border full of stylised engravings of whirlwinds and birds. It reminded Draco vaguely of the workmanship done on the scabbard of Harry's Gryffindor sword. Wormtail went down on his knees in front of the Dark Lord, his head bowed. Voldemort stretched out a pale, long-fingered hand, and took the mirror from his servant. From his vantage point behind the Dark Lord, Draco could see Voldemort raise the mirror in his hand and glance thoughtfully at his own malevolent expression. Then he opened his hand. The mirror slowly rose about a foot into the air and hovered there, directly in front of the Dark Lord, as if it was caught in a strong magnetic field. The Dark Lord's voice was amused. "Find the Heir," he said. His reflected face vanished as the surface of the mirror clouded over, as if a storm of blue smoke swirled up from its depths. When the blue shadows
cleared, Draco saw with a jolt a narrow corridor, and walking along it himself. It was strange to see himself from this angle. The Draco-who-wasnot turned a corner and stepped through a set of unfamiliar doors onto a barren battlement, adorned with carvings that looked familiar but he couldn't place just how. "My Lord," said Lucius finally, breaking the silence, "What do you see?" "I see your son." Voldemort's voice was cold, and sinuous as a snake. "I am watching your son in the mirror. It has been tuned to find him. I see him now. He bears the Weapon of Real Death. Did you know that?" "I knew that, yes. Terminus Est. He has had it since the summer." Voldemort lifted the mirror higher. "He is handsome, your son." Lucius looked uneasy. "You asked for him to be made that way, Master." "Yes. People of great beauty and charisma make excellent leaders. People wish to follow them. I was handsome myself, once." Lucius looked even more uneasy. "Yes, of course." "And Lucifer himself was God's most beautiful angel." Lucius was silent. Wormtail seemed pale and distracted. His gaze was on the floor. Very slowly, Voldemort lowered the mirror. "Have you read the Bible, Lucius?" Lucius unclasped his hands, which had been resting against his black robes. "Master, I would -- " "Perhaps you haven't. It was a staple in the Muggle orphanage in which I was raised." The Dark Lord put his hand against the mirror in which Draco's face was clearly reflected, his outspread fingers touching the boy's face. "And God so hated his only son," he said softly, "that he gave him to the world, that the world might have him." "Loved," said Wormtail, breaking the silence unexpectedly.
"What's that?" "The quotation," said Wormtail. His voice was nervous and uneven. "And God so loved the world -- " "Do you presume to correct me, Wormtail?" "N-no. No, my lord." "I didn't think so." *** "Malfoy! Hey! Malfoy!" At the sound of his own name, consciousness came back to Draco like a dash of cold water in the face. With a start, he focused his eyes, seeing the room reel around him before it settled into stillness. The first thing that came into focus was Ron's face: vexed and irritable, his blue eyes sparking like gas flames turned low. "Malfoy, are you not listening?" "You told me if I said anything it would be twenty points from Slytherin," said Draco meekly. "Yes, well, obviously not when I'm addressing you directly!" Ron looked ready to lunge across the table and shake Draco senseless. "So are you willing to, or not?" "Of course I am," said Draco, without the slightest idea what he had just agreed to do. The room was still spinning slightly and his head was full of echoing voices. There was a sharp pain behind his eyes. Ron looked surprised. "That's settled, then." He put down the parchments he had been holding, and grinned. "All right, well, we look well on our way to having the best Seventh Year Pub Crawl ever. And if the new chaperon system works, we may be well on our way to being the first class ever to achieve immortality through not having to cope with a bunch of drunken fifth-years getting us all in trouble." Ron grinned. "Even Malfoy can't argue with that."
"Well, it does interfere with my plan to achieve immortality through not actually dying," said Draco, and then, at Ron's expression, added hastily, "But ... I can rethink that." "Anything else?" Ron asked. When everyone was silent, he waved his wand again and murmured, "Orbus deceleratus," and the whirling silver circle returned to its place in the center of the table, and was still. "Meeting adjourned," announced Ron, and set down his wand. As the prefects filed out the doors, Draco felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Pansy Parkinson, her pug nose wiggling with curiosity. "I can't believed you agreed to stay back from the pub crawl and make sure no lowformers try to sneak along to Hogsmeade," she said, shaking her head. "Whatever possessed you, Draco?" Draco stopped in his tracks. "I did what - I mean, I'm not exactly sure." "Blaise thought you were going to go with her - she'll be furious!" Pansy walked off, shaking her head, the bright pink ribbons in her hair trembling. Draco looked after her thoughtfully. "Furious, eh?" he said to himself. "Ah, well. Always a silver lining, I suppose." *** "Hey, Weasley! Wait up." Ron turned at the sound of the familiar voice, a dull sense of foreboding settling over him. Draco was walking towards him along the corridor, having ditched the other prefects some ways back. Ron stood where he was, eyebrows raised, as the Slytherin boy approached him. Whatever Draco wanted, he was sure it wasn't going to be anything good. Even short conversations with Draco were usually sarcasm rallies. No matter what their shared history, Ron just couldn't seem to muster up the warmth towards Malfoy that Harry could, not even a shadow of the easy camaraderie those two shared when they weren't in public. Ron cocked his head, trying to define what it was about Malfoy that so annoyed him, even now - perhaps it was the way he wore his school robes, as if they weren't ordinary black school robes but something much finer.
As usual, and against regulations, the buckles on his robes were undone, showing the expensive clothes underneath - a dark gray sweater today, and black trousers, and the ubiquitous green-and-silver tie. Draco was shorter than Ron, but his slenderness and something about his bearing made him seem taller than he was. "You're not wearing your prefect badge," said Ron wearily. "Technically, I could take points from Slytherin." "Technically, I am wearing my badge. Just not where you can see it." Draco smiled his most charming smile, and Ron resisted the urge to kick him. "What do you want, Malfoy? I haven't got all day." "I want to know where Hermione is," said Draco with admirable directness. "I don't know," said Ron tightly. "Why don't you ask Harry? Or don't you know where he is either?" Draco's eyes went unfocused for a moment. "He's in the north fifth floor stairwell, going upstairs." Ron shook his head. "Don't do that, it's creepy." He stared as the other boy's eyes came back into focus and Draco looked at him inquiringly. "Right, I forgot. You don't need to find Harry to talk to him, so why don't you just ask him..." "Because he doesn't know either," said Draco. "These days he doesn't know where he is most of the time. Anyway, he doesn't need the extra worry." "Whereas I do?" "You can handle it," said Draco, once again demonstrating his spectacular ability to make a compliment sound like an insult. Ron sighed. "I do not know where Hermione is," he said, enunciating clearly. "She didn't tell me she wasn't coming to the meeting, she just didn't show up, and when and if you find her, you can tell her for me that I don't appreciate her sticking me with you lot on my own. Got that?"
"I shall make some very strongly worded statements on your behalf," Draco promised solemnly. Ron stared at him. "Do you ever say anything that isn't sarcastic?" "No," said Draco cheerfully. "Not really." "Why do you want to know where Hermione is, anyway?" "I'm worried about her." Draco's voice was uninflected, giving away nothing. "I wanted to talk to her." "She'll be at the match this afternoon, she goes to all Harry's matches, you know that." "I won't have a chance to talk to her then, I'll be too busy winning the game." "Fat chance, Malfoy," said Ron, with some satisfaction. "You can't win against us. Harry's developed some new strategies that will knock you off your Firebolt." "Really?" Draco looked politely interested. "Well, then you'll get to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation again, and we know how much you like that." "Shhhh!" Ron hissed frantically, whipping around to see if anyone had overheard. "Okay, now, in what universe is that 'never talking about it again ever'?" "Oh yeah," said Draco, with great unconcern. "Oops." Ron threw his hands up into the air. "Oh, go away, Malfoy. And if you want to find Hermione so badly, look where we always bloody look. She's probably in the library." *** The library was nearly deserted: of the few students who sat studying at the long tables, Ginny recognized only Slytherin Chaser Malcolm Baddock, Hannah Abbott, engrossed in a tome entitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, and Parvati Patil, sound asleep in a
corner. Even the vulture-like Madam Pince was nowhere to be seen. Probably lurking in a corner of the stacks, waiting to catch unsuspecting students who dared dog-ear their textbook pages. Ginny leaned back, her eyes flicking to the clock on the south wall above the door. The face of it changed daily, depending on what school activities were scheduled. Today, in the four-o-clock spot, the words Slytherin vs. Gryffindor Quidditch Match glowed red and green, matching the decorations on the Christmas tree in the corner. Ginny was pleased to see that she had at least another hour and a half before she needed to start getting ready for the match; plenty of time to read another chapter in the latest tale from Witch Weekly's Dragon Heartstrings romance novel series. She had become hooked on them after finding a secret stash of the novels under her mother's collection of kitchen towels. She knew they were trash but she couldn't help herself; this newest one was entitled Passionate Trousers, and so far she was enjoying it very much.
The heaving waves on the vast, black ocean beneath the castle sent a salty spray flying up over the rocks, leaving beads of water to form on the exposed alabaster skin of the tall, flame-haired witch who stood on the high balcony. Her salty tears mixed with the sea spray as she faced Tristan de Malcourt, the wizard who had loved her in every way it was possible for a woman to be loved, and then abandoned her to a cruel fate. Rhiannon laughed mirthlessly as she faced him now. "Tristan," she said. "I suppose you thought I would not find you." "On the contrary." His firm gray eyes flashed. "Thou art a very determined witch." She raised her chin. "Yes, I am." He turned to walk away. "It will do thee no good, Rhiannon. Thou must find another, I cannot love thee." "No!" She flung herself at him, and almost bounced off his broad, muscular chest, so broad and muscular was it. "It is you, and only you, that I must be with!" "What art thou saying?" He spun to face her, his robes swirling around his sturdy, muscular calves. "Thou knowest I need my space!"
"It is too late, Tristan! For - I am with child!" He goggled at her. "Yes," she repeated. "With child!" The words hung in the salty air like overripe peaches. She gazed at him, her huge dark eyes filling with tears - and then he had lunged towards her and gathered her to his broad, manly chest, raining fiery kisses on her full, flowerlike lips. "Rhiannon!" he cried. "This changes everything! My darling! My angel! My light! My life!" Heedlessly she abandoned herself to his caresses as his long, elegant masculine fingers dispensed with her bodice buttons more swiftly than a practiced Summoning Spell. She leaned back against the balustrade and let him do with her as he wished, her breathing becoming a hungry panting as he shoved her skirts up around her thighs, his hands stroking her creamy skin, and she tried to banish the worrying thought that perhaps she should tell him that the child she carried was not his after all, but the child of the evil Dark Wizard Morgan, Tristan's most hated enemy... "She should probably tell him," said a voice behind her. "Otherwise, I envision things getting very rocky for them farther down the road." Ginny spun around with such suddenness that Passionate Trousers was knocked to the floor at her feet. She felt herself go scarlet. She had never quite realized before how garish the cover actually was - "From the Dragon Heartstrings series! Where bosoms actually heave!" it proclaimed in glittering letters, just above the illustration of a swooning witch being given what looked like CPR by a shirtless blond wizard in alarming velvet trousers. As she watched, the wizard looked up from what he was doing, winked, and blew her a kiss. This would have been embarrassing in any case, but was doubly so with Draco Malfoy standing next to her, looking tall, blond, and immaculately composed. As she looked from the book to him his mouth twitched into a slow smile, his gray eyes lighting up. "Oh," she said awkwardly. "You."
He bent down and picked up Passionate Trousers, whether to glance at it or hand it to her she didn't know or care. She reached out and yanked the book out of his grip, shoving it under her Astronomy textbook. "I was enjoying that," he said, looking injured. "Especially the part where she could feel the proof of his rampant passion pressing against her -" "Pig," she hissed at him, under her breath. "No, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. Rhiannon doesn't seem like the sort of witch who'd have a pig, or much interaction with barnyard animals of any sort." "Unless you count Tristan," said Ginny irritably. "Now, I rather like Tristan," said Draco. He shifted the book his was holding from his right hand to his left, and gestured expansively with it. "He seems like a wizard with the right sort of ideas." Ginny sniffed. "He heartlessly abandoned Rhiannon and left her in the clutches of her evil uncle Rodrigo!" "Well," Draco pointed out, "he didn't know Rodrigo was evil. He thought he was doing what was best for her, since he couldn't tell her he was on the run from the Council of Wizards." "It was not what was best for her!" Ginny said heatedly. She could feel the blood rushing into her face and knew she was probably scarlet with annoyance. "She loved him and without him her life was meaningless." "Better than having no life," said Draco rather coldly. "Better than having your soul sucked out by minions of evil." "And what do you know about it, Draco Malfoy?" "Listen, Weasley-" "How long were you standing there reading over my shoulder, anyway?" "I-"
A sharp voice interrupted them. "Miss Weasley! Mister Malfoy! What is this disturbance?" It was Madam Pince, looking poisonous. "I cannot believe you are shouting in my library." Ginny blushed. "I'm sorry, Madam Pince." "What could be of such urgent importance that you have to shriek about it?" "It was just a private argument," said Draco, widening his eyes and looking angelic. Madam Pince was unmoved. "Well, take your little lover's spats elsewhere from now on." Ginny gasped. "Lover's spats?" Madam Pince raised her eyes. "Yes, Miss Weasley?" "This wasn't a lover' spat," Ginny protested firmly. "It was a completely love-free spat." Madam Pince shook her head. Draco looked amused. "I don't even like him," Ginny added, indicating Draco with a gesture. "I really don't care," said Madam Pince. "Ten points from Gryffindor, ten points from Slytherin." She shot a look at Draco. "And you a prefect, too," she said, sniffed, and walked away. "Blaise will be so disappointed in you," said Ginny, with heavy sarcasm, turning back to Draco. But he was already gone - halfway across the library on his way to the door. She watched in mingled exasperation and disappointment as he vanished through the door, and it was only when he was quite gone and she turned back to her books that she realized he had taken her copy of Passionate Trousers with him. *** Entering the small room that served as the NEWT-Level Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Draco was surprised to see Hermione already there, sitting at the table, apparently absorbed in a book entitled A Runic
Alphabet. Since it was such a small class, boasting only seven students (Harry, Hermione, Eloise Midgen, Terry Boot, Neville Longbottom, Padma Patil, and Draco himself) it was conducted around a battered old wooden table, with Professor Lupin chatting and consulting with them as if they were all old friends. Draco slid into the seat next to Hermione and spoke under his breath. "I cannot believe you skived off the prefects' meeting." She didn't look at him, but her cheeks turned dark red. "I know. I forgot." "You forgot? How could you forget? You live for that kind of thing." "I just forgot." "I was worried about you." Now she did look up. "Worried? What did you think had happened to me?" Her eyes were very dark and curious. She had her hair pulled back into a messy bun stuck through with a quill that held it in place. He hesitated for a moment, unsure how to explain that what had struck him was a vague and terrible sense of apprehension, sourceless and inexplicable. She seemed to see the hesitation in his eyes, or maybe she saw something else there, because when she spoke, it was rapidly and with some nervousness. "Why were you looking for me?" "Because you speak Latin," said Draco. Hermione raised an eyebrow. "So do all the professors." "I know." Draco leaned back and put his feet up on the table. He could tell that Hermione was struggling to restrain herself from telling him not to do that, although he couldn't see the problem himself -- his shoes were lovely, dark brown leather boots in suede so soft you could have taken a nap on it. Hermione just did not appreciate the finer things in life. "Hermione, what would you say if I said 'Venio' to you?" "I'd ask if you wanted me to make up the spare bedroom."
"What?" Hermione smiled. "It means 'I come,' or 'I am coming' with the implication being that whoever it is, is going to arrive soon." Oh." Draco studied the tips of his boots. "That's all it means?" "Yes." "How ostentatious." Hermione blinked at him. "What are you going on about?" Draco waved a dismissive hand. "Nothing." "Come on, tell me." "Not until you tell me why you skived off the meeting." Hermione looked guilty. "Was Ron very angry?" "Angry? Not so much, really. More...annoyed and distracted." Draco shrugged. "Weasley's been acting odd lately, if you ask me." Hermione set her book down on the table. "Yeah. I know what you mean. Sometimes I wonder if..." "If what?" "If he's seeing a girl." "Only if he closes his eyes and concentrates, I'd imagine," said Draco. Hermione looked at him irritably. "I know you think that, but Ron is really..." A voice spoke from behind them. "Ron is really what?" Draco looked up, knowing already who it was; if he'd not been paying so much attention to Hermione, he would have heard Harry come into the room. He was looking down at Hermione, and there was that oddness between them that had become so pronounced of late. Draco knew now
what was making Harry withdraw from Hermione, and suspected he could imagine that she would withdraw herself in response. But it was a difficult thing to watch happen without being able to do anything about it. Hermione dropped her eyes. "Really busy," she said. "Ron is really busy." "Oh." Harry sat down next to Hermione, so that he was facing Draco across the table. "Well, he is Head Boy." "I know." Hermione looked at Harry more closely. "You look better. Did you go to the infirmary?" Harry nodded but was prevented from saying anything by Lupin walking in, followed by Padma and Eloise. A moment later Terry and Neville had joined them and the class was complete. Lupin sat down. "The time has come for us to talk about your end-of-year projects," he said, shuffling quickly through his books and selecting a stack of parchments. A soft little groan ran around the table, and Lupin looked up with a smile in his dark gray eyes. "It won't be that bad. First off, I'll be dividing you up into teams." He consulted a parchment, his eyes flicking quickly down the list. "Neville and Terry, Padma and Eloise. Harry and Draco. Hermione, you're on your own." Hermione nodded and Draco wondered if she had worked this out with Lupin ahead of time. He was mildly surprised that he had been put with Harry but suspected that this was because Lupin knew that he was unlikely to get along with anyone else. "Each team will have the rest of the year to work on their projects," Lupin continued. "Now, I've tried to make these projects flexible to allow you to use your own inventiveness - a great part of being a successful Auror requires quick and adaptable thinking. It also requires creativity-" "I plan to make a diorama," said Draco solemnly. "No," said Lupin patiently, "not that kind of creativity." "But it'll be an evil diorama. And then Harry can destroy it." Lupin's voice held a warning tone. "Draco."
Draco subsided, although next to him, Harry's shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. Hermione rolled her eyes. "The tasks," Lupin went on, "are divided into three categories: pure research, curse-breaking, and Dark creatures." He began handing out parchments, which the students passed along the table. Draco took his and glanced at it quickly. Describe a method you might use for breaking the Medusa curse. Successfully train yourself to resist the Imperius Curse. (Not you, Harry.) Research the history of Azkaban. Describe how you might elude a Tracking Curse. Write a history of the Founders of Hogwarts; please include the Ten Years' War and the founding of the Auror's Guild. The next one made Draco smile. Conceive a plan by which a Manticore might be defeated. (Not you, Harry, or Draco either!) "There are thirty in total," Lupin added. "Each set of two students please select three projects to do, one from each category - Hermione, since you're alone, you need do only two. On the first of May, we'll start presentations of final projects, on which your final marks will depend. Any questions?" Neville raised his hand slowly. "What if we want to research a curse that isn't on this list?" Lupin's eyes darkened. "Then talk to me after class." "Will we be able to get books out of the Restricted Section?" asked Padma. Lupin nodded. "Just give me a list of what you need and I'll sign it out for you." Draco only half-heard this, his attention had begun to wander. He looked out from under the fringe of his lowered lashes, first at Harry, who had regained his seriousness and was busy studying the project list. He looked severe, and not a little tired. Which was probably good, Draco thought, since that afternoon he would be flying against Harry, they might as well both be exhausted or it would be an uneven match. Harry exhausted was still a just-about-unbeatable Seeker. Nothing broke his concentration: not pain, not fear, not anger, not tiredness. Not anything. Draco moved his gaze to Hermione. She was taking notes. Typical. She had her lower lip caught between her teeth as she often did when she was
thinking. He looked away. His glance slid over Padma (pretty enough but not his type) to Neville (looking very tense) to Terry (utterly boring; Draco had never spoken to him) to Eloise (she had briefly dated Crabbe in fifth year, and by all accounts even kissed him, which had always struck Draco as a biological impossibility) to Lupin, who to his surprise was looking back at him. "Draco," he said. "You seem elsewhere." "Just excited about my upcoming project, Professor," said Draco innocently. Lupin gave him a nice-try-kid look. "See me after class, Mr. Malfoy."
Busted! Harry's voice sang out in Draco's head. He shot his soon-to-bestepbrother an annoyed look, but Harry's expression was quite innocent. He remembered when it would have been a near impossibility for Harry to hide anything he was feeling. No longer. He resolved to try to prevent Harry from picking up any more of his bad habits in future. Class ended five minutes early to allow the students time to get down to the Quidditch pitch. Harry left with Hermione, his arm around her, the parchment with their assignment on it shoved into his bookbag. I'll see you on the pitch, he said, half turning around. Draco nodded slightly in response. When he turned back to Lupin, he found the DaDA professor folding his parchments into a leather carrying case with gold buckles that Draco didn't care for - gold was so affected. Then again, they wouldn't very well be silver, would they? "It was very reassuring to hear that you're looking forward to your assignment, Draco, especially since outlines of your project choices will be due after Christmas vacation." He smiled. "Which is why I put you and Harry on the same team, since I know you'll be spending your holiday break together." "He'll be with Hermione too. You didn't need to put him with me." "She can work alone. You can't." "I can -" "You'll work better with Harry," said Lupin, with finality. "Is this a problem?"
"No...uh, no." Draco was a bit taken a back at his own behavior. He wanted to work with Harry. He rather suspected he had just been fishing for information about Hermione's private project. Bad Draco, he told himself experimentally, but nothing happened -- self-criticism was not his forte. "I don't mind working with Harry." "Good, because Dumbledore and I discussed it and we want you together." "You talked about us?" "We often do." Lupin smiled and picked up his case. "Surprised?" "I suppose not." Draco held the door open for Lupin to walk out of the room and they started down the corridor together. "I don't imagine it'd do any good to ask what you say?" "None," said Lupin pleasantly. "Any reason you kept me after class?" Lupin stopped walking and faced him, his eyes thoughtful. "Just to tell you that if you and Harry run into any problems, I want you to come directly to me. I'll also be at the Manor over Christmas, and available to you then as well." "Oh. Okay." Draco didn't know what else to say -- he had never in his life gone to a teacher for extra assistance, and he knew exactly how Harry felt about going to teachers for anything at all. It was a bit of a mania with Harry, doing things on his own; then again, Draco supposed he himself was much the same way. "Will do." "And you have a good idea what kinds of materials you might need?" Draco nodded. "We're sorted, thanks." Lupin nodded. "All right. Good luck on the game, then," he added, and surprised Draco by shaking his hand. "May the best team win." "I thought you were a Gryffindor fan, professor," said Draco curiously. "I thought you were all in Gryffindor, you and Harry's dad and Sirius and..."
"Is that what you thought?" said Lupin mildly, and turned away. Draco looked for a moment after him with great curiosity -- what did he mean by that? -- before he turned and bolted for the Quidditch pitch, anxious not to be late. *** Ginny tried to stifle a yawn. She was sitting between Elizabeth and Seamus on the uncomfortable wooden benches in the Gryffindor Quidditch changing room, listening to Harry give his pre-game pep talk. Everyone seemed to be paying rapt attention, even Ron, who was fiddling with the fastenings on his knee guards. Harry was excellent at pep talks, which had always surprised Ginny since he was so unenthusiastic in general about public speaking. But Quidditch, like Hermione, was a subject that brought out the passion in him - he gestured with his hands while he talked, his black hair dancing, green eyes sparking animatedly. He also, she thought, looked his best in his Quidditch uniform - the burgundy-and-gold striped sweater, light corduroys, and knee-high leather knee protectors suited him. Harry tended not to wear the regulation elbow protectors, as he claimed they slowed down his reach and made him less effective at catching the Snitch, but he did wear the fingerless black leather gloves, at least in winter. Back when she had had a crush on him, the outfit had tended to reduce her to speechlessness; even now, it made her stomach do a friendly little flip. Of course, he wasn't the only boy she knew who looked good in his Quidditch uniform, but still. There was no harm in silent appreciation. She blinked as everyone around her started to their feet - apparently the pep talk was over and she hadn't heard a word of it. Seamus, Colin, Elizabeth and Dennis filed past her; Ron half-stood, then cursed quietly as the strap on his knee guard broke. Harry glanced back, but Ron waved him away. "You go on," he said, and grabbed for his wand. Harry nodded and reached for his Firebolt; Ginny followed suit, and went after him down the corridor that led out to the Quidditch pitch. They joined the rest of the team there, and a moment later Ron caught up with them. It was a bright, brisk winter afternoon, so sharply chilly that Ginny's eyes stung. She raised her head, feeling the cold air touch the tip of her nose, her uncovered ears. Her hair was bundled under a black woolly hat, and
the fingerless gloves on her hands were tipped with mini Warming Charms, but the chill still seeped into her skin. She glanced around. The ground below the pitch was scraped clean, as flat and icy as a skating rink. The diminishing sunlight striped it with bars of gold. Behind the pitch rose the Forbidden Forest, the trees immense and winter-black. Stripped of leaves and outlined by the snow, they had a thorny, medieval symmetry. The crowds whooped and cheered from the stands, many of them clutching orange-glowing Hot Potatoes, a new product from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that exploded in House colors after the game ended. Ginny saw Hermione sitting towards the front of the stands, a white knitted cap covering her curly brown hair. She was flanked on her left by George and his girlfriend Jana, who came in from Hogsmeade for the game. Both the twins liked to watch their little sister and brother fly, and were trading off coming in for the matches when the joke shop wasn't too busy. Ginny raised her hand and waved, and Hermione waved back. Her cheeks were scarlet with cold and, together with the white cap and her curling dark hair, made her look very pretty. Next to her, George made a rude gesture. Ginny was surprised, until she realized that he was looking past her at the Slytherin team, who had just come out onto the pitch opposite them. She felt herself tense. Gryffindor-Slytherin matches were always the worst, for a multitude of reasons. She hated how fierce and embattled they always were, and how tense they made Harry - she knew, since he had told her back in September, that he and Draco had made a pact never to use their telepathy during a game, as it was both too distracting and could be considered cheating. She knew that Draco was the best flier in the school, after Harry, and the only one who could really challenge Harry on his own ground; she also knew that Harry didn't like having to fly against him, although he never let it get in the way of the game. Harry was nothing if not consummately professional where Quidditch was concerned. As if he knew Ginny was thinking about him, at that moment Harry tapped her on the shoulder. "You all right?" he asked.
She knew what he meant; they were all always asking her if she was all right when Draco was around. She looked over at the unmentioned subject of the question, who stood as he always did before a game, arms crossed, broomstick at his feet, his team ranged out behind him as if they were arrayed on a stage. Everything was drama to him, she thought irritably. Everything was about staging. He had probably calculated for hours where to stand so that the sunlight struck him just so, lightening his fair hair to silver and making both it and the silver stripes along his green-striped sweater shine like new metal.
His forest-green Quidditch cloak hung just so, making a perfectly even line from his shoulders down to his polished black boots. Like Harry, he eschewed the elbow protectors and wore the fingerless leather gloves, although his were cleaner and gleamed as if they were new. In fact, the
whole Slytherin Quidditch team gleamed as if they had just been polished, from Malcolm Baddock's new Asteroid 2000 broom to Blaise's red-gold hair, which was not, like Ginny's, stuffed under a woolly hat, but instead poured like a river of fire down her back to her waist. They had made some non-regulation alterations to their uniforms - they wore black instead of the usual light-colored corduroys, and all of them wore lace-up leather boots instead of trainers. Polished silver buckles held their emerald robes in place over their shoulders. The general overall effect reminded Ginny of the team of horses who drew the Beauxbatons carriage: sleek, matching, purebred, mean as hell. "I'm fine," Ginny said to Harry, who nodded. It was almost entirely true. Madam Hooch blew her whistle. "Captains greet each other!" she called out, and the two captains stepped out onto the pitch, Draco first and then Harry. They met in the middle and each held out their hand to be shaken. Harry's cheeks were scarlet with cold, Draco looked pale and composed and untouched by the weather, and Ginny was struck as always by the similarity in their bearing and build, despite the superficial differences of coloring and uniform. Both were tall and slender without being thin, with the light build that made for exceptional Seekers. Each bent his head as their hands touched, and as the dying sunlight flared and faded behind them, she marveled at the incongruity of it -- Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, shaking hands. A year ago she would have thought that would be impossible; now she wondered that they managed to keep their manner towards each other so cold and reserved in public. They had faced death before shoulder to shoulder, yet as they broke off the handshake, turned, and repaired to their respective teams, they might never have known each other at all. As the crowd above them roared and cheered, Blaise stood on her tiptoes and kissed Draco lightly on the mouth, as she always did before games, "for luck." He barely moved or acknowledged the gesture, seeming to accept it as his due, which annoyed Ginny despite the fact that she knew he was in some measure acting. But then he was always in some measure acting. "Some people make scenes," Harry had said to her once. "Draco makes three-act plays."
Madam Hooch's whistle blew, snapping Ginny out of her reverie. She seized her broom and kicked off with the rest of the team. Fourteen players rose up towards the darkening silver sky. Harry immediately rose high above the rest of them, casting about for the Snitch. Draco flashed upward as well, a blur of green and silver at the corner of Ginny's eye. She pulled her attention away from the boys as something huge and black shot towards her - a Bludger, hit by Tess Hammond. Ginny ducked it as Colin flew in front of her, knocking the Bludger back towards Blaise with a mighty heave. Blaise elegantly swerved around the Bludger, shooting Colin a vicious look as she did so. Colin looked taken aback and slightly frightened - Blaise was an expert at nasty looks. "Ginny! Over here!" It was Elizabeth Thomas, the Quaffle in her grasp. She hurled the ball towards Ginny, who caught it, turned, and streaked towards the other end of the pitch. The cold air cut at her face, making her eyes sting. As she neared the Slytherin goalposts three dark figures shot in front of her -- Blaise, Graham, and Malcolm. As Chasers, they couldn't touch her, but they could certainly block her way. Colin drove them off with a well-directed Bludger, but precious seconds had elapsed, and as Ginny started forward Tess and Milicent swooped in, furiously hitting Bludgers towards her, and she was forced to toss the Quaffle towards Seamus. Blaise intercepted the throw, passed to Malcolm, and the Slytherins scored, Malcolm swatting the ball through the posts so hard it nearly took Ron's head off when he tried to block it. There was a discontented rumble from the stands. Nobody liked a Slytherin victory except, of course, the other Slytherins. Ginny bit her lip, and when the Quaffle came back into play, this time she dove after it fiercely. She swatted it away from Blaise (which gave her no small amount of pleasure) and sped across the pitch, casting the ball towards Seamus. He caught it and headed away with it, and as she looked after him she saw something glint below her -The Snitch. It shot by beneath her feet, and Harry and Draco rocketed after it, neck and neck, two blurs of green and scarlet. As Ginny turned to look down at
the flying golden ball and its pursuers, something flashed out at her from across the pitch. It was like a sudden flash of light stabbing into her eyes, but it was not light, it was darkness - a hard and agonizing and painful darkness, sharpened to a point and driven right between her eyes. She felt her limbs stiffen, cold tearing at her insides like knives. Her fingers gone frozen and lifeless, she could no longer hold the broom. The world turned upside down, the sky at her feet, the glittering ice-covered world racing up to meet her. She screamed once before everything went black. *** Racing Harry towards the Snitch, Draco's world had narrowed itself down to just himself and his goal - the tiny golden object only feet away. He heard the rushing of wind in his ears, the pounding of his heart - and then, cutting through everything else, a scream. Ginny's scream. He whirled his broom around in midair, almost dislocating his shoulder as the Firebolt jerked sideways. Vaguely somewhere off to his left he heard Harry swear fiercely, but he wasn't paying attention. His eyes were fixed on the scarlet-robed figure on the drunkenly swaying broom - he saw Ginny fight for control of her Nimbus 2000, lose it, and tumble sideways. She fell without another cry, struck the ground, and lay motionless. Screams rose from the crowds in the stands. Charlie and George were on their feet, shoving their way through the packed mass of people. Somewhere Professor McGonagall was shouting. The Gryffindor and Slytherin teams were in disarray; Harry was shouting and Draco supposed he should rally his own team as well, but it seemed a very small thing and anyway it was too late - he had pointed his broom towards the ground at a near-vertical angle, causing him to shoot downward with a speed that would have made even Wronski jealous. The cold wind sang in his ears like music. He imagined he had never flown so fast, or so hard. He hit the ground on his hands and knees with bone-breaking force, and scrambled to his feet. All around him the other Quidditch players were flying down like a shower of falling stars, red and green. He ran towards the splash of crimson against white snow that was Ginny. He was somewhat conscious of chaotic milling up in the stands, of the sound of yelling voices, and then he reached her and went down on
his knees in the snow next to her, and he could see that not all the scarlet that she lay against was Quidditch robes. Blood. As he reached for her, her dark eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at him. There was a blank sort of wondering in her gaze, as if she were both surprised to see him there and had accepted it as inevitable. "Draco?" she said, her voice surprisingly steady. "Yeah." His voice came out in a whisper. "It's me." He reached his hand towards her and then something grabbed him violently by the back of his robes and hauled him into a standing position and he whirled around and saw that it was Seamus Finnegan. The Gryffindor Chaser was white with fury. "What do you think you're doing, Slytherin?" he spat, as if it were the worst insult he could think of. "Stay away from her." The rest of the Gryffindor team had landed. Draco saw the Creevey brothers approaching, backing up Seamus, Elizabeth running forward, and Ron, white and stricken-looking, pushing past the others to get to his sister. Tess and Dex were still in the air, but the other Slytherins were on the ground, standing at a distance, staring in surprise. He could feel Blaise's eyes on him, but he didn't care. He turned back to Seamus. "Get out," he said, enunciating each word clearly, "of my way." "Why? So you can gloat? What's your problem, Malfoy? We don't want you here." "Get out of my way," Draco repeated. He heard his own voice as if it came from very far away. "Get out of my way, or I will kill you. I'll break every bone in your fucking body, Finnegan. Don't think I won't." Seamus paled markedly but held his ground. "I'm not going anywhere." Draco drew his left arm back. He was never sure later what he meant to do - hit Seamus, or hurl a spell at him. It didn't matter. As his arm went back a firm hand grabbed his wrist and held it, hard.
He turned around, already knowing whose hand held his wrist. Harry. He was pale but composed, his green eyes dark and serious.
I can't let you do this, Malfoy. *** Draco looked as if Harry had hit him. What? Harry tightened his grip on Draco's wrist until he could feel the pulse pounding there, swift and even. He knew it must be hurting him but the other boy showed no sign of pain, no sign that he even really knew what was going on around him. Vaguely, out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Seamus turning away, looking rattled but relieved, and going to kneel with the rest of the team next to Ginny. Behind the tight knot of Gryffindors Harry could see Madam Pomfrey approaching quickly, a magical stretcher at her side. At the edge of the pitch stood Charlie and George, being held back by several professors, including Snape.
Let me go, Potter. There was an evenness to Draco's tone that was almost frightening. You've got no right -I have every right. It's my team, my teammate. Look to your own team. Something flashed behind Draco's eyes for a moment, something wild and furious. You can't tell me what to do, Potter.
Oh, yes I can. We made a promise, Malfoy. Every second we stand here is another second that will make everyone suspicious. And for what - you can't do anything for herYou don't know that! If you go near her the rest of my team will try to kill you. Not if you stop them. If you don't listen to me, I won't help you. I won't hold them off. Harry No. I can't help you if you don't help yourself.
Draco whitened further. Let me go -- His next thought came with the sharp force of a blow, cracking like a whip inside Harry's head. Let me go, Potter. Let me go! With misgivings, Harry released his grip on Draco's wrist, and the other boy took a stumbling step back, and then another. He faced Harry, his chest rising and fell as swiftly as if he had been running; his eyes were nearly black with fury and something else. Harry had seen him look like that before and it hit him like a blow and hurt him as it always did, but there was nothing he could do.
I'll tell you what happens, Harry thought. Just - go. Please go. Draco's eyes narrowed into slits and he looked as if he were about to speak; then, as suddenly as he had whipped around in midair, he spun on his heel and ran off the pitch, up the hard-packed snowy path to the school, his boots cracking the ice underfoot with the sound of breaking bones. Harry watched him go, then turned, and out of habit searched for Hermione in the stands. He saw her immediately - she was on her feet, her hands over her mouth. As he looked at her, she took a step back, turned, and dashed away from the pitch, up the path towards school, after Draco. *** Hermione's feet slipped and slid on the ice as she raced up the stone front stairs of Hogwarts. She ran without really looking where she was going, and without thinking why she was running. She had seen the look on Draco's face before he fled the pitch - fierce, furious, desperate - and it had frightened her. She ran after and towards him, without thinking why. The entrance hall was cold and deserted. She darted left, down the hallway that led to the Slytherin dungeons. The tapestries on these walls were green, just like the tapestries that led up the stairs to the Gryffindor Tower were red. They were threaded through with gold and silver, faded from many years of maltreatment by students. Ghosts seemed to reach out of the walls and touch her as she ran. She passed a tapestry that bore the Hogwarts motto and paused for a moment to look at it, transfixed by the bold colors and the symbols. It almost seemed to her that the Slytherin snake looked about to lunge at the Gryffindor lion, the
Ravenclaw raven poised to hurl herself between them. Hermione paused — was that a voice? It was coming from farther down the hall, and so was another, deeper voice. She slowed down and turned the corner. A flight of stone stairs led down, and the voices were coming from below. She was halfway down the stairs before she recognized one voice: Draco's. And the other was a girl's. She leaned forward over the carved stone banister. Below, in a patch of torchlight, she could see Draco standing, and facing him, looking furious, was Blaise Zabini. "Don't you walk away from me, Draco Malfoy," she was saying in a freezing voice. "Don't even think about it." The wavering light glittered on the jewelry she wore - more than most girls at Hogwarts. She had multiple rings in her ears and on her slender fingers, and jeweled clips glittered in her strawberry hair. Her eyes looked huge in the dim light, as dark and glossy green as leaves under water. "I want an explanation." "An explanation?" Draco's voice was a thin steel dagger. Hermione could see the dark patches on the knees of his jeans, the elbows of his Quidditch robes, where he had landed in the snow. The melting snow in his hair washed pale strands into his eyes; he pushed them back with an impatient hand on which the Malfoy seal ring glittered like a malevolent eye. "Blaise, darling," He spit the word out as if it were an insult. "You came running after me to demand an explanation?" He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently back against the wall, pinioning her there with his arms. "You should know better." Hermione had to give Blaise credit, she didn't back down. She raised her chin, poised and furious-looking. "As if it's not bad enough that you're always goggling at Harry Potter's girlfriend, now this," she spat. "What is it with you and the Gryffindors?" "You're jealous," said Draco. "Isn't that cute." He didn't look as if he thought it was cute. His expression was calm, even disinterested, but his eyes were thunderous. His hands where they rested on the wall were clenched into fists. Hermione wondered how much that had to do with Blaise, and how much that had to do with his summary ejection from the Quidditch pitch. "It's my prerogative to be jealous," said Blaise icily. "I'm your girlfriend. Don't you dare try to tell me I can't be jealous." She reached up and
pushed his arms away, matching him glare for glare. "What's going on with you, Draco?" Her voice was icy silk. "I want to know." "There is nothing going on with me," Draco said flatly. "Then what were you doing?" "What did it look like?" "It looked like you were having a - a fit, over some Gryffindor, just because the little idiot couldn't hang on to her broom. And you let Harry Potter throw you off the pitch. Since when do we listen to him?" Draco shrugged. "So I was being sportsmanlike. We can't keep on playing when the opposing team is falling off their broomsticks." "Draco, we're Slytherins. We keep playing even if the other team gets struck by lightning and turned into a brave little pile of ashes." "Yes, and how well has that strategy worked for us in the past? Blaise, we've lost the past five Quidditch cups to Gryffindor, and you know it. And half the reason is that the professors and the other teams can't stand us, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff will lose matches deliberately to Gryffindor just to make sure we don't get the cup-" "And you think if you play all nice-nice that might change?" Draco folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, looking fed up. "Yes, I do." Blaise stopped to ponder this for a moment. There was a sharp scarlet flush in her pale cheeks, but Hermione could sense that her anger was fading. She was, after all, a Slytherin, cold-blooded at the core and driven by practicality over passion. "You've changed," she said finally, raising her green eyes to Draco. "I don't know if I like it." "We all change," he said. He unfolded his arms, and stood looking at her, his head cocked to the side. Every line of his body expressed tension and a just-under-the-surface anger, but his mouth was smiling. It was a cool, tense smile, radiating the promise of things which might or might not be
pleasant, but which one couldn't help wanting anyway. "You've changed since we played together when we were five. Haven't you?" "Maybe." The Slytherin girl arched her head back, a small smile playing on her mouth. Her hands were on her hips, her shoulders back, her chest thrust forward. The provocative pose could have been copied from the pages of Teen Witch Weekly, but on Blaise it didn't look silly. "Do you like it?" "That depends." Draco reached out and gently touched her hair. "Are you still angry at me?" Blaise lowered her eyelashes. "I don't know." "It's pretty simple really," said Draco, and lightly touched her face, running his knuckles along the curve of her cheek, over her lips, down to her collarbone. "Either you are," he said, and dropped his hands to her waist, pulling her closer, "or you aren't." In answer, she raised her face, eyes closed and lips parted, and he kissed her. It was a slow, controlled, unhurried kiss; plainly he had kissed her this way before. Just as plainly she liked it; she went pliant under his hands, and her arms slid around his waist. Hermione felt herself flush scarlet. Now she felt as if she were spying on something that was none of her business; even worse, she remembered what it was like to be kissed by Draco like that. She had never much minded his relationship with Blaise before, now she found that she did mind it, very much, and was ashamed of herself for minding. She screwed her eyes shut. When she opened them again Blaise and Draco had separated, although not by far; Blaise was smiling up at him, and in the darkness of the corridor, his pale hair and her scarlet shone out like beacons. They could have been Ginny and Draco. But Ginny would never have smiled at him like that. "I guess you aren't," Draco said, in a voice that made even Hermione feel a little wobbly around the knees. Oh dear. "Angry any more, that is.' "Not now, but if I ever catch you so much as kissing another girl, Draco Malfoy-" Blaise said, her voice breathy.
Draco cut her off with a laugh, short and mirthless. "That won't happen." Blaise looked at him languidly. Under her dark lashes, her eyes showed green as a cat's. Somehow she had managed to allow her Quidditch robes to slip off one shoulder, showing the strap of her lavender camisole beneath. Hermione had no idea how she'd done that without even seeming to move. It was a feat of engineering. "Sometimes I think I don't know you at all," she said. "Sometimes I think the same thing." He let Blaise go, and she stepped away from him, straightening her clothes. "I think we're done here, Draco," she said, and added: "I'll be in the common room if you want me," managing to make even that sound like an invitation to a round of unsavory but pleasurable activities. Drat the girl. Hermione watched her as she walked away, the sway of her hips mesmerizing under the dark green robes she wore. How did she walk like that? It wasn't at all fair. Blaise disappeared down the corridor in a swirl of green and scarlet, and as she did so Hermione glanced back down and saw Draco looking up at her. Their eyes met, and she felt herself flush again. He stood where he was, not moving, the torchlight flaring and fading on his fair hair. Under his eyes were dark bruised shadows, and his mouth looked bruised as well, possibly from kissing. He had lost the thinness he had acquired over the summer, and she could see the slender musculature of shoulders and arms outlined under his clothes as he took another step back, tipping his head up to look at her, and the unsteady light played its shadows over his face and hair. For a moment, she saw another face superimposed over his. "Draco," she said. He smiled. The smile did not translate to his eyes. There was something else in them, something shadowy and despairing and primal. "What?" "Do you love her?" she said. It wasn't what she had meant to say at all. "What do you think?" "I think you don't know."
"Then you give me too much credit," he said. "In the meantime - if I give you something, will you give it to Ginny for me?" She shook her head. "Give it to her yourself." "You don't have to tell her it came from me." "Draco." The word came out as half a wail, half an accusation. "Why are you acting like this?" "I'm not acting," he said. "This is the way I am." He raised his chin further, as arrogant and proud as she had ever seen him, and the torchlight flared on his bright hair and then vanished, as if a shadow had come between them and the light. In the half-darkness she saw his cool-water eyes on her, his chest still rising and falling quickly from rage and perhaps kissing, and she knew what had gone into that kiss: all the fierceness and the fury and the passion that he felt for someone, someone other than Blaise. "You can love more than one person, you know," she said. His eyes flashed. "Don't feed me platitudes, Hermione," he said. "You think I don't know that?" "You don't love her," said Hermione, now certain of it. "You kiss her like you're trying to get revenge." "Revenge on who?" Draco said, his voice tight with exasperation, or maybe it was something else. Hermione shook her head. "I don't know." "Well," said Draco, and shrugged. "Owl me when you find out, all right? Maybe there's a book in the library on it." "If you think -" "Just leave me alone," Draco said, and turned on his heel, and walked away. Hermione watched him go, the tension in her chest almost unbearable. It was getting worse - all of it. And there was no one she could talk to about it. Not Harry. Not Draco. Not Ron. Not anyone. Everyone, it
seemed, was at a loss. And she suspected that Hermione Granger, smartest witch at Hogwarts, was the most lost of them all. *** Exhausted, Harry walked slowly down the long corridor that led to the abandoned armory. Once a week, on Fridays, he made this journey, always at six-o'-clock, the hour before supper. On the first day of school, Dumbledore had shown him the way. Him, and Draco. The walls here were dusty and bare of decorations and tapestries. Harry's feet echoed on the stone floor and the sound made him feel strangely lonely. He had been in the infirmary for a half hour before Madam Pomfrey had shooed him and the rest of the Gryffindor team out the door. He had made a cursory search of the castle but had not been able to find Hermione, and then it had been time for his appointment with Draco and he'd had to go. He felt the ache of not having been able to find her like a dull pain in his side. He did not want to be without her, especially not after the traumatic events of the game. But he also knew he had no right to require her company, not after the way he'd been acting lately. He wanted to do something to show her what she meant to him, but he couldn't. He felt her being torn from him and there was nothing, it seemed, that he would or could do about it. A dull sense of inevitable loss immobilized him. He had reached the end of the corridor. The door in front of him was old, scarred, dark-red wood banded with bronze. He pushed the handle down and the door swung open. He went in, and shut it carefully behind him. He stood in a large oval-shaped room with high windows, at least twenty feet above Harry's head, that were barred with iron grilles. The room was empty of furniture save a long table that ran along one wall; the walls were bare of ornamentation. Instead they were lined with empty glassfronted cases that had once held swords and shields, axes and lances, enchanted weapons of all types. Now, it was never used. Dust motes floated in the weak rays of winter twilight that lanced down through the grilled windows. In one bluish ray of light, Draco was standing, his back against the table, his head down as if he were either thinking very hard or was very tired. Terminus Est lay in all her steel-silver glory on the table behind him, the
non-light catching the etchings all along the shaft and making them glow like fire-letters. The fragile light also lit his pale hair to a colorless sort of radiance, like mother-of-pearl. He was still wearing his emerald-colored Quidditch robes, although in the darkness they looked nearly black. "Hallo, Malfoy," said Harry, by way of greeting. Draco raised his head. There were etched shadows along the sides of his mouth, his darkly polished eyes. "Hey there, Potter." Harry took another step into the room. "She's all right," he said, "since you wanted to know." "Is she awake?" "No. Not yet." Harry was in the center of the room now. "Look, about what happened on the Quidditch pitch -" "Yeah," said Draco tonelessly. "I'm sorry about that." Harry sighed. "Malfoy..." He put out a hand and his fingertips grazed the other boy's shoulder. "I've been thinking we should stop." "What?" Harry felt Draco's eyes dart towards the sword lying on the table behind him. "Stop fencing practice? Why?" "No, not that." Harry dropped his hand and rested it for a moment on the hilt of the sword at his waist. It had, as always, a comforting weight. "Stop the feud. Pretending that we hate each other. If it had come down to it on the field, if I'd had to throw you off and you'd refused to go on your own, I don't know if I could have done it." "We can't," said Draco, "stop the feud - remember what Dumbledore said." "I know, but we could go to him, explain -" "Explain what? That it's not fun any more?" Draco's voice was bitter. "That's doesn't matter to what we're supposed to do. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected. Or whatever it was he said."
"I don't feel like I've been given that much," said Harry, with a rare flash of bitterness, and Draco looked up at him for the first time. His eyes seemed very dark, panes of steel-gray glass leaded with black lashes. He looked almost angry. Harry checked himself. "I know, it's not true. I've got a lot. Hermione and Ron and Sirius -" "I was thinking wealth, fame, and glory." "You would be." Draco smiled. It was a thin smile, but genuine. "Oh, good, insults. You always know where you stand with those." Harry shrugged. "Did you want to practice or do you want to do that homework assignment Lupin gave us? It's your choice." "I want to practice." Draco reached behind him and lifted his sword off the table. The weak light rayed down the blade and over the gilded hilt, set with its black-glass stones. The light picked out the words etched along the hilt: Terminus Est.
This is the Line of Division. Dividing what from what? Harry wondered, not for the first time. Dividing good from evil, light from dark, choice from destiny? Or perhaps he was overanalyzing and it merely meant that the sword had an unusually sharp cutting edge. Which flashed down towards him now, and he raised his own blade to block the thrust, stepping forward as Draco had taught him. Walk into the thrust, not away; this will cut off your opponent's reach. The swords clanged against each other and rang like bells in the silent room. Harry cut at Draco; Draco returned, and they moved in the slow unrehearsed dance of fencing around the room, neither rushing nor slowing their movements. Harry liked the practice times; it allowed him a space in which he didn't have to think; he merely let his body follow the movements it seemed to know by instinct. He cut, parried, riposted, and fell back as the blades spun against each other like sparking silver wheels. He let Draco drive him back, six steps, seven, until his back was against the wall. He let the next thrust come and ducked up under it, pushing off
the wall to get extra force. His blade clanged against Draco's hard, striking a haze of sparks that lit the air between them. Draco fell back. "Good," he said. "Good use of the wall." Harry didn't reply, only swung his sword again, attacking. Draco parried and riposted; Harry feinted and attacked again. He took a long step back, moving out of range, then ducked under Draco's guard and attacked. His sword rode high off of Draco's parrying blow, and struck the other boy's shoulder. There was the whisper of parting fabric, and a slice opened in the sleeve of Draco's shirt. Harry froze immediately. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. Draco, who had also paused, looked surprised. "It's fine." Harry felt his fingers whiten as he gripped the hilt of the Gryffindor sword. "I could have hurt you." Draco shook his head. "Not unless I let you. That was a good trick, but you're still telegraphing your moves. What's the problem, Potter?" "I guess my mind is elsewhere." "Hermione?" Draco said, and Harry felt himself nod. "Look, why can't you just tell her what you told me last night? She'll understand." Harry looked down at his hand which, sheened with a light sweat, gripped the hilt of the Gryffindor sword. "There's one problem there." "What?" "I don't remember what I told you last night." Draco's mouth twitched. "I don't suppose you'd believe it if I reminded you that you told me you're actually carrying on a mad secret affair with Professor Sprout and you've been exchanging photographs with her that involve you dressed like a giant woodchuck?" "Nonsense," said Harry. "Of course not."
"I would never dress like a woodchuck." "Naturally." "Now, a lemur maybe. A marmoset even. But a woodchuck? With those teeth?" "Now you're scaring me." Harry laughed. It was the fist time he had laughed aloud that day. "Anyway, this is Hogwarts. Everyone knows everyone else's business. Who could carry on a mad secret affair here?" *** "I thought I heard someone coming," she said. She twisted out of Ron's grasp and stood up. He tilted his head back and she could feel his blue gaze on her back as she crossed the room and looked anxiously out through the high grilled window set in the door. Outside, she could see an expanse of empty corridor stretching in two directions. There was no one there. "You worry too much," said Ron. He was seated on the floor, shirtless, in jeans and trainers. His Gryffindor Quidditch robes were tangled in a heap beside him, where the two of them had been lying. His eyes were shadowed. "Maybe I should go," he said. "Ginny -" "You told me they wouldn't even let you into the infirmary," she said. "I thought she was going to be fine?" "I know. But I feel responsible." "Well, you aren't." She came back across the room and sat down beside him, putting her arms around him. "And you say I worry too much." He twisted around in her embrace and looked at her. "If we did get caught," he said tightly. "If someone did find us - what would you do?" "Ron, I-" "What would you choose?"
"It would be just as bad for you if we were caught," she said in measured tones, "as it would be for me." "Worse," he said. His voice was a little hard. She sensed he was probably trying to hurt her, feeling hurt himself. She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. "I love you," she said. He blinked. She had never said this to him before. "You do?" She nodded. "I thought you should know." For a moment, he still looked startled; then his face lit up and he reached for her, pulling her close. "I thought you'd never -" "Shh." She kissed him. "I-" "I know." She put her fingers over his lips. "You don't have to say it. I know you do." *** "Hmm," said Draco. "I suppose you're right. Unless you're willing to stand in line for the Astronomy Tower every Saturday night, there really is nowhere for would-be snoggers to go here that's private." "What are you complaining about, Malfoy? You've got your own room, don't you? You're a prefect." "And spacious it is, too. I only call it a room because I'm too lazy to call it 'the broom closet with sconces.'" "We could sell tickets to this place," said Harry, glancing around the nearly-empty chamber. He grinned. "Especially considering the soundproofed walls." "Nice thinking, Potter. Glad to see Hermione hasn't got all the brains in that relationship." Draco cocked his head to the side. "On that note, you seem cheerier."
"Yeah." Harry lifted his sword, and made a half-salute towards Draco. "Thanks for the workout. It helped." "Good." Draco paused, and looked at Harry seriously. "Potter, I've never asked you this before, but..." "But what?" Draco hesitated, then asked his next question in the manner of one taking a step into the abyss: "Where are your parents buried?" Harry stood for a moment, very still. There was a strange sort of painful buzzing behind his eyes. Finally he said, slowly, "I have no idea." Draco blinked but otherwise showed no surprise. His voice was careful. This was obviously something he'd thought about asking Harry before, but hadn't done it. "Well, someone must know." Harry nodded, distantly. "Someone must..." Why has no one ever mentioned it to me, ever offered to take me there? Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, they've never - and I - why didn't I ask? "Potter." Draco's voice was sharp. "Steady on. You all right?" "Uh-huh." Harry's vision snapped back into focus; he saw Draco standing in front of him, looking worried. "Sirius would know." "Or Lupin," said Draco. "I'd rather ask Sirius. I was supposed to talk to him tonight anyway." "Okay." Draco shrugged elegantly. "I just thought... it might help. You know. Closure. Maybe help you feel, uh, a little closer to them." "Closer?" "Sometimes you have to see things," Draco said quietly. "See them yourself - to know that they're real." "I know they're dead," replied Harry flatly. "I've always known they're dead."
"I know," Draco said. "But lately sometimes I wonder if you know you're still alive." Harry looked down. He felt disconnected, as he often did these days: disconnected from the room around him, disconnected from Draco, disconnected even from his own self, as if the body he looked down at, slender and clad in jeans and blue sweater, was somebody else's and not his own. One of the laces on his left shoe was broken; he had no memory of having retied it. "I used to be able to go to the Mirror of Erised and see my parents," he said. "I can't do that any more." A slight line of confusion appeared between Draco's eyes. "Because you don't know where it is?" "Because I don't want to look in it," said Harry. "I'm afraid of what I might see." *** The fluttering pink numbers on the clock beside the bed told Ginny that it was two in the morning. She lay where she was, letting her eyes adjust to the half-lit darkness of the room. Her body ached all over, but her arm, which she had heard Madam Pomfrey describe as "snapped in half," seemed to be functioning again, and was not particularly painful. There had been people in the room earlier, a lot of people. She remembered Madam Pomfrey shooing the Gryffindor team out the door, Harry putting his arm around Ron's shoulder as they went - Ron had looked quite shattered, Ginny would have been touched if she hadn't been so far gone on Anti-Pain Charms. She remembered Charlie coming in later, sitting by the bed and holding her hand, and bits of snow dropping off him and melting on her wrist. There had been other people in the room, but she remembered mainly Charlie. "What happened?" he had said. "What happened to her up there?" And another voice had replied: "We don't know. We're looking into it. No one has had a broom accident like that in years, not since Harry Potter fell off his broom his third year -"
"But that was Dementors. Ginny's a good flier, she always has been. She wouldn't just lose control of her broom like that." "The broom is being checked for curses and hexes, Professor Weasley. Please do not overexcite yourself." "She's my sister," said Charlie tightly. Something in his voice had reminded Ginny of her very early childhood, when Charlie had been her absolute favorite brother. She remembered him coming home from Hogwarts at Christmas, picking her up as he ran in the door in his black school robes, lifting her into the air and dangling her upside down until she screamed with laughter. Charlie had been her favorite then, although more recently she had realized that her allegiances had switched a bit, and she was now much closer to Ron. She supposed it wasn't possible to go through what they had both been through together over the summer and not become closer. "My only sister," Charlie added, for emphasis. "Yes, I know she is your sister. We're all very fond of her, Charlie. We'll find out what happened...and you, you should get some rest." The dizziness of the pain relieving charms had taken over then, and Ginny had slipped into a dazed state where the room seemed full of shifting forms. She cast her mind back: she had thought she heard George and Fred talking above her, and then she thought she heard Ron, or it might have been Harry, and she even thought she heard Snape and Dumbledore, and she definitely heard Madam Pomfrey shouting at someone, but not before whoever it was bent over her and kissed her on the cheek. She did hope it hadn't been Snape. She rolled over now and looked at the clock again. The number marching across its face now said that it was half past two, and she didn't feel sleepy at all. There were a number of books stacked on the tabletop Hermione had undoubtedly left them so that she wouldn't miss out on her schoolwork. She wondered if there was anything in A Short History of Cursing (Harry had been very excited about that book second year, she recalled, until he had found out it contained nothing more than hexes and the like) that would explain why she had fallen off her broom. She reached out her uninjured arm and felt amongst the stacked books, then
jumped in surprise as a lighter-weight paperback fell out and onto her lap. It was her copy of Passionate Trousers. *** Hermione walked slowly down the corridor, wrapped in Harry's Invisibility Cloak, trying to muffle her footsteps by slowing her pace. She was well aware of the irony of the whole situation - herself, Head Girl, in charge of making sure other students didn't break rules, sneaking around the school long after curfew. She was aware of it, but she didn't care. She had gone beyond that. She found the door in the wall where the floor plans had told her it would be. She put her hand to the door and pushed; it swung wide, and she walked inside. The room was dark. There was one window set like a cold jewel in the north wall, looking out over the grounds. She could see the snowcapped ridge of the Forbidden Forest, and a diamond half-moon shedding its milky light over the ice-black world below. On the wall facing her, across from the window, there was a visible shimmer, like sunlight on water. She turned and walked towards the shimmer, which coalesced as she approached into what she knew it really was: a gold-framed mirror.
I show you your heart's desire. Your heart's desire. I guess, Harry's voice said in the back of her mind, a person's heart's desire can change. She recalled his voice when he had told her that, the look on his face hope and horror mixed.
No, she said back to him fiercely. I have never changed towards you. I have always been the same. I will always love you. I will always want you. Whatever I have ever done, or said, it was always and will always be you.
In a single motion she dropped the cloak, and raised her head, and looked into the mirror. One heartbeat's time passed as she stared, and then a second, and a third. On the fifth beat, her knees gave out. She sat down very suddenly in the middle of the room, on the cold marble floor, and put her face in her hands. REFERENCES : “Is there some problem with the bridge they normally meet under?” – Frasier “I love syphilis more than I love you” - Buffy
Draco Veritas Chapter Three: Darkness and Flood
Too early for the rainbow, Too early for the dove. These are the final days, This is the darkness, this is the flood. -LC *** The worst part of being in the hospital wing, Ginny soon determined, was the flood of people who came along to "cheer you up." It wasn't bad seeing Hermione, Harry and Ron, and she didn't mind Elizabeth's visits, but when the whole Gryffindor team descended upon her at once it gave her a headache, and Charlie's fretting over her made her nervous. She felt perfectly fine and wished Madam Pomfrey would let her out of the infirmary, but she insisted on keeping Ginny there "for observation" doubtless, Ginny assumed, because she was worried that the fainting fit that had struck her while she was flying would resurface unexpectedly. Lavender and Parvati came to visit her on the second day she was in the hospital wing. Ginny pretending to be partly asleep while they giggled about gossip (Eloise Midgen had broken up with Justin Finch-Fletchley, declaring him to be "not enthusiastic enough about their relationship"), fashion (Pansy Parkinson had showed up to History of Magic class wearing "very dodgy-looking barrettes") and the Pub Crawl (Parvati was going with Dean Thomas, Lavender with Mark Nott.) "But Mark's a Slytherin," Ginny protested, momentarily surprised out of her reverie. Lavender looked unmoved. "So what? Being anti-Slytherin is so last year, Ginny."
"Unless you're Seamus," said Parvati, and giggled. Ginny blinked. "What do you mean?" Parvati was only too happy to explain. "When you fell off your broom Seamus practically killed Draco Malfoy to keep him from getting anywhere near you. It was so cute." Dumbfounded, Ginny stared. "Did Malfoy look like he was - I mean was he trying to --why would he...?" Lavender shook her head. "I don't know. We couldn't hear any of it, you know. We just saw everyone sort of go bolting towards you, and then Seamus stepped in front of Malfoy and blocked him long enough for Harry to come up and toss him off the pitch." "Harry tossed Malfoy off the pitch?" "I think so," said Parvati, looking thoughtful, "He just sort of grabbed him by the wrist, and then Draco stared at him for a minute and bolted off like a wild animal. It was a bit hard to tell what was really happening, maybe
Draco just ran off because Dumbledore was coming. And your older brother was with Dumbledore -- he looked angry enough to spit nails, too." "I wish Professor Weasley would go to the Pub Crawl with me," announced Lavender, looking wistful. "Lavender, that's ridiculous, he's a teacher and he's horribly old," said Parvati sternly, while Ginny tried not to laugh. "Anyway, we're getting off the point." "There was a point?" said Ginny. "The point was that we think Seamus fancies you," said Parvati. "He does not," protested Ginny, astonished. "He does," said Lavender, who had dated Seamus briefly herself during fifth year, although this did not inspire in Ginny any confidence that Lavender knew what she was talking about. "Why would we make this up?" "Because you're brainless gits who like to make trouble" was on the tip of Ginny's tongue, but she bit it back. Whatever else Lavender and Parvati might be, they were not malicious, and being cranky and nervous was no excuse to be nasty to them. "Look, I'm awfully tired," she began, but it was too late - Lavender and Parvati had launched into their favorite game, a repellent exercise entitled "What Would You Rather?" which involved nominating various pairs of Hogwarts boys and determining which one you would rather sleep with. 'Terry Boot or Ernie MacMillan?" Parvati demanded of her friend. "Terry," said Lavender. "Draco Malfoy or Malcolm Baddock?" Lavender thought for a moment, then giggled. "Draco Malfoy." "Justin Finch-Fletchley or Ron Weasley?" "Ron."
"Harry or Ron?" "Um....still Ron, I think." Ginny watched this with a jaundiced eye, and was alarmed when Lavender rounded on her, announcing that it was her turn. "Justin Finch-Fletchley or Ernie MacMillan?" "Justin, I guess," said Ginny, who was interested in neither of them. "Seamus or Dean?" "Seamus." "Draco or Malcolm?" "Malcolm," Ginny lied. "Harry or Ron?" Ginny looked at Lavender in horrified repulsion. "Lavender, that is just...sick." "What?" said Lavender blankly. Then comprehension dawned. "Oh, right. You had that whole....Harry thing. Sorry." "Argh," said Ginny, as she put a pillow over her face, refusing to remove it until Lavender and Parvati finally went away. *** The Gryffindor common room was a constant, Sirius thought, never changing. It had not changed since he was a student there. Glancing around from his perch in the fireplace, he cast a fond gaze over the heavy overstuffed sofas and chairs, their thick velvet coverings dulled to a shine by years of use, the throw pillows with their gold tassels, the scratched low tables, the gilded portraits on the walls. Harry was there as he had said he would be, sitting on the floor near the fire, cross-legged. He was wearing black trousers and a dark blue jumper, trainers and no socks. He looked about twelve, and very thin and tired - so thin and tired that Sirius had to bite back an exclamation of surprise.
"Lo, Sirius," said Harry quietly. "Glad you came." It had been about a month since they had last spoken like this. Sirius recalled thinking that Harry looked a bit peaked last time he had seen him, but he had dismissed it as nerves over an upcoming Quidditch game. Sirius tried to keep his voice neutral. "Harry. You look ... so thin. And exhausted." "It's late," said Harry flatly. He leaned back against the side of the stuffed armchair. He had lost enough weight, Sirius noted, that the collar of his shirt was loose, falling free of the sharp "v" of his clavicles. The shadows beneath his eyes were blue against his winter-pale skin. Sirius recalled Harry stepping on to the train on the first day of school, tanned and healthy from two weeks at the Burrow. What had happened? "We had a game today. I am exhausted." Sirius didn't feel any less disquieted. "I know. Lupin told me what happened. I'm glad Ginny's all right...Harry, are you eating properly?" Harry looked as if he were trying to remember the last thing he'd eaten. Then he shrugged. "I'm eating fine, Sirius. How are the wedding plans coming?" "Fine. And the adoption has almost gone through," Sirius added conversationally. "There's just a little more paperwork to be cleared up when you get here at Christmas. And Narcissa's looking forward to having you all here. Are Ginny and Ron coming down with you on the train?" "No, next day," said Harry absently. Sirius could see he was thinking about something else. "Have you got your dress clothes sorted out?" "Uh-huh." "Did you know I've changed my mind about marrying Narcissa? I think I'll be marrying Remus instead." "That's nice."
"Harry," said Sirius darkly. "What is on your mind?" "Nothing," said Harry hastily. Then he seemed to shake himself, as if brushing off cobwebs. "Actually...there is something I was wondering." "That much is obvious." Harry locked his hands across his knees. "It's about my parents." Sirius looked at his godson, but his expression was hidden by his falling dark hair. "Yes?" "Where are they buried, Sirius?" Sirius felt his heart skip a beat. "Why do you want to know?" "Don't answer questions with a question." "I'm sorry, Harry, but I need to know why you want that information. What are you planning?" Harry snorted. "Just some necromancy. A little raising of the dead, some human sacrifice." "Harry--" "Look, it was Draco's suggestion. He thought it might help me get closure." "That doesn't sound much like something Draco would say." "Well, he did, all right?" Harry's face was flushed with annoyance. "What, you don't believe me now?" The annoying thing about teenagers, Sirius thought without being able to help himself, was that they took everything so personally. "I believe you, Harry. I'm just worried about you." "They're my parents." Harry seemed to be working himself into a state. "I have a right to know where they're buried." Sirius squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly. "Doon's Hill," he said, and in his mind's eye saw gray-green grass stretching all around
him, a hillside blown by wind and studded with tombstones faded by years of rain. He saw a group of robed figured huddled around two joined headstones, a wizard standing by and murmuring the words of a prayer. "Venite, benedicti patris mei, percipite regnum, quod paratum est vobis ab origine mundi..." He saw it so clearly, although he knew that this was a fantasy - he had, himself, obviously not been able to attend James and Lily's funeral. But he had been to other funerals, he had been to many, many others. "In a wizarding cemetery." "Have you ever been there?" Harry's voice was calm and steady. "Once," said Sirius. "What's it like?" Sirius wondered what to say. It was very pretty? It was pleasant? I never want to go there again? "It's a graveyard, Harry." "Where is it?" "Near Godric's Hollow....if you want to go, I'll take you. After your N.E.W.T.s." "But that's months away!" "Harry...I understand why you want to go, and I also understand why you're upset, but closure isn't a simple, easy thing. And there's a reason why no one has brought you there yet..." "What?" Harry's eyes were bright in the dark room, his black hair fading into the shadows around him. His face was pale, marked like a ghostly fingerprint against the darkness. "Because it isn't safe. As far as I'm concerned, it's safe for you to be at school, and here at home with me, and that's it. I don't even know about the Burrow anymore. I love you very much, Harry, but I'm not a blood relation of yours, and unless a blood relation is with you, Dumbledore's magic can't protect you. If we go, we're going to have to bring the Dursleys -"
"No! No!" Harry exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "That's like - I won't go with them. How can you even -" "But, Harry --" "You don't understand," said Harry, and the wretchedness in his voice made Sirius pause. He sounded not just angry, but as if he had made a bleak realization. "You don't understand and you don't want to. You don't care - I thought things would be better if I lived with you, but you're no different than the Dursleys, you lie to me about everything." "What are you saying, Harry? You want to go back and live with the Dursleys? Is that it?" Harry made a little gasping sound, as if Sirius had hit him. Immediately, Sirius regretted what he had said - he hadn't meant it to sound as it had, but before he could apologize or even speak, Harry turned around and raced out of the room. Sirius heard the sound of his boots clattering on the stairs, the door to the boys' dormitory being flung open, and then silence. He waited there for several minutes afterward, sure that Harry would come back. But he didn't.
***
Her heart broke as she thought of Tristan, who she had last seen being borne away unconscious, draped over the saddle of the beautiful but wicked Lady Stacia, cousin to the Dark Wizard Morgan, who was rumored to have an entire closet full of enchanted leather corsets with which she bent unfortunate wizards to her evil will. When she had drained them of their vital energies, Lady Stacia disposed of her victims in an bottomless pit which her sniveling minions had toiled years to dig for her. Rhiannon burst into loud tears of grief. Her muffled sobs drew the attention of the captain of the pirates, a burly dark-haired man who was striding the heaving foredeck of the HMS Manly Intent shirtless, despite the fact that it was freezing out and ice was forming on his chest hair. She had heard the other pirates refer to him as "Sven," so Rhiannon was fairly sure that this was his name. (She was very beautiful, Rhiannon, but not so bright.) Sven strode towards her as the surly waves lashed the heavy deck and Rhiannon struggled uselessly against her bonds, disarranging a great deal
of her clothing in the process. His dark green eyes seared into hers. "Look upon your homeland for the last time, my adorable prisoner," he growled, his eyes hungrily stroking her nearly-naked body with their mesmerizing gaze... "Hey? Ginny? You awake?" a voice called from behind the curtain drawn around her bed. "Yes," she squeaked, putting "Passionate Trousers" down hastily and pulling her covers up. It had been a boy's voice, and muffled - Ron possibly? It was too young-sounding to be Charlie. "You can come in." The curtain was drawn aside, and Ginny saw to her surprise that her visitor was not Ron after all, but Seamus Finnegan. She blinked, but it was very definitely Seamus, from his tow-blond head to his scuffed trainers. What was he doing here? He took a few halting steps into the room. He had his bookbag slung over his shoulder and was carrying a quill; he must have come directly from class. He paused at the foot of her bed, looking uncomfortable. Ginny regarded him with even more surprise. Seamus hardly ever looked uncomfortable. Usually he was too busy telling dirty jokes. "Hey there, Seamus," she said kindly, hoping to put him at his ease. It didn't work. Seamus just looked more uncomfortable. A thought struck her. "Are you here because you're ill?" Seamus twisted the quill he'd been holding between his fingers. "No. Not exactly." "Not exactly?" "Not at all." Seamus put down the quill, and said, "I was wondering if you'd like to go to the Yule Ball with me." Astonishment rendered Ginny momentarily speechless. She stared fixedly at poor Seamus until he began, finally to blush. Then she said quickly, "But - you're a Seventh Year! You're meant to be able to go to the Pub Crawl! And I can't go to that." "I know," said Seamus patiently. "That's why I asked you to the Yule Ball."
"But why would you want to spend the evening with a bunch of sixthyears when you could go to the Pub Crawl?" "I don't want to spend the evening with a bunch of sixth-years," said Seamus, even more patiently. "I want to spend the evening with you." "Oh," said Ginny. And then, again, "Oh. Right." Seamus just looked at her. His blush had gone away and his expression was quizzical, even amused, but she could see he was still a little nervous. It was endearing. Draco was never nervous. She tried to imagine Draco asking her to the Yule Ball, and failed utterly. Even had they been dating, Draco would never have asked her to the Yule Ball. He would simply assume they were going together, and show up at the foot of the Gryffindor Tower stairs, looking fabulous and not even a little worried that she might not be overjoyed to see him. Insecure was not in his repertoire and it could be a little annoying. But then of course he might do something amazing and romantic for her, like conjuring a pair of fragile glass slippers out of a couple of socks. And when Draco did something romantic it never seemed awkward or staged or preplanned, it just grew naturally out of whatever he was feeling and was done with candor and grace. Ginny blinked. There was no reason to be thinking about Draco right now. He wasn't the one asking her to the Yule Ball, and anyway he had a girlfriend. And Seamus was handsome and nice and very funny. She had been staring at the bedclothes; now she raised her head and looked at him. "Parvati told me what you did on the Quidditch pitch," she said. "It was awfully nice of you." Seamus smiled. He had freckles, not many but a few, on the bridge of his nose. He said, "Think nothing of it. Any excuse to rile up Malfoy." "Well, you didn't have to. It was brave." "I've done braver things since," he said lightly, and Ginny felt herself blush. It had been rather nervy of him to come in here and ask her like this, especially since they didn't know each other that well. And he was being awfully sweet about it.
She raised her chin and said, "Of course I'd love to go to the ball with you, Seamus." A smile like sunrise broke over Seamus' face. "That's great," he said. "And you can tell Ron I'll have you back by midnight. You know, it's a bit terrifying asking out the Head Boy's little sister." "Ron'll be at the Pub Crawl," said Ginny. "He'll drink a gallon of butterbeer and be absolutely legless by midnight. He wouldn't notice if you returned a giant pumpkin to Gryffindor Tower instead of me." "He'll figure it out by the next morning, though. And that Head Boy badge is sharp. I want to keep my skin intact," Seamus grinned, came around to the side of the bed, and to Ginny's surprise, kissed her on the cheek. "I'm off to practice - hope they let you out of this bloody place soon." "I hope so too," said Ginny absently. A thought had occurred to her. That kiss on her cheek the night before - "Seamus?" she said, suddenly. He paused in the act of pulling back the curtain. "Yes?" "Did you - were you here last night?" she asked, her heart pounding. "Did you visit me?" He shook his head, looking honestly confused by the question. "No, I didn't, why?" "Oh," said Ginny, sinking back against the pillows as a flood of guilty relief washed through her, "No reason."
*** "Seamus asked you to the Yule Ball? That's wonderful!" Hermione exclaimed, beaming at Ginny, who was dispiritedly forking scrambled eggs and toast off her plate. It was her first day out of the infirmary, and while
she felt perfectly fine, a strange sort of gloom had settled on her; it was hard to shake it off. "Shhh," Ginny hissed, although fortunately Seamus was seated far away at the opposite end of the Gryffindor table and couldn't possibly overhear. "Did you say yes?" asked Ron, who was pushing a piece of bread around his plate with his spoon. Apparently he wasn't very hungry either. "Of course she said yes," said Hermione quickly. "Seamus is lovely, and he's good-looking and nice and talented and so funny." Ron looked taken aback. "Good grief, Hermione, maybe you should date him." Hermione blushed. "I just meant -" "I said yes," said Ginny abruptly. "Great!" Hermione flashed her a wide smile. "That's so lovely for you, Gin." "Thanks," said Ginny, unable to shake off the feeling that Hermione was just a bit too happy for her. "Hey all." Ginny looked up and saw Harry, taking the empty place between Ron and Hermione that they had saved for him. He looked a little tired, but on the whole better than he'd looking lately. "Seamus asked Ginny to the Yule Ball," Hermione told him cheerfully as he sat down and picked up his fork. "Great." Harry poked uninterestedly at a sausage, then glanced up at Hermione. "That's a good thing, right? You're not telling me this because I'm supposed to be indignant or something?" "No." Hermione shook her head. "Of course it's a good thing." "Of course it means Seamus won't be at the Pub Crawl, which is too bad," said Ron, reaching for the cream jug and pouring a liberal amount onto his porridge. When he glanced up, his expression was thoughtful. "Hey, Harry - you've got a study period now, don't you?"
Harry nodded. "You want to come to Hogsmeade with me?" said Ron. "I've got to go down to the factory, to see George and Fred. Last-minute paperwork before the Crawl." He tapped his pocket, from which a sheaf of parchment extruded. "I've got a pass." Harry shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" "Can you make it back in time for Care of Magical Creatures?" Hermione asked, worried. "If I don't, I don't," said Harry without much interest. "But -- Charlie said he had something special for us." "Then you can tell me all about it later," said Harry with finality. Hermione looked as if she were about to say something. Ginny could tell that if she did, Harry would blow up like a Filibuster Firework. There was so much tension between those two these days you could have bounced a Galleon off it. "Everyone still in love with Charlie?" she interrupted hastily. Hermione dragged her eyes away from Harry. "He's a really good teacher," she said. "He knows everything. Last week he talked about diricawls for two straight hours." "Nobody but you could think that was sexy, Hermione," said Ron. "I didn't say it was sexy," said Hermione indignantly, and then she and Ron were off and running, bickering as was their habit. Harry sat quietly between them, looking across the room. A sense of something familiar tugged at the back of Ginny's mind as she looked at him. He reminded her of someone: the way he sat, the haunted expression, the contained and containing eyes that were light-years older than the rest of his young face. It was when he reached up and pushed his hair back that she knew where she had seen that look before, and such similar eyes. Tom, of course.
*** "Hurry up, Harry. Spring is approaching. Let's go, shall we? I did tell George we'd be there before noon." "Oh, all right." Harry glanced up from his apparent fixed perusal of an icicle clinging to a tree branch. His fair skin was scarlet with cold along his cheekbones and so were his hands; he had not bothered to wear gloves. He sighed, and resumed walking. "Spring is approaching? You sound like Malfoy." "Heaven forbid." Ron waited patiently for Harry to catch up to him. Fortunately it was a gorgeous December day, the sky a hollowed blue bowl traced with faint white clouds. The path through the trees that led to Hogsmeade was worn to a glassy shimmer, and the bare tree branches stood out overhead like black lacework against the sky. Given the brightness and beauty of the weather, Harry's gloomy mood seemed like even more of a blot on the landscape. "Really, Potter," Ron drawled in his best Draco imitation, "If I'd known you were going to drag along like a turtle with heavy shopping I wouldn't have invited you in the first place." "Ha ha. Very amusing." Harry had now caught up to Ron, who started off again, Harry beside him. "He doesn't always sound like that." Ron looked at him witheringly. "Oh, all right, so he does. It sounds weird coming from you though." Harry paused, thoughtfully. "Nastier." "You're just used to my normal radiant personality." "Probably," said Harry, and glanced sideways at Ron. "Speaking of which, have you asked anyone to the Pub Crawl yet?" Ron nearly tripped over a fallen tree branch. "Oh. No, actually." "Why not?" asked Harry curiously. Ron bit back the response that he was shocked Harry had snapped out of his dirge-like mental state enough to notice whether Ron had a date or not. "It's going to be like work for me, you know, being Head Boy and all. Keeping an eye on everyone. It wouldn't be fun for a girl." "If you say so."
"You asked Hermione yet?" Harry looked taken aback. "Well, no. I just assumed...why do you ask?" Alarm was creeping into his voice. "She didn't say she wanted to go with anyone else, did she?" "No, idiot. It's just...well, you're not going to win any points not asking. Nobody likes to be taken for granted, Hermione especially." Harry's mouth twitched. Ron wondered if he was remembering their fourth year. Next time, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort! It was the first time Ron had really seen Hermione angry, not counting the time she'd slapped Malfoy across the face. The memory made him smile now - both memories actually. "Right then," said Harry. "I'll ask her." He scuffed moodily at the snow with the toe of his lace-up boot. It was black dragonhide, waterproofed. One thing Ron had noticed: even as Harry's moods seemed to have deteriorated, his wardrobe had improved. Gone were most of his sweaters with holes in the shoulders, the too-small shirts that rode up over his wrists, the well-used trainers. Ron had no idea if this was Draco's influence or if it was just that Harry now had a girlfriend who took an interest in what he wore. "Ron...?" 'What?" Harry opened his mouth to speak, then paused, looking ahead of them. Ron followed his gaze and saw Pansy Parkinson coming over the small rise that led up from Hogsmeade. She was carrying a sheaf of parchments in her hands.
She smirked when she saw them. "Hello, Ron, Harry," she said. "Shouldn't you be in Care of Magical Creatures?" Ron regarded her irritably. It was no wonder Pansy didn't have a date for the pub crawl, she was even more bossy that Hermione but without Hermione's endearing kindness and generosity. Also, while he didn't know
much about women's fashions, he was fairly sure it was not in the best of taste to wear orange, bright blue, green and yellow all at once. The combination made her look even more sallow than she usually did. There were probably boys who would have been attracted to Pansy's brand of hard-faced prettiness; Ron was not one of them. "What're you up to, Pansy?" "Got permission to come down to Hogsmeade and distribute the leaflets about the Pub Crawl," she said in a superior tone. "Did you?" "No, we're skiving," said Harry crossly. "Do run back and tell everyone all about it." "We're on business," elaborated Ron. "Going to the Wheezes factory. Dumbledore gave us passes, so no point squealing." "As if I would anyway," said Pansy, looking indignant. "Of course you would, if you thought it would do you the blindest bit of good," said Harry, in a tone that surprised Ron with its harshness. "Goodbye, Pansy." And he turned and stalked off, so that Ron was forced to spin round and follow him. "Cor, Harry," he said, catching up. "What was all that?" "I don't like her," said Harry, and his mouth was set in a hard straight line. "She makes my skin crawl ." Ron snorted. "You're the one who's all Up-With-Slytherin, not me." Harry continued to stalk, kicking up lace-like sprays of snow with his boots. "Yeah, right. Whatever. I don't expect you to understand." "Harry--" Ron began, exasperated, but he could tell from the tense set of Harry's back that there was no point pursuing the matter. Instead he paused, and looked back over his shoulder. Pansy was still standing there in the middle of the snowy trail, looking back at them, and for a moment he saw a flash of what looked like utter malice cross her face. Then she turned and started back down the path and was soon lost among the trees.
*** Having nearly fallen asleep in History of Magic, Draco was almost late to Care of Magical Creatures. The other students were already there, although Charlie had not yet arrived. As he approached the snow field where they were meeting, he saw that a little ways away from the rest of the Gryffindors, gazing off towards the Forbidden Forest with a distracted expression, was Hermione, looking very much alone. Without either Harry or Ron bookending her, she looked smaller than she usually did and more fragile. It was odd that they weren't there yet - officially class had already started. Walking past Hermione towards the grouped members of his House, Draco paused, swore, knelt down in front of her and proceeded to pretend to be tying his shoe. Out of the corner of his mouth, he hissed, "Where's Harry? And Weasley, for that matter?" Hermione jumped slightly, then busied herself tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. "They went to Hogsmeade with some Pub Crawl paperwork. Dumbledore gave Ron a pass." "But not Harry?" "I don't think so." "So he's just skiving then." Hermione looked unhappy. "Maybe he's on his way." "Maybe." Draco abandoned the pretense of tying his shoe, stood up, and went to stand with the rest of the Slytherins. Blaise caught at his hand and gave it a quick squeeze of welcome as he joined the group. "You're late," she said, smiling up at him. "I stopped off in Madam Hooch's office to reschedule yesterday's match," Draco replied. "We won that," said Malcolm Baddock mutinously, pushing his dark fringe away from his pale, sharp-featured face. "Fair and square."
"We never win anything fair and square, Malcolm," said Draco. "We're Slytherins, let me remind you. Not Hufflepuffs. We win by employing guile." "And cheating," added Blaise. "Also cheating," Draco agreed. "Look," said Blaise, her green eyes going very wide and saucery. Draco turned to see what she was looking at, and saw Charlie coming down the path towards them, swathed in a dark winter cloak. He was pulling behind him something that looked like a large trolley on wheels, which was draped with a heavy tarpaulin fabric covering. From beneath the fabric covering, what looked like thick white steam was rising. "I wonder what he's got in there," said Malcolm, interested. "I think I know," said Draco, with certainty. Only one thing made Charlie light up that way. "It's got to be -" "Dragons," said Charlie loudly, stopping in between the groups of students and letting go of his trolley, which sat and steamed beside him, "are the most fascinating magical creatures in existence." The whole class nodded. Everyone loved Charlie. Even the frosty Slytherins had melted a little under his relentlessly outgoing charm, and some of the Slytherin girls grew almost giggly when he was around. He was young enough to be the sort of teacher that students had crushes on, and true to form, quite a few of the seventh-year girls in all the houses fancied Charlie. If he'd said that trolls were fascinating conversationalists and Cornish pixies made good study partners, they would have nodded along with him. "I've been working with dragons for six years," Charlie went on equably, "and there is no animal more misunderstood in the wizarding world. The one I've got here under this covering is only one week old. Now..." he glanced around the class, and Draco saw his eyebrows draw together as he registered Harry's absence. "Right," he went on, "who here wants to see a real live baby dragon?"
The class chorused their eagerness, even the normally reserved Slytherins managing an affirmative-sounding mutter. With a cheerful grin, Charlie picked up two objects from the top of the trolley - thick fireproof gloves and stripped off the heavy cloak he was wearing to reveal underneath it his battered jacket and trousers of black dragonhide leather. A happy little gasp of appreciation escaped several female members of the class, which Charlie apparently didn't notice - or if he did, he was doing an excellent job of pretending to be oblivious. "Oooh," said Blaise, under her breath, "this is going to be the best class ever." Draco snorted with laughter. Blaise gave him a sloe-eyed look. "You don't mind if I stare at Charlie, do you darling?" "Not at all." Draco was nonchalant. "Gawk away." Blaise's eyes narrowed, but Draco hardly noticed. His glance went to Hermione, who he instinctively knew would understand why he thought this was funny. She looked as if she were trying not to laugh as well, which was a nice change from the rest of the girls who looked as if they were deciding whether or not to rush Charlie in a wedge-like formation. "This class is really a bit of an accident," Charlie went on cheerfully, pulling on his leather gloves and reaching to undo the big buckles that held the tarp down over the open-top trolley. "I've had custody of a dragon egg this year; it wasn't meant to hatch till the holidays, but these things are notoriously unpredictable. Anyway, it hatched last Tuesday, quite unexpectedly, and the hatchling is only now really ready to face the outside world." The last buckle undone, Charlie drew the tarp away, and the class gasped again. Inside the open-topped trolley was a large steel cage, and inside the cage, curled into a ball and fast asleep, was a baby dragon. It was a dark green color, with deep gold horn nubs protruding from its small head. Charlie looked down at it with an unmistakably fond expression, then back up at the class. "Can anyone tell me what type of dragon this is?" Hermione's hand went up. "Romanian Longhorn," she said, in her usual clear and certain voice, but Draco could tell - without being able to
explain how he could tell - that something was bothering her. She looked very nearly woeful as she let her hand fall back to her side. "Right," said Charlie. "And what does it eat?" Hermione's hand went up again, but this time Charlie called on Neville, who ventured a guess that Longhorns ate goats and cattle, and added that its horns were valued as potion ingredients. Charlie awarded five points to Gryffindor, more because he liked Neville than anything else, Draco suspected. Why, Draco didn't know - as far as he was concerned, Neville was completely useless, although the one time he'd shared that thought with Harry, Harry had nearly taken his head off in response. "Oh, bother," Charlie said, his voice snapping Draco out of his reverie. Charlie was kneeling down next to the trolley now, in the snow, an annoyed expression on his face. "I've forgotten the dragon food. Can I have two student volunteers to race back to my office and get it? It's in a blue bucket above my desk...right, then. Granger, and...Malfoy." Draco tensed in surprise - he hadn't even had his hand up. Next to him, Blaise was radiating fury. She was wildly jealous of Hermione and had been ever since last year. Without looking at Blaise, he detached himself from the rest of the Slytherins, sauntered over towards Charlie and accepted a large gold key from him. "Second door down from Snape's, and hurry," Charlie said as Hermione came trailing up, looking very unhappy indeed. Draco felt vaguely insulted - he knew she had to pretend to be displeased at the thought of spending time with him, but she didn't have to look quite that wretched about it. "I'd rather the dragon not wake up hungry - he tends to yell." Draco nodded at Charlie, tucked the key into his pocket and set off towards the castle. He could sense Hermione beside him, her small, booted feet crunching on the hard-packed snow. No sooner were they out of earshot of the class than she announced, without preamble: "Draco, I want to talk to you about something." "Great, but I already have a date for the Pub Crawl." "Ha," said Hermione. "Very funny. Although, not unrelated to what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Which is?" Hermione took a deep breath. "Ginny's going to the Yule Ball with Seamus," she said. Draco stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, he was very conscious of the cold air around him, the coldness of the ground seeping through the soles of his shoes, the painfully bright winter sky. Then, he shrugged. "That's nice for her." Hermione expelled a breath. "Right. Once more, with less feeling." "I mean it. It's nice for her." Draco started walking again, and Hermione fell into step with him. They were nearly at the side doors to the castle now. "Ginny and I," he said. "We're not a thing. We never were. I have a girlfriend. And even if I didn't..." "Even if you didn't?" "I wouldn't be with Ginny," he said quietly. "For other reasons." Hermione was silent. Draco knew she was waiting to see if he would elaborate on his reasons; he didn't. They reached the castle doors and went inside, where the warm air felt like a welcoming touch. As the doors shut behind them Hermione shook her head. "All right, then. Accept it as fate if you want to." Draco laughed, without real humor. "My father used to say that fate is what you call it when you don't know the name of the person screwing you over." "Nobody's screwing you over, Draco, except maybe you." "How are things with Harry?" he said abruptly. Hermione colored. He was aware that the abruptness of the question was slightly cruel, but he had no interest in continuing the conversation about Ginny and Seamus. He had shoved it to the back of his mind, to process later. "Not great," she said. "I'm still worried."
Draco suddenly realized he didn't want to be having this conversation either. "Worried?" Hermione shrugged. They were walking along a long corridor now, passing other students, some of whom gave them curious looks. Hermione pitched her voice low. "He still seems miserable, he barely pays attention to anything anymore, last night he was up late talking to Sirius and he wouldn't tell me what they talked about. And now he's skipping class, which isn't the end of the world, but isn't like him, either." They were at the door to Charlie's office now, and Hermione looked at Draco unhappily as he slid the key into the lock. "You think he seems depressed too, don't you?" "Well, he has been wearing a lot of black lately." Draco pushed the door open and went in; Hermione followed. "Either it's the whole 'warrior slated for the coming apocalypse' thing --kind of a downer, that -- or his eyesight's gotten worse and he's just really worried about matching." "Don't," said Hermione sharply. "You know I have no sense of humor about Harry. Or apocalypses." "I think it just goes to show what sort of life we lead that we can even consider using 'apocalypse' in the plural." Hermione did smile, then. "Life's been bad lately, hasn't it? I'm sorry, Draco. I know it is for you, too." Draco didn't reply; he was looking around with curiosity. Since Charlie was a junior member of the faculty, his office was small, but it was decorated in such a homey fashion that that didn't matter. Pictures of the Weasley clan, waving and smiling, were stuck to every available space. The small, battered desks were covered with bolts of colorful Romanian cloth and a beautiful rainbow-hued dragon scale decorated the wall near the door. On the far wall was a wood-framed mirror that Draco recognized - it had hung in Charlie's tent back at the dragon camp. On the small table by the desk were stacked a number of books with gilt-encrusted spines. Fantastic Beasts, of course (everyone had that), The Dragon Hunter's Handbook Dragon Tales: A Compendium, a smaller book on how to treat serious burns, and a colorful clothbound novel entitled A Dream of Dragons.
Draco turned around. While he had been scanning the room, Hermione had located the bucket, high on a shelf above Charlie's desk. Draco watched her as she cast about for something to climb up on. "Hermione," he said, his voice thoughtful, "what do you know about onieromantics?" "Romantic whats?" "Onieromantics," he corrected her gently. "Oh." She blushed slightly. "Wizards who can travel in dreams?" "Right." "Well, I know it takes a lot of study and preparation," said Hermione, seizing hold of a tall stool and dragging it across the room. "I know there's a branch of the Auror's Guild that deals with it. And I know if you don't do it properly, you can splinch yourself - not your physical self, but your psychic self." "That sounds nasty." "You're never the same afterward," she said grimly, climbing up on the stool and wobbling precariously. "Here - take my hand," Draco said, coming to stand beside her, and she took it gratefully, reaching for the bucket with her other hand. Draco tried not to notice that he was now at eye level with her slender, blackstockinged calves. Even when he had detested Hermione, he'd thought it was a sign of an unfair universe that the repellent Ron Weasley should get to date someone with such nice legs. "Got it," she said cheerfully, and handed the bucket down to him. He set it carefully on the desk. "Ugh," she added, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she glanced down at the bucket's contents. "There's something all squashy in there." "Well, what'd you think dragons ate?" Draco replied lightly. "Waffles?" "Dragon kibble?" suggested Hermione, who was still using his hand to balance herself. "I'm sure Charlie said something about kibble..."
"No dragon worth his salt wants to live on kibble. That's why they're always devouring pretty young virgins in fairy tales, not bowls of salad. In fact, if I were you, I'd just stand well away from the dragon, no matter what Charlie says..." and Draco trailed off, realizing that Hermione was giving him a most peculiar look. "Not," he added hastily, "that you're a virgin." Her eyebrows went up even higher. "And not that you aren't one either," he said, even more hastily, realizing that he had never given this aspect of her relationship with Harry a thought, assuming on some level that well, they just wouldn't...would they? "And not that I would know. I mean, how would I know? Because Harry hasn't said anything about you to me. I mean, not that he doesn't talk about you - he talks about you all the time -" Draco realized that he was raving, and, with an effort, stopped the flow of speech. Hermione was staring at him in what he could only interpret as total fury. "I don't suppose," he said finally, "that if I agreed to eat whatever was in that bucket, you would forget everything I just said?" For a moment, Hermione was silent. Then, to his surprise, she burst out into peals of laughter. She put one hand over her mouth and laughed until she overbalanced, nearly tumbling off the stool; she stumbled and slid forward and he reached up and caught her by the waist as she fell and set her down on her feet, still laughing. "Oh!" she said, her face turned up to his. "Oh, the look on your face - would you really have eaten what was in the bucket?" "I don't know," Draco said. He was having some trouble keeping his mind on matters at hand. He wasn't sure Hermione realized how close to him she was standing. He had a feeling that if Harry came in at that moment, he'd be facing a fencing match that wasn't just for practice. "Probably, if you wanted me to." Now, what had possessed him to say that? Damn, he thought fiercely, damn, damn, damn. Her eyes went suddenly wide and luminous and her mouth curved up into a smile and she opened her mouth to speak - and stopped. Sudden color flooded her face, as if she had been dropped in boiling water. Hastily, she stepped away from him. "It's getting late," she said quickly. She reached for the bucket on the desk with a trembling hand, seized it, and nearly threw herself towards the
door. "We'd better go - Charlie will be wondering where we are," she said breathlessly, and hurried out into the corridor. Draco stood and looked after her, perplexed, until something else caught his attention. Tucked into the frame of the mirror near the door was a photo of Ginny in a white sundress, her hair tied back, smiling and blowing kisses. He looked at it, and then hastily away, back at the doorway through which Hermione had just disappeared. How had life managed to get so complicated in such a short time? He wondered. And whatever was going on, he couldn't help but feel that it showed every sign of not working out well for him.
***
Hey, Ron. You look good. Harry, you look like a wet weekend. What's wrong? Upset about the game yesterday? Speaking of which..." Fred pitched his voice lower. "How's Ginny?" "She's fine. Up and around and sassy and obnoxious," said Ron, sinking into once of the huge stuffed lime-green sherbet sweet-shaped chairs, that decorated George and Fred's front office. "Showing no respect for her elders as usual." Beyond the huge glass window set into the wall, they could see down to the floor of the Wheezes factory. Huge industrial-size steel cauldrons bubbled and smoked with exotic brews, alembics as tall as a full-grown wizard contained dried and flattened potion ingredients, and a scoopedout pool in the floor held a whirlpool of melted chocolate - for Penguin Peppermints, Harry guessed. The ceiling, like the ceiling of the Great Hall, was enchanted to look like sky, but unlike the ceiling in the Great Hall this one reflected a sky unlike the one outside. Right now it looked like desert sky, vast and blue, touched with dark gold clouds. Harry suspected it was probably the sky over Egypt, where Bill was. (It certainly wasn't the sky over Newcastle, where Percy was.) "New shipment from Slug and Jiggers," George announced cheerfully, staggering into the office under the weight of a large carton. He dropped it at Fred's feet, and rubbed his sweaty face with his t-shirt. "Hey, kids," he said, nodding at Ron and Harry, both of whom glowered at being called kids. The twins were, after all, only nineteen. "What brings you here?" "Paperwork," said Ron, tossing his roll of parchments to George, who caught it and perched on the edge of the desk to read the contracts. "Looks fine," he said. "I can sign this...why didn't you just have these owled over?" "I wanted to look at the factory space," said Ron, getting to his feet and coming to stand by Harry at the window. "We thought we would wind up the Crawl here, and I just wanted to make sure the place was big enough...and sturdy enough." Fred and George, having been through their own Pub Crawl, grinned. "Look around all you want," said Fred, "In fact, I was just about to take
this shipment of Benson and Hexes Exploding Cigarettes down to the floor - do you two want to come?" Ron nodded, but Harry, feeling weary, shook his head. "I'll stay here." Fred looked at him. His blue eyes were kind. "You feeling all right, Harry?" It was Ron who answered for Harry. "He's just upset because of our History of Magic assignment. We each have to interview one person who was involved in the downfall of Voldemort, and Harry got Snape." Harry looked at Ron in surprise; while this was true, Ron knew well enough that this wasn't what he was upset about. Or, maybe he didn't. Harry supposed that Ron was simply trying to save him questioning; it was hard to tell since Ron would not look at him. Fred snorted. "Sorry to hear that, Harry," he said. "Well, if you find out if the refusal to wash his hair has something to do with fighting evil or is just laziness, let me know." Fred and Ron left, carrying the carton between them. This left Harry alone with George, who was sitting on the desk with his blue-jeaned legs dangling down. "I thought you didn't mind Snape so much anymore," said George curiously. "After all, he was at your birthday party. And his rendition of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was masterful." Harry shrugged. "I don't mind him so much anymore." "So what is bothering you, then?" "Nothing," said Harry, and looked at his feet. "If mum saw you like this, she'd throw a wobbly," said George. "I've half a mind to tell her, too." "I have parents now," said Harry, stung. "I have Sirius." "Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban, he might not be quite as quick to pick up on you looking thin and haggard as an ordinary bloke might -"
"Sirius takes very good care of me," Harry ground out, deliberately not recalling the fact that the night before, he'd accused Sirius of being a neglectful, selfish git. "All right, all right," said George, taken aback. "Never mind. You look fabulous. Blooming. I hear under-eye circles are in for spring." "Thanks." Harry was again having trouble paying attention to George. He had been pondering all day how he might get to his parents' graves, if Sirius wouldn't take him. Something kept niggling at the back of his mind. "Oh, come on, Harry, what is it? Girl trouble?" George burst out in exasperation, having managed to remain circumspectly silent for less than one minute. "Hermione? She's fallen in love with someone else? You've fallen in love with someone else and you're not sure how to break it to her? You're in love with her sister?" "Hermione's an only child," said Harry dully. "Well, that's good, those situations are always awkward. Oh - hallo, Jana." George hopped nervously off the desk as his petite, brown-haired girlfriend put her head round the door, a clipboard in her hand. "How lucky I am I only have brothers," Jana said dryly. "Large, strapping brothers. George dear - there's an owl for you, and he won't go away unless I pay him. Have you got any Sickles?" George nodded at Harry. "Be right back," he said, scurrying past Jana's clipboard and out into the hall, Jana behind him. Harry looked after them, then leaned against the wall, happy to be left alone again. He did not want to be questioned about Hermione, or "girl trouble." He knew that he hadn't been very nice to Fred, or George either, or Ron for that matter - not lately. And somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the way he was behaving towards Hermione was, if not despicable, certainly not admirable. He wanted to be able to help it, but somehow he could not. More and more he found himself focused on exactly one thing, and more and more the trappings and distractions of ordinary life were falling away, like layers of skin being shed.
If he were to do what he needed to do, he could not be distracted or turned aside by selfish concerns. He could not worry about other people, he could not fear their reactions to what he wanted, what he had become. There could be only hatred and the need for vengeance, only waiting and loathing and pain and despair and all the other awful emotions that existed here in this interim between dark and dark. He turned to look out the factory window and stood there silently, his gaze on the false blue sky of another country. In his head were words spoken months ago, in the depths of a cold stone dungeon, when he had kissed Hermione for the first time.
Do you love him? he had asked her. Meaning Draco, of course. I could love him, she had replied. He did not want to be jealous. It was not in his nature to be jealous. But sometimes in the back of his mind, the memory rose up and chilled him not that she had said that she could love Draco specifically, but that she could love anyone else. He was quite sure that he could not. For him there could not and would not be anyone else. This was why he had not wanted to love her. He was too damaged, his love too fierce - such love, once given, could not be broken and remade. He heard Hermione's voice in his head, once more. For six years I have wondered if you were the one for me, she had said. And now I know you aren't. She had not meant it, he told himself. She had been angry and she had not meant it. But what if someday she came to a place where she did mean it. If she knew what he really was, what was being enacted inside him even now, then she would mean it. And what would happen then? When he was a child, those he had most loved had died and left him. If he was left again, he was afraid it might kill him. Unless he left her first. *** Seamus Finnegan sat at one of the long oak tables at the back of the library, reading a copy of Quidditch Illustrated and generally thinking
that all was right with the world. Ginny had agreed to go out with him, and yesterday's match had been declared a draw and rescheduled, which meant the Gryffindors were not set back in the race for the House Cup. In general, life was looking up. He was just in the middle of turning a page when a shadow fell across the table and he glanced up and saw Draco Malfoy standing over him. He bit back a surprised exclamation and eyed the other boy warily. The last time he'd seen Malfoy had been on the Quidditch pitch, and Draco, white-faced and furious, had looked like nothing on earth; now he was composed and even smiling, his arms crossed over his (expensive-looking) v-neck cashmere sweater. "Finnegan," he said. "I wanted a word with you." Seamus tipped his chair back, trying for an air of casual disinterest. It wasn't easy. There was something frightening about Malfoy's cold composure, and the set line of his mouth. Not that he could do anything here, but what would Seamus do if Malfoy challenged him to a duel later on? He couldn't beat him, not at magic, although he suspected that if it came to fisticuffs he could quite successfully damage the other boy's perfect features, if temporarily. "Yeah?" he said. "What is it?" "I heard you're taking Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball," said Malfoy calmly. Seamus was momentarily speechless. "So what if I am?" he said finally. "How is that your business?" "Because," said Malfoy, and leaned forward until his face was inches from Seamus'. "If you hurt her, I will beat you to death with a shovel. Got that?" Seamus just stared. "And if you tell anyone what I just said, I will still beat you to death with a shovel. I want to be very clear about this, Finnegan. Do you understand me?" Seamus found his voice, although it was fainter than usual. "A shovel?" "That's right. A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend. Keep it in mind," said Malfoy shortly, stepped back, and walked away from Seamus without looking back.
*** Hermione decided to skip supper in favor of studying that evening, and ensconced herself in a corner of the common room, surrounded by pillows and books. Harry gave her an absentminded wave on his way down to the Great Hall, which caused her to fantasize about throwing her copy of Dreams: Fantasy or Memory? An Onieromancer's Guide at him. It was Ron who paused and came over to see what she was doing. "Studying? Now? Aren't you hungry?" She shook her head. "No. Hand me that green book, will you?" Ron handed her the copy of A Runic Alphabet that she had specialordered from Flourish and Blotts. "Don't you think it's about time you talked to Harry?" "I talk to Harry all the time." "You know what I mean. About - you two." Hermione sighed. "I know. I promise I will - I'm sorry, all this must be rotten for you. How was your trip to Hogsmeade?" "Harry didn't tell you?" Hermione let a note of bitterness creep into her voice. "We haven't talked today. I think he thinks I'm angry with him about missing Care of Magical Creatures." Ron looked mildly taken aback. "Are you?" "No!" Hermione threw her hands up, and A Runic Alphabet slid off her lap. "I mean, I missed him, I missed you both, Charlie had a baby dragon and I kept thinking about Norbert and wishing you were there. But that doesn't mean I'm angry." Ron shook his head. "You have got to resolve all this. I can't take much more of Misery Boy. Better to just -"
"I don't think he's miserable about me," Hermione said softly. "It's something else. That's why I'm worried. That's why I haven't said anything." "Well, what, then?" Ron bent down and picked up the Runic Studies book, and handed it back to her, but not after peering at the parchment she had folded into the pages. It was covered with strange symbols and odd scribblings. "Now what are you up to?" he laughed. "Just trying to translate some runes," said Hermione, feeling despairing. "I can't find any key for these, though. They're not Etruscan, they're not Egyptian -" "I think they're Norwegian," said Ron. Hermione sat up straight. "Really?" "Yes," said Ron somberly. "In fact, I'm pretty sure this translates as "Are you happy to see me, or is that a longboat in your pocket?"" Hermione punched him in the arm, making him yelp. "I hate you - give me my homework back -" "Forget it -" Ron held the parchment over his head, and mayhem might well have ensued had Ginny not appeared in the common room, looked at them, and started to laugh. "Would the Head Girl and Head Boy like to stop hitting each other long enough to get dinner?" she said finally, once she had stopped giggling. Hermione took her parchment back, and stuck her tongue out at Ron. "Go on," she said, and he hopped up obediently and went to join his sister. She watched them a little wistfully as they headed down the stairs together, but the thought of another long meal wherein Harry said nothing to her was more than she could deal with. She sank back sadly amongst the cushions and picked up her books. She had just flipped open her Runic Alphabet when a sound made her pause. A muffled noise - the sound of someone crying? She got to her feet, drawing her plaid blanket around herself, and went to investigate. The sound was coming from the boys' dormitory, to her
surprise, and she paused before going in - but she was, after all, Head Girl, and the students' welfare was her concern. She wasn't just being nosy well, all right, she was being a little nosy, but nobody needed to know that. The door swung wide, and she went in, She blinked a moment in the dim light before her eyes adjusted and she saw Neville, sitting on the floor by his bed, an open Chocolate Frog box in his lap. "Neville?" she said, her voice worried. "Are you all right?" Neville brought his hands down from his face and looked up at her. "Oh. Hermione." His voice was quiet. "Why aren't you at dinner?" "I was studying. Neville, what's wrong?" He said nothing. She came across the room and sat down beside him. He was looking down at the box in his lap again, and when she followed his gaze, her heart turned over. "Oh...Neville." Trevor the toad lay curled in a scattering of sawdust at the bottom of the box. He was not trying to escape. He was not even moving. His eyes were open. Hermione knew immediately that he was dead. "Oh, Neville, I'm so sorry. When did he die? Were you going to bury him?" "Bury him?" Neville laughed shortly. "This box just turned up at the foot of my bed when I came back from Care of Magical Creatures. I don't know what happened to him." He looked up at Hermione. "Do you think someone could have killed him?" "Oh, but why would anyone do that? That would just be evil. Maybe somebody found him and was too shy to say anything to you. How long has he been missing?" "Nearly two weeks," said Neville. His voice was quiet. "Trevor used to be my dad's when he was at school. My grandfather raised him from a tadpole. He was supposed to live a hundred years." Hermione reached out and patted Neville's hand. It was thinner than she remembered, but then Neville wasn't the round-faced kid he had been at eleven. He had grown into a tall and lanky boy. But the sadness in his eyes
reminded her of the child he once had been. "Come on, Neville," she said. "Let's go bury him in the snow out by Hagrid's hut. And if Charlie comes back, maybe he'll let you have some Firewhiskey - I think you need it." "You must think I'm stupid, crying over a dead toad," said Neville in a low voice. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" "No," she said. "I don't think you're stupid. And I won't tell anyone." *** It took Draco a long time to fall asleep that night. His brief conversation with Hermione played over and over in his head like a news report on the Wizarding Wireless, and then again he saw Blaise's hurt expression during Charlie's class, and Ginny sitting with Seamus in the Great Hall. He would have liked to have talked to Harry, but Harry seemed distracted, and there was nobody else he really had any interest in talking to. Life was grim. Even recalling the look of fleeting terror that had crossed Finnegan's face in the library didn't help matters much. He had no sooner drifted into an uneasy slumber than a muffled pounding on the door to his bedroom woke him once again. He struggled to sit up, brushing his hair away from his eyes; reaching out, he tapped the candle on his bed stand to light it. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and winced at the coldness of the stone floor. The pounding came again, louder this time. "All right, all right, keep your knickers on," he muttered to himself, and went to open the door. There was no one there. Draco blinked into the emptiness for a moment, startled, before he twigged. "Harry?" There was a slight rustling and Harry's head appeared, crowned with even messier hair than usual, seeming to float in midair above the floor. Draco remembered the first time he had ever seen Harry pull that stunt with his Invisibility Cloak, back at the Shrieking Shack; it had nearly scared the living daylights out of him. Now, he could take it in stride. "Sorry," said Harry contritely. "I didn't want anyone to see me here."
"Yes, not even me, apparently," said Draco, leaning against the doorjamb. "How did you get past the common room door? How'd you know the password?" "It's 'Slytherin Pride', isn't it?" said Harry. "Just the sort of password you would think up." "Yes, very clever." "Look, are you going to let me in or are you just going to swank around in your silk pajamas like a big fat pretentious git? Because in that case I'm leaving." Draco looked injured. "You think I'm fat?" "Let me in, Malfoy." Draco dropped his arm and Harry stalked past him, tossing his Invisibility Cloak onto the chest of drawers at the foot of Draco's bed. Underneath it he was wearing blue cotton pajamas with a hole in the right sleeve, piped with yellow around the collar and cuffs. The sort of pajamas Draco himself might have worn when he was about seven. Harry glanced around the room cursorily. "It's not so small," he said. "Weird ceiling, though." Draco glanced up. The ceiling of his bedroom was oddly angled, slanting so sharply down towards the far side that he had to crouch down to climb into the window seat. Small windows were cut into the wall above his bed, but they had been bricked up on the far side and lent a claustrophobic air to the proceedings. He did, however, have a working fireplace, which had always pleased him. Draco closed the door behind him, and bolted it against intrusions. "Yeah," he said. "I call the architectural style 'early maniac.' It was a working dungeon once, you know." Draco gestured towards the fireplace, and a small fire shimmered to life in the grate. "Anyway, Potter - what are you doing here? Is something wrong?" "I needed to talk to you about our homework," Harry said. Draco stared. "You what?"
"The homework for DaDA," Harry elaborated. "The end-of-year project." "This couldn't have waited until tomorrow?" Harry looked puzzled for a moment, then sheepish. "I guess it is kind of late," he said, looking down at his bare feet, which were coated in hallway dust. "I talked to Sirius last night, and I had an idea..." Draco began to realize there was more here than met the eye. He dragged a chair over to the bed, turned it around backwards, and sat down, resting his arms on the back. "You talked to Sirius? Did you ask about your parents?" Harry nodded. "Yeah. He told me they're buried at a place called Doon's Hill. Ring any bells?" Draco shook his head. "No, not really." Harry reached into the breast pocket of his pajamas and drew out a folded parchment. Draco recognized it as their homework assignment. Opening it with a flourish, Harry read out, "Pick one specific site from this list: the Forbidden Forest, Ravyn Cael, Knockturn Alley, Doon's Hill, Chipping Sodbury, Shepton Mallet.' You see?" Draco glanced down and then back up. Harry was looking at him expectantly, his green eyes sharp and intent, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Draco felt a faint foreboding stir within him. Whatever all this meant to Harry, it was not just something significant but something significant that he was expecting Draco to pick up on immediately. Draco was very tempted to say something snide, but the thought that this was the most animated, interested and alive he had seen Harry look in more than a month stayed his tongue. "All right," he said cautiously. "So it's on our homework..." "I want to go," said Harry. "We can get permission to be Portkeyed to Doon's Hill if we pick that project for the class, and when we're there we can go to the cemetery." "Um," said Draco. "Wouldn't Sirius take you?" "I don't want to go with Sirius, I want to go with you."
Draco felt his eyebrows fly up. "Why?" "Because..." Harry flung his hands in the air. "For one thing, Sirius has the wedding and then the honeymoon so if he took me he couldn't take me for months. He said not till after I graduate, and I want to go as soon as possible. Anyway, he'd spend the whole time watching me to see if I start freaking out and I don't need that...why are you looking at me like that?" "Why do I have the feeling there's something you aren't telling me?" Harry sighed. "Probably because there's something I'm not telling you." "What?" "I can't tell you," Harry said firmly. "You have to trust me." There was a short silence. Harry sat where he was, looking down at his hands. His dark hair spilled down, hiding his features. His shoulders were set, angular under the thin cotton of his pajama top. When he raised his face, his eyes were dark, unreadably green. Draco remembered the boy who had thrust a hand through the bars of the prison that contained him, and had mixed their blood together, changing them both irrevocably in the process. He had never known anyone else like Harry; he never would.
"All right." Draco shrugged. "I trust you." Harry exhaled his held breath. "Okay, then." He got to his feet, shoving the parchment back into his pocket. "Sorry I woke you up."
"It's fine. Sleep is overrated." Draco got to his feet, and stood there awkwardly for a second. He wondered if this was what Harry and Ron were like when those two were alone. He doubted it. He had some vague mental image of them sitting around, discussing Quidditch and girls and hitting each other on the back in a matey fashion. He and Harry never discussed Quidditch and girls, unless they had been drinking abusively. Mostly their conversations revolved around fencing and imminent, lifethreatening danger. Draco hesitated a moment, wondering if he should ask Harry something more casually friendly, like what he planned to do after the N.E.W.T.'s, or what he was going to get Sirius and Narcissa as a wedding present, or... "You all right, Malfoy? Your eyes are crossing." Harry was at the door now, his head tilted to the side as he looked back at Draco in concern. "Falling asleep on your feet?" "Something like that." Draco bent down, picked up Harry's cloak and held it out to him, a silvery unfolded tangle. "Don't forget your cloak," he said. "People see you sneaking out of my bedroom at 2am, they might get the wrong idea." "Thanks," said Harry, and took the cloak. "On the other hand, it could only enhance my reputation as a major stud," added Draco cheerfully. Harry raised an eyebrow. "That was my sarcastic voice," said Draco. "It sounds a lot like your regular voice," said Harry dryly. "Yeah. I've been told that." "See you in class tomorrow," said Harry, turning to go. He paused then, and bent down to pick up something from the ground. When he straightened up, Draco saw that he had a rolled parchment in his hand, stamped with a familiar silver seal. "Looks like someone left a note shoved under your door, Malfoy."
"Right. Thanks." Draco took the note. "Bye, now," he added firmly, and shut the door on Harry, who was still looking at him curiously. He glanced down at the note in his hand, unrolled it reluctantly, and saw that it was as he had expected, a map. In Rhysenn's familiar flowing writing the words meet me here appeared towards the top, after a complicated series of illustrated pathways showing the route he was meant to take outside the castle. He let his shoulders sag, a rare feeling of total exhaustion and dejection nearly overcoming him. It just never ended -- it never, never ended. How many secrets could one person keep and not go completely mad? And now he had another one to keep: Harry's secret about his parents. On the other hand, it did mean that Harry trusted him, trusted him in a way he didn't trust anyone else. He remembered the demons who had told him that for every profit in one thing, there must be an equal payment. Perhaps it then followed that for every payment, there must be compensation. If there was one thing the past eight months had brought him other than pain and confusion, it was friends. He had never had friends before, not friends like Harry and Hermione, Ginny and Sirius. That was worth a lot - it was worth everything. Straightening his shoulders, he went to get his clothes. *** She lay beside him in the pools of scarlet and gold flung onto the floor by the high stained-glass windows. They lay face-to-face, on their sides, his right hand trailing slowly down her cheek to her pajama top, tracing the line of pearl buttons there before beginning to undo them one by one. "Ron," she said softly. He raised his eyes to hers; even in the darkness, they were very blue. "Yes?" "Do you think about me when we're not ... in here?" He was halfway through the row of buttons. "I think about you all the time."
She sighed. "You pretend so well." He was done with the buttons; his hands slid over her bare skin, gentle and careful - she remembered how clumsy he had been, the first time, but that was all different now. "So do you," he said, and leaned to kiss her. His lips brushed hers, gently, then slid to the corners of her mouth, her throat, her cheek. She let her head fall back, and then the door of the room opened and she heard someone gasp out loud in surprise. She sprang away from Ron, her hands flying up to cover herself. Malcolm Baddock, the Slytherin Chaser, stood in the doorway, one hand on the latch, the other dangling at his side, gazing at them in utter and total astonished surprise. Reaching to tug the open top of her pajamas shut, she tried to hide herself behind Ron, who at least was wearing his boxers, but it was no use Malcolm had seen them both clearly. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring in shock, mouth open, his dark eyes almost impossibly wide. There was a long silence, and then he said, with astonished but profound admiration: "Damn, Weasley. When you go for it, you really go for it." That broke the tableau. Ron scrambled for his clothes, and Malcolm, as if suddenly sensing the seriousness of the situation, began to back towards the door. "Malcolm - " said Ron, sharply. "I won't tell anyone," Malcolm interrupted quickly, his eyes on the wand next to Ron's hand. "Really, I'll keep it to myself -" He turned and bolted then, and Ron, leaping to his feet and fumbling with the zipper on his jeans, swore out loud. "Wait here," he said to her, and raced to the door, buttoning up his shirt as he ran, without putting his shoes on or stopping to pick up his wand. She hesitated for a moment, frozen, before her own shock drove her to her feet. She paused to seize up Ron's wand and his shoes before she raced after him, flinging the door closed behind her. She dashed out into the hallway - saw a flicker of movement off to her left, and bolted after it fled around a corner and then another corner, running on instinct - stairs rose up before her; she raced up them, spun to her left, and nearly
crashed into Ron, who was standing stock-still in the middle of a hallway, his hands at his sides. "Ron," she gasped, almost in tears, "Where is he - where's Malcolm -" "Right there," said Ron, in a queer strained sort of voice, and pointed. She looked where he indicated, and then the wand and shoes slid out of her grasp and hit the floor. "What - what happened? What happened to him?" "I don't know," said Ron in the same strained voice, looking down at where Malcolm lay, sprawled across the hallway floor, his arms flung out stiffly. He was on his back, his eyes staring up blankly, his body rigid. "I just came around the corner and - he was here, like this." "Did you - did you do anything to him?" "No!" said Ron sharply, turning to face her. "I didn't even have my wand what could I have done?" "I know ... I'm sorry. What should we do? Should we get a teacher?" "And get caught together?" he demanded, then paused. "But we can't just leave him....you go. Go on back quickly, take care no one sees you." "What will you say when they come?" "I'll say I came across him while I was ..I don't know... I'll say something, okay? I'll say I was on my way to check up on the prefects' bathroom and I found him like this. It doesn't matter. I'll think of something." She looked at him in distracted panic, unable to move, and he touched her face gently, with so much loving concern it almost made her start to cry once more. "Go," he said again, and she went. *** The map led Draco to an outside balcony, up a flight of stairs, and along a wide stone pathway he had never noticed before, running along the castle's edge, high above the ground. As he walked along the battlements,
the clear night air broke over his exposed skin like splashes of cold water. All around beneath him the icy world stretched away towards the Forest, an unbroken and unmoving sea of milky glass. The fragile winter moon showed its lace-like edges against a sky of black velvet, illuminating the hexagonal paving stones beneath his feet. Exhilarated by the night and by the coldness of the air, Draco began to forget that he had not wanted to come out tonight. The long walk along the battlement dead-ended at the circular top of a tower, fringed with a collar of crenellated stone. Rhysenn was there, as he had expected her to be, all black hair and black eyes and black cloak blowing in the wind, against a background of moonlit sky.
"You're late," she said as he approached. Under the cloak she wore another velvet dress; this one gold and indigo and scarlet. Matching gems sparkled on her fingers: champagne and ink and blood. "I almost didn't wait for you."
"Don't you ever worry about freezing to death?" he demanded, by way of an answer. "Why can't you just meet me inside?" Rhysenn just smirked. "The fresh air is good for you." "Look--" She waved a jeweled hand. "I am not welcome inside these walls." "Why not?" "It's a long story. And part of it concerns things I would rather have left alone." Her eyes shut down; he knew he would get no more from her on that subject. And yet it nagged at him. Everything about her nagged at him. What did she get out of acting as his father's personal courier, if that was even what she was really doing? Did she do it for money? For fun? She didn't look more than twenty, but she behaved as if she were much older. "I have a letter for you, Draco." "Now there's a shocker. And I thought you invited me out here to give me my Christmas present." "Christmas isn't for twelve more days," said Rhysenn severely. She was nothing if not literal-minded. Then, to his surprise, she reached into a fold of her cloak and drew out a rolled white scrap of parchment, and handed it to him. He took it with surprise. Never before had Rhysenn handed him a message without insisting he "search" for it first. "Read this tonight." "Say 'please.'" "You know," she said, "you would probably have a much more pleasant personality if you had been born ugly." "But how much worse life would be for everyone else around me." Draco reached out and took the parchment from her hands, which gave up their grip reluctantly. "Nothing nice to look at during those long boring History of Magic classes." Rhysenn smirked again. "You would do well to pay attention during your history classes, Draco."
"Thanks, Mum." The parchment was cold against Draco's bare hands. He wanted to unroll it and read it, but not in front of Rhysenn. Her cool curiosity unnerved him. "Those who do not understand history," she said, turning so that she looked out over the frozen grounds, "are condemned to repeat it." Draco took a deep breath. The icy air seared into his lungs. "What do you know, Rhysenn?" She didn't turn around. "I don't know what you mean?" "You know something you're not telling me." Now she turned, and ran a catlike finger through a loose curl of her hair. "I know a lot of things." "I bet you do. But only some of them are relevant to me. Who sends you to me? My father, or him? Do they tell you what to say, what to do? All this pouting and flirting, it's just to catch me off guard - I'm not stupid, I know that. But why?" "Who are you," she said, and the tone of her voice had changed, "that you think I should answer to you?" "Who do you answer to, then?" he demanded, but she turned away with a dismissive gesture, and then to his own surprise he found he had reached out and caught her by the wrist, and spun her towards him, angrily. "Are you the best they can do?" he snarled. "It seems to me like the forces of darkness aren't even trying." "Let me go," she said coldly. "Answer me first," he replied. "Let me go or I will make you sorry," she said in a sharp hard voice, and her eyes were black splinters in the still white face turned up to his. The fine hairs rose up all along the back of his neck, as if someone had walked over his grave. "And so will my Master, who rules the world."
He let her go. She moved away from him, her black cloak falling open; it was lined with colorful cloth woven in eye-dizzying patterns. "My father -" he began. "Your father," she said, her voice flawed with crystalline disgust. "He is Voldemort's lapdog. "It is not the place of a Malfoy to serve, but to rule--" "I didn't realize you were on our side," said Draco, snidely. "On your side?" Her voice was freezing. "You cannot even begin to comprehend what I am, or who I serve. You cannot help me, any more than an ant or a snail could help me. And you are no more to me than that. You, with your little magics and your life as short as a heartbeat." "And yours isn't.....Oh," said Draco, feeling slightly foolish. "You aren't...what are you? A vampire?" "Nothing so crude," said Rhysenn, looking superior. "So you can take your hand off your neck. I'm not interested in biting you. Well...not biting you there, anyway." Draco dropped his hand, with some reluctance. "So you're immortal, or just very long-lived?" "Living forever is the best revenge," said Rhysenn, examining her long red nails. "I've been offered eternal life before," Draco said flatly. "I pretty much turned it down." "Then you are a fool," she said. "As well as stubborn - and arrogant -" "Anything else?" Draco asked curiously. "Do I also have bad taste in clothes and stupid hair?" She looked away, her black hair blowing across her face. He wondered again how old she was. "I could show you..." she began slowly, and took a step back, and as she moved away her cloak flew to the side and he saw the carvings etched into the battlements behind her. They were a repeating pattern of symbols. A mirror, a cup, a dagger, a sword. They were familiar, as if he had seen them before. And then he realized that he
had. The vision he had had the day before, during the prefects' meeting. He had seen himself, standing against battlements, and behind him a wall of stone etched with carvings, burned silver by moonlight... He spun around, the sensation that he was being watched right now, at this very moment, suddenly overpowering. He cast his gaze over the battlements where they stood and then up and beyond and saw something dark and hunched, huddled against the side of the tower that rose above them. The terror he had felt in the vision rose up again, even stronger, and then something bright and silvery flashed out against the darkness of the huddled figure, and Draco turned and shoved Rhysenn, hard, to the side and out of the way. She shrieked out loud and fell, and then he heard a sharp whistling noise by his ear and knew what it was, a sound familiar to him from hunting although he couldn't imagine what it was doing here, at Hogwarts. It was too late for him to move away; something struck his shoulder once, hard, and then again. A lancing pain like white fire engulfed him; he saw the moon tilt away, the world falling open like an unfurling flower. Somewhere very far away he could still hear Rhysenn screaming. And then the darkness closed in, and there was no pain at all. *** Having not slept well, Ginny was late to breakfast. As a result, she found everyone already in the throes of heated discussion about the fact that the night before, fifth-year Malcolm Baddock had been discovered frozen in a state of magical stasis by none other than Ron himself, on his way to the prefects' bathroom. The rumor was that it had been a prank or a duel gone wrong; the Slytherins looked dour and annoyed, all except Draco, who wasn't at breakfast yet. A few first-years looked nervous, and an even fewer number of students who remembered the basilisk attacks of years ago looked discomforted. "I was in magical stasis," Colin Creevey was announcing cheerfully to anyone who would listen. "It wasn't so bad!" Neville looked apprehensive. "Do you think it was another basilisk?" he demanded. "No," said Ron, who was looking drained and irritable. There were shadows under his eyes and the good-humored air that had hung around him lately was gone. "There was no water around him, or anything
reflective. If it had been a basilisk he would be dead. Like Moaning Myrtle." "I'm pretty sure Myrtle spies on me in the bath," said John Walton, a sixth-year prefect. "Nonsense," said Ron flatly. "Of course she doesn't." Ginny was glad for the change of subject from basilisks and magical stasis. Her first year at Hogwarts was not something she liked to dwell on. She tried to focus her attention instead on what Harry and Hermione, sitting across from her, were talking about, but that turned out not to be a such a good idea either. "Harry," Hermione was saying, her voice low but intent, "I have to talk to you." "Not right now," said Harry, reaching for the pumpkin juice and pouring some into his glass. "Can we talk later?" Hermione flushed. "When, then?" she said. "It's important. There's something I need to talk to you about - to tell you." "Tomorrow," said Harry, filling his glass. He put the jug down with an exasperated thump. "When I don't have a meeting with Snape coming up." "You always have something -" Hermione began. "Not now," said Harry with sharp finality. He still wasn't looking at her. For a moment, Hermione sat very still. Ginny wondered if perhaps she might be going to cry - in her memory, Harry had never spoken to Hermione like that. He had never looked at her like that before, either. When they had been friends, he had looked at her with fond exasperation; when she became his girlfriend, he had looked at her as if she were a minor but unbelievable miracle. Now, he wouldn't look at her at all. Hermione slowly raised her head. Even more slowly, she got to her feet, her glass of pumpkin juice in her hand. And then, without the slightest warning, she flung the glass hard at the table. It shattered with a sound
like a bomb dropping, spraying pumpkin juice and glass in all directions. Harry jerked back, stunned, as the whole table fell silent and stared. "Harry James Potter!" Hermione shouted at the top of her lungs. "You are going to talk to me RIGHT NOW!" Shocked out of his torpor, Harry stared in astonishment. Beside him, Ron sat stunned, dripping pumpkin juice and wisely remaining silent. Hermione herself stood where she was, her hands on her hips, her cheeks flushed scarlet and her eyes suspiciously bright. "Hermione -" Harry turned in his seat, his hand held out to her, his expression surprised and wondering, but without any of the closed-off coldness they had all grown used to. "Hermione, can we just -" The Great Hall doors banged open. Everyone turned to look as a student raced into the Hall - a girl, she looked no more than fourteen and wore the banded gold and black scarf of Hufflepuff - or was that Gryffindor red? Her robes were soaking wet now, as was her hair, and she was in tears. A low susurration of curious surprise ran around the room; Ginny whipped around to stare, a sharp feeling of foreboding gripping her stomach, as the girl raced distractedly past the students towards the High Table. Charlie was already on his feet, running down the steps, and as he neared the girl and caught hold of her, steadying her, Ginny saw that the red she had noted on the girl's scarf was blood. The other teachers were getting to their feet now, and Charlie had hold of the girl's shoulders. She was talking through her tears, gesturing wildly with her hands and pointing. As the whole school fell silent and leaned forward, trying to hear her, the girl's voice rose up sharp and clear, tinged with hysteria. "..In the snow," she was gasping, tripping breathlessly over her words. "By the North Tower - there was blood everywhere. I think -maybe he might be dead. You have to come--Madame Pomfrey too--" Even at this distance, Ginny could see the look of shock on Charlie's face. When he spoke, his voice was strained. "You're quite certain it's Draco Malfoy?"
The girl nodded, her expression quite terrified. "Yes," she said. "There was a lot of blood, but - it was him." She burst into a fresh spate of tears. "I've never seen anyone dead before," she wept, but Ginny had stopped hearing her. The world had gone a sickening sort of gray color, and she grabbed for the table to steady herself. She heard a loud slamming sound off to her left and looked up; it was Harry, who had shoved his chair back with such force that it had tipped over and hit the flagstone floor. Hermione looked at him in horror. He was very white, his hand at the Epicyclical Charm around his throat. "He's isn't dead," Harry said. "He isn't - I'd know." "Harry," Hermione whispered, but Harry had turned, bolted for the Great Hall doors, still wide open, and raced through. Hermione, having gone an ashy gray color, looked wildly around the table at the silent, stunned Gryffindors, hesitated - and fled after Harry. A hum of astonished shock ran around the table. On instinct, Ginny turned towards her brother; Ron was already there, having come around the table to kneel down next to her. He took her hand and held it hard, and she looked down at him. All around her she was aware of movement - Charlie racing by towards the doors, followed by Madam Pomfrey, a magical stretcher already by her side. The Heads of Houses were moving rapidly towards their respective tables of students. Somewhere a girl had burst into hysterical tears: Blaise Zabini, probably. Ginny sat where she was, Ron's hands tight around her wrists. "You can't," he said, so quietly that nobody else could hear. "You can't," and she nodded, and knew it was true, even as the tears struggled to fight their way to the surface. *** References: "What?" said Lavender blankly. Then comprehension dawned. "Oh, right. You had that whole....Harry thing. Sorry." -Friends a turtle with heavy shopping -Blackadder “fate is what you call it when you don't know the name of the person screwing you over." – Malcolm in the Middle
"I think it just goes to show what sort of life we lead that we can even consider using 'apocalypse' in the plural” – Buffy “Beat you to death with a shovel … A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend.” – Buffy “"Are you happy to see me, or is that a longboat in your pocket?"" Blackadder
Draco Veritas Chapter Four: The Girl In the Cage
Yet, love and hate me too, So, these extremes shall neither office do; Love me, that I may die the gentler way; Hate me, because thy love is too great for me. John Donne **** Harry and Hermione were already standing outside the infirmary when Ginny arrived there. She had had to wait for many agonizing minutes inside the Great Hall, until, in the chaos, she could slip away undetected. Instead of trying to head outside, she made a beeline for the hospital wing, Ron in reluctant tow behind her. No matter what shape Draco was in, they would have to bring him there eventually. Even if he was - well, but that didn't bear thinking about. The infirmary door was shut fast, and outside in the hallway stood Harry, with Hermione beside him. They were deep in intent conversation. It wasn't until Ginny got close to them that she realized that the dark splotches on Harry's clothes were not melted snow, but blood. Quite a lot of blood. "What's going on?" Ron asked, looking from one white face to another. "Is Malfoy all right?" Hermione shrugged hopelessly. "We don't really know..." "They're not telling us a bloody thing," Harry said, and -- in what Ginny couldn't help but think of as a classic example of pointless teenage-boy aggression - he kicked the wall, and then sat down on the floor, pulling his knees up and resting his head on his arms. He didn't look as if he wanted anyone to go near him and Ginny would actually have been afraid to do so. Instead, she looked at Hermione. "Did you get to see him?" she asked quietly. "How bad do you think it is?"
Hermione shook her head. "Very bad," she said. Her voice was pitched low, as if she didn't want Harry to overhear her. She put her hand on Ginny's elbow and steered her towards Ron. "We saw him," she said, still in the same quiet voice. Ginny could hear the strain underlying her words. "He was lying in the snow and there was blood all around him. A lot of blood. I think it was coming from his shoulder - his shirt was torn there, and that seemed to be where most of the blood was. Harry went to try to stop the bleeding and..." Hermione bit her lip. "Then Lupin and Charlie and the rest of the teachers came, and they pulled Harry back. We couldn't see what was going on. Harry was fighting to get away but Lupin grabbed him and held onto him--Lupin's very strong. And Charlie picked Draco up and put him on the stretcher, and Madam Pomfrey took him through an opening into the castle, and everyone followed her. We followed too, but they shut us out at the door. They said that we would just be in the way." Ron reached out and touched her shoulder gently. "What are they doing in there?" Hermione shook her head. "I don't know." Ron looked as if he were going to say something else, but paused as the infirmary door opened and Charlie stepped out, closing the door behind himself. He looked weary. The front of his shirt and his sleeves were soaked in blood where he must have carried Draco. His robe was off. He looked at the three of them standing clustered together, and then down at Harry on the floor, and said: "Draco's going to be all right." Ginny exhaled, feeling as if she were letting out a breath she had been holding for hours. "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure. He'll be fine. He lost a lot of blood; I know it looked nasty, but that was all it was. The wound was in his shoulder, so nothing vital was damaged." Hermione stepped forward. "Can we see him?"
Charlie shook his head. "No, not yet. He's out cold anyway. He nearly froze to death, along with the blood loss. It looks as if he may have been out there for several hours." He tried to smile at them; it turned into a yawn. "Sorry. Look, you all should head off to class. There's nothing you can do here right now." "Just one thing," said a soft voice. Ginny turned. It was Harry. He had gotten to his feet without any of them noticing, and stood there quietly. His eyes were dark in the torchlight. "What happened to him, exactly?" Charlie shook his head. "We've no idea, Harry." "Well, what does it look like?" Harry demanded. "An accident?" "No," said Charlie slowly. "Not an accident." Harry's jaw set. "Then what are you not telling us? Was it a magical attack? A spell? Some kind of ... creature?" "Harry," replied Charlie flatly. "Go to class." "No," Harry said. "Harry -" Charlie began in a placating tone. "Charlie," Harry snapped right back. "I want to know who or what was responsible for this, and I want to know now." "What's going on here?" It was Professor Lupin, who had opened the infirmary door behind Charlie. He looked from Charlie's exasperated face to Harry's pale, set one. "Did you tell them Draco's fine?" "No," said Charlie irritably. "I felt like keeping it to myself so I could make it a really big surprise." Lupin shut the door behind him and turned to face Harry. "So what's the problem?" "I want to know what happened, Harry said. "I want to know who's responsible for .. for this," and he made a sweeping gesture towards the
infirmary door. "I'm family. I have a right to know." "Yes, you do," said Lupin. "And as soon as we know, we will tell you." "Let me see him. He'll tell me what happened." "He's passed out, Harry. He can't tell you anything." Harry glanced at Hermione. She was looking at him with large, worried eyes. Beside her, Ron looked taken aback at the force of Harry's anger. "Harry," Hermione said gently. "We'll go to class and come back after maybe then they'll know a bit more." "No," said Lupin. "When we know anything, we'll find you, Harry. Hanging about in the corridor here won't do any good. Go to class, there's no need to come back." Ron reached for Harry's arm, but Harry shook him off. He was staring at Lupin. "You're keeping something from me," he said intently. "All of you are - and what's the difference? Whatever it is, I'll be the one who has to deal with it in the end, all alone. I always am." "We're not keeping anything from you," Lupin said sharply. "You know what we know." Harry started to speak, but Lupin cut him off. "Draco is going to be fine, but he's still very weak. And in pain. And we need to be taking care of him, but instead you are wasting our time out here. Think about it." Hermione took hold of Harry's arm. "We're going," she said, and gestured with her chin for Ron and Ginny to follow. Harry went with Hermione unwillingly, looking back over his shoulder at Lupin and Charlie until they turned the corner of the hallway and were once again all four alone, at which point Hermione turned to Harry, her hand still on his arm. "There's no need to talk to Charlie like that -" she began. Harry jerked his arm away from Hermione as soon as they had stopped walking, and glared at her. "And you don't need to lead me around as if I'm some sort of mentally deficient child," he snapped. Hermione dropped her hand, looking fed up. "Then quit acting like one,"
she snapped right back. Harry looked grimly satisfied, as if his goal of provoking a response out of Hermione had now been reached. "I will if you quit acting like a bossy know-it-all," he replied. She looked shocked, then put her hands on her hips. "Harry Potter," she said in a voice that seethed with rage, "you self-centered, inconsiderate, obstinate -" Ginny felt a hand land on her shoulder. It was Ron. "We'll just be going now," he said, very loudly, although neither of his two friends turned to look at him. "We have to...there's thing that...we have to do...very soon. Like, now." "Right," Ginny agreed weakly. "That thing we have to do," and she fled after Ron. Not, however, before she caught another glimpse of Harry and Hermione glaring fiercely at each other. Harry's hands were balled into fists in his pockets, and Hermione was pale and tight-lipped. She was glad not to have to stay to watch this fight; while Ron and Hermione often bickered and sniped in a wearying manner, Harry and Hermione fought extremely rarely - but when they did, it was with the force of several exploding volcanoes. She caught up to her brother as they turned the next corner and emerged into the corridor that led to her History of Magic class. Ron was shaking his head. "Unbelievable," he said. "What's unbelievable?" Ron gave a short laugh. "Those two," he said. "And their relationship. Otherwise known as the Circus of Pain." "Oh, come on. It's not that bad." "Lately being around them is like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. The only bright side is that it feels good when you stop." "Ron!" Ginny glowered at her brother. "They're just having a rough patch."
Ron shrugged. "Maybe." Ginny gave her brother a very hard look. He seemed distracted, and his color was high, as if he were annoyed. "Well, maybe you should get a girlfriend yourself before you go making pronouncements," she said severely. Ron shrugged again. "What makes you think I don't have one?" Ginny stopped dead. "Ron! You don't, do you? Do you?" Ron paused, and looked at her as if in surprise. Then he laughed awkwardly. "No. Of course not." She continued to look at him until he began to flush slowly. "Not that anyone would take any interest if I did," he said shortly. "That's not true! Ron, what on earth is going on with you?" Ron opened his mouth to reply, then shut it with a snap. He was looking off past her shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze and saw that someone was standing in the hall just ahead of them, near the doorway to History of Magic. It was a moment before she realized that it was Seamus. He must have been waiting out in front of Professor Binns' classroom - waiting for her. "Hey, Ginny," he said, straightening up as her gaze fell on him. "Seamus...shouldn't you be in class?" Ron asked, looking surprised. Seamus nodded, but when he spoke again it was to Ginny. "Please," he said. "Can I talk to you for a second?" He looked from her to Ron. "Alone," he added. Ron shrugged. "Go ahead. I have to get to Potions anyway," and he took off down the hall. With his long-legged stride he was soon out of view, and Ginny turned reluctantly back towards Seamus.
"All right," she said. "What's so important you cut class to ask me about it?" He was leaning back against the wall now, looking at her steadily. His blue eyes were almost indigo in the low light. He said, "It's about Malfoy." *** Hermione heard her own voice rising as if it had left her control. "Harry Potter," she said in a voice that seethed with rage, "you self-centered, inconsiderate, obstinate, selfish - troll!" Harry looked bored. "Are you done yet?" "No," she snapped, anger making her irrational. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware that Ron and Ginny had departed, and was glad. Now she could get as angry as she wanted to. "Not nearly." Harry looked at her without moving. His green eyes had gone nearly black, but otherwise his face was expressionless. "Fine," he said. "Owl me when you do finish this pointless diatribe, then." And he turned around, and walked away. Before she even realized what she was doing, Hermione had fumbled her wand out of her sleeve. "Petrificus partialitus!" she cried, and Harry froze where he was, about three feet away from her, his feet seemingly nailed to the stone floor. He twisted around and glared. "Oh, very mature, Hermione." Hermione shoved her wand back into her sleeve and regarded him grimly. "I'm immature? That's amusing, coming from you." "Don't talk about things you don't understand," said Harry in a withering tone. "Oh, I understand," she said. "I understand more than you might think." Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "Enlighten me, then." His tone was heavy with sarcasm.
Hermione pointed her finger at him and spoke in a voice that trembled with tension. "I may not know what's bothering you," she said. "But I know that something is. And whatever it is, it's poisoning you from the inside out. You're turning into someone I don't know, Harry. Maybe even into someone I don't like." She raised her eyes to his face as she spoke, and was startled. He looked stricken. She had not expected that. She stood for a moment, taken aback. She had never really realized how important her good opinion was to Harry, how much his self-image was shaped by what he saw reflected in her eyes. He ducked his head immediately, his jaw set, hiding the hurt in his eyes - but she had seen it. When she spoke again, it was with less rancor. "I've always admired you, Harry. As much as I love you, I admire you, too. Not just because you're brave, but because you're kind, and because you hold yourself to such a high standard. Higher than anyone else would ever think of holding you to. And you've never had any selfpity, even when you were entitled to it. So when I see you using who you are to try make someone else feel guilty, or even worse, sorry for you, like you just did with Lupin -- that's not you, Harry. That's not who you are." Harry did not move. He was looking down at the floor, his shoulders tense. The anger that Hermione had felt was dissipating fast. Exasperated as she was, it went against every fiber of everything she had been for the past six years to hurt Harry deliberately. She had spent far too much time putting herself between him and any harm to do that. She began to reach for her wand to De-Hex him, but before she could, he said, "I shouldn't have said that to Lupin. But you don't understand." "So explain it to me." Harry closed his eyes. "I've always known that one day Voldemort would strike at those closest to me. I've always tried to prepare myself. But you have to make a choice, if you're me. Either you choose never to love anyone and close yourself off to that particular threat...or you swear to protect the people that you do love, no matter what happens. I chose the second option...mostly because of you." He opened his eyes and looked at her again, his gaze green and steady. "You gave me a choice, to love you or lose you...and I couldn't stand to lose you."
"And maybe you resent me for that?" said Hermione softly. "I think I do," said Harry slowly. His hands were knotted together, as if he were nervous. She wanted to go to him, but held herself back. This was the most he'd said to her, the most open he had been, in months. "Maybe I blame you for teaching me how to be vulnerable. You did, you know. Years ago. There's all sorts of ways Voldemort could get at me, besides you...Ron. Sirius. Draco. But if it hadn't been for you..." "What makes you think what happened to Draco has anything to do with you in the first place?" Harry blinked. "Well, what else would it be?" "I absolutely guarantee you that there are people out there who want to kill Draco for reasons that have nothing to do with you," said Hermione in a heartfelt tone. "Trust me." Harry seemed unwilling to accept this. "But..." "Self-centered, aren't you?" Hermione asked gently. "Not everything is about you, Harry." Harry didn't smile. He was gazing down. "Look," he said, and held out his right arm, the sleeve pulled up. "Look at all that blood. It's on my hands, that blood." Hermione looked more closely at Harry's arm, then wrinkled her nose. "That's not blood," she said, with authority. "That's pumpkin juice." "It is not, it's blood." "That is pumpkin juice. From where I threw it at you this morning. Honestly, Harry. It's orange." Harry looked offended. "It is too blood." Hermione grabbed Harry's hand, lifted it up to inspect the stain, and then to his apparent immense surprise, stuck out her tongue and gingerly licked the skin. "Pumpkin juice," she said.
Harry looked at her, his mouth twitching. "I can't believe you did that." "Kind of makes all that whining about blood on your hands seem a little affected, doesn't it?" "Mmm,'" said Harry. He was looking thoughtful. "You know, come to think of it, I think you spilled some pumpkin juice here as well," he added, and pointed at his neck. "Really?" Hermione smiled. "Well, in that case," and she stepped closer to him, and put her lips against his neck, and very gently kissed him there. He tasted of soap and salt. "Definitely pumpkin juice," she said. "And here," he said, and indicated his face. She touched her mouth to his cheek - the skin there was as soft as it had been the first time she had kissed him, when he had been fourteen. "And here," he said, and touched his lips, and she stood on tiptoe and put her arms around him and kissed his mouth. He folded his arms around her and held her tightly while they kissed, so tightly she could barely breathe, his hands knotted into fists against her back. "Oh, Harry," she said, when they had broken apart. "I'm so sorry about everything." "Don't," he said, and leaned back a little so that he could look at her. "Don't apologize, you haven't done anything you'd need to apologize for." Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were on hers, full of concern, but more than that they were animated and alive and he was present. Present as he had not been in a long while. He was really there. Lately touching him had been like touching a hollow shell, something reflexively animate but certainly not familiar, but now she was holding her Harry again, feeling just as he always had, solid and limber and a little gawky. He was cold, his cloak still wet with melted snow, his skin chill against hers, but he was hers, her Harry, whom she adored. He let her go. She kept hold of his wrist as she stepped back. She could feel the blood pounding in it under the skin. She smiled up at him, and he smiled back. "We should go to class," she said, her voice very soft.
"Oh, right. You run along," he said. She blinked. "You're not coming?" "Well, I would," he replied patiently, "but someone's stuck my feet to the floor." "Oh!" Hermione felt herself flush. "Oh - oh - I forgot. Oh, dear," but he was laughing, and as she took her wand and removed the hex on him, she found that she was laughing too. *** They went a little ways down the hall, Seamus walking in front of her. Ginny looked fixedly at the back of his head, feeling unaccountably guilty. And for what? She thought. I haven't done anything! By the time Seamus slowed down and turned to face her, she was beginning to feel rebellious. "I wanted to talk to you about Malfoy," he said, brushing his thick wheatcolored hair out of his eyes with his left hand. She had never previously noticed that Seamus was left-handed. Then again, there were a lot of things about Seamus she had never previously noticed. "What about Malfoy?" Ginny asked, her voice flat and uninviting. "Do you know if he owns a shovel?" She blinked, thrown. "What?" "Or a spade? A trowel, even." "Why do I have the feeling that this has nothing to do with, say, Herbology?" Seamus smiled at her, but his eyes were serious. "I wasn't going to say anything, mainly because Malfoy pretty much threatened to rip my liver out, but he doesn't seem to be in any kind of liver-ripping shape right now, so..."
"So what?" "What's between you two?" "There's nothing between us," Ginny said. This was somewhat true. Onesided feelings didn't count as "between". "Well, what's going on then?" That was a trickier question. Ginny decided to dodge it by being flippant. "Why? Suddenly decided you fancy him yourself?" Seamus raised an eyebrow. "I don't think Malfoy likes me that way, or at least if he does he's playing it very close to the chest." Ginny giggled despite herself. "Sorry. I was just winding you up. It's only that, well, you don't know him, Seamus." "I do actually," Seamus said. "We used to play together on opposite Junior Quidditch teams back in prep school. He was a little cheat, one of those kids that will do anything to win. Whatever it took. Every time he was Beater, someone wound up with a bloody nose or a cracked elbow." "Well," said Ginny weakly, "things are different now." "Look, I know his mum is marrying Sirius, and so maybe Harry feels like they have to get along now, but I'm telling you - he isn't trustworthy and he isn't nice. He's one of those people who will smile and stab you in the back. Ginny..." He reached for her hand then, but she took a step back. "I still don't understand why you're telling me this. Did Draco...did Malfoy tell you there was something going on with us?" "No. He just threatened to beat me to death with a shovel if I ever hurt you." Ginny gasped, then recollected herself. "Oh. That's...very weird." Seamus shook his head. "You must think I'm stupid."
"No! No. Look, Seamus..." Ginny knotted her hands together. "If you think I'm not being fair to you...I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have agreed to go to the Yule Ball with you." Seamus looked at her for a moment in surprise and then smiled. His eyes were not precisely blue: they had a green cast, like blue water in a green glass. "Relax," he said. "All I did was ask you to the Yule Ball; we're not getting married. I'm not angry with you. I just wanted to..." "Warn me?" Seamus shrugged. "All right, maybe a little bit. Draco Malfoy is not a nice person. He was a pretty revolting kid and I haven't seen any evidence that he's changed." "That's not fair. He has changed, a lot, this past year. He's different." "Different than he used to be? That's faint praise. Look..." he added quickly, seeing perhaps some resistance in her expression. "It's all right. I just want to take you to the Yule Ball. I don't need to hear any more about you and Malfoy, if there ever was a you and Malfoy." "Well, there certainly isn't now," said Ginny firmly. "Good," said Seamus, and slung his rucksack over his shoulder. "I'm off to History of Magic - you want to walk with me?" "Sure." He reached to take her hand as they walked down the corridor, and this time she let him. *** "You're sure he'll be all right?" "I'm sure." Lupin tried to make his voice as soothing as possible - Sirius was looking extremely anxious. Lupin was sure that some of the heat radiating out from the fire through which he they were conversing was
Sirius' anxiety, and not the flames. "He's already fine. Perfectly fine. Just worn out and his shoulder has to heal." "And you're sure we shouldn't come to school?" There were dark lines of strain around Sirius' eyes. He looked tired, and uncomfortable - he was wearing Muggle clothes, at least from the shoulders up (which was all that was visible in the office fireplace): a white shirt and an unknotted dark tie. Lupin had asked him what he'd been doing but had been brushed off with the response, "Auror business. Dull stuff." "I'm sure, Sirius. There's no need. Draco is fine and if you come here, it'll just panic him and all his friends, make them think something serious is going on -" "Something serious? He could have died!" "Right, I know. But so could we, dozens of times. How many times did you land in the hospital wing?" "Because we were being stupid. If it was Harry - but Draco, he doesn't do reckless things. He's too careful for that. Whatever happened, he wasn't expecting it." Lupin sighed, and leaned back against the legs of the chair he'd pulled up to the fireplace. "It was a puncture wound, a regular puncture wound possibly a knife wound, or an arrow. Whatever it was had been pulled out. There are plenty of spells that could accomplish that effect. It could have been a duel gone wrong...or even a spell Draco was trying to cast himself could have backfired. We just don't know." "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" "If it's any consolation, Draco himself doesn't seem very worried." "No. It's no consolation." Sirius raked a hand through his black hair -no gray yet, although Lupin had a feeling that if Harry and Draco kept up their near-brushes with death, that would change. "You're sure we shouldn't come?" "Dumbledore specifically said no." Lupin hesitated. "How's Narcissa?"
Sirius' eyes darkened. "Not very well. She's lying down - she had to take half a philter of Tranquility Solution." Lupin sighed. "I'm sorry. It'd be harder for her, wouldn't it? I mean, you must remember that time you dueled with Snape?" Sirius chuckled. "He threw that curse at you that practically took your arm off." Sirius looked rebellious. "I was about to win that duel before you interfered." "Sirius! Your hand fell off!" "Madam Pomfrey put it back on," Sirius pointed out cheerfully. "James was always a better second than you. He never got in the way." His eyebrows knitted. "Which makes me think...maybe you should ask Snape if it looks like some kind of Hex wound?" "Already have done," said Lupin. "He's looking into it." Sirius expelled a breath. "And Draco doesn't seem ... panicked at all?" "No." Lupin shook his head. "Harry seems to be taking care of that angle for him." Instead of smiling, Sirius' mouth tightened. "Harry. Is he not taking all this well?" Lupin shook his head. "No. He threw a tantrum. Accused me of hiding things from him, not telling him what was happening - basically, of lying." Sirius swore quietly. "You aren't surprised?" "No," said Sirius ruefully. "I tried to have a talk with him the other day, because I was worried. He seems so thin and pale these days. I
thought...maybe problems with Hermione? Maybe he was anxious about the wedding, thought I wouldn't be around as much for him afterward? But he just shut me out. Accused me of being a liar as well, by the way." "Sirius...has something happened to him lately to damage his trust? Because that's how it seems to me. As if he wants to trust, is afraid to, and is resentful as a result. On top of that, he seems to be feeling -" and Lupin was about to add "abandoned", when there was a knock at his office door. He got to his feet and went to open it, keeping his body between himself and the fireplace, blocking Sirius from whoever might be at the door. To his surprise, it was Harry. "Hello, Professor Lupin," he said. "Can I talk to you for a second?" Lupin looked at the boy on the threshold. Sirius had been right. Harry did look thinner, and paler, and more tired than he had before. The shadows under his eyes seemed bruised. It was odd, but as Harry grew older, and especially when he seemed tired or troubled, his resemblance to his father faded slowly and in his face Lupin could once again see Lily. She also had not been beautiful in a conventional sense of the term, but there had been a bravery and grace to her spirit that made her always worth looking at. Harry had that as well, along with the emerald-green eyes that had once prompted a particularly nasty Daily Prophet reporter to remark that "those eyes, hidden behind the famous old-fashioned spectacles, are the one beauty of an otherwise unremarkable face." "Professor," said Harry politely. "Can I come in?" "You should know I'm not alone," Lupin replied, but Harry had already looked past him and seen Sirius in the fireplace. His hands tightened at his sides, but he evinced no other expression of nervousness. "Sirius," Harry said quietly. "Are you all right?" Sirius nodded. "Fine, Harry." His eyes went to Lupin. "Could you give us a moment?" Without even thinking about it, Lupin nodded and went out of the room, closing the door after him. Only then did he realize that he had just shut
himself out of his office while shutting a student in. This was not generally considered good practice. Still, Sirius was there to keep an eye on Harry. He leaned back against the wall and sighed. The look on Sirius' face when Harry had appeared at the door...Lupin had recognized that potent cocktail of hope, love, pride, concern and fear. Certainly it was the way his own father had looked at him when the letter of acceptance had come from Hogwarts. He remembered hearing his parents' voices through the bedroom wall that night...He can't go, he's so small for his age, and what will the other students do, how will they treat him? What if he gets hurt or hurts somebody else? But how can we keep him back - can't he have a normal life? If there was one thing Lupin had learned since then it was that there was no such thing as a normal life, not for some people. Not for himself. And not for Harry. He had been branded by the bite of a wolf; Harry was branded by something much graver and much darker. It showed itself now in his eyes and the knowledge in them, as much as in the scar on his forehead. The office door opened, and Harry looked around it. "Come back in, Professor," he said. He wasn't smiling exactly, but he seemed relieved, as if a burden on him had been lightened. Lupin presumed that he and Sirius must have made up their fight. "Sorry I kicked you out of your office." Lupin followed Harry back into the office and bid goodbye to Sirius, who was also looking a deal more cheerful. "Right then, Sirius...owl me tomorrow." "Will do," said Sirius, and disappeared in a shower of blue-green sparks. Lupin turned to look at Harry. "What was it you wanted to see me about, then?" "Oh." Harry considered a moment. "It was about the DADA homework, actually." Lupin, despite himself, was surprised. Usually when Harry wound up in his or any other teacher's office, it had little to do with homework and
more to do with life-threatening emergencies. "What about it, Harry?" "Well, I know we were supposed to have chosen at least our first assignment today.." "Obviously, I understand if you and Draco need some time to get that to me. A week's extension would --" "No, that's just it, we chose already." Harry took out a parchment and handed it to Lupin, who received it with surprise. "We want to do the Research project on Dark locations. We'd like to go to Shepton Mallet." Lupin looked at Harry with some bemusement. Harry returned his gaze, his green eyes very clear behind his glasses. Again, Lupin was reminded of Lily. Lily when she was hiding something, or up to mischief. Perhaps he was being overly suspicious, however. Surely Harry and Draco wouldn't be likely to be up to anything given the condition Draco was in. "All right, then, Harry." "I just wanted to let you know so you could get started getting a Portkey for us," Harry said, with boyish sincerity. "I know they take a while to make." "All right." Lupin looked at Harry, bemused. What was going on with the boy? Unfortunately, nothing he could put his finger on exactly. "I'll get it ready for you, Harry. In the meantime, while Draco's in the infirmary, I suggest you tell him not to worry about schoolwork. He needs to rest." Harry nodded. "Sure. I'll tell him we can work on it just before Christmas, if you can have the Portkey ready by then. We'd work on it during the break, but you know, no magic during the holidays, and the wedding..." Lupin nodded. "Of course. Are you looking forward to the wedding?" Harry looked briefly surprised, then shrugged. "I haven't thought about it, really. I've been so busy with classes and getting ready for NEWTS and...I haven't bought anything for Sirius and Narcissa yet." "Well, the shops in Hogsmeade should be staying open tomorrow night, shouldn't they?"
Harry blinked at him. "Tomorrow?" "Pub Crawl, Harry." "Oh! Right." Harry nodded. "Sure. I'll get something then." He looked down at the gold pocket watch that glimmered on his wrist. As always, when Lupin saw that watch, his throat tightened. Standing there in the dim half-light, with his dark untidy head bent over the familiar watch, Harry could have been James. James, too, had fidgeted with his hands when he was nervous. James, too, had been proud of the watch he'd been given by the girl he loved. James had looked forward to their first Pub Crawl... "I've got to go, Professor," Harry said. "I've got class." "Sure." Lupin flicked his wand towards the door, and it swung open. Harry went out, and paused for a moment on the threshold. "Will you be at the Pub Crawl, Professor?" "I might stop by. Look, Harry, I..." Harry looked at him with inquiring eyes. "Yes?" "I didn't want you to think I was angry with you. I was sharp with you earlier today, and I'm sorry. You were concerned about your friend and it does you credit. You've always been just like your father that way." Harry's eyes lit up and he flushed. "Thanks, Professor." "It's just the truth." Lupin shrugged. "I've been thinking about your father lately. Wishing he could be at the wedding." "It's all right," Harry said. "You'll be there with me." He shifted his rucksack higher on his shoulder and backed away from the door. "Thanks for letting me use your office to talk to Sirius, Professor." Lupin nodded. His throat was still tight and he did not want to speak. He watched as Harry walked away, turned the corner, and was gone. Then he went back into his office and shut the door and sat down at his desk, looking into the fire. For the first time in a long time, he felt suddenly old.
*** Draco woke to a splintering pain in his head and the feeling that someone was sitting on his chest. He dragged his heavy eyelids up, and saw a stonearched ceiling above him, white rising sheets on either side of his bed. The infirmary. He sat up slowly, and looked down at himself. Someone had dressed him in blue and white pinstripe pajamas, and there were blankets heaped on his bed. Huh. He wondered how he'd gotten here. He wondered who had brought him here, and who had dressed him. Obviously not somebody who understood that Malfoys did not wear flannel. He closed his eyes, and cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered. He recalled Rhysenn screaming, himself pushing her away, the world turning upside down, silver inverting into black... What had happened? What had injured him? He unbuttoned his pajama top and shrugged it off, but his shoulder was tightly bandaged and offered no evidence. It was still slightly sore, and he winced when he touched the bandages, even lightly. Slowly, he leaned back against the pillows, his mind lost in recollection. He remembered a strange sound, and the sharp pain in his shoulder. A sound like...a bow and arrow? But who would go around shooting students with a bow and arrow? And why, when an Unforgivable Curse was so much quicker? He knew why his father used a bow and arrow: for the sport of it. But the memory made him shiver. He covered his face with his hands, and rested there for a moment in the quiet darkness. His mind swam with questions, not the least of which was how long he had been out cold in the infirmary. Who had discovered him, and what had become of Rhysenn? He let his hands drop, and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts range outward, slowly, trying something he had done before only rarely -- searching the castle with his mind, seeking another and a familiar presence, one bound to him even in sleep by an unbreakable cord of telepathy and magic. He found him, like a pinpoint of light in the darkness. Harry. He could not, of course, ever tell what Harry was thinking precisely, but the shape
of his thoughts was as familiar as the shape of his face. Harry, he whispered into the darkness. Harry, are you awake? There was a moment of startled silence, and then Harry replied. I am. Are you all right? Where are you? Infirmary still?
Yes. All right. Stay where you are, I'll be right there. Trust me when I say I'm not going anywhere. There was no response. Harry was probably distracted. Draco busied himself with shrugging his pajama top back on and buttoning it up, which hurt rather more than he would have liked it to. He could not still a small, cold fear...he remembered stories Lucius had told him of magical poisons...but no, he would surely be dead already if he had been poisoned. There was a faint rattle, and the curtain around his bed was pulled back. He sat up straight as Harry appeared, the Invisibility Cloak falling at his feet as he stepped forward. He had obviously dressed quickly: his green sweater was on inside-out and his hair was even more of a disaster than usual. "Malfoy..." Harry said, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "You look really pale." Draco raised an eyebrow. "Thank you for that bulletin from the Department of the Obvious, Potter. Massive blood loss does often result in pallor, you know. Now are you going to sit down, or are you just going to stand there and goggle at me like a landed trout?" Harry flung himself into the chair next to the bed, still staring at Draco. "But you're okay? You're really...okay?" Draco tried to push the thought of deadly poisons out of his mind. "I'm all right...did you think I wouldn't be?" Harry drew out the chain that hung around his throat, and looked down at it. In the half-light, the gold Epicyclical Charm glimmered dully. "I knew you weren't dead already," he said quietly. "But I didn't know you
wouldn't die." He let the chain drop back into his shirt. "Draco, what happened? What were you doing wandering around in the snow at 6 am anyway?"
Draco noted the use of his given name and was, despite himself, pleased. "I'll tell you in a second. Reach onto that nightstand and get my clothes, will you?" Harry gave him a narrow look. "Why?" "Because I want something that's in the pocket, Potter. Actually I just want the shirt...thanks," he said, and caught the shirt that Harry tossed to him, which had been neatly folded. Draco unfolded it, and blinked. It was ruined, unsurprisingly, the right shoulder a stiffened mass of blood and torn fabric. The shirt had been slit down the front as well, where they must have cut it off his body. Harry looked vaguely sickened. "That's a lot of blood." "Yep," said Draco, still staring down at the shirt. "It was really expensive,
too. Donna Charon autumn collection..." "Malfoy." Harry looked impatient. "What happened?" "I went outside to meet someone," Draco said slowly. "And I wasn't outside in the snow...I was up on a tower." "The Astronomy Tower?" Harry looked interested now. "You told me people only ever go up there to have sex." His eyes widened. "Were you having sex?" "I have a bedroom, Potter. Why would I go up onto the Astronomy Tower to have sex?" "Well, who were you meeting, then?" "Rhysenn, my cousin." Harry gave Draco a blank, uncomprehending stare. "The black-haired girl who came down the stairs with Charlie at your birthday party." "So you were having sex!" Harry glanced at Draco's ruined shirt. "She must be fairly wild." "Potter, if you do not shut up about sex, I will twist your head off and use it as a Quaffle." "Okay, okay." Harry subsided, his eyes shining with silent mirth. Draco was fairly sure that Harry had been being purposely obnoxious this whole time. "So tell me what you were doing." Draco sighed, and explained - about Rhysenn, about the letters from his father, the maps that led to secret meeting places, the cryptic messages, and finally, the attack on them both. "I've no idea who she really is," he finished. "Or what she wants, or whether the person who shot at us was trying to kill me or to kill her. And I don't know how I wound up at the foot of the tower, either. I must have fallen. I'm just surprised the fall didn't kill me."
Harry was staring at him with saucer eyes. "Your father is alive?" Draco nodded. "Your father is alive and you didn't tell me?" Draco looked at his hands. "Dumbledore made me swear not to tell you. I'm .. sorry. I wanted to." He held himself very still. Harry was a barely visible shadow beyond the fringe of silvery light that was his own falling hair. "Who else could I tell besides you?" "But you didn't tell me." "I swore I wouldn't." Draco paused. "It's not as if there aren't things you haven't been telling me." Draco heard Harry sigh. "That's true." He hesitated. "But you're telling me now? You're breaking your promise?" "I could have died," Draco said. "And if I did die, you would deserve to know why and how." He looked up, and saw Harry staring at him with a tense expression. "I owe Dumbledore," added Draco. "But I owe you more." Harry hesitated, and then his face relaxed into a smile. "Thanks," he said, and Draco felt gratified despite himself. It was the annoying thing about Harry - he had that quality given to only a very few, that made even his smallest gesture seem weighted with significance. Whatever it was, it was what made him a natural leader -- it was what made people want to protect him, that made them line up to stand between him and whatever encroaching darkness he must one day defeat. But then, that was the nature of being a hero. That was of course, when he wasn't being a prat. "Malfoy," Harry said. "What do the letters say?"
"The letters Rhysenn brings? Not much useful. Here, this last one's in the pocket of my shirt - that's why I wanted it." Draco pulled the parchment, remarkably unharmed, out of the shirt pocket where he had tucked it, and unrolled it. "Draco," he read out. "Lo these many years we have waited, you and I, for your true birthday to dawn. Remember this: some must be sacrificed that others might be saved. True obedience requires no illusions. Soon you will know everything." Draco shrugged. "That's it." Harry sat for a moment, gnawing his lower lip. Then he held his hand out. "Let me see the letter." "I told you what it said." "I want to see it anyway. There might be clues." "Right, because bad guys love to leave clues lying around. It's really a desperate cry for help." "Give it here, Malfoy," said Harry. Draco handed the letter over with a shrug. "If you insist on playing Junior Auror, I guess I can't stop you." Harry ignored him. "This letter was written in Green Viridian Ink," he said, his voice intent. "Only bona fide Ministry officials can use it, you know." Draco was impressed. "Really?" "No, actually, I made that up. Here, take your stupid letter." Harry tossed the letter back, looking disgusted. "Who says 'Lo', anyway?" "Who says 'bona fide'?" Harry was prevented from answering this when the letter in Draco's hand caught fire. Draco dropped it with an oath, and it turned to ash before it hit the stone infirmary floor. "They always do that," Draco said sulkily, putting his burned thumb in his mouth. "I guess so I can't keep them as evidence." "What does that mean, your 'true birthday'?"
"No idea." "Didn't it ever occur to you to try to find out what a true birthday might be?" "How?" "Well," said Harry, as if it were obvious, "Ask Hermione. If she doesn't know, she could find out for you." "I'd rather not bring anyone else into this." "Hermione isn't anyone else," Harry pointed out. "She's...Hermione. You can tell her anything." "Which is why you told her about our little graveyard excursion?" Harry opened his mouth to say something, then shut it with a snap. "That's different." "Why, because it's your big secret?" "Because nobody's trying to kill me." "Ha!" Harry looked at him sharply. "Did you just say 'Ha!'?" Draco considered. "Embarrassingly, yes." "By which you meant...?" Draco yawned hugely. He was growing more and more tired. "Someone's always trying to kill you, Potter. You wouldn't be you if they weren't. And in point of fact, who knows if someone was trying to kill me or if they were going for Rhysenn and missed?" Harry was silent for a moment. His right hand was playing with the loop of his belt - actually, with the odd-looking scarlet bangle that he never seemed to go without. "I don't think you should trust her," he said finally.
"Thank you, I don't." Draco yawned again. "Potter, I was thinking..." "What?" "Well, if you ask Lupin to give you a Portkey that'll take you to Doon's Hill, won't he guess why you're going there? I'm surprised he put it on the homework, actually." "Right. That's why I'm going to tell him that we want to go to Shepton Mallet instead." "But we don't want to go there...oh." "Come on, Malfoy. Cunning plans, remember? The big thing is to get off school grounds, considering that we can't Apparate or fly away and don't exactly have time to walk." "So how are we meant to get from that Mallet place to Doon's Hill?" "Leave that to me." Harry smiled, then bit his lip. "But you're sure...you still want to go?" "Want to might be a little strong. I'm still willing. I'll be fine in a day or two, I'm pretty sure." "We can wait as long as you want," said Harry. "No, it's fine." Draco leaned back against the pillows and shut his eyes. "You do realize," he said sleepily, "that this means...we're going to have to do...an entire report on Shepton Mallet...for no damn good reason at all." He yawned a final time. "Thanks to you," he added. He never heard what Harry said in response; he had already fallen asleep. ***
He was dreaming again. He was in the tower room once more, and his father was there, as was the Dark Lord. He stood at a different angle now, and could see out the tall and narrow windows. They showed an
unfamiliar landscape: a ridged valley dropping away into wooded trees. The night sky was high and black, the stars like naked daggers. Lucius and the Dark Lord stood together by a huge and circular golden cage, the kind that might have held a lion or a tiger. Instead it held a woman. A slender, tall woman clad only in her own long black hair, which swirled around her like smoke, hiding her body. It was not until she raised her face that he knew her. Rhysenn.
***
Draco's eyelids flew open. It was morning, and the infirmary was full of light. It took a moment for him to realize who had spoken, and that he was not dreaming. It was Charlie Weasley, standing at the foot of his bed. His hands were on his hips and he looked bemused. Draco suspected he had come directly from feeding his baby dragon, since his face and dark blue work robes were dusted with soot. Draco sat up gingerly against the piled pillows, and found he could move without much pain. There was a dull ache in his shoulder, but nothing else. "Well," he said reasonably, "where else would I be?" "Not you," said Charlie, and poked at something with his foot. Draco got up on his knees and peered over the edge of his bed. Harry was there, lying curled on the floor, asleep on his folded Invisibility Cloak. His cheek was pillowed on his hand. "Go 'way," said Harry and curled himself into a tighter ball. "Get up, Harry," said Charlie. "Dumbledore will be here any second." "Nerble," said Harry, his face buried in his arms. "Splurgit. Argh." "What was that?" Charlie looked as if he was trying not to laugh.
"He said to leave him alone," Draco translated. "He's having a dream about Professor Sinistra." "He is?" Charlie demanded, clearly fascinated. "Well, she is awfully--" "I am not," protested Harry, sitting up. His hair stood out wildly, as if he had been electrocuted, and his face was lined with creases where it had pressed against the folded cloak material. "Malfoy, you sodding liar." "Got you up," pointed out Draco, unfazed. "Now get out of here, before Dumbledore gets here and you get in trouble - or not," he added hastily, as the curtain was drawn back and Professor Dumbledore entered, followed by Madam Pomfrey and Draco's head of House, Professor Snape. Draco sat back on his heels, and rubbed his shoulder ruefully. "I just want everyone to remember," he remarked, "that I've lost a great deal of blood. I might be delirious." "It's all right, Draco," said Dumbledore, his eyes kindly and serious as they rested first on Draco, then on Harry. "While we might frown upon students breaking into locked infirmaries in the middle of the night, the urge to be with one's friends in times of trouble is both admirable and understandable. Neither you nor Harry will have points taken from your Houses. Now do get up, Harry. Just looking at you is making my bones ache." Harry got up hastily, and rubbed at his eyes in an effort to appear more awake. "Thanks, Professor." Dumbledore waved a hand, and four high-backed chairs appeared around the bed. Dumbledore sat down, and Madam Pomfrey, Snape, and Charlie followed suit. Harry sat down on the foot of the bed, covering a yawn; to Draco's surprise, nobody moved to stop him. "Before you tell us what you know, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore began, "why don't we tell you what we know? Now. We were first alerted to your plight when a Hufflepuff first-year student came racing into the Great Hall yesterday morning, announcing that she had found Draco Malfoy lying in a snowbank, quite dead. As you can imagine, this caused something of a stir."
"Mass suicides among the fifth-year girls, I imagine," said Draco cheerfully. "Perhaps the mourning was not quite so extreme," said Dumbledore, "although there was much concern at the Slytherin table, and several Gryffindors made remarkable scenes." At this, Harry became very interested in a bootlace. "As you can imagine, much haste was made to reach you. You were, as reported, lying in a snowbank, inert and drenched in blood. It is very surprising, in fact, that the blood loss did not kill you. Coupled with that, it is even more surprising that the cold did not finish you off. You were nearly frozen when the Hufflepuff girl found you while she was on her way down to the greenhouse. She held you to warm you up. She had Muggle first-aid training. Fortunately for you." "Sure," said Draco, leaning back against a pillow. "That's her story." "We brought you back here, where it was discovered that the source of your injury was a puncture in your right shoulder. The injury was deemed non-magical in nature, and both your hypothermia and blood loss were quickly treated. You may thank Professor Snape for providing us with a potion that is usually used to treat vampire attacks, which restored to you the blood you had lost..." "Vampire attacks?" Draco echoed, thinking of Rhysenn again, her white skin and red lips. She had said she wasn't a vampire, but... "You were not bitten by a vampire, Draco," said Madam Pomfrey. "You had no bite marks on you. But we would love to know how you did come to be injured. Do you know who attacked you?" There was a long silence. Draco looked over at Harry, who was looking pale and serious. He did, however, look better than he had. His eyes no longer swam in blue hollows. "I was outside," Draco said slowly. "I was heading down to the Quidditch pitch to, uh, meet someone -" "Who?" Snape's question snapped towards him like a striking cobra. "Me," said Harry promptly. "Because we were going to, uh.."
Draco floundered, then found his footing. "...Work on our homework for our DaDA project and..." "It had to be done at night, because..." "Constructing a Locator Charm requires star charts," Draco finished weakly. "And you couldn't do that from the Astronomy Tower?" Charlie demanded. "Too crowded with people snogging," said Draco firmly. "Terrible working conditions." "But I was late," Harry continued, "because I, uh, overslept, and..." "And I was practicing a bit of magic on my own," Draco said, warming to the theme. "To, uh, get ready for our project and.." "And he threw a curse that rebounded and hit him in the arm," said Harry with relish. "I did not," said Draco. "Oh, yes you did," said Harry. "I think you're remembering what I told you wrong, Potter." "Then why don't you tell us how you got that hole in your shoulder, Malfoy?" Draco gritted his teeth. "I threw a curse that rebounded and hit me in the arm," he muttered. "Careless of you," said Harry with obvious delight. "Perhaps a Priori Incantatum might be in order here," said Snape silkily. "Draco didn't use his wand," Harry put in quickly. "I...I assume."
Draco raised his left hand. "No wand," he said. "Magid spells," said Snape darkly. "Both out of bed sneaking around after dark. Using curses. Filch would string you up in the dungeons by your thumbs for this." Harry looked mildly horrified. "May I remind you," said Draco, "that detention is a time-honored form of punishment." "And detention you shall have," said Dumbledore. "Both of you, commencing when you return from Christmas holidays. As well as twenty points from each of your houses. I will consider the damage done to you physically, Draco, and you mentally, Harry, by the results of this escapade to be the rest of your punishment." Both boys looked at the ground. Draco was the first to speak. "Headmaster..." he began slowly. "Won't the...what will the other students....won't they wonder about..." "Me?" Harry clarified. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled briefly. "I trust you two to fabricate a story they'll believe," he said. "I have the utmost faith in you both." "Thanks, Professor," Draco said, not exactly sure what he was thanking him for, but feeling grateful nonetheless. For the vote of confidence, perhaps. "And...we're sorry." Both Snape and Charlie looked to Dumbledore, who shrugged, and rose creakily to his feet. "Very well," he said. "I would like to see you in my office later, Mr. Malfoy, when you are fully recovered." He looked at Harry, and then back at Draco. "Alone," he clarified. Draco felt himself flush. "Of course, Professor." Snape and Charlie had risen to their feet as well, and Charlie looked expectantly at Harry, who glanced over at Dumbledore. "I'd like to stay,"
he said. "If that's all right." "Normally, outside of visiting hours, only family..." Snape began. "I am family," Harry said. Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, you are," he said. "And you may stay." *** When Ginny left Herbology in the afternoon, she found Ron and Hermione standing on the snowy path that led up from the greenhouse to school, waiting for her. They were deep in conversation, Ron's dark red head bent over Hermione's brown one, and she had to clear her throat loudly to get their attention. They spun around, looking surprised. "Hey, Ginny," said Hermione. There was color in her cheeks and she clutched a white piece of parchment in a red-mittened fist. "I'm skipping lunch and going to see Draco in the hospital wing - I thought you might want to come along." Ginny was surprised. "He can have visitors? He's awake?" "He's awake," said Hermione. "And Harry's with him." She waved her parchment. "He owled down and said we should come." "How'd Harry get there so early?" Ginny asked, starting to walk up the path. "Spent the night on the floor," said Hermione, sounding amused. "You know how he gets when he's worried. Remember when that Bludger broke Ron's arm last year and Harry camped out in the infirmary and brought him all his homework?" "True," said Ron. He held out a hand to help Hermione up the iced-over steps, and she took it. "But I don't think he spent the night on the floor, ever." "Well, Draco's a bit different," said Ginny, and was about to add that Draco was different because it seemed like someone had actually tried to
kill him, as opposed to his having had an accident, but Ron interrupted. "Yeah, because if Harry didn't stay with him constantly, you know, Malfoy might stop breathing." "Ron, don't even say that," Hermione admonished him gently. "Harry's just being a friend - he'd do it for you." Reaching the top of the stairs, she let go of Ron's hand. "In fact, we should all go visit him. You, too, Ron." "Nooo," Ron moaned, looking mutinous. "Can't I just clean out the prefects' bathroom instead? Something fun?" "He saved your life once," said Hermione severely. "I saved his life twice. I'm one up on him still." "Can't you just pretend to like him? As a favor to me?" Hermione asked. Ron's resistance seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon. "Oh, all right." Hermione smiled sunnily. "Let's go! Come on," and she pushed open the castle doors, gesturing for the other two to follow her. "You too, Ginny." Ginny hesitated. "Oh, I don't know..." "If I have to go, you have to go too," Ron said, and grabbed her wrist. She followed him, her heart pounding with nervous anticipation. Her great happiness that Draco was all right was tempered with nervousness about seeing him. Especially now that she was almost sure that he was the one who had kissed her while she was sleeping. Unless, of course, it had been Snape. But that was so very...yuck. Madam Pomfrey let them all into the infirmary with only a perfunctory eye roll. The infirmary was warm and full of light. At the far end of the huge room, Ginny could see a small still figure lying on a bed against the wall - Malcolm Baddock, she assumed. Ginny looked quickly away, and fixed her eyes on the white-curtained bed up ahead. The curtains hung from the ceiling without visible means of suspension, and were halftransparent. She could see shadows behind them: someone sitting upright
in a bed, someone in a chair beside it. She recognized the outline of Harry's messy hair, and smiled. As they drew nearer, she began to hear Harry's voice, and then Draco's in response. "The Wronski Feint is not a better move than the Luhzkin Parallel Slide! What drugs are you on, Potter?" Hermione paused at the foot of the bed, and pulled the curtain back. "You're talking Quidditch?" she said, sounding amused. "I can't believe you two are actually talking Quidditch." Ginny and Ron joined her at the foot of the bed in time to see Harry look up surprised, and laugh. "Where did you all spring from?" Ginny looked at him in surprise as he got to his feet. He looked brighteyed and awake, almost - lively. It was as if something had shocked him out of his self-imposed exile from the rest of the world. He hugged Hermione hard, and let her go reluctantly. "I don't suppose you brought anything to eat..." Hermione laughed and handed him something wrapped in a napkin. "Raided the kitchens," she said, and then turned to Draco, who was sitting propped up in bed, his back against a stack of pillows that looked as if they had been pilfered from other, empty beds. Ginny said a little inward prayer of relief. He looked almost normal, perhaps a little tired, but his face was flushed with a healthy color and his bandaged shoulder looked whole. He was wearing blue-and-white striped standard-issue infirmary pajamas that made him look six years younger. "You're all right?" Hermione asked him, her voice suddenly gentle. "I would have brought you something too, but I didn't know..." "It's all right." Draco's voice was strong. Normal. It was hard to believe that he had been so very near death not long ago. She banished the thought of blood-stained snow. "I'm not hungry." His eyes went to Ron and Ginny. "Hello, Weasley." He paused. "Ginny." Ron nodded at him. "Glad you're okay." "So am I," Ginny added quickly. Hermione sat down on the foot of the bed. "Did they tell you when you
would be out?" "Tomorrow, probably," Draco said. "Will you be able to go to the Pub Crawl?" she asked. Draco shrugged. "I wasn't going to go anyway," he said. "Weasley here has me hanging about pestering the sixth-years, don't you?" Ron, who was still looking as if he wished he were elsewhere, now looked uncomfortable. "Well, you volunteered," he said. "Oh, but that won't take all night!" said Hermione, looking anxious. "Will it? You should still go, Draco - you only get one Pub Crawl." She twisted herself around and looked at Ron. "He doesn't have to stay at school all night, does he?" Ron looked even more uncomfortable. "Well..." Draco shrugged, looking piteous. "I'll see how I feel. I mean, I did agree to do it...although perhaps if I'm feeling very weak and ill it might not be the best thing for -" "Malfoy," said Ron, sounding exasperated. "If you're well enough to be let out, you're well enough to sit in the Great Hall and watch the door!" Draco looked even more piteous. Ginny wanted to hug him, but restrained the impulse. "But I don't want to," he said. Ron smiled at him brightly. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?'" "No," said Draco. "I've heard the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then throw it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you originally asked for.'" Harry started to laugh, and Ron glared at him. Before he could say anything, however, the curtain was drawn aside, and Madam Pomfrey peered in, her expression amused. "There's someone here to see you, Draco," she said.
It was Blaise. Ginny instinctively drew back as Draco's girlfriend stalked into the room, her green eyes blazing and her fiery hair tumbling around her shoulders. Hermione leaped up from where she had been sitting on the bed and backed away as Blaise advanced on Draco, who looked alarmed. "Blaise...?" he began. "Darling!" Blaise launched herself onto the bed and threw her arms around Draco, embracing him fiercely. Draco yelled in pain. Harry leaped up to get out of the way of the windmilling limbs, and went to stand near Hermione, looking amused. "I came as soon as I possibly could! I was absolutely frightened to death!" Draco patted her back awkwardly. "There, there," he said, or at least that was what Ginny thought he had said - his voice was muffled against Blaise. "I'm fine. No harm done." "No harm done? You could have been killed. Were you dueling?" Blaise pulled back. "And if you were, why didn't you pick me as your second? You know perfectly well I'm better at Slashing Hexes and Transfixion Torments than anyone else in school!" Ron cleared his throat. "I'll just pretend I didn't hear that." Blaise twisted around in the circle of Draco's arms, and looked at him. Then she smiled, a kittenish, amused smile, her eyes sliding down to Ron's Head Boy badge. "I'm sorry, Ron," she said. "I didn't notice you standing there." Her eyes slid to Harry, and then to Hermione, and darkened. She didn't look at Ginny at all. "What is this, a Gryffindor invasion? Come to see if you could finish him off?" "That's right," said Harry, with heavy sarcasm. "We thought if we showed up here in a big group, we could kill him under cover of broad daylight and nobody would notice." "Sounds like a typical Gryffindor plan," sniffed Blaise. "What are you all doing here, anyway?" "Official business -" Ron began, but was cut off by an enormous clang, as if someone had dropped a pile of dishes. Ginny jumped, and leaned
around one of the sheets that blocked off the bed. Madam Pomfrey was standing a little ways away, filling Charm packets at the small dispensary on the wall. She had turned around, as well, and was staring towards the far bed where Malcolm Baddock had been lying inert - only he was no longer inert. He was moving, apparently struggling to sit up. On the floor beside his bed lay a shattered glass of water, knocked off the bedside table. With an exclamation of "Good Heavens!" Madam Pomfrey turned and rushed across the room. Ginny drew her head back inside and turned around. The others were looking at her curiously. "Malcolm Baddock - he's awake," she announced. Blaise's mouth fell open. "He is? He's woken up?" Ginny nodded. "Looks like it." Draco tapped Blaise gently on the shoulder. "Go see if he's all right, will you?" Blaise didn't need to be told twice. With a distracted glance at Draco, she slid off the bed, got to her feet, and raced out of the small enclosure, brushing by Ron as she went. Ginny did a double take as her gaze fell on her brother -- Ron had gone terribly white, and had grabbed hold of a chair back to steady himself as if he were afraid he might fall over. "Ron!" she said, shocked. "Are you okay?" He nodded. "I -- don't feel well," he said, his voice tight. "Well, you've come to the right place," said Draco. "Shut up, Malfoy," said Ron, and there was no humor in it and no teasing. Draco looked surprised. Ginny looked at her brother, worried. "Can I get you some water?" she asked, and he nodded. She Summoned an empty glass and went to fill it at the infirmary's small sink. The sink, against the wall, was near Malcolm's bed. Malcolm was sitting up, quite pale and very surprised-looking, with Blaise and Madam Pomfrey hovering solicitously over him. "What happened to me?" he was asking. "How did I get here?"
"We don't know what happened to you, Malcolm," Madam Pomfrey was saying. She was in the midst of Summoning packets of Charm transfusions from the cupboards across the room; the flew around her head like a small swarm of birds. "What's the last thing you remember?" "I...I was on my way to the prefects' bathroom, and I remembered I'd left my History of Magic parchments in the meeting room, and so I stopped there, and when I opened the door, I..." Malcolm paused and frowned, a line of concentration denting his forehead. "I..." "You what?" Blaise demanded, and was rewarded with a sharp look from Madam Pomfrey. "I don't remember," Malcolm announced despairingly. "I don't remember anything after that..." He looked entreatingly at Madam Pomfrey. "How long have I been here? Have I missed the Yule Ball? And the rematch we had with Gryffindor? Tell me they didn't win, the smug bastards..." Ginny retrieved her water and returned to the others at a swift pace. When she drew the curtain back, she saw that Harry and Hermione were fussing over Ron, who appeared to be trying to shoo them away. Draco was sitting quietly in his bed, folding the parchment Ron had given him into a rude but amusing shape. "It's true, Malcolm did wake up," she said, handing the glass of water to her brother, who was now very green. "Someone must have put a temporary stasis spell on him or something." "Well, who?" asked Draco, looking interested - Malcolm was, after all, one of his own Chasers. "Does he know?" Ginny shook her head. "He doesn't remember anything." Ron drained the glass she had handed him, and set it down on the nightstand. "That's too bad," he said. Some of the color was starting to come back into his face - the water must have helped. "Nothing at all?" "That's what he said," Ginny replied, setting herself down at the foot of the bed. "I wonder what did happen to him?" "Strange things are afoot at Hogwarts School," Harry intoned.
Hermione was shaking her head. "Things have been very odd lately. I'm glad Christmas is coming and we can all go back to the Manor." "Right," said Ron, "because nothing weird ever happens there." Draco made a face at him, but Ron took no notice. He was looking at Harry. "we're meant to have practice now," he said. "Do you want me to take over Captaining?" "Oh." Harry looked startled. "Uh..." "Actually, I'm tired," Draco said. "Harry, you go on." Harry looked as if he were going to say something, but Draco looked at him, and he shut his mouth. Ginny was quite sure that they were talking, in that way that they sometimes did, so that no one else could overhear. Talking mind - to -mind - she wondered what that was like, if it was frightening and invasive or comfortable and normal-seeming. It didn't seem to bother either Draco or Harry either, who turned to Ron and nodded. "All right. You ready, Ginny?" "Sure." She threw a last glance at Draco, but he was looking down at his hands. "I -" "Darling!" It was Blaise, again, tossing the curtains aside. "Malcolm's all right - isn't it wonderful? Of course he has no idea what happened to him, which is too frightful, but Madam Pomfrey says he'll likely get his memory back over time. In the meantime, she says he can't play in the rematch on Saturday...and what are you all still doing here?" She glared at the Gryffindors. "Somewhere, I'm sure a little tiny kitty cat is stuck up a tree. Why don't you go rescue it? Take all the time you like." "We were just going, not that it's any of your business," Ron began edgily. "Blaise, sweetheart," put in Draco, his tone amused, and Ginny silently bit back a gagging noise - Draco calling someone sweetheart? Hermione looked similarly appalled. "Could you do me a favor?" Blaise sat down on the edge of the bed. "Of course, anything."
"Could you go ask Mark Nott if he'd mind suiting up and playing with us on Saturday? He's a fair flyer and we could really use him. I'd do it myself, but..." Draco made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the infirmary. "Of course I can," she said, leaned forward, and kissed him. "I'll go right now," and she bounced up to her feet, shooting a death glare at the Gryffindors. "Honestly," she said loudly. "I understand you have to check on Draco for his mum, Harry, but did you need to bring your bodyguards?" Harry looked deadpan. "I couldn't help it," he said, glancing from Hermione, to Ginny, to Ron. "They're just so cute, bless their little cotton socks." "Run along now, Blaise," said Ron. "Or would you like me to take points from Slytherin?" The Slytherin girl's eyes narrowed. "You think that Head Boy badge makes you important, don't you, Ron," Blaise said, in a purring sort of voice, reached out, and stroked her finger gently over the silver front of his badge. Ron, looking like a rabbit trapped in headlights, didn't move. "Isn't that ... sweet." She dropped her hand, smiled, and flounced away, her heels clicking on the stone floor. The infirmary door slammed behind her. "Nice girlfriend you've got there, Malfoy," said Ron acidly. "Thanks," said Draco. "I made her myself." "See you later, Malfoy," said Harry with finality, waved at Draco, and took hold of Ron's arm. "We're off to practice." "And I'm off to class," said Hermione, reaching to pick up her rucksack from the side of the bed. "Actually," Draco said quickly, "could you stay for a second? There's something I wanted to ask you." "Oh," said Hermione, and straightened up. "I..." She glanced towards
Harry, who nodded emphatically. "Sure," she said, and sat down in the chair by the bed. "What did you want to ask me?" Ginny pricked up her ears, trying to hear Draco's answer, but Ron and Harry had already started walking away, and she had no choice but to follow them. Glancing back, all she could see of Hermione and Draco was their shadows, thrown into sharp relief against the white curtains. *** "Right," Draco said without preamble, as soon as Harry and the others were out of earshot. "Now that they've all gone, why don't you tell me what the hell is up with Weasley?" Hermione blinked at him in surprise. "Ron? What about him?" Draco's lips curled into a disbelieving smile. "You can't honestly say you didn't notice something odd about his behavior just now?" Hermione shook her head. She tried to think. She'd been worried about Draco, and concentrating on him, also on Harry, since she'd been worried about him as well - he tended to get lightheaded when he skipped meals. Ron...? "No," she said. "But I'm sure you'll tell me." "Tell you what? That your redheaded sidekick is acting bizarrely? And you missed it? I suppose you've been having so much fun playing the exciting "What On Earth Is Up With Harry' game that you've missed the even more exciting sequel, 'Bugger It, Something's Up With Ron As Well!'" "Well, what is wrong with him?" Hermione demanded, exasperated. Draco looked smugly unconcerned. "I wouldn't know. That's your job, isn't it? He's your friend." "How do you manage to say that as if it's an insult?" "It isn't my fault if you choose to be all buddy-buddy with an overgrown gingery lummox who'd lose a battle of wits with a stuffed iguana." "You think I won't smack you just because you're in hospital, don't you?"
Hermione demanded calmly. "Think again." She was gratified to see that Draco scooted back several inches. "I've no idea what bee Weasley has in his bonnet," Draco said. "But I do know something's bothering him. None too surprising he wouldn't tell you, I suppose." "Ron tells me things!" Hermione snapped. Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. "Has he ever told you he resented Harry for being famous and getting all the attention?" "No, but I know he did. I don't think he does anymore, by the way." "Has he ever told you that he resented you for having broken up with him, and then gone right over to Harry?" Hermione looked at Draco in amazement. "No." "You don't think he resents it just a little?" "No, I don't. And do you know why?" Draco shook his head. "I didn't break up with Ron," Hermione said. "He broke up with me." Draco sat forward with such suddenness that she felt the bed bounce. "No way. No way did Weasley break up with you." "Yes, he did," said Hermione, casting her mind back to that night the winter of fifth year, Ron standing in front of the Gryffindor common room fireplace. The shadows turning his red hair black. I don't think we should do this any more, he had said. I think it was a mistake. I thought we felt one way about each other, but I was wrong. "He did - it was his idea." "What did you do?" Draco asked. He looked bewildered, and his fair hair was standing up around his head in licks like little silver flames. He
looked about ten. "I cried," said Hermione. "I thought we were supposed to be together. Everybody did. Even Harry, I thought. It just seemed like we fit as a couple. I would be with Ron, and Harry would be with Ginny, and we'd all get married and have Christmas together every year." "How revolting," said Draco. "Well, yes, and the big problem there was that Harry didn't love Ginny, and I didn't really love Ron - and I guess he didn't love me either. We were just trying to fit into these molds that people had made for us with their expectations. So I cried when Ron broke up with me - but I was relieved, in a way. I was always terrified that our dating would ruin our friendship somehow, and then when it was over, and it wasn't ruined, I felt like a huge weight was off me. We tried it, and it didn't work, and now there would be no more pressure. Although Mrs. Weasley wasn't any too happy with me that year. I don't think she believed Ron that he had broken up with me." "You worried that dating Ron would ruin your friendship?" Draco asked, looking curious. Hermione looked at him sideways - he was a very unlikely Agony Aunt, and he had never seemed remotely interested in her past history with Ron before. But he seemed sincere enough. "Didn't you worry that with Harry?" "No." She felt herself blush. "But I guess that's what being desperately in love will do to you." In the back of her mind, she was seeing that day in front of the Mirror again, Harry standing there soaking wet and saying all those unbelievable things to her - and she'd barely believed them, even when he'd kissed her and she'd tasted the rain on his mouth - that night, alone in bed, she'd cried again, piercingly and terribly and as if she'd never stop. There were reasons she had for crying, but they were deeper reasons she herself did not quite understand. "If only you'd figured out that business about being in love with Harry a bit earlier," Draco said, his voice betraying no emotion. "Would have saved you a lot of trouble with Ron."
And with me, his eyes said, although his mouth didn't.
"I don't think of it as trouble," Hermione said. "It was something I had to do. But of course I wish we'd figured it out earlier." Draco shook his head. "Hard to imagine two people could be any blinder," he said. "Would have thought that little exercise in futility would have taught you something, but apparently not." Hermione looked at him in surprise, stung. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Just that sometimes I can't tell if you're both honestly stupid, or you just don't see things you don't want to see." Hermione glared at him. "Well, we've figured it out now, thank you." "Sure you have." "This from the guy who's got his own love life all sorted," Hermione snapped. "Do you think Blaise notices that you look sick every time she touches you?" "No, but you apparently do," Draco snapped right back. "It's a bit hard to miss!" "Right," he said. His cheeks were flushed with annoyance, his gray eyes burning. "Especially if you're watching." "I am not -" Hermione began, and checked herself as Madam Pomfrey stuck her head around the side of one of the hanging sheets, and glared. "Do not excite the patient," she said severely, and walked away sniffing. Draco said something unintelligible. "What?" Hermione demanded sharply. Draco flashed her a vexed look. "I said," he said through his teeth, "that this was not what I wanted you to stay and talk to me about."
"I didn't bring it up. And I'm not sure I even want to hear what your problem is any more!" she snapped, and started to stand up. "Wait," he said, and caught at her arm. The fire had gone out of his eyes; now he looked startled, as if he realized he'd said more than he wanted to. "Harry said I ought to ask you to help," he said quickly. "He was right. I should have asked before. I wouldn't ask now if it wasn't important." Now she was slightly alarmed. She sat back down, and Draco let go of her arm. "What is it? Is it something about Harry?" "Not this time, no. About me." Draco had found a stray thread on the cuff of his pajama sleeve, and was worrying it. She knew he hated asking for help, loathed it more than Harry did. "I've been - having dreams." "No." She almost overbalanced and fell into him, but steadied herself on a pillow. "Not - the kind you used to have?" "No." His eyes didn't leave his shirt cuff. "Not about any kind of past life, not that kind of thing. This is in real-time - these are events that are actually happening while I'm seeing them. I'm sure of that now." He looked up. "It's like I've opened a window onto a place I've never been, but it's a real place, Hermione." She shivered when he said her name. There was an intensity in his voice she had not heard in a long time. "Do you recognize the place?" He shook his head. "No, but I could describe it to you in detail. It's a dark magic place, I know that. Maybe we could find some reference to it in the Le Grand Grimoire or the Lexicon of Unpleasant Locations. Or -" Hermione smiled at him. "I know the Restricted Section as well as you do, Draco," she said. "Well, perhaps not quite as well. But well enough. If you give me a good enough description of what you saw, we can go from there. Also," and she began to tick off items on her fingers, noting out of the corner of her eye that he was watching her with an amused expression, "I want to know if you just fall asleep and find yourself in this place or do you have to will your mind there, and if there are people in your dreams, can they see you or not - I want to know if you're dream-
walking or having real visions." He nodded. "All right," he said. "Do you need a quill and parchment?" "I'll get some," said Hermione, and stood up. His eyes followed her as she went to push the sheet aside. "There's one more thing," he said. "Don't let me forget to tell you - there's a girl." Hermione paused, her hand on the bedpost. "A girl?" she asked neutrally. "Who is she?" The failing light silvered Draco's eyes as he looked down at the bedclothes. "That's what I want you to find out," he said. "Her name is Rhysenn. Rhysenn Malfoy, but I don't think she's actually human at all..." *** "He's lying to us," said Charlie. "Isn't he, Headmaster?" "Who is lying, Charles?" Dumbledore glanced up from his position behind his desk at the young man in front of him. His eyes, behind the goldrimmed spectacles, were not twinkling at all, but somber and thoughtful. "Draco," said Charlie. He got up from where he had been sitting across from Dumbledore, feeling unaccountably restless, and crossed to the north wall, where there was a window that looked out over the grounds. Well, sometimes there was a window. Dumbledore's office tended, like the moving stairways, to change from day to day. "That was no duel gone wrong that got him that injury," he said, resting a hand on the windowpane. Outside, the sky was heavy and leaden, the pearly gray of a winter seascape. He could clearly see the Quidditch pitch from here, the hoops reaching into the sky like bare, stripped tree branches. There were a collection of small figures gathered down by the pitch entrance, although they were too far away for him to make them out clearly. "Most assuredly," said Dumbledore. "As a matter of fact, they are both lying."
"Harry, too? I suppose he must be." "Of course he is," said Dumbledore, his eyes shadowed as he glanced up at Charlie. "This is what I wanted to ask you, Charles - you were the first teacher to arrive at Draco's side, weren't you?" Charlie nodded. "Did you notice how many sets of footprints there were around him?" "Mm." Charlie nodded, recollecting. "I was just thinking that, Professor. It looked to me, from the impressions in the snow, as if he hadn't walked to where he was. There were only two set of footprints: Harry's, and that Hufflepuff girl's. He must have fallen from somewhere, not walked there." "Yes. I believe he did. Here, take these," said the Headmaster, and held out to Charlie a battered-looking pair of Omnioculars that had obviously seen much use. His desk was in fact covered with an assortment of useful magical objects - a silver Put-Outer, a Macroscope, and what was clearly a prototype of the next generation Dream Integrator sitting perilously close to an open jar of honey. Charlie took the Omnioculars and focused them on the view outside the window, sweeping his gaze up from the spot where he had found Draco that morning. "It's just under the North Tower. Which is off-limits, correct?" "You say that as if the term had meaning for most of the students here. Harry and Draco especially." "But why would they bother going up there?" "Why, indeed?" Dumbledore shrugged. "Now, if it had been the Astronomy Tower, I might venture an educated guess." Charlie stifled a snort. It was nice, he supposed, to know that some things hadn't changed since his own school days, including the popularity of the
Astronomy Tower for purposes unrelated to Astronomy. "I'll go up the North Tower and look around, shall I, Professor?" "Certainly, Charlie. That would be helpful." "In the meantime..." Charlie swung the Omnioculars down so that he was looking at the crowd standing on the Quidditch pitch. Two bright red heads leaped out at him immediately: Ron and Ginny. Seamus Finnegan and Elizabeth Thomas were there too, as were the Creevey brothers. The Gryffindor team must be having its practice. The players were all looking towards the farther end of the pitch, where Harry was standing. He seemed to be pointing from the hoops and back: illustrating some point of game mechanics. Everyone seemed to be paying attention except Ron, who was amusing himself by tying Ginny's long braids together in a knot. "What shall we do about Draco? Should we look into protective charms, or send him home, or -" "No," said Dumbledore. "We will do nothing." Charlie lowered the Omnioculars in surprise. "Nothing? Isn't that a bit dangerous?" "I cannot help but feel," said Dumbledore slowly, "that any and all efforts made to protect either Draco or Harry in this instance -beyond how they are already protected, by being here at Hogwarts - will in the end, be both gratuitous and counterproductive. Neither boy willingly takes to being protected. You saw how Harry reacted to the suggestion that you were trying to protect him from knowledge he might not like, even though, in that case, you were not. Should we try to constrain them, they will rebel against the constraints, and we may lose them entirely." Charlie was silent a moment. Then he raised the Omnioculars to his eyes and glanced out the window again, in time to see Harry take off on his broomstick, and soar up into the air above the heads of his teammates. Charlie wasn't sure if Harry was illustrating another point of game strategy, or if he'd simply decided he couldn't bear to be on the ground any more. Charlie always loved watching Harry fly, because Harry reminded him of himself at that age - the same overwhelming joy in flight, the same bearing that said that in leaving the ground, he had left his cares and troubles behind. He flew like an arrow, straight and true and
unswerving, his black hair whipping across his face. He would never be as handsome as Draco was, but when he flew, he was beautiful. "But if they were to ask us for help, we should help them?" Charlie said, still trying to make sense of what Dumbledore had just said. He understood it...but in some ways, did not want to. "I mean "Of course. If Draco were to ask me for Protective charms, I would give them to him." "But they won't ask for help. Harry, especially, never will." "Of course not," Dumbledore said. "Think of the first eleven years of his life. He grew up knowing that were he to cry out in a nightmare, no one would come to comfort him. That if he were in pain, he could expect no aid or sympathy. That if he were lost, no one would trouble to find him. That if he died, he would not be mourned. Such an upbringing hardly breeds a child who readily seeks assistance in times of trouble." "Headmaster, with all due respect..." "Yes?" "You chose that childhood for him." "Yes," said Dumbledore. "Yes, I did." *** It was two days before they let Draco out of the infirmary, and even then Madam Pomfrey stood and wrung her hands as he walked out, looking as if she were quite sure that he would be returned later in several pieces. She also asked him if he wanted anyone to escort him back to his room, but he told her he preferred to go alone. As he walked through the hallways on his way back to the Slytherin dungeons, he noted that the new Yule Ball decorations had gone up that day, and realized with a faint pang that of course the Pub Crawl was that night. And of course, he could not go to it.
He had been somewhat concerned that the Slytherins would be cool to him on his return, but they had not been. Rumors based on the story he had told Blaise in confidence (which meant of course that the whole school now knew it) said that Draco had been injured as a result of preparing for a duel with Harry, and that Harry had fled the Great Hall out of guilty familial concern and fear of Narcissa. Variations on the rumor were flying thick and fast, and while Draco resented the implication that he couldn't cast a curse properly without it rebounding and nearly taking his arm off, it was worth it for a modicum of peace of mind. That night before the Pub Crawl, Draco stood alone in his room, regarding himself thoughtfully in the mirror over his dresser. It showed him his own reflection, bare from the waist up. He was pale (unsurprising, as it was winter) and against his shoulder the scar where the arrow had gone in was healed, and looked like a small silvery star against the skin. For someone so young, it occurred to him, he had certainly done a great deal of damage to the unmarked flesh he had been born with. There was a white line under his right eye where Harry had accidentally cut him with the jagged fragments of an ink bottle. There was also the silver lightning scar on the palm of his hand, and if he leaned close to the mirror he could see the thin white line on his bottom lip where he had bitten through the skin when the Dark Lord had tortured him. He liked his scars. They were like the faint tracery of a map that marked the greatest events of his life. He was of course especially attached to the scar on his hand, the only one he had acquired voluntarily. He reached for his clothes and dressed slowly, even though it was cold in the dungeon. He might be spending the evening alone, but that was no reason not to look as good as possible. He chose black trousers, cut from expensive and heavy material, and a dark green sweater. His dress robes were black, shot through with a fine weave of silver and edged with a pattern of constellations picked out in splinters of glass. The heavy silver clasp at the throat that held on his cloak was also carved in the shape of a constellation: Draco, the dragon. As he closed the clasp, his shoulder ached with a brief and fiery twinge. When he left his room, the corridors were already full of people - girls rushing to and from the bathrooms with their hair half-done, boys in fancy dress robes giving themselves a last glance before the mirrors.
Draco edged past them and out into the common room, where a huge fire was burning in the grate. Standing by the fire was Malcolm Baddock, in navy blue dress robes over a dark suit, and beside him was Blaise. She stood perfectly positioned so that the firelight made her long hair glow, turning it to fiery tinsel, and the faint outline of her body showed through her pale gray dress robes. She smiled when she saw him. "Draco," she said, and held out her hand.
He went towards her. Some part of him was glad that she wasn't angry, although how could she have been - everyone knew that Dumbledore had forbidden him to leave the grounds before Christmas, and she could hardly expect him to disobey that edict. So he'd never even had to tell her that he'd already agreed not to go to the Pub Crawl, which was a nice freebie (if one could consider the consequences of nearly bleeding to death a freebie.) He hated fighting with Blaise, probably because she had a slicingly perceptive wit when she put her mind to it, and often told him things about himself he would have preferred not to hear. "Look at you,"
she said. "You're gorgeous." "So are you," he said, which was the flat-out truth. Blaise looked stunning as always, from her tight-fitting coppery satin robes to her six-inch spiked Mundungus Blahniks. Her hair was up, knotted low on the nape of her neck and strung with sparkling charmed lights. He kissed her cheek and she accepted the kiss graciously. Malcolm looked on, smiling with narrow eyes that matched his blue-black robes. Before he could greet Draco, they were joined by Tess Hammond, looking like a brick wall in scarlet robes, and Pansy Parkinson, in her ordinary dress robes, a woolly winter hat, and jeans. "Pansy," Blaise drawled. "You're not going like that, are you?" "I'm not going at all," said Pansy coolly. "I'm staying back and handing out leaftlets. I agreed to." "I can't imagine why," said Blaise, arching her nose into the air, and taking Draco's arm. "How utterly boring." And she flounced towards the dungeon exit, everyone else in tow. Draco let his mind go blank as Blaise steered him upstairs and down the hallways that led to the Great Hall. "I don't know what is going on with Pansy," Blaise was saying in his ear as they entered the vestibule before the great, flung-open castle doors. "She always takes hours to get ready, has enough cosmetics to stock one of her father's silly shops - you should see all her lotions and potions - and then she shows up looking like something the cat sicked up on the rug. I ask you." "Fascinating," said Draco with great insincerity, but fortunately Blaise fell silent as they paused to look around at the decorations. Hogwarts had outdone itself this time. Huge sparkling icicles floated in the air, wrapped around with ropes of silvery tinsel. The four huge Christmas trees at each corner of the room were strung with brilliant, flower-shaped glowing lights and brightly wrapped sweets. The heavy end tables that normally decorated the room had been transmogrified into friendly-looking reindeer, although unfortunately they were still no more intelligent than end tables, and kept bashing into the walls. Draco let go of Blaise's hand and jumped to the side as one narrowly missed him with its antlers. Blaise sniffed. "Those silly things should not be allowed," she opined, and
glared at the offending creature. "Go away!" she commanded, and, with a scuttle of hooves, it fled. Draco grinned. Everyone was afraid of Blaise, even furniture. Blaise returned his smile with a satisfied look, which modified into a concerned pout. "You will be all right, won't you darling?" she asked. "I'd stay here with you, but..." "No, you shouldn't miss your Pub Crawl," Draco assured her firmly. "Have a good time." He looked over at Malcolm Baddock, who was standing with Tess (Pansy having vanished, presumably to distribute leaflets), looking haughtily around the room. "Take care of her, Malcolm," he said, and kissed Blaise's silky, jasmine-scented cheek lightly. He walked her to the door, and watched her being led down the steps by Malcolm and Tess with mixed feelings of regret and relief. He probably could have talked Blaise into spending the evening with him in the dungeons, doing what she called "things I can't tell my father about because he thinks I'm a good girl", which was usually good for killing bothersome thoughts that might otherwise plague him - but he really hadn't wanted to. It required too much dissembling energy, and he was exhausted.
Malfoy. How are you holding up? He heard Harry's voice in his head, clear and strong, and knew he must be nearby. He turned slowly and scanned the room. He saw Ron first, because he was so tall - his bright red head was always visible above a crowd. He was in the middle of a knot of Gryffindors who were laughing and talking together. Now that the Weasleys had a bit more money, Ron was always impeccably turned out - Draco surmised that the years of frayed and outworn clothes had hung very heavy on Ron when he was younger. He wore sharply cut dark blue dress robes over a charcoal-colored suit, and his Head Boy badge gleamed on his chest. He was talking to a moroselooking Neville Longbottom, sad-faced in orange dress robes. Next to him was Harry, with his back to Draco, holding Hermione by the hand.
I'm just fine, Potter. You? Fine. Harry turned around, and Hermione turned around with him. You look pretty sharp for someone who isn't going to the Pub Crawl, Harry remarked, and smiled.
You don't look horrible yourself, Draco replied. This was true. Harry had the sort of off-center looks that could veer from boyishly unremarkable to arresting and striking. Right now he looked striking. His cloak was black, lined with dark blue, over a lighter blue shirt and black trousers, and he had managed, somehow, to temporarily tame his hair. How'd you pull that off? Bit of help from Hermione, said Harry, and Draco saw him (probably unconsciously) tighten his grip on Hermione's hand. She looked up at Harry and smiled, and Draco looked away quickly, but the image stayed in his head. He couldn't see the dress she wore, she was wrapped tightly in a soft white cloak, but he saw the way her dark brown hair fell sleekly past her shoulders, fastened with pins in the shape of white flowers, and remembered the first time he'd seen her dressed up like that, when she'd been fourteen and so had he. He'd never thought of her as a girl before that, much less a pretty girl, much less a beautiful one. Malfoy...you going to be all right? I wish people would quit asking me that, Draco snapped, with more force than he'd intended. It's just a bleeding Pub Crawl, Potter, not the Quidditch World Cup. Harry raised both eyebrows (Draco had always felt superior that while he could raise only one, Harry couldn't) and seemed about to respond, but then the Gryffindor crowd seemed to reach a joint decision and began surging towards the stairs in a flurry of boys in dark cloaks and girls in candy-colored dress robes. Hermione stood out among them in her white cloak, like a pale flower in a bed of bright roses. She cast him a brief, searching glance as they went by, and smiled. He did not smile back. Leaning against the jamb of the huge doors, Draco watched them all spill down the stairs in twos and threes, shouting and laughing, Harry, Ron and Hermione in the rear, standing close together as they always did. At the bottom step, however, they paused, and Harry and Ron turned towards Hermione, who was gesturing urgently. Draco saw Harry nod, and then Hermione kissed his cheek, turned, and ran back up the stairs, her white hood falling back and her dark hair caught by the wind. Her cloak blew back and he saw that the dress under it, like the cloak itself, was all white. For a moment he stood and just aesthetically appreciated the picture she made: all dark hair and pale skin against the greater paleness of the dress
and cloak, as if she had wrapped her dark brunette beauty in a shroud of snow. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes very bright. It was a moment before he realized that she was running to him - he stiffened in surprise when she reached the top of the stairs and caught at his hands. He felt the soft wool of her gloves warm against his skin. "Please come along to Hogsmeade," she said. "We want you with us. Harry said you can have his cloak if you want it, so nobody will know." She paused. "It's our first Christmas together...do come." "We've had six others, you know." "No," she said. 'We haven't. Not together." Draco looked down at their interwoven hands. Hers were gloved in white wool, his in black, and wound with his their twined fingers resemble the keys of a piano. He looked up and past her, down the steps of the castle, where Harry and Ron were waiting. Harry was looking up at them, the wind blowing his black hair across his eyes. Behind him, Ron was an inky shadow against the white snow, even his fiery hair darkened by the night. He was looking off towards Hogsmeade. "It's all right," Draco said. "I'll stay here." She looked at him, her dark eyes troubled. In her ears glittered the tiny starlike diamond earrings Harry had given her for her birthday in September. "Are you sure? The cloak is at the foot of Harry's bed, and the password is..." "I'm sure." She bit her lip. "All right." "Happy Christmas, Hermione," Draco said, and let her hands go. She backed away from him with a half-regretful smile, and the turned and walked down the stairs towards Harry. He caught her hand in his, waved a farewell to Draco, and then the three of them were gone, under the bright moonlight, disappearing into the burnished lane between the trees. ***
"Alas, my love, you do me wrong To cast me off discourteously For I have loved you for so long, Delighting in your company." "Well, I got them to sing," said Harry, looking down at the clamoring set of green-stemmed wineglasses that sat on the table in Kelley and Ping's House of Enchanted Curiosities. "Now how do I get them to shut up?" Hermione giggled at his bemused expression. "Oh, they sing 'Greensleeves'," she exclaimed, coming to stand beside him. "Harry, that's a lovely present for Narcissa and Sirius." "Bit seasonal, isn't it?" Harry asked, putting an arm around her. She felt warm and contented - the shop smelled of cinnamon and apples, and outside the window she could see the fairytale town that was Hogsmeade, every shop window glowing with gold and silver tapers. Students in bright cloaks and dresses roamed up and down the icy streets, ducking into and out of warmly lit shops and taverns. She was with Harry, and Ron was over by the next table, close enough to touch, examining an enchanted mirror which he was considering getting for Ginny's birthday in early February. Everything was perfect - well, nearly everything. "Greensleeves isn't a Christmas song," Hermione said cheerfully. "It's a love song." As if on cue, the enchanted glasses launched into a second verse. "Now if you intend to show me disdain
Don't you know it all the more enraptures me, For even so I still remain Your lover in captivity." Hermione tapped the nearest glass with her wand, and the music stopped.
"Just when I was starting to like it," said Harry, with a slight tone of protest. "It's a good present, Harry," she said firmly. "Get them." "Yes, do," said Ron, looking up and grinning, "I'm sick of shopping - I want to get over to the Winery and see what Fred and George have cooked up." Harry's eyes lit up. "Oh, right - so do I." He looked thoughtfully at the glasses, and shrugged. "It'll get them - it's just too bad they don't play 'I May Be A Tiny Chimney Sweep...'" Having arranged for the glasses to be owled over to the Manor at the appropriate time, the trio headed for Fred and George's. The twins had really outdone themselves with their decorations for the factory. Illusion spells has transformed the huge main room into a jungle landscape, complete with jobberknolls, a fwooper, a jungle gnome and swinging jarveys. There were fountains of wine, lakes of chocolate, and dangling green vines that, on closer, inspection, turned out to be green-apple licorice. The leaves of the trees were spearmint leaves (and if, nibbled on, would turn the unwary muncher into a cricket for five minutes. The room was full of annoyed chirping.) Silver platters covered with sweets floated by at intervals - Hermione passed up a Snogberry Cordial on the theory that it was probably better to save the snogging for the end of the evening. Terry Boot and Padma Patil were taking turns bungee-jumping into a Bottomless Pit which had been rented for the occasion. Ron wanted to try it out, but Harry shook his head. "Falling into a Bottomless Pit once is good enough for me," he avowed. The main attraction of the evening, to everyone's surprise, turned out to be Oliver Wood, on holiday leave from his starring position as Keeper for Puddlemere United. Oliver was one of the most celebrated young Quidditch players in the country, which didn't surprise anyone who had ever seen him play. It wasn't so much that he was talented - which he was - but that he was grimly determined, and always had been. Ron whistled at the sight of the huge crowd of giggling girls and starstruck boys gathered around Oliver, who was seated with Fred and
George on a chair inside a floating pavilion draped with fiery curtains. Jana and Angelina were both there as well, and to say that they seemed entirely unaffected by Oliver's presence would have been an exaggeration. Both were blushing and smiling. George and Fred, who was eating an enormous color-changing lollipop, seemed bemused. "Who would have thought Oliver would turn into such girl catnip?" said Ron, grinning as he picked a cup of hot buttered chocolate off a floating silver tray. "Fred and George used to say the only girl who would ever have a chance with him would be one with really skinny legs and big ears - that way she could convince him that she was the Quidditch World Cup." Harry cast a sideways glance at Hermione. "Are you going to leave me for Oliver Wood, then?" "No," said Hermione, "but I might leave you for that table of chocolate over there." She arched up on her tiptoes and stared at the groaning tables of food and candy that stretched along the walls. There were whitechocolate snowballs, Snogberry Cordials, icicles spun out of clear sugar, and powdered-sugar Penguin Peppermints. Her stomach growled slightly. "You ought to go say hello to Oliver, Harry - he was always so fond of you." "But there's a huge crowd around him -" Harry began diffidently. Hermione snorted. "He'll talk to you," she said firmly, and gave him a light push. "Go on, then." Harry went, and Hermione headed over to the table to nab the last NeverMelting Ice Pop off a gold plate before Lavender Brown (who had already eaten three) could snag it. Ron, following her, made do with a sugared sardine. Hermione looked at him and wrinkled her nose. "How can you eat those things?" "Practice," said Ron, and bit the sardine in half with flair. "Blech," said Hermione, in a decided manner. "Mmm. Scrummy." Ron grinned around the sardine. "I dare you to eat one."
"Ugh. No way." "Come on." He held out a sardine, and she laughed and battled his hand away. "You never ate that blood lollipop I dared you to in third year," she pointed out smugly. "I licked it though." Ron shuddered. "I'm pretty sure that's what evil tastes like." "Well, I'm not licking your sardine." "No," put in Lavender, who had evidently been listening. "Harry wouldn't like that, would he?" Ron choked on his candy. "Lavender!" said Hermione, but Lavender had already sidled away with an evil grin. Hermione sighed and looked at Ron. "I don't think she's ever forgiven you for that Uranus comment," she said. But Ron was looking past her, towards the pavilion floating on its lake of peppermint syrup. "Harry seems different," he said. "Better." Hermione turned and looked where he was looking, and saw Oliver Wood standing up to give Harry a comradely hug. She noted with a pang that Harry was now taller than Oliver. "He is a bit better these days," she said. "I just hope it lasts." "Do you know why?" Ron's eyes were intent. "Did you say something to him?" "Well, I said a little, but I really don't think it was me. I think it had something to do with Draco nearly getting himself killed. I think Harry's been trying and trying to focus on other things besides what's been bothering him, and that gave him something to focus on. You know how he is. He likes to have something to do, to feel like he's being effective. Otherwise..."
"He freaks out," Ron finished. "Right." "Well, it's great that he's freaked back in. I just hope it stays that way." "You don't sound very happy." "I am," said Ron slowly, and she could tell that he was measuring his speech carefully, "but considering that he's spent six months refusing to tell me what's wrong, and stonewalling me when I ask him, color me pessimistic when I hear the problem's cured itself. He might be shoving it down for now, but it'll just come back later, whatever it is." Hermione bit her lip and looked back at the pavilion. Harry had already left it, and was moving back towards them through the crowd. She had no trouble picking out his dark hair and blue-lined cloak even in the tightpacked throng. But then she had always been sure that she and Harry would be able to find each other in any crowd, that even at a costume ball they would know each other instantly, by touch or sound or instinct. She turned back towards Ron. "It's not fair," she said, her voice low and fierce. "It isn't." Sympathy flashed in his blue eyes. "I know," he said. "But you can't let that get in the way of your life, Hermione. Harry wouldn't want that."
Wouldn't he? she thought, as Harry came to stand beside her, and clasped her hand with his. Wouldn't he, though? *** Draco stood at the castle's front door and watched the seventh-years leaving, until the grounds were empty and he could once again hear the wind. Then he turned, and went back inside. There was a certain lonely gloom to the entrance hall once all the students were gone, despite the festive decorations. The only person there was Pansy Parkinson, clutching a large red-ribboned green gift box. She glared when she saw Draco, and disappeared down the stairs that led to the Slytherin dungeon, her booted
feet crunching on the discarded bits of tinsel and confetti that littered the floor. Draco looked after her, shrugged, and headed towards the double doors in the far wall. They swung open to let him through, and he walked into the Great Hall at last. The Yule Ball started before the Pub Crawl did, so it looked to Draco as if the meal had already been eaten, and the dancing had begun. Each year the decorations were much like the year before: glowing lights, glittering taper candles, rows of pear trees in whose branches chirping partridges fluttered their pale wings. Brightly wrapped crackers floated about six feet off the ground (Weasley would have banged his head into one, Draco thought) and every once in a while there was a muffled, fiery explosion when a student picked one out of the air and pulled it apart, filling the air with flower petals, tiny sweets, or a shower of toys. Draco glanced over at the dance floor, looking, somewhat against his will, for flame-red hair. - and there was Charlie, dancing with Professor Sinistra, who had a very predatory look on her face. Lupin was over by the High Table, making what looked like uncomfortable conversation with Snape. Dumbledore was deep in conversation with Madam Pomfrey. Draco's gaze flicked over the crowd, mostly composed of younger students he didn't recognize, and then the dancers parted like water and there they were. He saw Ginny first. Her green satin dress made her look like a slender flower stem, crowned with petals of fiery hair. Her slim shoulders were bared above the dress, her skin very white, dappled with gold where the candlelight touched it. Seamus, blond and handsome in dark blue robes, had her by the hands and was drawing her towards the dance floor; Ginny was laughing and shaking her head. She looked happy: uncomplicatedly so. It made him sad in a way he had not expected. The two of them began to dance. Draco recalled dancing with Ginny. She danced the way she looked with her bright hair floating around her: like fire, bright and darting. He saw Seamus stumble, following her. He was briefly and ungenerously amused. Not that he was surprised that Seamus could not keep pace with her. It would be hard to keep pace with fire. She spun away from Seamus again, and this time he didn't even try to follow
her; instead, laughing, he pulled her back towards him, and put his arms around her. His hands met at the small of her back, where her dress dipped into a V, his fingers white against the green satin. Ginny moved uncomplainingly into the circle of his embrace, sliding her hands up to lock around his neck. Draco turned away. He felt voyeuristic, watching, and desperately out of place. Silently, he turned away from the dancing throng and headed back to the entryway. He recalled Hermione catching at his hands with her own, and entreating him to come along to Hogsmeade. He didn't want to do that either, though. It was not enjoyable being with Hermione, Ron and Harry all together. They created a locked circle that no outsider could penetrate. Nor did he even want to try. He pushed the double doors open and went through them, unaware that Ginny had turned within the circle of Seamus' arms to watch him go. He went down the front stairs of the castle and headed east, towards the rose garden. It was empty and lovely under the stars, the ground dusted with a light sugar coating of snow. He made his way down the narrow path between two bushes strung with colored lights. It was early yet, and no amorous couples had yet taken up residence in the rose bushes. In fact, he was alone. Alone in a garden scented heavily with roses and woodsmoke, under a sky dusted with glassy shards of stars. And he felt...lonely. This was not usual for him. He had grown up from a selfcontained child into a self-contained young man. Other people had always seemed not quite real, puppets being moved across a darkened stage. It had never really occurred to him until this year that he might need anybody else, or want to. That there were other people in the world as real and alive as himself still struck him sometimes as something shocking. Even stranger was that he now suspected they might be more real and alive than he was. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, they seemed to radiate a bright shared spirit that he was no part of and that he did not truly understand. He saw Ginny again against the backs of his eyelids, dancing across the ballroom floor with Seamus. She had seemed so happy. He had never made her happy like that. Perhaps, after all, he had done the right thing. It wasn't until his shoe struck against something hard that he realized that in his distracted state, he had wandered off the path and into the ornamental rock garden. He turned to go back to the path, but it was no
longer deserted. There was someone there. A bare-shouldered someone in shimmering green satin, her face framed in a cascade of fiery hair. Someone who was watching him as intently as, earlier, he had watched her. "Ginny," he said. *** It was past midnight, and The Three Broomsticks was full of laughter and shouting. Hermione, pleasantly tired and very warm, sat at one of the long tables before the fire, her gloves off, a warm pint of butterbeer in her cupped hands. Parvati Patil and her sister Padma were sitting across the table; Lavender had long since disappeared to snog with Mark Nott, her attractive blond Slytherin date. With a yawn, Hermione glanced over at the far side of the room, where Harry was standing beside Ron. They were laughing at Neville, who, with Justin and Dean, was playing a game of Blindfold Spark, and had just walked into a wall. She saw Harry put his hand out and turn Neville around so that he was facing the proper way, and smiled to herself. Neville went on his way, and Ron leaned back to laugh with Justin and Dean. Harry stood where he was, looking thoughtful. She noted the way the room seemed to rearrange itself around Harry so that he was its focal point. But maybe that was just because he was her focal point. It was a moment before she realized that someone else, someone who had come to stand next to her, was looking at him as well. It was Blaise Zabini. She had a little smile on her lovely face, and her green eyes - not bright green like Harry's, but a dark, foresty green - were shaded by her thick lashes. She was nibbling very thoughtfully on a Maraschino Cherry Bomb, eating the red candied coating off the exploding center. "You know," she said in a conspiratorial tone, "I have to compliment you on the way you've cleaned Harry up. I used to think he was terribly funny-looking, but you've really improved him."
"Thank you," said Hermione tightly. "Thank you, Blaise, for that veiled insult." "Oh, no offense meant," said Blaise sweetly. "He's just gorgeous now. I could eat him up with a spoon," and she bit another piece off her candy, and smiled. "If you're going to leer at my boyfriend, do it elsewhere," said Hermione coldly. "Oh, I didn't think you'd mind," Blaise replied airily. "After all, I've seen you looking at mine," and then she was gone, sashaying into the crowd as if she owned it. Hermione looked after her with loathing, and a small cold feeling in her heart. She turned back to Parvati, who had both eyebrows raised.
"I didn't know you knew her," she said. "I don't," said Hermione shortly. "Well, Harry and Ron certainly seem to," said Parvati, her voice laden with irony. "What...?" Hermione turned, and saw, with a start, that Blaise was now standing next to Ron and Harry. She was tossing her bright hair back and laughing and both Ron and Harry were staring at her, with identical astonished expressions. "What is she saying to them?" Hermione exclaimed, rising half out of her seat. Parvati sniffed. "I wouldn't know. I don't speak 'silly bint.'" She paused. "Well, would you look at that!" Hermione, standing up, saw Blaise do something that looked very much like putting her hand on Harry's shoulder and moving in a bit closer and ... she was over at Harry's side within several seconds, placing herself between Blaise and both boys. Harry blinked at her, looking surprised. "Hermione! Decided you want to play Blindfold Spark?" "No," said Hermione, ignoring Blaise, who was looking at her with amusement. "I want to go for a walk." Harry blinked at her. "Not by yourself?" "No. Not by myself." Hermione took his hand. "With you." She looked at Ron, who was glancing between her and Blaise with a curious expression. "You can hold the fort down without him for a minute?" Ron returned her look with a very peculiar expression indeed. "Sure, if it's important." "It's important," said Hermione, and yanked Harry after her with such suddenness that his glass flew out of his hand; she saw Ron catch it in midair out of the corner of her eye. She was vaguely aware of Blaise calling after them, something about the boys outside throwing snowballs at unwary snogging couples, but Hermione paid no attention. She pushed the front door of the Three Broomsticks open, pulled Harry after her, and
didn't stop until she was at the foot of the stairs. "Okay," said Harry, once she had paused. She turned to look at him; he seemed bemused. "That was a credible imitation of a bat out of hell. What's wrong?" Hermione looked at him, realizing she was out of breath. The cold wind was already striking color into his cheeks, and in the dim light coming from the Three Broomsticks, his eyes were very green. "I just...wanted to be alone with you," she said lamely. "Okay," said Harry again, very reasonably. "Why?" She opened her mouth to respond, then paused as a group of giggling Ravenclaw girls pushed past them and began mounting the stairs. With a sigh, Hermione looked up and down the street for somewhere they could go. The year before she and Ron had always gone around to the alley behind the Three Broomsticks to talk and be alone...she glanced to the left and saw that the small iron gate that barred the way was still there. She gestured for Harry to follow her and led him quickly towards the alley entrance. She opened the gate with a quick Alohomora, and then she and Harry were through the gate and he was closing it behind them. It was a narrow, dead-end alley, lit only by the lights coming from the windows of the Three Broomsticks. The cobblestones underfoot were slick with a sheen of ice and there were empty butterbeer and Dragon's Blood vodka boxes stacked haphazardly against the walls. Harry looked around, confused - at the bare stone walls, the shadowy darkness, the narrow strip of starry sky overhead. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked, and turned to look at her. The wind blew his black hair across his face and in the sharp-edged moonlight, she could see herself reflected in his eyes. For a moment, she stood there, unsure. She had only wanted to get out of that room, to be alone with Harry. But now they were outside, in the bitter cold air, the sky above full of stars and wind and she had nothing she could say to him. And the night was lovely. Everything seemed powdered with diamonds, even the narrow dirty alleyway and the empty boxes stacked against the wall. The starlight tipped Harry's hair with silver, glazed his bare skin with platinum where the collar of his shirt fell away
from his throat and starred each pitch-black eyelash with jewelry light. Her body trembled when she looked at him, as if it knew things she didn't know. He had been looking down at her, half-inquiring, half-amused, and then whatever he saw in her eyes drove the amusement from his expression. He caught his breath, and she saw the pulse at the base of his throat begin to pound, his blood stirring as hers did. "Hermione..." he began, and despite all her misgivings she pulled him close, hard against her, and kissed him. *** Draco looked at her without surprise, as if he had expected to see her there. "Hello, Ginny," he said. "Sneaking off to Hogsmeade, are you? I'm afraid I'll have to report you." She smiled. She couldn't help it. He was beautiful in the starlight, even more so than usual. His silver hair and eyes reflected the pale light like mirrors, and the shadows described the fine bones of his face. Seamus was handsome, but...realizing she shouldn't be thinking of Seamus, she thrust the cup she was holding in her hand towards Draco awkwardly. "I brought you some hot tea," she said. "I thought you might be cold out here." Coming closer, Draco took the cup from her politely. "Thank you," he said. "Nice of you to think of me, especially when you're busy with your date and all." "Well, I.." "Or were you bored?" His light eyes raked her face with amusement. "Dancing with Captain Cardboard not all it's cracked up to be?" "Don't. Seamus is a wonderful guy and..." "You know, I hit him with a teakettle once and he cried like a baby." "Draco, he was a baby. He was four. Let it go."
"I've let it go. It's gone. Look, if you're happy I'm happy for you. We can...double date." Draco looked at his cup of hot tea, and then drained it in one gulp, as if he were hoping there might be alcohol in it. (There wasn't.) He crumpled the empty cup and tossed it towards a rosebush. It landed among the brambles, and a small flower fairy climbed out along a branch, looked disapprovingly at Draco, and vanished with the cup in hand. "Well, thanks for being happy for me," Ginny said. "Really." "Think nothing of it." "Now that I've got Seamus, we can be friends again without Blaise minding," she added, brushing a stray curl of hair behind her ear. She was aware that she was provoking him, but for some reason she didn't feel she could stop. "Isn't that wonderful?" "Right." His silver eyes were long and unreadable. "Friends." "I mean, that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Blaise. She doesn't like me." "I'm not sure she likes anyone," he said, which was no kind of answer. "She must like you," Ginny said. "I wouldn't bet money on it," said Draco, made a face, and sat down on the nearest stone bench, leaning on his hands. He stretched out his long legs in front of him, and looked moodily down at the tips of his boots, which gleamed, black and polished, in the moonlight. "I think half the reason she goes out with me is her parents. They're a piece of work." He sighed. "I'd rather not talk about Blaise, actually." "Do you mind missing your Pub Crawl?" Ginny asked him. Draco shrugged. "Not so much. I really just wanted to be alone." He checked himself at her expression. "It's all right - I was getting a bit lonely. Sit down." Ginny bit her lip. She knew she should go back inside - she had told
Seamus she was going upstairs to get another cloak, as she was cold, and she wasn't sure how long that excuse would hold her. "All right," she said. "Just for a minute," and she sat down, as far away from him as she could, which on the tiny bench wasn't very far at all. "I'm glad you're better," she added, conversationally. She saw him begin to smile, and added quickly, "Harry was really worried, and he's been so down lately..." "Uh-huh," said Draco neutrally. "He seems better though, doesn't he?" "I suppose...well, you could see into his head if you really wanted to, couldn't you? You tell me." "I probably could," he said. "But I wouldn't." "Why not?" Draco shrugged. "I respect his privacy." He tilted his head up to look at the sky, his eyes thoughtful. His silver hair streamed starlight. "Or maybe I just don't want to know what he's thinking." "Don't you trust him?" "Of course I do. But you can't always control what you think. What you dream about, what you want. If you could, there would be no need for such a thing as self-restraint." Ginny shivered, and Draco moved closer to her, as if on instinct. She wondered if he realized how close they were sitting. "Harry has plenty of self-restraint," she said, in a voice that sounded thready to her own ears. Draco looked at her, almost as if he were surprised. "No, he doesn't," he said. "Of course he does! Think of the things he's done. What kind of selfcontrol it must have taken to bring Cedric's body back to school - when he knew what he was facing - and when he was in the Chamber of Secrets, with me-" "Right," Draco interrupted, a bit irritably. "Thank you, I can do without a rendition of Harry's Potter's Greatest Hits."
Ginny glared at him. "I'm not minimizing anything he's done," said Draco, his voice slightly distant. "There isn't anyone braver, or more determined - in a reckless sort of Gryffindor way. But that doesn't necessarily translate to the kind of self-control I'm talking about. He doesn't hide what he feels. He never has been able to. You wouldn't know - you've never tried to manipulate that easy emotional access. I have. I've spent years trying to hurt him. Let me tell you, with Harry you always know when you've scored a hit and really injured him. His whole face breaks apart. Everything about him crumples up like he's been kicked everywhere at once. It's -" "Heartbreaking," Ginny interrupted. Draco looked at her with narrow eyes. "No, I'm not still in love with Harry," she said, answering the unasked question. "And I'm not sure I ever really was - but I used to spend a lot of time watching him. I know exactly what you mean." Draco kicked at a piece of gravel with the toe of his boot. "Maybe you do," he said. "Anyway, that's what I meant. Harry can't hide things like that. He's as transparent as glass. Come on, when did you figure out he was in love with Hermione?" Ginny felt herself flush. "My fourth year," she said quietly. "Maybe my fifth - I wasn't here that year, but I saw them all over Christmas at the Burrow. I remember Hermione was teaching Harry how to put together a wizarding Christmas tree, and I saw him watching her while she was spinning a web of lights over the branches. I saw the expression on his face and I just - knew." Her throat closed up with the remembered pain of it. Not just her pain - she had also felt for her brother. Later they had talked about it, and he had said he had always known, but she often wondered if that was true. He had shocked her with how well he had taken it, when it happened. Maybe a little too well. "What about - what about you?" "Oh, last year," said Draco, with an offhanded shrug. "It would have been earlier, but I was a bit blindsided by that whole her-dating-Weasley thing -
oh, sorry. Your brother." He grinned, a white flash in the darkness. "Harry was looking at her in Potions class when he thought she wouldn't notice. Staring at her as if she was water in the desert. So obvious, really. I recall catching the look and thinking, "Aha. He's besotted with her and he's too stupid to know it. Wonder how I can use that?" Ginny shook her head. "That's really grotesque, you know. And how did you?" "How did I what?" "Use that." "I didn't. The Polyjuice thing happened before I got a chance." "Poetic justice," said Ginny, firmly. "What?" "You heard me. You were going to use the fact that Harry loved Hermione against him. And then..." Her voice trailed off before she wandered into the dangerous territory they had agreed not to discuss. "What an awful thing to do that would have been." "I agree," said Draco, his voice clear and hard as glass. "And there's something else bothersome about it." "What?" "Well, I can't have been the only person who's had that idea." "That idea?" "Of using her to break him. Come on, Ginny. Everyone has one weakness. He's protected elsewhere. Not where she's concerned." "Well, if letting yourself love someone is a weakness -- " she began sharply. "Of course it is," said Draco, as if she'd said something very stupid.
"I think you're talking like your father," said Ginny softly. "I think I'm talking too much," Draco replied, and sat up straight. "Never mind." "You're underestimating Harry," Ginny said. "He'd never let harm come to anyone he cared about. If that's a weakness, then he has a dozen. My brother. Sirius. Hagrid. You." She reached out, and put her hand on his shoulder. The soft silvery-fair hair that fell past his ears just brushed the tops of her knuckles. "He isn't protected where you're concerned, either." "Oh, no," said Draco in a remote sort of voice, "I think he'd sacrifice me along with all the rest." "Draco--" "He's a hero, isn't he? That's what they do. Sacrifice for the greater good." "He needs you," Ginny said. Draco looked at her. His eyes were clear and silver, untouched by any shade of blue or green or gray. "Harry doesn't need one single one of us an eighth as much as we all need him," Draco said. "It's what he is as much as who he is. He's the hero, we're his companions. We're satellites. We revolve around what he does." "You don't think he needs us? You said he needs Hermione...didn't you?" "He's in love with her," said Draco. "And more than that. You know he was almost sorted into Slytherin, don't you? That, and other things - he always feels like he's a fraud somehow. It's in the back of his mind, every day. It's why he wants to win, prove himself, all the time, why he never backs down, why he always has to be not just good enough but damn near perfect. He's afraid of what he might be capable of if he didn't hold himself back. But Hermione - he told me once that she sees him not as he is, but as he wishes he was. That she sees a better world than we live in, a better Harry than the Harry that really exists. I think he sees her as the custodian of his better self. She protects him not just from the world but from himself - am I making any sense?"
Ginny realized she was staring at him. "Scarily," she said, "yes." "But that's a double-edged sword," said Draco, his eyes on her face now, finding her own eyes, their gazes locking. "Because the more he feels that perhaps he isn't the person she thinks he is, and the more afraid he is that he can never be that person, the more afraid he is that one day she'll realize what he really is, and leave him. And take with her not just herself, which would nearly kill him, but her vision of that better Harry that he has always wanted to be. And that's something that might do what even Voldemort couldn't." "Which is?" "Destroy him." He reached out and touched the curl of hair that had been falling in front of her eyes, tucking it back behind her ear in an absentminded manner. "He thinks he has to be perfect, and that if he isn't perfect he's nothing. He doesn't understand that we all have to fight our worse impulses to be what we want, that we have to give things up, that we disappoint the people we love, that as much as you love someone sometimes it just isn't going to happen and you have to understand that you aren't nothing without them, and -" "Are we still talking about Harry?" Ginny said, her voice very soft. For a moment, Draco was very still, looking at her. The feel of his glance on her face was like a caress, if not a gentle one. Then his eyes went flat, as if shutters had been dropped down over them, and he sat back and away from her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've been rambling. I think it was the blood loss. Or something." "No," she said, and reached for his hand, then thought better of it and let her own hand fall to her lap. "You weren't rambling - you were making sense and I'm glad, because I've been so worried about Hermione and Harry and -" "You shouldn't worry," Draco replied, still distantly. "It's your Yule Ball night. You should enjoy it." She wanted to tell him that she had been enjoying it, that these few
moments with him out in the rose-scented, bitter cold night were the best moments she had had in months; that she loved the way he talked to her, as nobody else did, as if there was no question that she could be too fragile to handle the truth; the way he spoke his mind to her and didn't cajole or flatter or patronize. He never had, even when he was being nasty. "Do you want me to go back?" she asked. "No, but you should," he said, without glancing away. "Go back and be beautiful for Seamus. It's wasted on me." She hesitated, looking at him. The moment seemed poised on a crystalline point, sharp and diamond-like. "You think I'm beautiful?" she asked.
He looked down at his hands, and then back up at her. When he spoke, it was in a toneless voice, made all the more sincere somehow by its lack of affect. "You are so beautiful it is hard to look at you for very long," he said. There was a long silence. The moment stretched out between them, sharp
and tense and elongated. He was looking at her, and in his eyes she could see the reflected moonlight, and she remembered the drowning pleasure of his mouth over hers, so she did something she had never done before, and kissed him. He was sitting and not standing; they were at almost the same height. She did not have to stretch upward to kiss him. She had only to lean forward to cover his mouth with hers. She had never initiated a kiss. Others had always kissed her first. She could not believe she was doing this, and yet she was. The proof was there: his mouth against her own, tense and ungiving at first, then softening as he leaned into the kiss, reaching forward to pull her towards him. His arms went around her and pressed her tightly against him, so tightly that the clasp of his cloak dug sharply and almost painfully into the base of her throat. She could feel his hands on the velvet of her dress, sliding up to touch her bare skin. His fingers burned, ten slender wands of fire, and she felt her blood singing in her veins. And then it was over. As quickly as he had drawn her towards him, he pulled back. His hands were on her shoulders now, pushing her away as adamantly as a moment before, he had pulled her towards him. "No," he said, his voice a little ragged, and then more firmly, "No." He let go of her. She sat where she was, certain that she was scarlet with humiliation. It was a moment before she realized that the burning behind her eyes was tears. When she spoke, her voice shook. "Damn it, Draco," she whispered. "What are you playing at?" He raised his face. The dark moonlight silvered the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones. "You asked me," he said. "I said you were beautiful that's all." "You can't say things like that to me," she said. "And not mean them." "I mean everything I say. It's my besetting sin." "Then why?" The words seemed torn out of her throat. "If you like me, if you think I'm beautiful, then why?" He knew what she meant, of course. He looked away. "Harry likes you. He
probably thinks you're beautiful, too. Why not ask him that?" "Because it's not like that with us; he's in love with someone else," she said, and then stopped herself. "And - and you are too, aren't you?" He didn't say anything. He was looking down at his hands with a fierce desperate intensity. He seemed to be holding himself back, as tightly as if he were trying to prevent himself from hitting her. "Blaise," she said. "How can you? She's horrible." Draco looked away. "Or not her - oh, of course not her," Ginny whispered. She felt as if she were being cut apart inside. "You -" "I don't want to talk about this," he said. His voice cut with an edge like diamond. His eyes were unreadable again. He had wanted her. She knew he had wanted her; she was not stupid, or blind. But he had pushed her away, and was doing so still. "There is no point." Ginny stared at him. For some reason, she was hearing Hermione's voice in her head. It had been months ago when she had told Hermione that she was beginning to have feelings for Draco. And she had complained that Draco would not tell her that he returned those feelings. What had Hermione said? "It means he likes you enough not to want you to have unrealistic expectations of him. You have to understand - he won't lie. Not about how he feels. He's always painfully honest." Finally, Ginny understood exactly why Hermione had characterized that honesty as painful. She thought she had felt all the pain she could feel where Draco was concerned. But apparently not. "No point - there's every point," she said, her voice very quiet. "No," he said, firmly. "There isn't." He looked away, out over the rose garden, drenched in moonlight as bright as unicorn blood. "If we keep on like this, you'll start to hate me." "I could never hate you, Draco."
"Oh, yes you could," he said, and his voice held a weary knowledge. "And you would. Because you're like me. You could never be happy with second-best, or half of what you want. And you would fight it, and so would I, but we'd just end up fighting each other. When you're like us, you don't just give up when it goes wrong. We would tear each other apart until one of us couldn't take it. We couldn't just ... forget." There was a long silence. Ginny was concentrating so much of her energy on not crying, that it took her several moments before she could speak. Finally, she said, "You're wrong." "Am I?" Draco's expression gave nothing away. "Wrong about what?" "I can forget about you," she said. "And I will. Starting now." He looked at her. He had withstood everything else she had thrown at him, but it seemed even Draco had a breaking point. His eyes gleamed for a moment with their old provocative malice. "Try," he said. She had nothing to say to that. She turned and walked away, conscious to the moment she reached the castle doors of his eyes on her back.
*** Hermione did not know how long they had been standing there. They were still kissing, if it could even be called that; she felt more as if they were trying to bridge the gap that had sprung up between them over the past weeks and months, and fuse themselves into one person. Harry had frozen the moment she had kissed him, and she had been for a second afraid that he would push her away - but then his hands had gone to her waist, and he had lifted her up - she had been dimly aware of him kicking the empty butterbeer cartons out of the way, and then she was pressed up against the wall of the Three Broomsticks, the stones digging into her back, and he was kissing her as if both their lives depended on it. His sudden explosive passionate reaction had first stunned her, and then galvanized her own response; she felt great shocks, as if of cold or heat, tearing through her nerves, burning away rational thought. They had had
kisses before, sweet and gentle kisses, passionate kisses as well, but never anything quite like this - there was something messy and unguarded about the desperation of the way Harry clutched at her, his hands tight around her arms (the next day she wound find five bruises on the circumference of each arm, like an unfolded flower, where his fingers had been), as if he never expected to see her or touch her again. She felt as if she were falling and there was no end to her descent. She remembered the first time she had ever kissed him and it had been like a strange miracle, all that known familiar country she had seen so often now being learned by touch: the feel of his mouth, the slight roughness of his skin, the taste of him. But it had been nothing like this, with this desperation: this clash of teeth and tongues and kisses like bites, her frantic snatching at the clasp that held his cloak together, hers falling as well, Harry kicking both garments aside and pressing her up against the wall with the force of his body, his hands busy elsewhere. Her own hands were on the hem of his sweater, tugging it up over his head, and it came off with his glasses and she dropped it on top of an empty carton. He had only a thin cotton shirt on underneath --Harry was very strong for someone with such a lean frame, and as he moved to hold her more tightly she could feel the muscles in his back move under her hands. He was shaking, his hands trembling where they touched her face, her throat, cupped her breasts through the material of her dress. "Are you cold?" she whispered against his mouth, "Are you all right?" but he didn't answer her. "Harry," she whispered again, and this time he covered her mouth with his again, silencing her. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to worry - and then a sudden lancing cold struck her skin, and she opened her eyes in surprise. Somehow Harry had managed to get the front of her bodice undone, and it was open to the waist, the frigid air breaking against her bare skin like dashes of cold champagne. "Harry," she said, more urgently, a sudden nervousness gripping her as he slid his hands under the material of her dress. The dizzying feeling of falling was leaving her, the alley and its environs coming back into focus - the lighted windows, the gate to the north, the open street beyond. "Harry, we should stop -- someone might come, and see us -" "So what?" His mouth was against her throat, and then moving down, and she shuddered with the pleasure of it, and also with tension - she felt on the edge of panic, and wasn't sure why... why would she be afraid of Harry?
"So, this is private, that's what. Harry!" He was pushing her dress down off her shoulders. She realized that in a moment she would be just about naked. While she admired his skill in getting her laced-up bodice undone so quickly - it had taken her nearly an hour to get it on properly and he had dispatched with the whole thing in under a minute - she was more conscious of the growing fear that someone would come along - Ron, probably - and see them. "Harry," she whispered. "Not now." He appeared not to hear her. "I've missed you," he whispered back. "I've missed you so much," and she felt herself tense as he captured her mouth with his again. His hands were on her skirt, gathering the material with his fingers, sliding the dress up over her thighs. The chill air struck the bare skin of her ankles, then her calves, and now she was shaking with more than just the cold. He was touching her in ways he never had before, and suddenly a strange sense of wrongness shot through her veins, frightening in its intensity. Kissing Harry, touching him, had always been like coming home to a familiar and beloved place; now she felt suddenly as if she had opened the door to her own house and found it inhabited by strangers. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she put her hands flat against his shoulders and pushed him away, hard. Harry looked shocked. He stared at her for a moment, the dizziness fading out of his eyes. She was reminded of the way he was just after winning a Quidditch match - it took him a moment to come back down to earth, even after he had landed. She supposed, in a way, he had just been flying - only she had not, this time, been flying with him. "Hermione," he said. "What's wrong?" He didn't know? He really didn't know? She realized she couldn't tell him. Instead, she said the first reasonable-sounding thing that came into her head. "Missed me?" she whispered. "How could you have missed me - I've been right here with you all this time." "You've been here." Harry reached for his sweater, took it, and pulled it back on over his head. She wondered if it was busying his hands so he wouldn't have to look at her. His cheeks were scarlet and, she suspected, not just with cold. "I haven't." "And now you are?" she replied. She had crossed her arms over her chest,
covering herself, but she was still cold. "Or are you just drunk?" Harry bent down and picked up her white cloak, which had fallen on top of his black one. He held it out to her, and she took it, wrapping it around her shoulders. "Maybe I'm a little drunk," he said, very quietly. "But it's not as if I wanted...wanted to be with you because I'm drunk. I always love you. It's just, usually - lately, anyway - I can't say it." She shook her head. Her hands, lacing up the bodice on her dress, were shaking. "Why can't you say it?" she asked. "Have you changed your mind? Do you feel differently now? Are you...ashamed of me?" "Ashamed of you?" He laughed; it was a painful sound. "Me, ashamed of you. That's funny. Sort of." He bent down again and retrieved his glasses, which were streaked with snow. He began to clean them on the hem of his shirt. He looked different without them. Older. It emphasized how his face had thinned, becoming more handsome, less soft and childlike. Harder. "Why would you even say that?" "You don't kiss me or touch me in public, but back here in this alley, you're all over me. What does that say, Harry? I always said I wanted to wait, so it would be really special when we finally were together, but I get the feeling you'd be perfectly happy to just get drunk and do it against a wall." "Hey!" said Harry sharply, and slid his glasses back on. "You brought me here. And then you kissed me, and what am I supposed to think? You're my girlfriend! Of course I want to--you know. And - and I'm all right now." He had gone slightly scarlet. Hermione was briefly amused. She had a feeling the Dursleys had probably been very peculiar where it came to sex education. "Yes, but that doesn't mean that..." She broke off. She knew what she wanted to say, could hear the words in her head. You're all right now, because you've been drinking. And you're all right when you're flying. And if we had sex, you'd probably be all right for that too, because it would be just another drug to kill the pain of whatever's bothering you. But I don't want any part of that. Because it wouldn't last. And then I would have given you everything, and it still wouldn't have been enough. But of course, she couldn't say that.
"Well, what did you want to come back here for, then?" Harry demanded, looking honestly confused. Hermione covered her face with her hands, embarrassed. "Well, you were flirting with Blaise, and I..." "Flirting?" Harry looked amazed. "I was not flirting!" "Oh, you certainly were." "With her? She's a Slytherin! And she's Draco's girlfriend, and anyway, she despises me." "She does not, she said you were gorgeous and she could eat you up with a spoon and...why did I tell you that? It was yucky the first time I heard it." Harry was staring at her in frank amazement. "You made that up," he said. "I did not." "Bet you did." Hermione sighed. "Harry, you idiot -- half the girls in this school are in love with you." Harry started to laugh. "What, only half?" "I think you lost the other half to Draco. But hey, they're mostly Slytherins anyway." She shook her head. "I can't believe you never noticed, but then, that's just typical. You don't know how cute you are and that is the cutest thing about you. Girls adore that - and now I think I've said too much." "Ah, so this is top-secret not-to-be-shared-with-the-male-gender information?" "Yes. Now I have to kill you before you go tell Ron, or God forbid, Draco."
"Right, I suppose that they don't know how cute they are either." "Well, Ron possibly not, but Draco? I hate to break it to you, but Draco knows exactly how cute he is." Harry grinned. "Yes... kind of revolting, isn't it?" "Well," she said. "Revolting isn't exactly the word." Harry snorted. "Well, if you mean that - ow!" Hermione jumped. "Harry, what?" But Harry was already stepping back, brushing snow off the shoulder of his cloak. "Someone threw a snowball at me -Ron!" he yelled, and burst out laughing. Hermione followed his gaze and saw Ron standing at the alleyway entrance, holding his hands up as if to say, "Who, me?" But he was grinning. Behind Ron she could see other dark shapes, hurtling to and fro: the seventh-year boys Blaise had been talking about, who were throwing snowballs at snogging couples. "I didn't have a choice!" Ron yelled back. "Neville and Dean would have done it if I hadn't!" But Harry was shaking his head. "You...are...going...to...die," he shouted, and then raced towards Ron, who bolted away, laughing. Hermione stared after them for a moment, thinking, What are they, twelve? She walked towards the alley entrance slowly, arriving at the main road just in time to see Harry jump on Ron, knock him over, and begin stuffing snow into his shirt. Ron yelled, and began scrabbling in the snow with his fingers in an attempt to make another snowball. Looking at them, she suddenly saw another image superimposed over this one: she saw the two of them rolling over and over in the snow with her when they were all fourteen and it hadn't mattered that she was a girl, she had still been fair game to have her shirt pockets stuffed with ice, and she missed that suddenly suddenly and piercingly. They had been so happy together, the three of them, a perfect unit. Stealthily, she bent down and gathered up a handful of loose snow, which burned her hand with its coldness. She crept up behind Harry, who seemed gleefully intent on shoving snow into Ron's
ears, and very carefully dumped the lot of it down the back of his shirt. The yell that greeted this sally was instantaneous and very gratifyingly loud. Harry fell sideways into the snow, yowling, while Ron, sitting up with his red hair full of snow, was speechless with laughter. Harry looked at her reproachfully. "Hermione! Cheating!" "Don't be a sore loser, Harry Potter," she replied, scooped up a handful of snow, and hurled it at him. Harry reached out and grabbed for her leg, and she slipped and fell sideways onto Ron, who commenced stuffing snow into the bodice of her dress with an apparent total disregard for niceties. Hermione shrieked and wriggled away, grabbing for Harry with icy fingers. Shouting with laughter, they all three rolled to the bottom of the hill, tangled together, finally fetching up against a large boulder. Hermione sat up first, spitting snow out of her mouth and holding her chest, which was beginning to hurt from laughing. Her dress was soaking wet and her hair hung in wet, ratty tendrils all around her face, but she didn't care. She watched as Harry and Ron sat up as well, both as thickly covered with snow as if they had been rolled in icing sugar. "Well," said Harry, taking off his glasses, which were almost unrecognizable, and squinting at them. "That was -" He was cut off as Hermione leaped forward and threw her arms around them both, hugging them tightly. Both Ron and Harry seemed astonished at this sudden display of affection; Ron patted her gently on the back. Finally she pulled back and looked at them - covered in snow, both soaking, their fancy dress clothes drenched in water and sticking to their skin. They could almost have been the two boys who had collapsed on the floor of a wet bathroom after saving her from that troll so many years ago. "I just want you to know," she said suddenly, surprising herself, "that I love you - I love you both, no matter what ever happens to us, ever." Ron looked at Hermione, and then at Harry, obviously very embarrassed indeed. "Been at the gin again, has she?" he demanded. Harry nodded. "It's becoming a problem."
Hermione held out her hands. "Oh come on," she said, and without being told what to do, each of them took one of her hands - Ron the left, and Harry the right. "We'll always be together," she said, her voice firm. "Won't we - won't we?" Harry and Ron looked more embarrassed than ever. "Well, not always," said Ron. "I think I'm going to need a hot bath when I get back to the castle, and I plan to do that on my own, thank you." Harry grinned at him. "What you don't need anyone to scrub your back?" Ron wiggled an eyebrow. "You offering?" "Nah," said Harry. "I was thinking of Myrtle." "Oh shut up, you two," Hermione interjected despairingly. "Look - just promise me we'll always be friends, won't you? Because it's Christmas, and because if you don't, I will personally tell Myrtle that you both love her, and she'll never leave you alone again. Okay?" "Okay," said Harry, laughing. "I promise." "I do too," said Hermione. "I promise." She looked at Ron; they both did, and it seemed to her that he looked oddly moved, as if somehow her pronouncement had made him sad. "I promise," he said. "We'll always be friends."
***
"Resistance is useless," purred the voluptuously evil Lady Stacia, her vast bosom rising and falling above the material of her leather corset like a temperamental soufflé. "You are mine now, Tristan. Forget Rhiannon. I, and I alone, can take you to the snowy peaks of ecstasy." Tristan set his jaw. He would have folded his manly arms as well, but he couldn't because Lady Stacia had tied him to a pole. "Rhiannon is my one true love, and I shall never forget her. Never!" Lady Stacia shrugged, and from her thigh-high leather boot drew a long phoenix feather, with which she commenced tickling the helpless Tristan all over his bare chest. Tristan began to suspect that she would not rest until she partook of his manly charms. Well, perhaps Rhiannon wouldn't mind if it was just this once, would she? Anyway, she had been carried off by pirates. Who knew when he would see her again?
Ginny dropped Passionate Trousers into her lap and stared disconsolately at the cover. It was blank at the moment - the illustrated versions of Rhiannon and Tristan had vanished, presumably in order to have some privacy. Well, Ginny thought darkly, at least someone was having fun tonight. And of course Tristan in the story was deserting Rhiannon for the umpteenth time - because, she reasoned, kicking the book off the bed, men were worthless. Or not. She felt a pang, remembering - she had come running into the Great Hall after leaving Draco, all her nerves on fire and her skin tingling, and she had seen Seamus, standing and talking very pleasantly with Charlie over by the wall, and she had felt her stomach drop out. Seamus was so sweet, and so well-meaning, and what was she doing but treating him absolutely dreadfully? He had looked up and smiled at her then, and it had taken every bit of her willpower not to simply run out of the room. Instead she had gone up to him and begged off the rest of the evening, claiming a sick headache. He had walked her to Gryffindor Tower, unfailingly kind as always, and the last she had seen of him had been his tow-blond hair disappearing into darkness as she mounted the steps to her empty dormitory room. She sighed, and lay back down on the bed, burying her face in her arms. She felt dreadfully guilty about Seamus, deprived of his Pub Crawl, and could not shake the feeling that she had been messing about behind his back. Of course, she had not meant to kiss Draco She rolled over then, and stared up at the ceiling. Who was she kidding. As if she'd gone outside for any other reason. She had looked up while she was dancing with Seamus and seen Draco standing by the Great Hall doors, watching her. From that distance she could not see the expression on his face, only his silver hair and pale skin printed against the darkness behind him. But she could see the angle of his shoulders, the way he stood, and knew he was watching her, and saw him walk away. And there was no power on earth at that point that could have prevented her from going after him.
Hence, she thought, the guilt, and the pounding headache. She sat up, wondering if she should go for a Pain-Relieving Charm, when she realized
that the pounding sound she was hearing was not, in fact, the pain in her own head. It was someone banging on the dormitory door. She stood up slowly, wrapping her arms around herself - she was wearing her jeans and a maroon sweater than had once belonged to Ron; the sleeves were so long that they entirely engulfed her hands. With a sigh, she went across the room and opened the door, wondering if it was Elizabeth or Ashley, too tired to remember how to work the doorknob. But it was Seamus. He had changed out of his fancy dress clothes, and was in jeans and a dark yellow sweater with a black stripe across the front. His feet were bare, and his hair was a mess, and he looked as if he'd just spent at least twenty minutes screwing himself up to do something unpleasant. "Hey," he said, his eyes searching the room behind her to see if there was anyone else there. Satisfied that the room was empty, he turned his gaze back to Ginny. "I was hoping I could talk to you." Ginny sagged against the doorframe. "Oh, Seamus. Whatever it is, don't say it. I can't cope. Not right now." Seamus shook his head. "This is ridiculous," he said. "I know. And I'm sorry. I ruined your Yule Ball, and you could have gone to the Pub Crawl, and I feel awful. I hate myself. I am so, so sorry." Seamus looked exasperated. "That is not what I meant,' he said. "I meant you...you letting yourself be miserable. I don't care about the Yule Ball or the Pub Crawl or any of it! But I care about you, Ginny." She looked at him in surprise. "Seamus..." "I do," he said quickly. "I have for a long time. When you came back this year, after you'd been away, it was like... you were a whole new person and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed you before. You're beautiful, you're clever, you're a fantastic Quidditch player, you're funny, your friends obviously adore you..." Ginny looked at him with her mouth open. "I'd no idea." "Well," said Seamus. "Now you do."
She shook her head. "Don't...don't be all sweet and nice. I don't deserve it." She leaned against the doorjamb, feeling hopeless. "I can't do this. It would be a mistake, and -- and I can't do this again." Seamus looked surprised. "Again? You dated me before?" Ginny laughed despite herself. "No, I mean... look, Seamus, I like you, I really do, and you're charming and sweet, but I've discovered that it's a really, really bad idea to go against my instincts. The last time I did that well, it didn't work out so well for me." Seamus nodded. He had put his hands in his pockets. "I just saw your brother come back from the Pub Crawl with Harry and Hermione," he said. "They didn't even look surprised to see me sitting by myself in the common room. It made me wonder what they know that I don't know. Ginny..." he paused. "What exactly did Malfoy do to you? I won't say anything - or judge you - I just want to understand." Ginny bit her lip. "You couldn't possibly..." "I could if you explain it to me," said Seamus, his voice very firm. Ginny hesitated, looking at him. He had a kind, honest face, made more boyish by the smattering of freckles across his nose. He looked steadfast and loyal and stalwart and all those things she associated with her brothers, with all the men in her life really - except for one. She couldn't imagine upending all the trial and darkness and misery of the last six months, the confusion and the pain and the victory and the disappointment, on top of Seamus, and having him be able to even begin to understand. But maybe she was selling him short. Maybe he could take it. If nothing else, he really seemed to want to understand. Maybe he could. And maybe she just really needed somebody to talk to. She stepped back, away from the door, and motioned for Seamus to come in. He looked at her in surprise, wise-eyed and hesitating. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
*** He had been waiting so long there in their meeting place that he was about to give up when she finally appeared. She looked pale and tired, and her robes were in disarray. "Ron," she said, and he saw she had his folded parchment in her hand. "I got your message." She made no attempt to come across the room towards him, only leaned back against the closed door. "What did you want to see me about? You know this isn't a good time." He looked at her with slight incredulity. "It's been days," he said. "I can't go that long -" "Well, you have to," she replied abruptly. "There are more important things in life than sex, Ron." "That is not why I wanted to see you!" He was gripping the table with his hands so hard that they hurt. "I missed you." She flushed beneath her pallor. "You saw me today. And yesterday. And the day before. And -" "But not like this," he said. "Not like this," and he walked across the room and took her by the arms, and kissed her. Or tried to. She turned her face away from his, and would not look at him. "Why?" he said. "Why are you doing this?" "I'm afraid," she said quietly. He shook his head. A strange ache had begun in a place below his ribs. It was hard to breathe. "I won't let you shut me out - I'll tell everyone -" She jerked in his arms as if he had dug a knife into her skin. "No! No, you promised!" "And you said you loved me! Or were you lying?" She laughed; it was a brittle sound. "I lie to everyone else. Why not you,
too?" "There's a simple solution to that," he said. "Tell them the truth." She seemed to droop in his embrace. "I'm not ready yet." "When will you be ready?" He searched her face with his eyes. As always, in the faint and colored light of the meeting room, she looked spectral, her features dimmed to ghostliness. He could almost believe she was not quite real, a figment conjured up by his own importunate yearnings. "New Year's," she said suddenly, surprising him. But then, she always surprised him. He recollected how astonished he had been the day she first summoned him to this place. He had thought it was a joke. "New Year's Day, Ron, if that's what you want." "It's what I want," he said, and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, very lightly. She had let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, her hair covering her face. He remembered that she had been the one to kiss him, first, hooking her arm around his neck and drawing him down to her and he had let her, out of astonishment as much as anything else. Now she seemed shy, her hands knotted into fists against his chest. "Put your hair back," he would say to her sometimes, when they lay together on the ground. "I can't see your face." And she would laugh. "I can always see yours. You can't hide." "Yes," he would say. "I know." *** "Go away, Potter," said Draco. "I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. I don't need this right now. It's four a.m." Harry, who had been hopping up and down excitedly in the hallway, stopped and looked vexed. "Come on, Malfoy! Didn't you hear what I said?" "I heard you," said Draco, leaning against the door jamb and regarding Harry in a pained manner. Usually he was happy to see Harry, but at the
moment he mostly wanted to be alone. His head had been pounding ever since he had come back inside from the rose garden. He kept seeing Ginny's face printed against the backs of his eyelids: the incredulous look in her eyes shattering into anger, and hatred. She hated him. Right, he told himself, and that was what you were after. So congratulations. "I heard you," he said again, pitching his voice low - it was late, but there were still students making their way up and down the corridors, returning from the Pub Crawl. Although Harry had come down to the dungeons in the Invisibility Cloak, he had taken it off as soon as Draco had opened the bedroom door. Had taken it off, and held out his hand to Draco. A hand clutching a silvery-gray box which contained a Portkey. "You stole the Portkey from Lupin's office. Nice work and all that, but, you know, he was going to give it to us next week anyway. Bit like breaking into Gringott's and emptying out your own bank vault, in my opinion." "But I want to go now," said Harry, his voice fired with a passion that he usually only displayed when playing Quidditch. His eyes were bright with anticipatory excitement. "We can use this Portkey and have it back in Lupin's office by tomorrow morning. No one need ever know." "What about Hermione and Ron? Won't they notice you've gone?" "They're asleep. I left Hermione off at her room, and that was ages ago. If we get back by 9 o'clock tomorrow, nobody will ever notice we've gone. That gives us four hours. Plenty of time." "I thought you liked Professor Lupin," said Draco. Harry looked taken aback. "I do, of course I do," he said. "But this is important." He paused, and darted his eyes sideways. "Hold that thought," he added quickly. "Someone's coming." "What? Oh -bugger this," said Draco, reached out, grabbed Harry by the front of the shirt, and hauled him inside. He pushed the door shut after him, and leaned against it, his eyes on Harry. He had rarely seen Harry like this; every line of his frame seemed to almost vibrate with suppressed excitement. "I don't know, Potter," he said. "Stealing, sneaking around isn't this my area?" Harry laughed. "Right," he said. "Sometimes I forget you haven't known
me that long." "I've known you six years." "You know what I mean, Malfoy." Harry paused, his eyes raking Draco's clothes - he had not yet changed out of his fancy dress. "You can't wear that. We're going to have to take Muggle transport. Put on some jeans or something." Draco looked at Harry irritably. He hadn't noticed what Harry was wearing before, but now he did: his Quidditch cords, a heavy dark wool sweater and a black jacket, and lace-up boots. He did indeed look dressed for reconnaissance. Draco found it inexplicably annoying. "I'll wear whatever I bloody well please, Potter. If I choose to wear a fruit-covered hat, I don't see where it's your business." Harry looked at him hard. "Tell me I've gone mad," he said, "But I'm sensing that you're sort of ambivalent about all this." Draco shrugged. It hurt. "Well, I am and I'm not." "Very funny." Harry widened his eyes. "Don't you trust me?" Draco sighed. "Lately I've been having this dream," he said. "Where you come to my room and tell me that you just killed someone, and you need me to help you hide the body. So I do it. But I wake up very annoyed." "What's your point?" "My point is not just that you keep asking me to do things without explaining exactly why I have to do them, but that the last time I took a risk and broke the rules, someone tried to kill me." "Oh, I know," said Harry quickly, "and I completely understand." "That's great, because I'd hate for my little untimely horrible death concern to be ambiguous." "I won't let anything happen to you!" said Harry, looking exasperated.
"That's touching," said Draco, "in a dumb, blustery, overconfident Gryffindor sort of way." Harry blew out an aggravated breath, which made the fringe of hair falling over his eyes fly up. "Malfoy..." "All right," said Draco. "I'll go, and I'll even shut up about it, too. On one condition." "And what's that?" "Tomorrow, when we get back, you tell Hermione exactly where we went. I won't tell lies to her, not even on your behalf." Harry's head went up quickly, his eyes searching Draco's face. For someone who so often these days looked distracted or distant, Harry's eyes could cut like knives when he wanted them to. Draco fought not to look away, and didn't. "Fine," Harry said quietly, after a short silence. "I'll tell her tomorrow." "Okay." Draco went over to his wardrobe, and selected a long charcoalcolored overcoat of silk-lined dragonsuede. He threw it on over his clothes and turned back to Harry, who was watching him with barely controlled impatience. "Ready," he said. Harry held out his left hand, the box containing the Portkey in it. It shone bright silver in the dim light that came through the window, and Harry's eyes shone, as if they had been minted out of some glowing green alloy. His mouth was hard and set with determination and for the first time in a long while, Draco recollected why the thought of Harry Potter had once made him afraid. He went towards Harry, and stood beside him. "Hold on to me," Harry said, and Draco took hold of the sleeve of Harry's jacket, and held fast. He saw Harry tip the Portkey from the box into his open right hand, and then the familiar whipping tug took him, hurling him forward into gray oblivion, Harry at his side. ***
References: "May I remind you," said Draco, "that detention is a timehonored form of punishment." – Buffy “'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then throw it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you originally asked for.'" NewsRadio “"It isn't my fault if you choose to be all buddy-buddy with an overgrown gingery lummox who'd lose a battle of wits with a stuffed iguana." – Red Dwarf “"I'm pretty sure that's what evil tastes like." Friends “Captain Cardboard” – Buffy “I'd hate for my little untimely horrible death concern to be ambiguous." Buffy
Draco Veritas Chapter Five: The Bone Orchard
With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl I balance on this wishing well that all men call the world. -- Leonard Cohen *** "What do you mean, there's no train?" "What I said. There's no train until six in the morning." Harry shrugged, and rubbed his black-mittened hands together. His cheeks were scarlet with the cold, and he looked mildly embarrassed as he avoided Draco's gaze. "I guess we'll have to wait." "I bloody think not," said Draco, hopping down off the bench where he'd been sitting. He glanced around in restless annoyance. "I should have known that when you said you had a plan, what you meant was that you had a half-arsed plan." Harry said nothing. His eyes were roaming up and down the outside of the deserted train station. As it had turned out there was no train station whatsoever in Shepton Mallet proper; they'd had to walk to a nearby town which reportedly had one. And it did have a station -- but it was closed, and locked as tight as the forbidden third floor corridor at Hogwarts. Harry had gone to look around while Draco, miserable with boredom and cold, had flopped down on an empty bench and tried to read a Muggle newspaper that he'd found blowing about. Privately, he rather thought that due to Harry's years at Hogwarts, the other boy had probably forgotten more about Muggles than he remembered. "Look, Potter. If we wait until six in the morning, there's no way that we'll be back in time for classes, and I thought that was the whole point of all this." Harry shrugged and glanced around. He looked small and cold and defenseless, which made it difficult to stay angry with him. "Well, what do you suggest then, Malfoy?"
"We could just use the Portkey to go back," Draco said. "Where does it take us? Lupin's office? Good enough for me. I might even be able to get almost an hour of sleep in." "No!" Harry exclaimed, and then more quietly, "No. There must be another way." "There is," said Draco, and Harry looked at him in confusion. Draco raised his left hand and snapped his fingers, and as he did so he saw Harry's expression of confusion clear, to be replaced by what looked like panic. "No, Malfoy! Not the --" He was cut off by a loud squealing and roaring noise as the huge, hideous, triple-decker purple bus with its splashy gold lettering roared to a stop in front of them. The driver honked the horn, which sounded like a parakeet being strangled. Harry sighed in defeat. "Not the Knight Bus," he said wearily. "What if they tell someone they saw us?" "Oh, bloody hell, Potter, quit thinking you're the biggest news story since ... well, since you, but I'm not sure 'Harry Potter Takes The Bus' is going to move a lot of copies of the Daily Prophet." Harry looked from Draco to the hideous purple bus, and sighed. "I hope you're right." "I'm right. I'm always right! Now get on the bus, you're giving me a headache." Draco was so exhausted that he barely took note of the pimply-faced young man who took his money, and was too cold to complain about the fact that he then charged him a ridiculous two galleons for a bottle of water and a chocolate bar. Draco paid, then went directly to the back of the bus, which was deserted, and flung himself down onto an empty fourposter bed. Then he sat up, and looked around him with concern. "What is it, Malfoy?" Harry asked, taking the bed next to Draco's and lying down in it. "You look worried." "Malfoys," said Draco tightly, "do not sleep on municipal beds. How many other people do you think have lain on these sheets? It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it."
"I've seen you sleep on concrete floors," Harry pointed out. "Surely this can't be less comfortable?" "It's not an issue of comfort," said Draco irritably, took his coat off, flung it on the bed, and lay back down on top of it. "You're such a prima donna, Malfoy," said Harry, who had curled into his favored sleeping position -- on his side, with his head pillowed on his left arm. His green eyes watched Draco with friendly amusement. "I can't believe you didn't bring your own 350 thread count cotton percale sheets on this little camping trip." "I could Summon them," said Draco agreeably, but Harry leaned quickly across the space between them, and caught at his wrist. "No," he said. "No more magic -- please. Especially not wandless magic. I really don't want to be noticed." "I was just joking," said Draco, and Harry let go of his wrist slowly, and lay back down. "They're satin sheets anyway," Draco added, very quietly, a few minutes later, but Harry couldn't have heard him regardless; he had fallen fast asleep. *** "So Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor?" "Right," said Ginny. Seamus sat still a moment, re-digesting this information. "And you....you're the Heir of Hufflepuff?" Ginny nodded. "Right," she said again, cocking her head worriedly. Seamus, sitting on the end of her bed, had picked up one of her woven throw pillows and was busy pulling threads out of it at a rapid pace. She doubted he realized what he was doing, but was beginning to worry that the story she was telling was a bit too much for him. He looked as if his mind were running in circles. "And Malfoy..." Seamus paused, his blue eyes clouded. "Malfoy died?"
"Only briefly," Ginny replied, as helpfully as she could. "He got better right away." Seamus shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. "And ... Harry and Malfoy can talk to each other telepathically? They like each other?" "That last part's up for some debate," Ginny said with a sigh, "but basically yes." Seamus stood up hurriedly, dropping the pillow as he did, and began to pace barefoot up and down at the foot of the bed. Ginny sat up against the pillows and watched him, with some anxiety. She hadn't meant to tell him quite so much, but once she'd started talking it had all come out in a headlong rush. And she couldn't deny that there had been an intense pleasure in finally telling someone else everything she'd been holding inside for so long. "Seamus," she said finally. "Talk to me. Are you all right?" He glanced at her, almost as if he were surprised she was still there. "I don't know what to say. About any of it. Malfoy ... saved Harry's life?" Ginny laughed. "Which time are you asking about? They're always saving each other's lives. Look..." She sat forward on the bed, fixing Seamus with a hopeful look. "They're not like other people..." she began. "What about Quidditch?" Seamus said suddenly. Ginny blinked at him, caught off guard. "What?" "Do they talk...in their heads...during matches? Because I'm pretty sure that's cheating." Ginny was outraged. "Of course not! Harry would never do that! Neither would Draco!" Seamus gave a dry laugh. "Sorry," he said. "I'm not exactly used to the image of Malfoy as a paragon of virtue." "He's not," Ginny said patiently. "He's just changed, that's all. He's still arrogant, and stubborn, and mean sometimes, but...he wouldn't lie, or
cheat, or do anything underhanded like that. He has a rigid moral code, in his own weird way. Look, if you knew him..." Seamus gave another dry laugh. "I can't believe this," he said. "You're defending Malfoy. To me." "But Seamus..." Ginny sat back on her heels. "You said you wanted to know what happened between us." "But that's because I thought..." Seamus raked a hand through his tangled dark blond hair in exasperation. "I thought he'd done something awful to you! Followed you around, tried to force himself on you, seduced you, betrayed you..." "I see," said Ginny coldly. Seamus looked as if he knew he'd just said something stupid. "I wasn't--" Ginny's voice was like ice. "I'm sorry that the reality isn't colorful enough for you, Seamus. I'm sorry I wasn't abused, or abandoned, or --" "It's not that..." Seamus interrupted urgently. "I thought I could help you " "Well, I don't need your help!" Ginny almost shouted. "I don't need you to race in on your big white horse and rescue me, Seamus Finnigan. In fact, I don't need you here at all. I let you in here because I thought you would make me feel better. But all you're doing is making me feel worse!" A hurt look flashed across Seamus' open, gentle face. He came and sat down on the bed next to her, and tried to take her hand. She allowed him to lift it, but let it lie there in his grasp like a dead fish. If she'd had a real dead fish on hand, she would have whapped him across the head with it. She wasn't sure why she felt so annoyed with Seamus, but she did. The Weasley temper... "Ginny," Seamus said after a long silence. "I..I really like you. I do. But I get this feeling that you don't really want me around. So..." He laid her hand down on the bed. "So I'm just going to go. Unless..." He stood up, his hands stuffed in his pockets. His wide blue eyes pleaded with her to say something -- to ask him to stay. "Unless you want me not to."
Ginny took a deep breath. "Just go, Seamus," she said wearily, picking up her damaged throw pillow and cradling it to her chest. "Ashley and Elizabeth will be back any minute and it would probably be better if you weren't here." He nodded, and bit his lip. "Will you be --" "I'll be fine." She watched him walk to the door with an odd ache in the back of her throat. If someone as kind and sweet and generous as Seamus couldn't be understanding about this, then maybe she'd been right - there was nobody who could. He opened the door and paused there, looking at her, handsome in a boyish way with his tousled hair and tired, sleepy blue eyes. "I won't repeat anything you told me," he said, his voice very serious. "I promise." She nodded, holding her pillow, not trusting herself to speak as he went out and shut the door behind him. *** "Potter! Potter, wake up!" Harry struggled groggily into a sitting position. "Are we there?" he demanded, reaching into his pocket and pulling his glasses out. He put them on, and blinked as the blur in front of him resolved into Draco, sitting on the end of his bed looking agitated, and waving something in his hand...a rolled-up newspaper. "You going to hit me with that?" Harry asked, hauling himself into a sitting position. "If so, what did I do exactly?" "I want you to look at something," Draco said, pulling up his legs to sit cross-legged on the bed, and spreading the newspaper open on his lap. He jabbed at an article with his finger. "Stupid Muggle papers...the photos don't move...but I recognized it anyway." "Recognized what?" Harry cocked his head to the side, examining the indicated article, capped by a prominent headline:
The Art of Art Theft
Art theft is no longer just an elitist crime funded by unscrupulous collectors, but has become a billion dollar industry linked to crime cartels and illicit arms dealing. The theft of a collection of priceless medieval antiques, including a mirror, reportedly valued at as much as £500,000 (pictured, at left) and believed to have belonged to Louis X of France, from Sotheby's earlier this week is believed to be the latest incident in this trade, now worth more than £3 billion annually. There have been a spate of raids on European art collections in the past year, with the total value of art and antiques stolen estimated at 300 to 500 million. The raids have often been violent; early last year robbers tied up the night watchman at Frankfurt's Schirn Gallery before taking paintings with a combined value of ... ("Okay," Draco interjected, "I'm skipping this bit because it's boring...") ...By contrast, the robbery at Sotheby's apparently took less than ten minutes to execute and was entirely bloodless. Within a ten minute period between routine sweeps by security guards, the priceless artifacts simply disappeared. The prevailing theory remains that either the robbers must have been very organized, or they must have had help from inside. "We will be questioning our staff very closely," asserts Sotheby's head of security Keith Fraser, visibly distraught by the recent events. "It is impossible that these robbers could have evaded our security systems without considerable assistance from someone possessing inside knowledge." When asked if there was another way the security could have failed, Fraser was indignant, "Well, I suppose they could have used magic!" Draco crinkled up his nose in confusion. "Wait, I thought they didn't know about magic..." "He's being sarcastic, you tit," said Harry, craning his head over Draco's shoulder to get a better look at the paper. "And I still don't get why you wanted me to look at this." "See the mirror there, Potter?' Draco demanded, jabbing his finger at a color photograph of what looked like a silver hand mirror, very oldlooking. The handle and back of the mirror were elaborately carved all over with birds, flowers, and graceful whorls of silver. It reminded Harry a bit of the work on his Gryffindor scabbard, if slightly less colorful. "Yeah?" Harry looked sideways at Draco. "So what?"
"So, that is the mirror from my dream, that's what," Draco said, staring at the photo. "It's unique - I'd recognize it anywhere." "From your dream...oh. That dream." "Yes, that dream. As far as I'm concerned, this clinches the question of whether the dreams are real. In the dream, Wormtail told Voldemort that he'd only gotten the mirror that day...and this robbery was a few days ago. The question then becomes, why does the Dark Lord want this mirror so much? If he's sending his henchwizards out into the Muggle world to get it, he must need it for something." "You don't think he just wants to admire himself in it?" Harry asked. Draco snorted. "No, he has minions for that. 'Oh, Voldemort, your skin is such a luminous shade of green today, and your eyes are so radiantly red.' Potter, he wanted that mirror for something, and knowing him, it probably wasn't a gift for his dear mum." "Well," said Harry, and yawned, "if you want to know what it was about, you know what to do." "What?" "Go to sleep and have another dream about it." Draco looked offended. "I can't just dream on command, you know." "No? Not a very useful talent, then, is it?" "You just want to nap. Despicably lazy, you are," said Draco, and turned to look out the window. "Fine, we can talk about this when you're awake, then." Harry followed Draco's gaze through habit, and saw the outside world flashing past at dizzying speed, trees and buildings bending to get out of the way of the Knight Bus. Only the night sky seemed to be remaining still, high and cold and as clear and transparent as a sheet of black glass. Harry almost imagined he could look into it and see no end. He spoke then, without thinking.
"Do you believe in God, Malfoy?" Draco started, and turned to look at him in disbelief. "Do I what?" "You heard me," said Harry, uncomfortably. "Do you believe in God - at all?" Draco looked dubious. "I guess I believe in God," he said. "Sometimes I think he has some pretty strong reservations about me, though." "What about heaven? And hell?" Harry asked. The other boy shook his head. "What is this about? Anyway, of course I believe in hell...we saw Slytherin get dragged off somewhere by those demons. Where did you think they were taking him? All-expenses-paid balloon tour of the Urals?" "What about heaven?" Draco shrugged again. Harry had a feeling he was making the other boy very uncomfortable. "Stands to reason there's a heaven, if there's a hell." "Well," said Harry, sitting forward, "what do you think it's like?" Draco leaned back against the wooden post of the bed, his mouth a crooked line of bemusement. "You're asking me what heaven's like, Potter? Come on, you've had your name down for entry there since before you had your name down for Hogwarts. Whereas I..." "Whereas you are going to hell in a handbasket, I know," Harry interrupted. "In the meantime, use that ferocious imagination of yours for a second, will you? I really want to know what you think." "Do you?" Draco's eyes were the color of quartz crystals, and about as readable. "I think heaven would be different for everyone who goes there. For you, it's probably bunnies and Christmas and optimism and everyone shoving flowers in their ears." "And for you?" Draco was silent a moment, looking out the window at the dark world flashing by. "A place to rest, I think," he said finally.
"You tired, Malfoy?" Draco turned his gray gaze back to Harry. "Always," he said. "Aren't you?" Harry shrugged. "I don't think I get to be tired." "Yeah," said Draco, looking back out the window. "Maybe you don't." *** The bedroom was full of pale dawn light. Ron sat in the window seat, and looked out. Just above the eastern line of trees sunrise was unraveling like a red seam along a pale gray cloth. It touched the Forbidden Forest with its light and the trees seemed to burn as if they had caught fire. The unmarked snow beneath the Quidditch pitch shone like a crystal dipped in scarlet ink. It was a beautiful new day, and Ron regarded it with almost no interest whatsoever. The deepening sky above the treetops made him think of a slit throat gushing blood, and his head ached and pounded as if it had been trapped in a vise. He was tired, physically exhausted from lack of sleep compounded with stress and tension. But he had gotten used to that. What gnawed at him was the anxiety. When he was with her, he was happy; when he was not with her, he wondered if he would see her again and that made him miserable. She had been the one who had come to him first, but somewhere along the way, the balance of power had shifted, and what had seemed like a game had become something else instead. Initially, it had seemed like a convoluted way of getting his own back -- a revenge for slights real or perceived, it hardly mattered. But it was not that now -- not for him, anyway. For her, he could hardly guess. She was risking a great deal, he knew. Maybe more than he imagined. He had thought that made him safe. But she had come to him knowing the answer to the question in his eyes and willing to give it, and in taking from her he somehow found he had given her everything. The keys to his locked-away secrets, the hopes buried at the back of his mind. The deepest and most desperate desires of his heart. She knew them all now. He could not have answered honestly that he knew the same about her. Sometimes she seemed to be hiding purposely, keeping him at a distance, and in public, when she looked at him, her eyes said nothing at all; this other life of theirs might as well not exist. It made him want to yell and throw things; to hit her, just to get a reaction. Assuming even that would get one.
Harry had once told him that the worst feeling imaginable was to find yourself hating the person you loved best in the world; he wondered now if this was only because Harry had never known what it was like to love someone and realize you could not trust them. Surely that was worse. It had to be. *** When the Knight Bus finally came to a careening stop, it was nearly dawn. The sky had lightened enough to reveal heavy clouds, and the air tasted of impending snow. Draco was only too happy to disembark from the bus, and stood next to Harry, who was putting on his gloves and scarf, as the Knight Bus roared away into the distance. They were on a country road, a slender lane of ice-dusted paving stretching away between black lines of bare trees. Along the left side of the road ran a high stone wall topped with spikes. The graveyard, Draco assumed. Harry finished pulling on his gloves, and started off down the road. Draco followed, enjoying the cold air. He had always liked low temperatures. The wall soon ended in a metal gate, chained and padlocked shut. Draco watched Harry as he thoughtfully took his right glove off, and touched his hand to the lock. "Alohomora," he whispered, and the padlock sprung eagerly apart under his hand. The two boys stepped back as the gate swung open, with a faint creaking sound. When they were through, Harry chained the gate behind them. They were farther south than Hogwarts, and here it had snowed much less. It dusted the tops of the headstones with a layer of fine powder, and sugared the bare black paths between the graves. Draco had not been in a graveyard before; the Malfoys were all buried on the grounds of the Manor, with cenotaphs erected over their bones. Something in the back of his mind, his old self, revolted at the thought of being buried like this, among strangers not of your own blood. He glanced sideways at Harry. "You know where you're going?"
Harry nodded. It was still too dark for Draco to see his face properly, although the eastern sky was beginning to brighten with a few gray streaks of light. Dawn was coming. Harry raised a jacketed arm and pointed: "Over there." They went, their boots crunching on frozen dirt, and then, as Harry left the path and cut across towards the cemetery's far side, on frozen blades of grass. The only sign that this was a wizarding cemetery was the flowers that bloomed, unfaded and unfrozen, on each of the graves as they passed. Draco barely registered the names on the headstones as they walked by; he was looking at Harry, who seemed stretched taut with a sort of nervous anticipation. His gloved hands were balled into fists in the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders tense and set. He stopped walking. "All right," he said, in a quiet voice. "We're here." And Draco, his heart jumping with adrenaline for some reason he couldn't define, stopped with him, and looked. There were tall mausoleums in the graveyard, carved all over with angels; there were cenotaphs covered in Latin writing and crowned with statues of Merlin and other famous wizards: But they stood in front of a plain gray doubled headstone adorned only with names. Lily Potter, said the name on the right; the one on the left: James Potter. Under the names was a carved a Latin motto, Amor Vincit Omnia, and under that the date of death. October 30, 1981. He chanced a look at Harry, who had gone very quiet. In the blue-white dawn light, his face was finely etched with shadows, his mouth an uncompromising straight line. He was very pale, as if a light shone somewhere in him, beneath the skin. His eyes had changed again. There was a far-off look in them, as if he gazed into some other landscape, another world dimly seen beyond this one, a look like blindness. "Harry," Draco said slowly. He wanted to say something profound and interesting, something comforting, something about the nature of life and death and the importance of closure. However, no words came to his mind. He hesitantly took his hands out of his pockets, vaguely thinking that he should touch Harry on the shoulder, make sure he was all right.
"Malfoy?" Harry said into the silence. His voice was very quiet, his eyes now fixed on the headstones. Draco stood up a little straighter. "Yeah?" "If you don't mind," Harry said, his face still averted, "I'd like it if you left me alone here for a little bit." "Oh," Draco said. "Oh. Right." He put his hands back in his pockets, feeling suddenly very awkward. "Sure. I'll just...come back later." The other boy didn't reply. Draco turned then, and left Harry standing there by his parents' graves, in the pale light of the chilly dawn. *** Harry waited until the sound of Draco's footsteps crunching ice had faded into silence before he got down on his knees by the side of the grave. He looked at the headstones for a moment from his position there on the ground. His father's name and his mother's beside it looked as if they had been scarred into the stone. He read the Latin words under their names. Love conquers all. He wondered who had picked it out. Someone who must have thought it was true, which, of course, it wasn't. He could feel his own heart beating, hard, against his ribs, and a dryness in his mouth. But other than that he felt nothing. Nothing at all. He had wondered if he might cry, but he did not feel like crying. All his thoughts were focused on the task at hand. He suspected that he had not that much time before Draco came back. He pulled his gloves off, laid them carefully on the ground, and began to scrape away the layer of snow that covered the graves. He had not realized that the ground beneath the snow would be frozen so hard. But it was. He scrabbled at it with his fingers, but was like trying to dig into iron. He wished he had brought something with him he could scrape at the earth with, or knew a spell that might work, but then again he suspected that it would not be wise to use magic here. Eventually he unfastened the belt from about his waist, removed the scarlet charm that hung there, and used the diamond-hard edge to scrape at the grave soil. When he had enough dirt to fill his cupped palm, he dropped the runic band, took a small vial out of the inner pocket of his jacket, and filled it
with the half-frozen soil. Then he capped it tightly, and put it back in his pocket. He stood up, suddenly dizzy. He wasn't sure if it was because he'd been holding his breath, or just a reaction to where he was. The carved names on the gravestones seemed to be leaping out at him, printed blackly against his inner eye. He heard Draco's voice in his head, speaking to him in the corridors under Slytherin's castle. There's nothing you can do and there's no way to avenge them and they'll be there forever and you'll never see them again, not even if you die. He realized he didn't want to be looking at the graves, didn't even want to be near them, and he began to back away, moving quickly, until he rounded the corner of another mausoleum and was out of sight of them. He found that he was standing in a grassy square between four towering stone cenotaphs. He leaned against the side of one, letting his heartbeat slow. The sun had continued its swift and steady eastward rise and the snowy grass all around, the pale stone of the mausoleums, were tinged with a deceptively beautiful rosy light. Headstones stretched away in the distance, an unmoving and unbroken line, until he realized that in fact there was movement there - someone was coming towards him along the path between the graves. Someone not Draco. A girl. Rhysenn. Harry straightened up and stared. He remembered having seen Rhysenn descending the stairs at the Manor with Charlie on her arm, and thinking at the time that she was very beautiful, if much older, one of those women so elegantly dressed that she seemed more like a doll than a person. Now, however, she looked...very different. She wore a short, pleated gray skirt and knee socks, black patent leather sandals, and a soft blue sweater set. She must, he thought, be freezing cold, although she gave no sign of it. Her glossy black hair was wound into long plaits that fell nearly to her narrow waist, tied at the ends with incongruous bright blue bows. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her eyes very bright. She looked fifteen at least, her face looked like a fifteen-year-old girl's even if it did seem to be attached to the body of a twenty-five year old woman. "I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I said I was just in the neighborhood?" she said, still walking towards him. "Would you?"
"No," he said, and took another step back. This brought him up against the side of the mausoleum, and he was forced to stop retreating. "If you want Draco, he isn't here. He took a walk." "How fortunate that I wasn't looking for him, then," she said. "How fortunate that I was looking for you." "Me?" said Harry. She was very close to him now, and was coming still closer. "Why me?" She was only about a foot away from him now, so close that her face seemed to fill the field of his vision: her bright red lips and depthless tunnel-like gray eyes drew his gaze. He wanted to look away, and didn't want to look away. "I just wanted to talk to you," she said, her scarlet mouth curving up. "That's all." Her eyes told him something else. "What...about?" Harry was aware that his voice sounded a full octave higher than usual. She laughed. "How would you react if I told you that it's because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since your birthday party, and that I just had to see you again?" "I don't know," said Harry, very nervously. "Why, is it the sort of thing you're likely to say?" Rhysenn chuckled, reached up, and stroked his cheek. She let his fingers linger there, and he felt himself shiver uncontrollably as if he were cold, although he wasn't. "You're awfully cute," she said, the low timbre of her voice sending a pulsing vibration into his ears. "Did you know that?" "I've been told I don't," said Harry, and glanced around even more nervously. "Isn't it rather bad taste to be hitting on someone in a graveyard?" "Well," said Rhysenn, and shrugged, "Look at it this way. You were depressed a minute ago, weren't you? And now you're not." "No," Harry agreed, "Now I'm afraid."
"I get this feeling," she said plaintively, "that you don't trust me." "I don't." He tried to take a deep breath, but her heavy perfume seared into his lungs and throat, and he coughed. "Why should I? And, more to the point, what do you care what I think? I thought it was Draco you were supposed to be bothering." "Bothering?" she snapped, and pouted. "You call this bothering? I'm trying to be helpful." "You could be very helpful by going away." She lifted her huge gray eyes to his. "You don't really mean that," she said, and Harry was unpleasantly surprised to find that he didn't. No part of his mind trusted or liked her, but something in the buried, reptilian part of his brain was urging him to let her stay and keep touching him with those hands that seemed to lace a shivering cold pleasure across his skin. He thought of Hermione, and what she would think, and felt terrifically guilty and ill all at once. "And why do you believe what Draco tells you?" she whispered. "Because I trust him," Harry said shortly. He realized he was quite wedged into the doorway of the mausoleum at this point and could not possibly escape without pushing her away. And somehow the idea of putting his hands on her body, even to shove her away, seemed like a bad one. "Are you sure that's wise?" Her breath ruffled his hair, and his shivered, his thoughts flying every which way like startled birds. This had never happened to him before - usually when faced by danger or uncertainty his mind sharpened to alertness. Now his thoughts felt fuzzy and muffled. "What..." he began groggily. "What are you trying to say?" "I told you all your friends would betray you," she whispered. "Don't you remember?" "Draco," he said a bit groggily. "He wouldn't....and he can't lie to me." "Are you sure?" Her hand was softly stroking his cheek now.
He nodded, which was not a good move because it brought his face into further contact with her hand. "I'm sure." "And what makes you so sure? That he's trustworthy? Do you know something special? Something that other people don't?" Harry tried to reply, but his voice had dried up in his throat. "Are you feeling all right, Harry?" she asked. Her eyes, again, spoke to him, saying very different words, words that he could almost hear inside his head. I know what you'd really like...we could go somewhere, somewhere quiet, and if you liked, we could have sex. Harry jumped away from her so violently that he banged his head on an ornamental carved angel. "Ouch," he exclaimed. "What did you say?" "Oh, your poor head," she said, her eyes dancing with suppressed mirth. "Let me see," and she closed in on him and touched her fingers to his temple, and stroked the skin there. Harry winced, and tried not to breathe, but even with his mouth clamped shut he seemed to be inhaling the perfumed scent that rose off her hair - it was like jasmine and sandalwood mixed with something stronger. She wasn't beautiful, not really, but it didn't matter; he found that his heart was pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, and his throat was dry. He was very conscious of her shoulder brushing his, the swell of her breasts under the tight material of her top, the soft dent in the center of her bottom lip... "I..." he began hopelessly. "I don't think I..." "Shhh, Harry," she whispered, moving even closer, and he felt her exhale against him, her breath stirring his hair. If she got any closer, he thought half-hysterically, they wouldn't have to go anywhere to have sex. There was a tightness inside his chest that seemed to be growing and growing in intensity, and a radiating darkness behind his eyes. He felt ill and weak and at the same time conscious of a painful excitement. "I won't hurt you, Harry. You'll like it..." "Get away from him," said a sharp voice, cold and irritable, cutting through the gray fog in Harry's brain. "Right now."
Harry opened his eyes (he hadn't even realized they were closed, but they were) in time to see Rhysenn take a step back and turn around, her dark braids swinging. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, sounding like a little girl deprived of a birthday treat. "Draco." Harry dragged his gaze up and away from Rhysenn. He was not surprised at all to see Draco standing a few feet away with his hands in his pockets, looking very annoyed indeed. His light gray eyes were fixed on Rhysenn. "Honestly," he said. "Have you no shame?" She smiled. "Are you jealous?" "No," he said shortly. "Just short on patience." "I was only having a little fun," Rhysenn said cheerfully, flouncing towards Draco with her skirt swinging. This was a great relief to Harry, who found her continued proximity unnerving at best. "I was looking for you. I wanted to thank you. You saved my life." Draco gave her an irritated look. "It was a reflex," he said. "Anyway, I thought you were immortal." "I am, but I can bleed. I can feel pain. I can feel a lot of things."
I bet she can, Harry thought irritably. Yeah, and you were really fighting her off, Potter, Draco muttered back. You shut up and let me deal with this. Rhysenn's dark eyes narrowed. "Are you two...talking in your heads? I heard you could do that, but I never thought --" "Who told you that?" Draco snapped, looking suddenly fierce. "It's not true," Harry interjected - his voice came out on a gasp, but at least the dizziness in his head was fading. Draco shot him a look, and then returned his gaze to Rhysenn. "Why did you follow us here, Rhysenn?" he demanded. "Did you get bored standing around in your little cage? Voldemort not pushing enough food pellets through the bars?"
The bright color in Rhysenn's cheeks vanished. "What did you say?" "You heard me." Draco began to walk down the steps, and Rhysenn almost took a step back before she seemed to recollect herself. "Call me crazy, but I think if you had a little wheel installed so you could run around in there, you wouldn't be so driven to chase teenage boys around the British Isles. You could work off some of that excess energy." The color had come back to her face in a flood. "That cage does not hold me," she hissed, his voice a flat whisper. "I notice you don't deny you work for Voldemort," said Draco coldly. His eyes were chips of gray ice. He looked, Harry thought, rather like his father. "Want to tell us a little about that?" "Who has told you these things?" she demanded. "Where did you learn them?" Draco shook his head. "I'd tell you that, see, but I really don't want to." Rhysenn's fingers curved into claws. "You stupid boy," she snapped. "The Dark Lord will destroy you, and whatever minion betrayed him to you!" "In that case, I'll just tell him it was you, shall I?" Draco suggested equably. He cocked an eyebrow, and glanced up at the lightening sky. "The sun's coming up," he added, his voice deceptively soft. "Shouldn't you..." With a scream of rage and whirl of black hair, Rhysenn disappeared, vanishing without even the soft * pop * that usually accompanied a Disapparation. Draco stood where he was, staring at the spot where she had disappeared. There were no marks in the snow where her footprints should have been; it was easier to see that now, in the gathering light. The advent of the rising sun striped the far horizon with bars of rose and gold, sparkling over the icicles, over Draco's icy-colored hair. "Hey," said Harry uneasily. Draco's set expression was unsettling, to say the least. "Malfoy... thanks."
"Thanks?" Draco jerked his head up and looked at Harry as if he were the most pitiful thing he had seen in a lifetime of pitiful things. "What was that? I never picked you for the easily-swayed-by-feminine-wiles type." "I'm not," Harry replied. He wished he could be a bit more eloquent, but he was having trouble catching his breath. There was also a strange, whirling feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if he'd just been dropped from a great height. Draco rolled his eyes. "If I hadn't come back..." Harry's stomach lurched. "I had it under control," he gasped. "Oh, yes, that's what it looked like. Hey, with some luck, you could have drowned her in drool." Harry's stomach lurched again, this time as if it were trying to turn itself inside out. He took a few staggering steps, nearly crashed into a tombstone, fell to his knees, and was violently and thoroughly sick on the grass. His body shook. He'd only been this sick once before, after drinking too much. Waves of nausea coursed over him, almost painful in their intensity. Finally they subsided, and he sat back on his heels, gasping in air. "Hey." It was Draco's voice, much gentler now. Hands closed around Harry's upper arms, helping him up to his feet. "Harry...what happened?" Harry shook his head. "I think...I need...some water." Quickly, Draco produced his bottle of overpriced water from a coat pocket, and handed it to Harry. Harry drank most of it, then splashed the rest on his face and hands. It helped: his mind was starting to clear, and the world was coming back into focus. "Can you stand up on your own?" Draco asked. Harry nodded, rubbed a sleeve across his damp face. "I'm all right," he said. "Must have been all that jouncing around on the Knight Bus." Draco released his hold on Harry's arm, looking thoughtful. "I don't think so. I think it was something to do with Rhysenn."
Harry laughed shakily. "I don't think she'd be too happy to hear that." "Well, she seems to have a hell of an effect on you. I thought you were going to keel over and pass out before." "I was trying to push her away," Harry said. "Yeah," said Draco. "Maybe you were." "I tried," Harry said again. "I tried, and I just couldn't. I wanted to, but..." "Hey, you know, it happens to every guy," said Draco with mock sympathy. Harry choked. "Oh, shut up, Malfoy." Draco chuckled. "We should get out of here," he said. "The sky's getting light." "All right," Harry said, and took a step towards him. Then he paused. "My gloves - and the bracelet. I left them back at the - back where we were." Draco took hold of the back of Harry's jacket, steering while they walked back to the Potters' graves. Harry didn't mind the mild guidance; he was still a little shaky on his feet. "Bracelet?" Draco echoed. "My runic band - I wear it on my belt. For good luck." "Oh, right. That red band. Why'd you take it off?" "No reason," Harry said shortly, stopping to pick the bracelet and his gloves up. Draco didn't press him, as Harry knew he wouldn't. He stood quietly as Harry gave the headstones one last look. Then he took the box containing the Portkey out of his pocket, and opened it. The Portkey glimmered silver in the morning light, for it was now full morning. He turned to Draco. "Hold on to me," he said, and tipped the Portkey into his hand. The world upended itself, and then he was whirling away, shooting through a gray fog, Draco's hand knotted tightly into the back of his jacket. ***
Draco landed on a hard stone floor with enough force that he lurched forward into Harry, whose jacket he was still clutching. He let go and staggered back into an upright position, glancing around nervously. They were in Lupin's office. Dust motes danced in the shaft of light that spilled in through the half-open windows, illuminating the desk piled with books, the chair pulled to the fireplace which was empty and cold. He glanced at Harry, who looked slightly dazed. "Put the Portkey back and let's go," Draco whispered urgently. Harry dropped the box onto the table, but as he did so, there was a faint noise - Draco turned and saw that the handle on the office door was turning slowly, slowly Harry had gone white, and was staring at the door. My cloak - it's back in your room! Draco grabbed the back of Harry's jacket again, and yanked him towards the fireplace. He pointed his left hand at the empty grate and muttered Incendio! Blue-white flames instantly wreathed the logs there; Harry, realizing what Draco was trying to do, grabbed the box of Floo Powder that rested on the mantel, and threw a liberal handful in. He leaped after the powder just as the door opened, and Draco followed him, grabbing onto Harry's jacket again so they wouldn't be separated. He heard Harry yell a destination as the powder spun them away, or at least he assumed that's what Harry was shouting - he couldn't tell. Other fireplace grates flashed by, some lit and some dark, and then the whirling forward propulsion of the Floo magic spat them both out like objects hurled from a catapult. They rolled across a painfully hard stone floor, finally fetching up against something hard. Draco heard Harry yell in pain. who lay sprawled on the ground in a pitifully coughing heap. Draco raised his head slowly, blinking away dizziness, and saw Harry looking back at him; Harry was covered with soot, his shirt and jeans blackened in long streaks, his hair matted with dust. "You all right?" Draco asked, propping himself painfully on his elbows. "I'm fine," Harry said, still coughing, "get your bloody leg off mine - ow!" "Stop shoving," Draco replied irritably. "And stop waving your arms around - you're getting soot in my eyes."
"Well, good morning," came a bemused voice. "Nice of you two to stop by." Both Draco and Harry whirled around and stared. Draco saw blue-jeaned legs first, then, as he trailed his eyes upwards, dark blue work robes, also dusted with soot, a pair of leather-gauntleted forearms, crossed over a broad chest, and a very disapproving face capped by a mop of bright red, instantly recognizable hair... "Charlie," said Harry weakly, and then succumbed to another coughing fit. Draco rolled away from Harry and scrambled up to his knees, his eyes flicking around their surroundings. They were in Charlie's office - he recognized the bright Romanian embroidery on the walls, the bucket of dragon food, and, in its iron cage on the desk, the dragon itself, looking very annoyed indeed that its morning feed had been cruelly interrupted. "I can explain..." Draco began. Charlie shook his head. Draco could see reflected in the mirror behind him exactly what Charlie was seeing - both boys covered in soot, Draco's hair black with it, their faces streaked, their boots muddy, both in Muggle clothes, both looking very guilty indeed. "You know what?" Charlie remarked in the general direction of the ceiling. "I don't want to know. I don't even want to know." *** "Ron, eat something," Hermione said irritably, "you're giving me a headache, picking like that." Ginny glanced over at her brother, who was indeed picking halfheartedly at his cold beans on toast. He also looked tired and slightly woebegone, his eyes darkly shadowed, his mouth downturned. "Pre-game nerves?" she asked curiously; Ron was rarely, if ever, significantly nervous before a game. "Stomach ache," he said briefly, and looked up. "Where is Harry?" "He wasn't there this morning," said Seamus helpfully, and immediately all eyes turned to Hermione, who blushed the color of Ron's hair.
"I haven't seen him either," she said quickly, "he must have had an errand to run before breakfast or something." "Well, if he doesn't show up for the game, I'll skin him alive," said Ron, looking mildly thunderous. "It's not like anyone could be a reserve Seeker..." "I bet Ginny could do it, she's fast enough," said Seamus equably, "and then we'd just need someone as Chaser - Parvati, didn't you Chase fifth year?" Parvati looked down the table at Seamus and sniffed. "Jean-Yves would never let me do that now," she said, referring to the son of the French Minister of Magic, whom Parvati had been dating for nearly two years. In September, he had given her a sapphire ring the size of a pigeon egg, sparking much speculation among the Gryffindor girls. "He thinks Quidditch is unfeminine." "And we think his accent is unbelievably girly, but do we say so?" asked Ron, rolled his eyes, and went back to picking at his bacon. "Honestly, what the hell is up with..." "Harry!" said Hermione, dropping her fork with a clang. Ginny twisted in around in her seat to see that Harry had indeed arrived, late, at the breakfast table. He flopped down in the seat next to Hermione, who was staring at him in amazement. Ginny found herself staring too: Harry was filthy. His normally jet-black hair was powdered even blacker with soot, and streaks of soot decorated his nose, cheeks, and chin. His clothes were a disaster, and when he reached for the pumpkin juice, Ginny saw that his fingernails were gray with dirt. "Harry," said Hermione in disbelief. "What happened to you?" Ron's eyebrows had shot up to his forehead. "Let me guess," he said, looking Harry up and down. "You may be a tiny chimney sweep, but you've got an enormous..." "Appetite," said Harry cheerfully, grabbing for a plate of eggs and shoveling them onto his plate. "I'm starving." They all stared at him in amazement. It had been months since Harry had done much more than pick at food during mealtimes. "Harry dear," said
Hermione, making an evident effort to sound patient, "is there any particular reason why you're so..." "So what?" Harry asked, glancing up and grinning. His teeth looked very white against all the black dirt smeared across his face. "Dirty," said Hermione, with finality. Harry looked at her for a second. Then he leaned across the table and kissed her soundly on the cheek. When he drew back, there was an enormous sooty mark on the side of her face, and her eyes were bright with surprise. "Hermione," said Harry firmly, "just don't worry about it, okay?" He flopped back down in his seat, and attacked a slice of bread and butter with vigor. Hermione looked at him, shook her head, and hid a smile. "It's good to see you eating, Harry," said Ginny, eyeing the Boy Who Lived as curiously as everyone else now was, "especially with the game coming up." "Although I hope you wash up beforehand," said Ron, looking dubiously at Harry's filthy appearance. "The way you look at the moment, the Slytherins will be laughing too hard to play, and we'll forfeit." "Hmm," said Seamus, leaning over to get at the butter dish, "you mean this soot business isn't meant to be a clever attempt at camouflage, Harry? I thought maybe it was a new strategy we were working on." "Ah, you're all so amusing," said Harry, who had moved on to the bacon. "That famous Gryffindor humor I'm always hearing about...oh, wait, no I'm not." "Home of the brave, Harry," said Seamus, waving his fork. "Not the witty. We're just the cannon fodder. 'Slowing down evil by getting in the way.'" "Now there's a winning attitude," remarked Ron. "Note to self: Do not put Seamus in charge of pre-game pep talk." Ginny giggled, and Seamus looked over at her and then looked away without smiling, and she felt an unexpected pang. She glanced down sadly
at her toast. Seamus...he was so nice and so sweet and she had treated him so horrifically badly. And he didn't even know it, not really. When she looked up again, she saw to her surprise that Harry had paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, and was looking over at the Slytherin table. Draco was standing there, next to Blaise, and while he was not nearly as dirty as Harry, Ginny could see that his robes, too, were streaked with soot. He was looking over Blaise's head at Harry, very intently, as if he were trying to communicate something - which he probably was. Harry put his fork down carefully on his plate, and glanced at Hermione, who had propped against the juice jug and was turning the pages between bites of her toast. "Hermione," he said, very softly, "could I talk to you for a minute?" She didn't glance up. "Yes, of course." "No, I mean..." His voice dropped even lower. "Alone. Outside?" Now Hermione did look up, a look of slight surprise in her eyes. "Sure," she said, tucking a dark curl behind her ear, "we could take a walk, I suppose." Ginny knew what that meant; they would go down to the lake, as they always did. She could not count the amount of times she had looked out a classroom window during her third year, and even her fourth, and seen Harry and Hermione walking together along the narrow path that circumnavigated the lake. They would walk very close together, shoulders not quite touching, in perfect alignment, always in step. Harry pushed his chair back and stood up. "Let's go." Hermione, gathering her books into her bag, glanced over at Ron. "We have that meeting today, don't we?" Ron nodded. "Yeah, right after lunch. You plan on attending this time?" Hermione made a face at him, and reached to take Harry's outstretched hand. Then she paused, shook her head, took her wand out of her pocket, and pointed it at her boyfriend. "Detergere," she said, and the soot
vanished from Harry's clothes and hands, leaving just a grimy streak across his left cheekbone. Harry grumbled. "Honestly," Hermione said, putting her wand away, "you'd think you wanted to be filthy." "I thought it looked dashing," said Harry, and took her hand. "Come on let's go." And as they walked away, Ginny realized that she was staring after them, and returned her eyes hurriedly to her plate - only to realize that everyone else at the table was staring after them as well. *** "I think there's something actually going on between Ginny and Seamus," Hermione said conversationally, as Harry tugged her along the path. "Elizabeth said she saw Seamus coming out of Ginny's room at four in the morning. That's good, isn't it? I mean, Seamus is a nice guy, right?" Harry didn't reply. They were at the perimeter of the lake now, on the narrow path that wound in between the stands of leafless trees. Bare and black, the branches rose into the sky, piled with icing sugar snow. Hermione wondered briefly where the giant squid went in the winter, when the snow drifts blew across the thick glassy ice and everything seemed so cold and so dead. "Did you hear me, Harry?" Harry dropped her hand and turned to face her, standing at the lake's edge. The iced-over water behind him was spangled with glittering snow, the sky very silver. Against it, Harry's black hair, the red in his pale cheeks, the dark burgundy and gold scarf, stood out like splashes of paint on a white canvas. His breath came out in puffs of white frost when he spoke. "Yes, I heard you. And Seamus is a great guy. Spectacular. I'd date him myself. Whatever. Just - there was something I wanted to talk about with you, and it wasn't Ginny or Seamus." Hermione blinked in surprise at his stern tone, then shrugged. "All right. I wanted to talk to you anyway." "Did you?" His green eyes were serious. "All right, but let me talk first, will you?"
She nodded, a feeling of foreboding tightening her stomach. "All right, Harry." She sat down carefully at the base of the nearest oak tree, wrapping her cloak around her knees. "What is it?" Harry hunched his shoulders inside his cloak, and was silent for a long time. Hermione sat where she was, letting him think. It always paid to be quiet and let Harry talk when he wanted to. "I've been thinking," he said finally, in a very quiet voice. "And wanting to talk to you, but I wasn't sure when would be a good time." Hermione looked more closely at him, a bit startled. His face was set, unexpressive. She had seen that same look on his face before. She remembered Slytherin's castle, Harry chained to the wall, refusing to tell her what Draco had said to him that was terrible enough to shatter an adamantine door. I'll just tell you that it was something really, really terrible. Something I won't forget. Ever. Something ... unforgivable. "I know I've been...distant lately," he said finally, in a low voice, shoving his balled fists into his pockets. She wondered suddenly if he had brought her out there to break up with her, and the thought made her stomach lurch crazily in protest. I knew it, she thought, I knew it. "Harry..." she whispered. He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I wish I wasn't, but...I don't know how else to be right now. When I was..." He hesitated a moment, seeming to gather himself together, then went on with the air of someone falling into a bottomless black pit. "When I lived with the Dursleys, when I was a kid, I used to imagine what my parents might have been like, if they'd lived." Hermione's lips parted in surprise. Harry never talked about his childhood before he had come to school. Never. "Well, of course, anyone would --" "No," he said, cutting her off, although not unkindly. "I really imagined it. I didn't know what my parents had looked like. The Dursleys told me they'd been ugly, low-class, but I never believed that. I assumed my mother had been beautiful, that my father had been handsome, and that, of course, they'd loved me more than anything in the world."
Hermione felt the back of her eyes sting. "I'm sure they did," she said softly. "I didn't know what color hair my mother had. I thought maybe she'd had black hair, and I'd inherited it...I thought maybe my father was blond, I pictured him being tall and strong. I thought about that car accident they were supposed to have died in. I wondered where they'd been driving from, where they'd been going. I told myself that they'd been spies, working for the government, that they hadn't really died, they'd just been forced to go underground and leave me behind because the work they'd been doing was so dangerous. I told myself they'd be back to get me one day. I knew where we'd live together, what the house would look like blue, with every room painted a different color, because everything at the Dursleys was the same shade of gray..." His voice cracked a little, as it had when it had been changing. "I furnished every room inside my head. I knew where all my toys would be. The names of the pets I'd have. I wrote everything down so I wouldn't forget. I didn't live in that dark closet under the stairs. I lived in that house, with my parents." Hermione realized she was crying. She ducked her head so Harry wouldn't see. She wanted him to go on. "I used to write everything down in an old notebook of Dudley's," said Harry quietly, looking out over the lake. "And one day of course, I was careless, and my uncle found it and read it. He dragged me out of the broom closet and shoved me up against the wall and I still remember what he said to me. 'Your parents are dead, boy. They're not spies, they're not working for the government. They're dead. They'll never come to take you anywhere. They died stupid, pointless deaths, and they lived stupid, pointless lives, and I'd be glad they were dead if it hadn't landed us with you. And all your dreaming won't bring them back.' And that was that." He paused. "That was when I was eight years old." "Your notebook..." Hermione whispered. "I burned it," said Harry flatly. "I knew my uncle was right. I couldn't bring them back." "You believed him? That they were dead?"
"I knew it. I could see it in his eyes. He looked triumphant. He wouldn't have looked like that if he'd been lying." Harry's voice was thick with loathing. "He really was glad they were dead. I despised him. But I never thought about that house again. It was ruined. And it was hard. Like losing my parents again." His words came out clipped and staccato. "And then I came here, and I had another home - a real one. And I saw what my parents really looked like. And I knew that they had loved me. Would have been proud of me. Were proud of me. A world where ghosts walk and talk...I just assumed they were somewhere, watching me. That my father could see me fly. That my mother knew I'd faced a dragon. That they knew that everything I did, every day, was in some way an effort to redeem the sacrifice they'd made to keep me alive." "Oh, Harry," Hermione whispered. "Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." The snow crackled under her feet as she stood, almost slipping in her haste to get near him. He stood and watched her, very alone somehow as if he had created a space around himself, specific and inviolable. She paused just outside it, hesitant to touch him, although another part of her ached to put her arms around him and hold him tightly. "You don't have to do this," she said. "I know you're trying to tell me why you've been distant lately - I know you've been thinking about your parents - and how could you not? I've been so selfish, thinking about graduation and moving on and how all that affected me, and I never even thought about what it must be like for you, knowing they won't see you graduate, get recruited for a team, go to Sirius' wedding...oh Harry, this is the most important part of your life in a way, and if you're missing them more now..." She let her voice trail off. "Is that what you were trying to say?" He looked at her, his green eyes were haunted by a darkness she could not name. "Something like that," he said, and she had a feeling, from the tone of his voice, that she had gotten entirely the wrong end of the stick, and didn't understand what he was trying to say at all. She felt bitterly inadequate, incompetent even - and somewhere in the back of her mind a voice told her that she could not be expected to heal that darkness in him: she was too young, and the pull of the darkness too great. Surely if she loved him properly, loved him enough, she would be able to help and to understand, she told herself. But already she loved him more than she could imagine loving anything, and it was not enough.
"Hermione," he said, and his voice was oddly distant. "What are you thinking?" She took a deep breath. "Just that...all those years with the Dursleys...it wouldn't be at all surprising if you'd turned out mean-spirited, or selfish, or self-centered. Or terribly angry, or vengeful - and you aren't. You have every right to be angry and you so rarely are; and every right to have selfpity, but you don't pity yourself. That childhood - it could have turned you into an awful person. Instead it turned you into the best person I've ever known. No -- you turned yourself into that person. I meant what I said first year. You are a great wizard, and - and more important, you're a good human being as well. I admire you, Harry. I always have." He ducked his head, and she did not see the expression that passed across his face. "No," he said, in a slightly husky voice. "I'm not as good as you." She laughed. "You remember." She took a step forward, and he raised his head and looked at her. She reached out and touched his face, as she had been wanting to do - lightly touched his cheek, and he leaned his head against her open hand, as if he were tired. "I was so worried about you then - I didn't want you to see I was crying, but I was." "I know," he said, very quietly. "You're the first person in my life who ever cried because they loved me." She shook her head. "No, not the first, I'm sure." "The first I remember." He closed his hand around her wrist and held it tightly. "I don't know what I would do without you," he said. "What would I do?" The tone of his voice made her afraid. She tried to look up into his eyes, but he bowed his head down onto her shoulder as if he were tired, and would not let her see his face. She kissed his temple, the only part of his face she could reach, and the black hair that covered his face and spilled down onto her hands. Soft hair, like black silk. "Harry," she whispered. "You never would have to be without me...never." She felt him tremble under her hands, and then he lifted his face off her shoulder, and was smiling at her. She did not quite believe the smile, although she could not have said why. "I know," he said. "But...I have to
get down to practice. We're not as prepared for the match today as I'd like us to be and...I should go." "All right," she said, and let go of him reluctantly. "There isn't - anything else?" He shook his head. "No. And you, didn't you say you had something to tell me?" She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "It was nothing. Just..." "Yes?" "If I don't see you before the game," she said, hating herself, "Then - good luck." He looked at her, knowing she was holding back - and she returned his gaze, knowing the same thing was true for him. The chasm was still between them: unbridged, uncrossable. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "I'll see you later, then," he said. "See you later," she whispered, and closed her eyes so as not to watch him walk away. *** "And I think that's just about it," Ron said, flipping over the parchment he had been looking at and clearing his throat. "Unless anyone has any questions?" Pansy Parkinson's hand shot up. "What about our Books?" she demanded, as the spinning orb turned green. Ron blinked at her, then back at the parchments on the table. "Books...?" "Leavers' Books, Ron," said Hermione, resisting the urge to pat him on the arm. He looked awfully distracted, poor dear, she thought. He had seemed to be having a hard time concentrating lately, and had nearly forgotten all about the Secret Wizards game that they were supposed to be playing for Christmas, in which every seventh-year student had to buy a gift for another student whose name they picked in a random drawing.
Fortunately Pansy had already brought a box filled with slips of parchment to the meeting, thus saving the situation. "We have to decide on the design for our Leavers' Books. They're important, after all." "Oh. Right." Ron rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. Obviously, he was wishing he was elsewhere. Hermione's eyes slid past him, over Justin Finch-Fletchley, who looked bored, and Padma Patil, who was industriously sucking a sugar quill. Next to her was Draco, lounging back in his chair as usual. Feeling her gaze on him, he raised his eyes, and their gazes locked; after a moment, he winked at her. Hermione smiled, her thoughts only half on the business of the meeting. "We need a motto to be engraved on the cover of the books," Ron was saying, "and traditionally every class chooses its own motto. Now, we have plenty of time to think of one, but if anyone has any suggestions..." Ron, seeming to intercept the look between Hermione and Draco, cocked an eyebrow. "Malfoy? You had a thought?" "A what?" Draco started slightly, then subsided with a faint smile. "Well, we've got loads of mottoes in my family, but I don't think they'd be anything you'd be interested in." "Try me," said Ron, not pleasantly. "Well," said Draco, leaning forward and putting his chin on his hand, "there's 'Always pillage before you burn', that's an old one, and then one of my dad's favorites, which was 'money can't buy you friends -" "Money can't buy you friends?" Ron echoed with a disbelieving laugh. "...'But it does buy you a better class of enemies.'" Draco's eyes trawled insolently from Ron's shoes to the tip of his nose, gone slightly pink with annoyance. "Obviously that last one isn't true in all cases..." Ron slapped his wand down on the table. "You think you're funny, don't you Malfoy?" Draco shrugged modestly. "Well, I try not to fly in the face of public opinion." Hermione then did the worst thing she could have done, and laughed. Ron shot her a very angry look, and she slunk down low in her seat. It
didn't help, she thought irritably, that across from her Justin FinchFletchley and Padma Patil looked as if they were trying hard not to laugh as well. In fact, oddly enough, the only people who looked unamused were the Slytherins - both Pansy and Malcolm Baddock were stony-faced and glaring. "Malfoy," said Ron, in a voice like shards of ice, "I want to talk to you in the corridor. NOW!" he added, and everyone jumped. Hermione looked at him in surprise: his blue eyes were burning, and he looked well and truly furious. "Ron..." she began uncertainly, but he didn't even look at her, he was glaring at Draco, who was getting to his feet with a slow insolence that Hermione couldn't help thinking was a bad idea at that moment. He sauntered towards the door and Ron followed after, slamming the door behind them both. *** Ron banged the door shut behind him and spun to face Draco, who was leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor, looking cool and unruffled, as if any moment he might start examining his nails or checking his cuffs for minute specks of dust. If he'd had a mustache, he probably would have twirled it. "Malfoy," Ron barked, and Draco looked up. His face was open and inquiring, his eyes wide and clear. He smiled at Ron politely, which only served to annoy Ron further. "What the hell are you playing at?" "I was actually hoping to get a chance to talk to you alone," said Draco calmly. "And trying to embarrass me during a prefects meeting is your idea of how to do that, is it?" "No, that part was just for fun." "Maybe Harry thinks that sort of thing is funny. But I don't. I think you're an ass, Malfoy. A smirking, two-faced, insufferable ass."
"Two-faced?" Draco laughed, not kindly. "You should talk. I wasn't born yesterday, Weasley..." "More's the pity," snapped Ron, "we could have started your personality over from scratch." Draco looked at him, a small smile playing around his mouth. "I see the way you look at her," he said, apropos of nothing. "Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think we all are?" For a moment, Ron just stared at him. The blood had begun to pound in his ears, and his mind hummed with disbelief. Surely Draco hadn't just said what he thought he'd said. "What did you say, Malfoy?" Draco slowly unhitched himself from the wall and stood looking at Ron with consideration. His eyes were an almost lucent gray in the faint light, the color of a knife edge, and as cutting. "I was watching you this morning," Draco said. "I've been watching you for a few days now. Honestly, Weasley. What do you think you're playing at?" Ron felt as if his blood had thickened and it was taking huge, convulsive efforts of heart and breath to continue pushing it through his veins. Everything seemed dizzy and distant and painful. He heard his own voice say, "I have no idea what you're talking about." "I think you do," said Draco, even more quietly. His voice was sugar syrup poured over shards of ice. "I think you know exactly what I'm talking about." "I don't see," said Ron, fighting down the urge to back away, "where you get this idea you have some insight into my private life -" "You think you can make me look stupid? You think I'd let you?" Draco interrupted, his very slow and soft. "Your private life is hardly going to stay private the way you've been behaving. Luckily for you I'm more observant than most, but even the most clueless Hufflepuff would figure you out eventually. You wear your heart all over your face, Weasley. Which, in your case, is a bad move." "Just because you're a liar, Malfoy, doesn't mean everyone is," Ron snarled. Rage was beginning to take the place of the shock that had
paralyzed him. He spoke without thinking or stopping to consider the fact that Malfoy was right. "I'm not talking about everyone - I'm talking about you," Draco said. "You saved my life - and I owe you." "You've a funny way of showing it," Ron muttered, perplexed by this new turn the conversation had taken. "I'm trying to help you, Weasley," Draco said. "That's why I'm telling you that I know." "There's nothing to know!" Ron half-shouted. "Not yet," said Draco, and Ron felt a whoosh of relief in his stomach that was almost painful. So he doesn't know, not really. "You do know what I'm talking about," Draco added. "Let me offer a little guidance. Forget about it."
Condescending bastard, Ron thought, staring at the blond boy, whose attitude had settled into a smug sort of curious calm. Why doesn't he just forget about my sister, then, if it's meant to be so easy? "Go on and glare at me like you hate me," Draco added with a shrug. "Doesn't matter to me, as long as you take my advice." "Why do you care?" Ron heard his own voice crack, rage making his skin prickle all over. "You don't give a fuck about me, Malfoy, and you never have. Am I supposed to believe this show of solicitude is for my benefit? First off, you're a liar, and second off, you're wrong, and third off - third off, you have no idea what you're talking about. So just...sod off, will you? Go mope around after my sister or whatever the hell it is you do for fun." A look of astonishment flashed across Draco's face - he had not expected Ron to react this way, and Ron felt a vicious jolt of pleasure at having surprised him. The astonishment was gone in a moment, and Draco's mouth settled into an even thinner line. "Fine, Weasley," he drawled. "I suppose it's as I long suspected, and your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others." Ron glared at him. "Twenty points from Slytherin," he said.
Draco's mouth opened in surprise. "For what?" "For interrupting the meeting," Ron said savagely, "and for just generally being a grade-A, all-around arsehole. I'm going to go back in there now, and you are going to come with me, and I swear to Merlin that if you say one more word, I'll take a hundred points from Slytherin. Let's see how the rest of your house likes you then." Draco lowered his eyelids, hiding his expression. "I guess absolute power really does corrupt absolutely," he said, and there was an undercurrent of mirth in his tone that made Ron itch to smack his face. Instead, he spoke quietly but firmly. "One hundred points," he repeated. Draco said nothing after that, and followed Ron to the door without making another sound. Ron wanted to feel triumphant as they reentered the prefects' meeting room, but all he felt was an odd sense of...disappointment. For an insane moment there he'd thought that Draco really did know everything, but he hadn't, not really, and the burden of secrecy felt even heavier than it had before. He almost would have preferred it if Draco had in fact hauled off and punched him in the face, which would not have been unexpected. With a sigh, Ron picked his wand up, and began to speak. *** "Who did you get?" Hermione asked of Draco as they filed out of the prefects' room. The other students were pouring off down the hall, glad to be done with the meeting, chattering amongst themselves as they opened up the parchments that would tell them what student they would be buying a gift for. Wanting to wait for Ron, who was gathering his Quidditch things together, she paused outside the door. Draco leaned against the wall beside her, and looked over her shoulder as she unfolded her own piece of parchment and glanced at it. "Oh, I got Ron. That'll be easy." "Yes, a large pair of pliers to remove the stick from his --" She interrupted him hastily. "Who did you get?" she repeated.
Draco unfolded his parchment, looked at it expressionlessly, folded it back up, and shoved it in his pocket. Hermione looked at him curiously. "Oh, come on, aren't you going to tell me?" Draco shook his head slowly. "Life is a meaningless lottery of chance," he said. "I just keep telling myself that." Hermione snorted. "I'm getting this feeling you got Seamus Finnigan." "Bingo," said Draco briefly. Hermione burst out laughing. Draco looked cross. "It isn't funny." "Uh-huh," replied Hermione agreeably. "What's important is that you believe that." Draco was spared answering by the meeting room door banging open - it was Ron, looking businesslike with a sheaf of parchments under his arm, and Pansy, carrying the empty box that had held the students' names. She looked as sour as she always did. Ron nodded at her briefly, and she headed off down the hallway. Ron looked at Hermione and rolled his eyes. "Having fun with Pansy?" Hermione said, her mouth curving into a sympathetic smile. "She's a regular breath of vile air as usual," said Ron with a shrug. "At least she agrees to head up practically every committee known to man. Makes my job easier." "Yes, thank God she's agreed to lighten your load of crushing responsibility," said Draco sarcastically. "And once again, I wonder why they ever let you have this position in the first place. Was it one of those "Collect twelve crisp packets and become Head Boy' mail-in deals?" Ron ignored him, and spoke to Hermione. "I'm off, actually -- I've got to head into Hogsmeade. You need anything?"
Hermione shook her head. "No." She smiled. "If I don't see you by the match, good luck and all that." "Thanks." And Ron jogged off down the corridor, vanishing from sight amongst a knot of approaching Ravenclaws. Hermione looked after him thoughtfully, then turned back to Draco. "I've been doing that research we talked about, and I found out some things I think you might want to know," she said, pitching her voice low. "Do you want to hear something really weird?" "I always want to hear something really weird." Hermione smiled. "Can you come to the library with me?" He nodded, and they walked to the library in silence, keeping a good distance between them so that it was not obvious to the casual observer that they were together. Only when inside the library did Hermione relax. She was always comfortable there, in her safe, known place. It was decorated for Christmas now, as was the rest of the castle, the long dark wood tables adorned with tiny Christmas trees bearing singing sugar angels. Tiny red, gold and green circular lights levitated in the air like will-o-the-wisps, darting back and forth above their heads. She looked over at Draco, who was watching the flitting lights with Seeker-like concentration, the gold, scarlet, and emerald colors reflected in his eyes. He glanced sideways, as if he felt her gaze on him. "So, what did you find out?" "Look at this." Hermione reached into her bag, withdrew a small gilded volume, and spread it open on the table in front of her. She flipped to a bookmarked page, and tapped it excitedly with her finger. "Does she look familiar?" Draco leaned close and whistled. The page showed a woodcut engraving, very detailed and lifelike, of a young woman in dark wizarding robes. Her hair was also black and cascaded nearly to her feet: her pale oval face was familiar, as were the upturned eyes and the smiling mouth. Hermione remembered her as the girl who had walked downstairs with Charlie Weasley at Harry's birthday party; Draco obviously remembered her rather better. The girl held a wand in her left hand, and what looked like a jewel on the end of a chain in the other. Along the bottom of the
illustration wound six words in block calligraphic letters: Rhysenn Malfoy. In the Year 1357. "Six hundred years," said Draco, and laid a hand on the page. "Well, she said she was older." The engraved Rhysenn stretched and winked at him, swinging her jewel on its chain. "In fact, she said she was immortal." "That's a bit odd," said Hermione, "because here it says she died when she was twenty." "Did she?" "Yes, of goblin fever. Before that, though, she was engaged to be married..." "Ha!" "...To Nicholas Flamel." Draco blinked, looking as if were grasping at strands of memory. "And he was...?" "A friend of Dumbledore's. He created the Sorcerer's Stone." Hermione shook her head. "I never would have thought he would have been the sort of person who would have married a Malfoy." Draco looked injured. "Why not a Malfoy? We're extremely personable, you know. And then there's the sex-appeal..." "Oddly, her biography here doesn't say anything about sex-appeal." "They probably called it something different back then," said Draco unflappably. Hermione snorted. "Like what? Ye Olde Sex Appeal?" Draco ignored this. "Well, I suppose it helps to know who she was...even though I don't think that the woman I've been talking to really is Rhysenn Malfoy. At least, not this same girl. Could they have brought her back from the dead, I wonder..."
"Shhh," hissed Hermione, although the library was deserted. "Ugh. Necromancy? That's the worst magic there is. Anyway, it never works properly. There'd be...bits falling off her and things. Are there?" "What? Bits falling off her? No. She's...complete." Draco looked thoughtful. "She's pretty spry for a corpse, in fact. Prettier than most live girls." "Hmmph," said Hermione, and shut the book. "I'll keep looking for information on her. Now that we know when she lived, I can cross-check her in the Flamel biographies." "Thanks," said Draco, glanced up, and with a quick Seeker's precision, caught a glowing red light that was whizzing by in his cupped hand. He held it for a moment, the illuminated globe throwing a rosy shadow over his face, then let it go. He reached into a pocket then, drew out a folded square of newsprint, and handed it to her. "Take a look at this," he said. "A Muggle newspaper? Draco, where did you get this?" "Never mind that. Look at the picture." Draco came to stand beside her, glancing down at the newspaper as well. "That mirror, the one that was stolen. That was the mirror in my dream." Her head snapped up, and she stared at him. He was still looking down at the photograph, his profile intent and serious. His eyes were lowered, the long lashes casting longer shadows over the pronounced cheekbones, like fine pen strokes. "Are you sure?" "I'm sure," he said, and explained, swiftly but thoroughly, the means by which he had assured himself it was the same mirror, and his conviction that Voldemort had sent Wormtail to steal it. "Now the question is, what does he want it for? Obviously it can be used to see me with, but there must be a bit more to it than that. Any mirror could be tuned to see me, if he really wanted to make the effort. Why that one?" Hermione shook her head. "I don't know. The workmanship looks rather like the workmanship on Harry's scabbard, doesn't it? I know I can check back to see who made that, see if the maker ever created any other enchanted objects. This mirror must be special somehow."
"And if Voldemort really wants it," Draco said, straightening up, "then we should know why." "Right." Hermione took the piece of newspaper, and slid it into her bookbag. "I can get some books out now and bring them to the match." She glanced around. "At least, I can if Madam Pince ever comes back." Draco followed her gaze around the deserted library, and a thoughtful look came into his eyes. "There's one more thing I wanted to show you," he said. "It's a bit strange..." "All right," she said, and glanced around again. "There's no one here..." "No." He clamped his hand around her wrist. His fingers felt warm against her skin. "Someone might come in...here, come with me." He drew her after him, past the stacks of books, and into a shadowy alcove lined with small volumes. The hovering lights were the main illumination here, casting distended shadows of emerald, ruby and gilded light against the stone walls. Draco let her wrist go, and she drew it back, instinctively clasping her hands together. She wasn't sure why she felt uneasy: perhaps it was Draco's set, tense expression, or the fact that it was so cold in the library, or something else altogether. "Draco, what is it? Are you all right?" His gray gaze slid over her face, almost as if he were calculating, evaluating something. Testing her. Whatever it was, he seemed satisfied. He took a step away from her, reached down, took hold of the hem of his black sweater, and pulled it off over his head in one quick motion. He was wearing nothing under it. Hermione heard herself gasp, and she stepped backwards so quickly that she hit her head on the stone wall. Wincing, she exclaimed, "Draco! What are you doing?" He looked at her in surprise, and then his lips curled into an amused smile. "I said I wanted to show you something." She regarded him with deep mistrust, trying not to look at the way his narrow waist flared up into a broader chest, at the flat planes of his torso, the faint tracery of muscles under the skin. Harry had much the same
build, of course, light and lean, a Seeker's body. "You didn't say you were going to get undressed," she hissed under her breath. "I need your Medical Magic expertise," he said straightforwardly. "I want you to look at my shoulder." "At your shoulder?" "Here," he said, and indicated his left shoulder with a touch of his hand. "Do you see it?" She shook her head. "I don't see anything." "From that distance, you couldn't see anything without Omnioculars." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is something wrong?" "No," she said, flushing pink. "Nothing," and she took a reluctant step closer to him, and examined the indicated shoulder. Within a moment she had forgotten her discomfort in curiosity. "Is this where the arrow went in? The other day?" He nodded, looking down at his shoulder. There was a starlike scar just below and to the right of his clavicle, quite healed - when Hermione touched it lightly, he did not wince. "It doesn't hurt?" she asked. "No," he said. "But...you see?" She nodded. "It's glowing. Sort of silver. Turn around." He turned around, and she saw the scar on his back where the head of the arrow had exited his body, slightly smaller than the scar in front, but glowing with the same faint and phosphorescent radiance. She put her hand against his shoulder blade. The skin there was very white and smooth to the touch, a shade lighter than the skin on his hands and face. She could feel the slight roughness of the scar under her hand. It felt cold. "It's the same here." She stepped back, and dropped her hand. "You're sure it doesn't hurt?" she asked anxiously. He turned around to face her, and to her relief, picked up his sweater and drew it back on over his head. The resultant static electricity turned his silver hair into a crackling halo. ""It doesn't hurt," he said, pulling the sweater down. "But it's awfully weird. I'm not happy about it."
"I haven't heard anything about injuries that glow, in Medical Magic," said Hermione anxiously. "Are you sure Madam Pomfrey --" "No Madam Pomfrey," said Draco with such unutterable finality that she knew it was hopeless. She sighed. "All right," she said. "I'll see what I can find out, Draco. But If I don't find anything out..." "Then I will continue to read in bed using only my shoulder for illumination," he said lightly. He glanced towards the clock on the wall. "I have to head down to the pitch," he added. "The game..." "I know," she said. "I'd wish you luck, but..." "But I don't need it?" "But I really want our team to win," she replied, and made a face at him. His eyes lit up and he laughed: a real laugh, not a snide one. "Thanks," he said. "For helping out," and before she could say that he was welcome, he had walked off. She watched him make his way out of the library, and a moment later followed after, emerging from the stacks into the lighted main room to see that Draco had been right : someone had come into the library after they did. Pansy Parkinson was sitting at one of the long tables, a book open in her lap, but her eyes were fixed on Hermione. There was a look of such loathing in them that Hermione, struck speechless, could only stare. Pansy stood up, almost knocking her book over, and stalked stiffly out of the room, her back rigid with disdain. Hermione watched her go, feeling weak in the knees. She had always known that Pansy didn't like her, but what had she ever done to make the Slytherin girl hate her so much?
*** Draco didn't know it, but his opinion that Dumbledore's office was possibly the most interesting room in the school was one that was shared by Harry. Draco stood in the center of the room and waited; the Headmaster had not arrived yet and so he was at leisure to examine the fascinating objects that were everywhere. The antique claw-footed desk was littered with items of interest: there was a pile of Chocolate Frog cards (Draco noted that Dumbledore had apparently amused himself by drawing green mustaches on most of the famous witches and wizards, including himself), a Pocket Sneakoscope, an empty Pensieve, a collection of singing mechanical canaries, a Broomstick Trajectory Calibrator, a blank FiloParch, and a sleeping dormouse. Draco moved around the desk, not touching anything, and then his gaze fell on a stand behind the desk, on which rested an immediately familiar worn, patched, pointy-topped hat. The Sorting Hat. He stood and stared at it for a moment. Then, without knowing that years ago Harry had once done much the same thing, he reached for it and with
trepidation, lifted the hat and put it on his head. Darkness enveloped his vision as the hat fell forward to cover his eyes. The hat had a musty, familiar smell, and he immediately remembered the moment he had sat on that tall stool in front of the assembled students, his whole mind a tight ball of determination focused on just one goal: Slytherin, Slytherin, let it be Slytherin. The hat stirred on his head now, and a voice spoke in his ear. What have we here....It seemed to hesitate. You're older, it went on, then my usual subjects, but I can't say I recognize the shape of your mind. Have we met before?
Yes, Draco thought, perplexed. You Sorted me...into Slytherin. Into Slytherin? The Hat sounded amused. How very curious. Do you mind...if I look a little deeper into your thoughts? Draco hesitated. No. I don't mind, he said, then felt a shiver run down his spine as a most curious feeling took hold of him, as if something inside his head were fluttering. The voice spoke again. Why, you're a Malfoy! It sounded amused now. You're Draco Malfoy...I recollect you well. And yet, how you've changed. You're almost a different person now, aren't you? As if there were another person inside your head.
Something like that, Draco muttered, thinking of Harry. Yes, another personality, as strong as your own. So what have we here? A good mind, sharp as a quill and twice as cunningly crafted...Quite a lot of arrogance and a nice dose of insecurity to match...bravery, oh yes I see that...you've known loss, then...and disappointment. And loyalty....as strong as iron. You would never desert anyone you loved, yet those you don't care for might as well not exist to you. And you're not above using them to get what you want. Ha! Draco jumped as laughter sounded in his ear. You're a bundle of contradictions, young Malfoy...and the most interesting mind I've seen in years. "Thanks," said Draco, without much feeling. "So would you still, I mean...would you..."
Would I what? "Sort me into Slytherin?"
I might. You're cunning enough for it...at the same time, clever enough for Ravenclaw, loyal enough for Hufflepuff, and brave enough for Gryffindor. So the question is, my boy...would you still want to be Sorted into Slytherin? "I don't know," Draco whispered, and added with a sharp flash of annoyance, "It's your job, isn't it, not mine!"
What is? "To know where I belong!"
When you're a child, you need someone to tell you where you belong, perhaps, said the Hat. At your age you should know it for yourself. "Well, I don't," Draco snarled, and yanked the Hat from his head in a fit of vexed disappointment. "I suppose I should have known better than to look for help from some stupid piece of talking haberdashery," he added, and drop-kicked the Hat across the room. It landed at the feet of Albus Dumbledore, who had come in very quietly while Draco was distracted. "Oh dear," said Dumbledore mildly. "Not much point taking things out on the Hat, really. It doesn't feel pain." Draco looked guiltily at the serene-looking headmaster. "You wanted to see me, Professor?" "Yes. Why don't you come sit at my desk?" Dumbledore said, and Draco did as he was requested to do. He sat down as Dumbledore settled himself into the dark-blue high-backed chair behind the desk, and templed his hands beneath his chin. Draco did his best to return the Headmaster's gaze steadily, but found he couldn't - Dumbledore's eyes were too piercing; it made him feel as if his own head were made of glass. "Young Mister Malfoy," Dumbledore said. "I know better than to assume you will tell me why you went to the top of the North Tower, or who you were meeting there. No -" he held up a hand as Draco began to speak. "I am
well aware you weren't meeting Harry. I understand all that, and that is not why I called you here." "Oh..." Draco said slowly. If there was one person in the world who robbed him of his ability to make smart comebacks, it was Dumbledore. "If you're not going to ask me about that...what are you going to ask me about, Professor?" "I was going to return something to you," Dumbledore said. "Something you lost." Draco's eyes widened. "Yes? Dumbledore stretched out his hand, and Draco's eyes widened further. In the center of his wrinkled palm something glittered blackly: a signet ring, carved out of onyx, in the shape of a griffin. "My seal ring," he said blankly, and reached for it. "I thought I'd left it somewhere..." "You did," said Dumbledore. "At the top of the North Tower." Draco's hand closed spasmodically around the ring he had just retrieved. I shouldn't have admitted it was mine... "I knew it was yours, Draco," said Dumbledore, as if reading his mind. "The moment Charlie brought it to me...How many times did I see that ring flash on your father's hand when he was at school, and on your grandfather Julius' hand as well. Your father especially was always so particular about wearing it...I am surprised he would have taken it off." "He said it was time for me to wear it," said Draco, sliding the ring back onto his finger. "He said I had become a true Malfoy at last." Dumbledore sat forward slightly. His eyes were very kind. "Is there anything you want to tell me, Draco...anything at all?" Draco hesitated. Then he shook his head. "No, Headmaster." "Then I suppose it falls upon me to ask you questions," said Dumbledore. His light blue eyes had gone very grave, wise and kindly, but penetrating. "I assume that you have noticed a certain...change in Harry?"
Draco looked down at his hands. In the faint light coming through the window, the bones seemed highlighted through the skin. He thought of the way Harry had looked earlier in the graveyard, as if a light were shining through him. "I've noticed it," he said, and felt an internal wrench, as if he were somehow betraying Harry but admitting it out loud. "But you might want to talk to someone else about that, like Hermione or Weasley, someone a bit closer to him." "There is no one closer to him," said Dumbledore. "Not in the way you are. Although I am sure they would protect him if they could. Would you?" "Protect him? Against what?" "Does it matter?" Draco raised his eyes from his hands. "I suppose not," he said. "Yes, of course. I'd do whatever I had to do." He shifted slightly in his chair. "But I've tried talking to him, and what he says...well, I don't know what I can do. If there was something I could do, I would do it." He looked directly at Dumbledore, who alone with Sirius knew what he had seen when he had died, and Sirius did not know the details. "I caused this, didn't I?" "You did not cause the situation, only revealed it. And perhaps you think because of that you should be able to mend it, but you cannot, and he would not welcome it if you tried. You cannot come between him and his suffering. It is too complicated and too unique to Harry. One happiness is much like another happiness, but each great sorrow is profoundly different. You might know the loss of a parent, in fact, like Harry, in some way you know what it's like to never have really had parents at all. But you cannot know what it's like to have adored those lost parents, to have turned them into the idealization of everything good in this world. And then to discover that they, to who you owe so much, are in torment and it rests upon your shoulders to save them from that state, and yet you have no idea how such a thing might be accomplished." "Don't," said Draco, anguished, and stood up, knocking his chair over. "Don't - it's my fault." "I wondered if you thought that," said Dumbledore gently. He waved a hand at the chair, and it righted itself. "I suspected you might, and
because of that I have held back perhaps longer than I should have in telling you something I have long wanted to tell you." Draco blinked. "Something about me? Or Harry?" "Something about neither of you, and at the same time something intimately connected with both of you."
Okay, Draco thought, could you be a little more vague about that? But...he didn't say it out loud. "Is it important?" "Yes," said Dumbledore. "It is important." Draco's heart had begun to beat hard in his chest. He had a feeling that "important" meant "bad," and the look on Dumbledore's face only confirmed this. "Is it going to hurt Harry?" he asked rapidly, "because if it is, I'd rather not know, if you don't mind." Dumbledore looked surprised. "Wouldn't you? Why not?" "Because I don't want to have to decide whether to tell him or not." He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, looking straight at Dumbledore, before he burst out, "Hasn't enough happened to him already? Does there have to be more?" Dumbledore sat looking at Draco quietly. Finally, he said, "Harry is strong, and can endure much. And for what he cannot endure alone, he has you." "And Ron and Hermione," said Draco, "And Sirius..." "But this particular secret is not their legacy. It is yours." Dumbledore waved a hand towards the chair, and Draco paused. "Sit down please, Mister Malfoy, and listen to me," he said, and Draco sat. "Now," Dumbledore went on. "Before you go haring after Harry on this quest of his for personal vengeance, there is something you should know..." *** The Gryffindor team had been waiting just outside the changing rooms for almost ten minutes after the game was supposed to start when Harry slipped off to talk to Madam Hooch. He was back in a moment, looking slightly ruffled. He glanced around at his jumpy-looking team - they were
all standing around in the ankle-deep snow off the clean-scraped path. They couldn't see the pitch from here; it was blocked by the fence that surrounded it. Seamus was leaning up against the wall of the hut in which the changing rooms were located, looking bored. Ron was snapping his wrist guards on. "Game's on hold," Harry said briefly. "One of the Slytherin players isn't here yet." Colin snorted. "Don't they have to forfeit, then?" Harry shrugged. "Madam Hooch says we wait. So...we wait." Ginny squirmed irritably. She already felt tense enough, standing here with the other players, only a few feet away from Seamus, who wasn't looking at her. Elizabeth, Dennis, and Colin were standing together, discussing Transfiguration. Ron was busy snapping on his wrist guards. "I wouldn't want to forfeit anyway," he said. 'I want to beat them." "That's the spirit," said Harry, looking weary. "Ron's right," said Ginny. "Especially after last time." She scanned the team and noted how bored everyone looked. "I think we need a pep talk," she said, and winked at Harry. He looked put upon. "You guys don't need a pep talk," he said. "We're the unbeatable team already. All we need to do is go out there and play, and we'll win. We don't know the meaning of the word defeat." Ron made a muffled choking noise, and Harry grinned at him. "Well, we know the meaning of it - we're not stupid - just, you know, not in this context." Harry's eyes scanned the room. "So, was that peppy enough?" Elizabeth looked up from her conversation with Colin. "Sorry, Harry, did you say something?" This time Ron's laugh wasn't muffled. Harry turned to grin at him, and paused. "Hey, Ron..." he said, his green eyes lighting with a sudden curiosity, "what's that on your neck?" Ginny turned around and so did Seamus and Elizabeth, in time to see Ron look startled, and put a hand to his neck. "What...?" "You've got a bite mark," said Harry, hugely amused, "right there," and he poked Ron in the side of the neck with his finger.
Ron flushed as scarlet as a sunset, and clapped his hand over his neck, but it was too late. "Ron's got a hickey," Seamus announced delightedly. "Unbelievable!" Ginny stared at her brother in astonishment. How on earth....? Well, not that she expected any of her brothers to tell her everything, or even most things, about their love lives, but Ron...well, Ron had always seemed to her to be a bit of a romantic, a dreamer. Un-serious snogs were not in his nature. And he'd never have a girlfriend and not tell Harry, and it was very evident from Harry's expression that he was as surprised as everyone else. "So, Ron," said Seamus, leaning on his broomstick, "who's the girl? I don't quite recognize the teeth marks." Ron was still scarlet. "There's no girl," he said, looking at the floor. "A boy, then?" Seamus was grinning. "I'd no idea!" "No! It's just - I walked into a door," said Ron, rather desperately. "With your neck?" Harry demanded, his eyebrows rising. "Yes," said Ron firmly. Ginny snorted. "Ron Weasley," she teased in a superior tone. "After living in a house with Bill, Charlie and the twins, if you think I don't know what a hickey looks like..." "Ginny..." Ron began in a warning tone, rounding on his sister. As he did, she got a good look at his neck. Heavens above, it was a bite mark. "Bill, Charlie and the twins?" Seamus echoed. "What, Percy never got any action? So much for power being an aphrodisiac." Ron looked as if he were going to have a coronary. "I do not have a hickey!" Harry grabbed Ron by the arm. "Okay, then, if you want to be like that," he said. "Sod waiting for the match to start - we're having a little talk," and with that, he frog-marched Ron several yards away, to the shade of a
leaf-bare oak tree. Ginny followed them with her eyes, fascinated, as Ron pulled his arm out of Harry's grasp and stood, looking stony, while Harry spoke animatedly with - or rather at - him. "Well," she murmured, half to herself, "at least they're talking..." "So they are," said a voice behind her. Seamus. She didn't turn around. "Maybe we should too?" At that, she did turn, and looked at Seamus properly for the first time since she'd arrived at the changing rooms. He was looking at her very steadily, his expression serious and his blue eyes doubly so. Cloudy blue, the color of winter sky. She nodded at him. "I guess we should." He took her arm and drew her towards the side of the changing hut, out of sight of Harry and Ron. He let her go immediately, and faced her, looking determined. "Ginny," he said. "I wanted to apologize." She had expected him to say several things; this was not one of them. "For what?" she demanded, astonished. "For not being understanding before," he said. "Last night - this morning, I guess it was. What you had to tell me was, well, overwhelming, and I wasn't sure how to respond. And you were right. I was thinking I was going to have to rescue you from Malfoy somehow, and when it turned out I didn't I guess I was ... disappointed." "Disappointed?" Ginny echoed, but without any anger. She was, if anything, impressed by Seamus' honesty. It couldn't be easy to say the things he was saying. "But why, Seamus?" "Because..." He exhaled and leaned back against the wall of the hut. His cheeks were very red, with cold and with, she suspected, embarrassment. He had pulled his hands inside the overlong sleeves of his red and gold sweater, and it gave him a boyish, almost childlike aspect. "Because at least in that scenario I could imagine that there was something you needed from me." He shook his head. "I like you, Ginny, but you're a mystery. And I know every beautiful girl probably has guys lining up to tell her she's a mystery, but you really are. I think that you must be -" But Seamus never got to tell Ginny what she must have been, because at that
point she took several steps towards him, leaned up on her toes, and kissed him. The first thing Draco would have done, she knew, was kissed her back fiercely; the first thing Seamus did was catch at her elbows, steadying her against him. Only then, when he was sure she was securely placed, did he bend his will to kissing her back. His hands slid from her elbows to cup the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and his lips on hers were cool, almost cold, gently exploratory. He tasted vaguely of hot cocoa. She found that she was shivering hard in his embrace, and no sooner had she noticed that then he broke off the kiss, leaning back just far enough so that he could see her face. "Ginny," he whispered, "are you all right?" She looked back at him, seeing the dazed, dazzled expression in his eyes; the expression she'd seen on her brothers' faces when they got some Christmas present they especially wanted, the expression her mother sometimes wore when she welcomed a child safely home. The way Harry looked at Hermione and the way that Draco had never looked at her. It made her want to cry. "I'm all right," she said, and she put her arms around him. He was warm and solid, the heavy jumper making him bulky although underneath it, he was lithe and almost thin. "Seamus - can we stay still for a second? Just like this." As if he understood, he put his arms around her and held her and she rested her head against his chest, hearing the thickly muffled beat of his heart through the wool sweater, as regular as the ticking of a clock. *** Draco walked out of Dumbledore's office and began to make his way down the hall. If he could have seen himself, he would have been surprised at how slowly he was moving, and how very white his face was. As it was, he was entirely unconcerned with how he might look, which was unusual for him. He was not in shock precisely, but stunned, his mind whirling. Everything around him seemed to have taken on a precise and sharp-edged clarity. He could still hear Dumbledore's voice in his ears. Some of this I know for fact, and some is hearsay but we know enough, at this point, to be fairly sure of the basic facts. Of course this was years ago, many years it would seem to you. Almost twenty years...
He was on the stairs now, walking down them. He had his broomstick in his hand. He was glad he had not forgotten it. I must talk to Harry. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that hiding things from Harry that might potentially upset him was, in the end, a terrible idea. Besides, it was hard to predict how Harry would react to this information. He also could not help but wonder why Dumbledore had told him alone and not told Harry; then again, he suspected that he could guess. He was on the front steps now, and they were cold and slick with ice. He sped down them and took the short cut down to the Quidditch pitch, the one that cut alongside the lake and down past the west side of the pitch, where the Gryffindor changing rooms were. As he neared the pitch, he saw that the stands above were filled with people; the grounds around the pitch seemed deserted though, but as he quickened his pace his gaze fell on a splash of gold and red by the side of the Gryffindor hut. A person. No, not one person, but two people. Two people clinging very close together as if against a cold wind, two sets of arms in their red and gold sleeves wrapped around each other, two faces pressing blindly towards one another. A tousled, sandy head. And a waterfall of familiar scarlet hair. Seamus Finnigan and Ginny Weasley.
Well, what did you expect? said a knife-sharp voice in his own mind as he stopped, and stared, and then forced himself to move again. He averted his gaze as firmly as he could, rounded the edge of the pitch, and stalked towards the Slytherin side of the pitch, where his teammates waited. He could not quite rid himself of the feeling that Ginny had known he had passed by, had even looked up and seen him, but of course she hadn't; she'd been very, very occupied. Be happy, he told himself, it was what you wanted, and then as he neared the Slytherin team they saw him and let out relieved cries of welcome. He hoisted his Firebolt in the air and walked forward to join his team. *** "Ahem," said a voice; Ginny let go of Seamus and turned around to see Harry standing by the door of the changing rooms, his broomstick in his hand. He dropped her a wink before Seamus turned around as well. "Hate to interrupt, but the game's starting."
Ginny dropped her head to hide a smile, and felt Seamus squeeze her hand. "Sorry, Harry," she said, not exactly sure what she was apologizing for. "Perfectly all right," said Harry cheerfully, and stepped back to let Seamus, who was blushing very faintly but looked pleased, walk past him towards the changing rooms. Ginny moved to follow him, but paused to fall into step with Harry, consumed with curiosity. "Did Ron tell you anything?" she demanded, resisting the urge to poke Harry with a finger. "Has he been snogging someone on the side?" Harry gave her a lopsided smile. "He really wouldn't say," he said, shrugging. "He kept saying it was some girl he met at the Pub Crawl, and they had a bit of a snog, and first he said she was a Hufflepuff, then he said she was a Ravenclaw. Then he said she was in a higher year, and I pointed out there aren't any higher years, and he got a bit quiet. Then he said he couldn't say and I'd just have to trust him on it." Ginny gave a little excited hop as they entered the changing room. She grabbed for her wrist guards and began buckling them on. Ron and the others had already filed out onto the pitch, it seemed, since the room was empty. "God, do you think it was someone really dreadful and now he's embarrassed?" she said, fascinated. "Maybe it was Milicent Bulstrode or something!" Harry made a dreadful face. "She'd have taken a much bigger bite out of his neck, I'd wager." "Tess Hammond? Pansy Parkinson?" Harry rolled his eyes. "Not even if he'd drunk sixty butterbeers." "Someone with a boyfriend, then? Maybe he's afraid he'd get in trouble." Harry cocked an eyebrow. "That could be. I'm afraid I feel unprepared to even venture a guess. I'll ask Hermione after the game. She's spent more time with him than I have lately." Ginny chuckled softly. "Ron's got a mystery girl!" she said cheerfully. "I love it."
Harry grinned at her. "Maybe Seamus is right and it's a mystery boy," he said. "Ever think of that?" "Well, I don't see why he'd bother hiding it," said Ginny, tucking her broomstick under her arm and heading with Harry towards the doorway that led to the pitch. "I mean, Mum and Dad thought Percy was gay for ages, and they were fine with it. Kept blanketing him with leaflets and trying to get him to open up about his feelings." Harry laughed. "Percy? Really?" "Cor, yes. They were quite disappointed when Penelope showed up," she added, and ducked under the ropes that cordoned off the pitch. The rest of the team was there, waiting, including Ron, who had pulled the collar of his sweater up as high as it would go and now resembled a turtle of some sort. She chanced a wink at him and he colored. "Your parents really are amazing," said Harry, and Ginny turned to add a smiling affirmative, but was arrested by the look on Harry's face. Always, before every game, he scanned the stands for Hermione, and she could tell by his expression that he had just found her. She followed his gaze and saw Hermione sitting between Jana and George, a pile of books in her lap, looking down at the pitch and waving. As Ginny watched, Hermione made a sign at Harry with her hand - it wasn't anything Ginny recognized, but it was obviously some sort of signal between them, because Harry smiled, a brilliant smile like breaking sunrise. A creeping sadness invaded Ginny's bones. Secret signals, shared jokes. It always seemed that she was on the outside - on the outside of the tightly knit group of Harry, Hermione and Ron; outside Draco's relationship with Harry and Hermione as well, on the outside as the only girl in a family of boys. She turned away from Harry and caught Seamus' eye, and he smiled at her, the sweetest smile. She smiled back, and moved to stand next to him as the team mounted their broomsticks. Harry stepped past her then, heading towards the pitch to shake hands with Draco, who had already walked out there. Perhaps, she thought, not looking towards the pitch but instead at Seamus, perhaps things were finally changing for her after all. ***
The match was starting quite late; the rumor was that one of the Slytherin players was running behind schedule. Hermione, sandwiched between George and Jana in the stands, Fred sitting behind them (Angelina had not come, opting instead to take Oliver Wood on a walking tour of the factory. On this topic, Fred had no comment) was quite sure that Draco's meeting with Dumbledore had run overtime, and found herself wondering what exactly they were talking about. She would have given a great deal to be a fly on the wall in the Headmaster's chambers, or even a beetle Animagus like Rita Skeeter. Vaguely, she was aware of Jana saying soothing things to George, who was growing more and more impatient as time ticked by. Hermione herself was not bored; she had brought an absolutely massive book on L'Histoire des Quatres Objects de Pouvoir with her, and was busily reading the relevant chapter, her Translator Quill held at the ready for any words she did not understand. A tight knot of foreboding was growing in her stomach as she read on about les quatres - the Mirror, the Dagger, the Cup and the Scabbard, otherwise known as the Four Worthy Objects. She had heard of them before; in fact, they had been on the homework assignment Lupin had given them. Even before that she had known that they existed in myth, but had never known why they were Worthy or what use they were meant to be put to. The more she read, the less she liked what she was reading. She ached to race off and find Harry and tell him what she had so far discovered, but of course she couldn't "And about time!" muttered George, as the changing room door opened and the teams spilled out onto the field, the Gryffindor team rushing and the Slytherin team, although they were the late ones, sauntering insolently. The teams paused as Harry and Draco walked towards each other and shook hands, holding the grip, it seemed, only as long as necessary. Hermione, who knew better, saw through her Omnioculars how they leaned instinctively towards each other, and saw the wry smile Harry offered Draco as their hands met. A shaft of light broke through the clouds then, and she took the Omnioculars away from her eyes, blinded; when she looked again, they were walking away from each other, back towards their respective teams. Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and the teams launched themselves into the sky. George and Fred both yelled, and Jana, looking bored, went for her knitting - she was in the process of making a rather hideous orange
muffler which Hermione secretly suspected was a Christmas present for Ron, who would look wretched in such a color. Hiding a smile, Hermione put her Omnioculars down and divided her attention between reading her book and watching the game as it unfolded in the sky above. She had once detested Gryffindor-Slytherin matches, but now she liked them, although she wouldn't have admitted it. Quidditch bored her and always had, but she liked watching her boys fly - Harry with his arrowlike grace, Ron with his straightforward determination, and Draco's showy stylization that masked a real skill. She watched them crisscross each other in the sky, and cheered when Gryffindor scored a goal, mostly because everyone else around her was cheering. But she enjoyed the sheer beauty of flight, something no Muggle sport really offered. Watching Draco and Harry speed away from and towards each other was like watching two streaks of green and red light. The others weren't bad either, of course. She'd been surprised by how well Ginny played when she'd first joined the team this year. She was fast and her aim was excellent. Hermione watched now as Ginny shot past Malcolm Baddock to capture the Quaffle, performed a hairpin turn, and raced towards the Slytherin goal. The Slytherin Beaters wheeled to follow her, but before they could, Blaise Zabini shot between them like an arrow, seized Tess Hammond's bat out of her hand, and whacked the nearest Bludger as hard as she could towards Ginny. It slammed into Ginny's shoulder and her broom spun in a circle, as the crowd below yelped and George broke into a stream of colorful profanity. Ginny righted her broom, but dropped the Quaffle, which Blaise dived for and captured; the Slytherin girl spun to hurl herself back towards the Gryffindor goal but Seamus Finnigan was blocking her, looking incensed. As her broom's path crossed his, Seamus reached out, grasped hold of the trailing end of Blaise's sleeve, and shook her, hard. With an infuriated screech, Blaise swung around, her free hand clawing at his face, and as Seamus ducked out of her grasp she dropped the Quaffle Madam Hooch's whistle blew furiously. "Gryffindor fouls! Quaffle goes to Slytherin!" she called firmly. There was a faint groan from the Gryffindor stands. "What the devil was Seamus thinking?" Fred demanded, craning his Omnioculars upward. Hermione, following his gaze, saw Blaise catch the Quaffle as it was tossed
to her by Madam Hooch. She paused for a moment to spit at Seamus, then took off like a rocket towards the Gryffindor goal. "I know what he was thinking," said George, amused, his gaze on his sister, who was chasing the Quaffle with a determined look. "Hee. Hee." Fred shot a disgusted look at his sibling. "Did you just say 'hee hee'?" "So what if I did?" said George cheerily, "at least my girlfriend isn't off faffing about with Oliver Wood." Jana looked annoyed. "Oh, that's right, make it sound like Oliver Wood wouldn't have me." "Now, dear, that's not what I meant," said George hastily. "I'm sure he would have you." "And I suppose you'd let him!" Jana sniffed, hands on her hips. "George! How could you!" "Of course not," George protested. "Darling...I would never..." "Hee hee," said Fred. "Oh, be quiet the both of you," said Jana, then broke off as there was a roar from the crowd - Slytherin had scored, Blaise having hit the Quaffle towards the Gryffindor goal hard enough to nearly knock out one of Ron's teeth. George made a snarling noise. Hermione had a feeling the odds of Blaise being invited to any upcoming Weasley family gatherings was likely nil. George and Fred were grumbling again, and when the Quaffle was returned to play, Ginny dove at it with a singleminded fierceness, cutting in front of Blaise as she did so, and driving it towards the Slytherin goal with such determination that Hermione found her eyes riveted on Ginny, and she barely noticed the twin blurs of green and scarlet streaking by just at the edge of her vision..... A dull roar went up from the crowd. Ginny paused on her broom and wheeled around; Hermione could see the astonished look on her face. Hermione looked up, brushing a stray curl away from her eyes, and saw that the air was no longer full of movement: the players were still, staring
towards the west side of the pitch, where Harry sat atop his broom. Something glimmered in his hand. It was the Snitch. The game was over. Madam Hooch's voice broke the silence. "A victory for Gryffindor!" The stands around Hermione erupted into fierce cheering. Students were on their feet, their scarves flying like red-gold banners in the wind. Hermione did not get to her feet; she was still looking at the field, at Harry, who stared at the Snitch in his hand, then twisted around on his broom to look towards Draco. Draco was at least twenty feet away, sitting very still on his broom, and the look on his face - it wasn't an expression Hermione had ever seen on him before, half rage and half bewilderment. He pointed his broom violently downward, and landed hard on the frozen ground. Harry followed, landing much more slowly, and now the rest of the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams were landing as well, blocking her view of the boys. She cranked the focus on the Omnioculars and looked again at Harry; the rest of the team was landing around him, crowding to get near him, but they seemed strangely somber. The usual hugging, jumping dogpile was missing. She could tell why, too; it was Harry. He looked neither pleased nor victorious, merely surprised and almost irritated as he glanced from the Snitch in his hand over towards the Slytherin team, who were departing swiftly through the doors to their changing rooms. Draco was already out of sight. Hermione could tell that the Gryffindor team was having a hard time rejoicing normally, given the somber mood of their captain. Moving uncertainly together, they gathered up their brooms and headed off the pitch, led by Harry. The Gryffindor spectators seemed to have caught the somber mood of the team; in silence, everyone in the stands began to gather up their things, and as Hermione moved to close the book she had been reading, and put it in her bag, her glance fell on an illustrated page. She stood very still for a moment, staring, then raised the book and looked more closely. A few moments later, she was running down the stairs at a mad clip, George and Fred staring after her, pelting as quickly as she could towards the Gryffindor changing rooms and Harry. *** Harry walked back towards the changing rooms, vaguely conscious of the excited chatter of the rest of the Gryffindors rising and falling around him. Over and over in his mind he was replaying the last few seconds of
the match - chasing the Snitch, the wind in his face, waiting for, and rather expecting, Draco to cut in front of him on his broom, as he always did. Harry knew what flying Seeker against Draco Malfoy was like; he had done it for six years. They both had their tricks, though they tried to vary them. They both had their individual styles. Draco's was elegant and almost lazy, until he actually saw the Snitch, and then he would drive after it like the point of a knife blade driving home. Harry had learned to expect his responses and anticipate them; somewhere in his heart he felt confident that he was a better player than Draco, although not so much better that he could ever afford to be lazy. They'd lost their share of matches against Slytherin in the past, some quite unexpectedly. But one thing he had never come to expect was that Draco would ever let him catch the Snitch - and he was quite sure that that was what Draco had done this time. Draco hadn't even seemed to be making an effort at all; when Harry'd gone for the Snitch, he'd noted that Draco wasn't pacing him, and when he'd caught it and turned the other boy had been many feet away. That had never happened before. It wasn't like Draco not to make even the slightest effort, Harry thought, banging the changing room door shut behind him (and almost whacking Colin on the nose, although he didn't notice that.) Obviously Draco had let him win, but why would he do that? Was he feeling sorry for Harry now because of their visit to the graveyard earlier? Well, thought Harry, dropping his broomstick and stripping off the leather shin guards, screw that, he didn't want anybody's pity, least of all Draco's. Harry had at this point managed to work himself up into a state of affronted pique that, had he bothered to think about it, was out of proportion to the cause, but he didn't bother to think about it. Instead he tossed his wrist guards into a corner and stalked out of the changing room, ignoring Ron's attempt to stop him. He took hold of the Epicyclical Charm around his throat, concentrated a moment, and then marched up the path to the castle, his booted feet cracking the ice beneath them in a satisfyingly loud manner. He threw the double doors open, strode through the entryway, and turned down the left-hand hallway, the one that led to the Slytherin dormitories. He rounded the first corner and there was Draco just ahead, walking away from him, halfway to the tapestried door leading down to the dungeons. He was walking quickly, tearing at the leather wrist protector on his right wrist with his other hand; as Harry watched, Draco got it free, and in a
gesture very unlike him, paused, and threw it hard against the opposite wall. It hit the stone with a soft thwack, and fell to the floor at Draco's feet. "Malfoy," Harry said. Draco didn't move, just stood where he was, staring at the wall. There was an odd dejection to the set of his shoulders, as if he had realized something painful... "Malfoy," Harry said again, more tightly, and when Draco still didn't turn he did something he'd sworn he wouldn't do, and sent an arrow of thought winging at the other boy's mind - he threw it as he would throw a dart, sharp and hard and direct. Malfoy! Turn around and talk to me! Draco tensed, as if he had been struck, and spun around. Harry quailed slightly - Draco's eyes had gone nearly black, which only happened when he was very angry indeed. "What the hell do you want, Potter?" he asked flatly. He was tearing at the other wrist protector now; he got it off, and dropped it on the floor at his feet. "Why are you following me?" Harry took a step forward. "What happened out there?' he demanded. Draco's eyes went narrow. The torchlight threw its flaring light across his face, washing out the color, making the lines hard and angular. "You won," he said flatly. "Go and bloody celebrate, why don't you?" "I meant what happened to you. You gave up on that game, Malfoy - it's the only explanation -" "I did not give up!" The words came out on a shout. "You won!" "We didn't," said Harry. Draco looked even angrier. "I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be above bloody gloating about this sort of thing -" "I am not gloating," said Harry through his teeth. "Do you think I give a damn about winning a game you let me win?" "I did not let you win!" Draco yelled. "That was the best I could do!"
"Well, it was pathetic!" Harry snapped right back, and immediately regretted what he had said. "Why, thank you," Draco snarled, his voice gone flat and cold. "Thank you for that assessment, Potter, you self-righteous, stuck-up, unbearable bastard!" Harry took a step back - Draco looked almost feral in his rage, his shoulders set, even his silver hair seeming to crackle with angry energy. His hands were fisted at his sides. "You think you can come along and judge me -" "If you let me win because you think I -" Harry began, but broke off as a voice exploded inside his head, with the force of a bomb going off - he felt as if his skull might shatter apart as he staggered back against the wall.
I DID NOT LET YOU WIN! Harry gasped out loud, and put his hands to his head, which was aching now as if someone had struck him a hard blow across the back of his skull. "Ouch," he said weakly, and looked up at Draco - who was staring at him in utter astonishment, his hands slowly loosening at his sides. "All right, all right - I believe you, Malfoy, you didn't have to yell like that." He took his hands gingerly away from his temples and stared at them, almost expecting to see blood. "You trying to give me brain damage, or what?" "I..." Draco began, uneasily, still looking surprised. "I didn't know it would ... I've never..." "Well, now you have," Harry snapped, repeating something Draco had said to him not long before. Then he hesitated. "I'm sorry," he said slowly, his eyes on Draco's face now. "'For what I said...you weren't pathetic." "Oh, no," Draco said, gritty-voiced, and very pale, "I was. I was pathetic." Harry suddenly felt terrible, as if he'd kicked a kitten. He stared at Draco. Over the months he'd come to be able to read the other boy's expressions, although they were subtle. And he could still feel a little of what Draco felt sometimes, if he was feeling it strongly. He felt it now, and saw it in Draco's face, bewilderment...and fear. Fear? "Malfoy," he began --
"Harry!" it was a breathless voice, one Harry recognized instantly; he spun around and saw Hermione, standing ashen-faced in the doorway. Ron was behind her, and so, he saw, was Ginny. And behind her was Seamus Finnigan. Hermione held a book in her hands, clutching it so tightly that her fingers were paper-white. "Harry..." she said again, and trailed off, and then her eyes went to Draco. Relief brightened them, lighting her expression. "Oh, thank God, you're both here. I need to talk to you." She looked down at the book in her hand, and then back at Draco and Harry. "It's important. Can we go to the library and talk?" Harry looked at her, trying to focus his eyes, but it was Draco who spoke. "Not if he comes," he said, and pointed past Hermione at Seamus, who was standing beside Ginny now. "Anything I can hear, Seamus can hear," said Ginny loudly. "I already told him everything." Draco raised an eyebrow at her. "Everything?' he said. "Everything," Ginny replied, raising her chin. Seamus looked very much as if he wanted to be elsewhere, but he stood firm. "Then you're a silly bint," said Draco coldly. "And untrustworthy." Ron looked murderous, as did Seamus. Hermione frowned. "Draco, don't be difficult," she said. "This is important." Draco folded his arms. "Either Leprechaun Boy over there walks away, or I do." Harry cleared his throat. "Look, Seamus..." he began. "Right then," said Seamus. "I don't want to cause any problems. I'm going." He leaned over and very deliberately kissed Ginny on the cheek. "I'll see you later," he said, and walked away. Hermione rolled her eyes. "If the immaturity contest is over..."
"The immaturity contest is never over," said Draco, with a sideways smile at her. She shook her head. "All right," she said. "Come on - let's go to the library." *** "There are four Worthy Objects," Hermione said. "And they're very old. There's a dagger. A scabbard. A mirror, that one in the photograph that was stolen. And a cup." She sighed and looked up from the parchment she was reading. "Draco saw every one of them in Voldemort's possession, in his dreams, except one. The cup." They were all in the library, sprawled around a round table: Ginny and Ron, Hermione and Draco, and Harry beside Hermione. Hermione had books and parchments spread out on the table in front of her, and her silver-rimmed reading glasses propped on her nose. She'd been talking for a while, and her voice was beginning to sound scratchy. "Each of these objects is very powerful, magically," Hermione went on. "It's elemental magic, which is hardly ever practiced these days, but was pretty popular around Nicholas Flamel's time. Each object corresponds to an element - but," Hermione added hurriedly, seeing everyone's eyes glazing over, "that's not important. What's important is that these four objects are like four parts of a puzzle. They have to be brought together for the magic to work. And when they're together, then a ritual can be performed." Harry cleared his throat. "I don't like the sound of that. What kind of ritual?" Hermione bit her lip. "It's what the Objects were created for, to facilitate this ritual. It's called just that, the Ritual, and...and it takes five people to perform, four to manipulate the objects and a fifth..." Hermione wrinkled her nose, "to give his or her blood. It's totally unclear how the ritual works, apparently the instructions are contained in a set of four books, of which there is only one copy of each in existence. However, what is clear is the result of the ritual. When it's done properly, an image will appear in the surface of the mirror. That image is the Tetragrammaton." Draco's eyes widened. Everyone else looked quite blank. "That's a myth, I thought," Draco said.
"Oooh, Draco knows about it," said Ron. "I'm betting it's a nasty thing in that case." Draco yawned. "You forgot to call me Malfoy," he said. "You're slipping, Weasley." "The Tetragrammatron," said Hermione firmly, "is a word. One word. But speaking that word aloud gives the speaker power over all living things, power over men and animals, and power over life and death. That's why Voldemort wanted the mirror, and that's why I'm sure he wants the cup. It was the only object that Draco didn't see that he already had, and anyway I already looked into it. The cup is in the Museum at Stonehenge, in the Antiquities section. If he he wants to perform the ritual, he'll have to try to get it. But he mustn't...he can't be allowed. We can't let that happen." Ron looked shocked; so did Ginny. Harry wondered if he looked shocked as well. He didn't feel shocked. He felt a weary sort of oh, this again? The end of the world? Yippee! instead. Draco didn't look shocked either. He looked resigned. "And what do we propose to do about it?" "I don't know," said Ron dubiously. "This all seems like fantasy to me. I mean, some dreams, some photos, a myth...it might well be nothing." "It might," Hermione agreed, "but I'm not sure it's worth that risk. Right now the cup is safe in a warded display case in the Museum, but for how long?" Ginny stirred restlessly in her chair. "Do you think going to Dumbledore might be the answer?" she asked. "Only if the question is 'What's the most asinine thing we could possibly do?'" said Draco shortly. Ginny shot him a glare. "I don't see why." "Well, first off, there's no explaining how we came by all this information," said Draco shortly. "Second off, he's not likely to act on the evidence that I had a dream about something, is he?"
"Well, where did you come by all this information?" Ginny snapped. "Where'd you get a Muggle newspaper anyway, Draco?" Draco looked at Hermione, but she looked quite blank. Harry tensed as Draco turned his gray eyes towards him, and narrowed them. You didn't tell Hermione where we went yet, did you?
No. I know I said I would, but...I couldn't. Harry winced and slunk down in his seat. Don't...not right now. Draco's eyes trawled back to Ginny, and he smiled. "Found it," he said. "In the infirmary." Ginny looked unconvinced. "Sure you did." Hermione cleared her throat. "I agree with Draco," she said, somewhat unexpectedly. "Dumbledore understands that some things we have to take care of ourselves. Sometimes he can't act, but knows that we have the tools we need to act instead. You know what I mean?" she added, and looked at Harry, her eyes wide and dark. He thought of the Time-Turner, of their third year, of the thin gold chain looped around both their necks. Remembered how determined she had been their second year, solemnly handing pastries to him and Ron and telling them to go off and drug their fellow students into unconsciousness. Do you want this plan to work, or not? "I know," he said, and smiled at her. She smiled back at him, briefly, before her smile wavered and she looked back down at the table. "I think it's pretty obvious what we have to do," she said, and sighed. "I don't like the idea, but..." Ron waved a hand. "I'm not following," he said. "What do we have to do exactly?" "We have to steal the cup before the Dark Lord can get it," said Hermione, as if it was obvious. "We're going to have to rob the museum." References: Well, I try not to fly in the face of public opinionBlackadder we could have started your personality over from scratch – Blackadder
We don't know the meaning of the word defeat." Ron made a muffled choking noise, and Harry grinned at him. "Well, we know the meaning of it - we're not stupid - just, you know, not in this context." – The Tick
Draco Veritas Chapter Six: This Perfect World
Hermione had taken to calling it The Plan; Draco called it Just Your Run of The Mill Bog-Standard Scheme For Robbing A Museum And Stealing A Priceless Artifact, What? Harry didn't call it anything; he just rolled his eyes when they talked about it, and capped that off with a shrug. Not that he wasn't nervous, or determined – he was, Ginny thought, just as nervous and determined as the rest of them. He just wasn't spending as much time in the library as the rest of them were: Draco, Hermione, Ginny were there for hours every day, and even Ron, who evidently disliked having to spend so much time around Draco, was quite patiently putting up with it – Ginny was proud of him. It had been two weeks since they'd begun carving out The Plan, and he hadn't complained once. They had commandeered a corner library table where they would not be disturbed, and in between classes Ginny knew Hermione would always be found there, usually with Draco sitting across from her. Most of the books that Hermione had wanted were not available in the Hogwarts library, not even in the Restricted Section. Books on dismantling Ministry wards, A Thief's Guide to Looting and Plundering, books on how to conceal the trace evidence left behind by theft spells – Hogwarts carried none of them. Draco had to Summon them for her from the bookshelves back at the Manor, which he did, along with something that had made Hermione shout in glee: the blueprint floorplans for the Malfoy Wing of the Stonehenge Museum. It amused Ginny to see the way Hermione tackled this project with the same gusto with which she had attacked their exams the week before. “You should have seen her second year,” said Ron, chin on hand and pointed nose stuck inside a tome entitled How To Get Away With Practically Anything. “I remember her handing me and Harry two drugged
pastries and ordering us to go off and knock out Crabbe and Goyle for her. She was a terror.” He looked up and over at Hermione, “Isn't that right?” he asked, but Hermione was not paying attention. She had just leaped out of her chair with a shriek. Hands on her hips, she shook her head in annoyance. “Draco! Honestly!” She glared down at the blond boy, who as looking up at her with large, innocent eyes and holding something quite revolting-looking in his outstretched hand. “I Summoned it from the Manor this morning,” Draco said, waving what looked like a mummified human hand at Hermione. “I almost forgot to give it to you.” “Well, I wish you had forgotten,” Hermione said, wrinkling her nose up. “What is it?” “It's a Hand of Glory,” said Harry, appearing out of the shadows between the bookshelves. “Best friend of thieves and plunderers, right Malfoy?” Draco twisted around in his seat and looked at Harry. “I wouldn't have expected you to know that, Potter.” Harry smiled faintly. His cheeks were flushed as if he had been outside in the cold, and his scarf was wrapped around his neck. Ginny wondered where he had gone after breakfast while the rest of them had trooped up to the library. Classes were over for the term while everyone studied for exams, but Harry these days often seemed to have all sorts of places to be that he just had to go to alone. “You'd be surprised what I know, Malfoy.” “Would I?” said Draco, a small smile playing about his mouth. “What's all this about you knocking out Crabbe and Goyle during second year, then?” Everyone looked horrified. Ginny, who vaguely recollected hearing this story from Ron during her third year, choked on a giggle. Draco raised an eyebrow politely at Ron. “You want to elaborate, Weasley?” Ron had stuck his nose back in his book, but the tips of his ears were red. “Not really.”
Draco gave him a measuring look, then put the Hand of Glory down on the table. It scrabbled across the table like an oversized spider and fell into Ron's lap. With a yowl like a scalded cat, Ron leaped to his feet, brushing frantically at the hand clinging to his belt. It fell to the floor, and Ginny put her foot on it. “Malfoy!” Ron choked, looking furious. Draco grinned lazily. “Oh come on, Weasley. Like that isn't the closest to a sex life you're ever going to get.” Ron picked up his copy of How to Get Away With Practically Anything and threw it at Draco. Draco ducked, and the book bounced off the back of his chair. Draco sat back up, and dusted off his shirtsleeves ostentatiously. “You know, Weasley,” he remarked, poker-faced, “violent hostility is just sublimated sexual attraction.” “Ah, well,” said Ron bitterly, “I suppose that explains why you always hated Hagrid, then.” Draco actually flushed, and once again Ginny choked on a giggle. Harry cleared his throat with an impatient noise. “This,” he said flatly, “is accomplishing nothing – are we going to have to split up so we can work on this?” ”No,” said Hermione unexpectedly, standing up. “We're done for now.” Everyone blinked at her. “Done for now?” Ron echoed, forgetting to be furious. “With the research part, yes,” said Hermione firmly. “I just need something to Transfigure, like I said last night. Harry?” Harry shrugged slightly. “You said you didn't need it until this afternoon.” “Yes,” said Hermione, her voice tense. “And it's three o'clock.” “Fine,” Harry said shortly. “I'll go get it. Ron, can you come with me?”
”With pleasure,” said Ron, shooting a nasty look at Draco, and getting to his feet. He picked his scarf up off the back of his chair, and stomped after Harry – had Ginny been a less generous sister, she would have said he was flouncing. Apparently Draco had a similar thought. “Drama queen,” he remarked coolly as the library door shut behind Harry and Ron. “Don't start,” said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated. She reached out over the table and began shoving parchments and maps into her ever-straining bookbag. “Really, Draco, if you two won't try to get along, can't you just go out in the woods and poke each other with sharp sticks until you figure out who the dominant male is?” Draco chewed thoughtfully on the end of his quill. “But that would be so much less fun.” “Fun? This is your idea of fun?” Hermione began winding her hair back into a tight bun, and ruthlessly jammed a hairpin into it to hold it in place. “Why do you have to keep poking at Ron? Be a man. Just ignore him.” “I don't want to be a man,” Draco said, tilting his head back and lazily slitting his eyes like a cat in the sun. “I want to be a depressed, angstridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons, so takes it out verbally on other people.” Hermione sighed. “It's too bad you weren't born a girl,” she said. “Otherwise all you'd have to worry about is whether you were the prettiest one in school.” “Hey,” Draco said. “I am the prettiest one in school.” Hermione flopped back down into the chair next to Draco and disconsolately surveyed the papers that still littered the table. “This is just too stressful,” she said in a weary voice. Ginny resisted the urge to reassure her; she had the feeling that both Draco and Hermione had forgotten that she was there several minutes ago. “I can't do this all by myself, and Harry won't help, and you and Ron keep fighting, and I've been up for three days straight. And my hair is starting to frizz up again,
did you know that?” “Some days it's all I can think about,” said Draco gravely. “Oh shut up,” said Hermione, but she smiled. “I'll make you a deal,” Draco said. “I'll go through the rest of the antialarm-spell book if you tell me what that business about knocking out Crabbe and Goyle second year was.” Hermione's smile deepened. “Deal,” she said, sounding relieved. Ginny cleared her throat loudly and stood up. As she had expected, they looked at her with identical pairs of startled eyes: one pair dark brown, the other silver. “I have to go,” she said. Hermione's smile vanished. “Ginny –” she said. “Oh, I – I mean, thank you for helping out –” “No problem,” said Ginny stiffly, picked up her bookbag, and walked out of the library. Only when the door had shut behind her did she allow her shoulders to slump. Was she doomed to be invisible forever? Was it some kind of Weasley Curse? Then again, Bill and Charlie had always been anything but invisible, nor were the twins, or even Percy in his own annoying way. Perhaps it was simply the two youngest Weasleys who were doomed to feel always overlooked. With a sigh, she set off down the corridor. She clattered down the stairs that led to the second floor, turned several corners, and found herself at what looked like the dead end of a hallway. It wasn't, as Seamus had shown her the week before. If one walked all the way to the end and then turned sharply to the left, a small open stone archway was revealed. She ducked through it. Beyond it was a small oval room, the walls and floor of which were honey-colored blocks of stone. There was no furniture. The west wall was a leaded glass bay window, fronted by a ledge just wide enough to be a window seat. Curled up on the seat, legs folded under him, head bent over the book in his lap, was Seamus. His hands were pulled inside the sleeves of his dark red pullover, and the cold winter sunlight filtering through the window turned his dark blonde hair
to a fringe of golden grass. “Hey, Ginny,” he said, without looking up. She laughed. “How'd you know it was me?” “Know your footsteps,” he said. He put the book down and smiled at her. “Come over here.” She came and sat down next to him on the ledge, feeling slightly nervous. In the week since she had kissed Seamus on the Quidditch pitch, he had not tried to kiss her again, or indicated that he was awaiting a repeat performance. Instead he was simply quietly present much of the time, walking with her when they had classes near each other, bringing her hot tea in the common room. She had begun to expect to see him when she came out of class: she wondered how she had never really noticed he was around before. There was something oddly appealing about Seamus, something about his generous nature and uncomplicated smiles. They held hands now when they walked in the hallways. It felt easy, natural. She tried not to think too much about what she was doing. She didn't want to analyze it. “Are you going on the Stonehenge visit?” he asked. “Mmm.” She nodded, playing with the cover of the book he'd been reading, Dream Country. Seamus was obsessed with comic books, both Muggle and normal ones. “Are you?” ”Yeah, I thought I would. I'm not in History of Magic but Binns said it would be fine. There's an exhibit on archaic Quidditch that I've been wanting to see.” Seamus put his hand over her hand where it lay on the book cover, and cleared his throat. “I was wondering…” He looked as nervous as he ever looked, which meant his blue eyes darkened to a slate sort of color and his mouth tightened. “About Christmas holidays. I'm going to be at the Manor for the wedding, of course…and so will you…but after that we've got two weeks of holiday before term starts up again, and I'll be going back home to Glyn Caryn...” “That's nice, Seamus,” said Ginny agreeably. “I've heard it's lovely there.” “I want you to come with me,” he said.
Ginny stopped playing with the book cover and stared. “What?” “I think it would be fun,” said Seamus determinedly. “We've got a castle, you know – nowhere near as big as this one, but quite sizeable, and you wouldn't have to see me for days if you didn't want to. I've got tickets to the Puddlemere/Cannons game in Dublin, and we could go to that, and there's ice skating on the grounds and tobogganing…” he sighed and tugged distractedly on a loose curl of his hair. “You know, this sounded a lot better when I was rehearsing it in my head than 'Come to my house; I've got a toboggan.'” Ginny, who had been looking at him wonderingly, laughed. “You rehearsed this in your head?” she demanded. “Why?” “Because I think you really need a holiday,” he said. “And you're not going to get one with the friends you've got – they're mad.” “I thought you liked Harry and Hermione,” said Ginny. “I do, but they're mad and these days all they do is glare – don't give me that look, everyone's noticed. And your brother spends most of him time sulking as well. Go ahead and tell me that spending time with them is a crazy whirligig of fun, but I'm not going to believe you.” “And I suppose if I go visit you in Ireland, that would be a crazy whirligig of fun?” “I can promise you fun,” said Seamus. “Crazy whirligig might be pushing it.” She grinned. “Will you show me your action figure collection?” Seamus looked airily at the ceiling. “I might do.” “Have you got the Harry and Draco ones they made over the summer?” Seamus nodded, his eyes glinting. “I've got two of the Malfoy one – one in its original packaging and one for decapitation purposes.” ”Seamus, that is just wrong.”
“I'll glue his head back on if you come to visit,” said Seamus contritely. Ginny hesitated. “I don't know,” she said slowly. “I do have to check with my parents, but I can't see why they'd say no. I – I'll think about it, Seamus.” She checked herself as his blue eyes darkened. “But I want to – and I appreciate it. I really, really do.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and then put her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. Of course, she thought, if the great museum caper didn't go as planned, she wouldn't be able to make it to Ireland anyway – not without a side-trip to Azkaban for a few years beforehand. *** “You know, I've missed this,” said Ron in a conversational tone, as Harry tried the door of the Trophy Room. “Missed what?” Harry asked, his mind only half on what Ron was saying. The Trophy Room door tended to squeak when it was opened, and although Harry had the Invisibility Cloak in his pocket he didn't feel like using it. He pushed down slowly on the handle and the door slid soundlessly open. Harry slipped through, and turned to wait for Ron to follow him. But Ron was lingering in the doorway. “Missed this,” he said, and gestured from himself to Harry and back again. “Missed you and me.” Harry cocked his head to the side. “That's...” He chanced a tired smile. “I didn't know you cared.” But Ron didn't smile back. He looked grave. “Maybe you don't know what I mean,” he said. “I mean us, sneaking around, going on missions, getting in trouble...like we used to.” “We're not in trouble,” Harry said. He didn't know why he was refusing to acknowledge what Ron was really saying, but he was. “Although if you keep standing in the doorway...” Ron's mouth tightened. He came into the room, and shut the door behind him. “Fine,” he said. “Let's get what we came for.” He walked into the
center of the room and began industriously studying the display cases, behind which the rows of trophies, shields, and plaques gleamed dull gold and silver. Ron's hair gleamed too, a darkened bronze color in the halflight. The set of his shoulders was tense, and Harry knew of old that this meant Ron was feeling hurt. He knew why he couldn't acknowledge what Ron was saying...he didn't miss their loss of adventure the same way, because he had not really lost it. He still crept around school under the Cloak, still evaded the teachers to sneak off school grounds. He just did those things alone now. Alone, or with Draco. He sighed. “Ron,” he said slowly. “I'm sorry. I know what you mean. I've missed it too, I've just been ... caught up in other things.” Ron glanced back at him. The faint light washed the blue out of his eyes. “I've noticed,” he said. “I've offered before, but if you want to talk about it...” Harry walked across the room, to the largest display case, and looked into it. There was the gold shield that bore his father's name, and his house and position: Gryffindor Seeker. “If there was something I could tell you,” he said, seeing Ron's face reflected in the display case glass, “I would.” “Is it about Hermione?” Ron asked diffidently, looking down at his feet. Harry twisted around to stare at him. “About Hermione?” “Let's just say I can see why you're wearing your scarf indoors,” Ron said. “The climate between you two is somewhat arctic.” “Yeah,” Harry said. “She feels neglected.” “That would be one of those funny side effects of neglect,” said Ron. He raised his eyes from his shoes. “Do you not love her any more?” Harry started, as if Ron had pricked him with a pin. “Do I not what?” “You heard me.” Ron was looking at his feet again. “Sometimes you, ah, just stop feeling a certain way about a person, and there isn't anything you can do about it. But you should, you should tell her, because it isn't fair to make her wait around and wonder what's going on with you, and
not tell her, and –” “Is this sentence going to end anytime soon?” Harry said rather sharply. Ron swallowed his next words, looking mutinous. “You should tell her,” he said again. Harry shook his head. “If there was something to tell her,” he said quietly, “I would. But I love her, and I always will love her, and to tell her anything else would be a lie.” Ron looked surprised, so much so that Harry in return was surprised. “But lots of people do...just stop feelings things,” he said. “Don't they?” “Do I look like I've got the faintest idea what lots of people do?” Harry rubbed his hands over his face. He felt tired again. Tired and worn down. “Look,” he said, more quietly. “I appreciate you looking out for Hermione, and for me as well. I know how it looks from the outside. I'm sure it looks bad. But of course I still love her. In fact sometimes I worry...” “Worry what?” Ron said quickly. “That she doesn't love me.” “Oh,” said Ron, and then again, “Oh.” He paused. “I'm sure she does.” “I know.” Harry raised his head and looked at Ron, really looked at him, for the first time in days. At the steady blue eyes, the set mouth, the familiar face. “It's just that I can't talk to her about my parents,” Harry heard himself say. “Your parents?” Ron looked astonished. “Did something...happen with your parents?”
No, Harry thought acidly, they're still dead, thanks for asking. But he didn't say that. “Not exactly. I've been thinking about them a lot, and I guess that's what's been on my mind. And I know it seems like I should be able to talk to her about that, but I can't...and I'm not the only one who's been distant lately,” he added firmly. “She seems distant too. Distant and kind of...strange.”
“Strange?” Ron echoed. But Harry didn't want to elaborate. His gaze had lit on what they had come to the trophy room for. “Hey, there it is.” “There what – oh, right,” said Ron, and got down on his knees just as Harry did. Harry reached out and flipped open the glass case in front of him, and took out a tall bronze-colored cup, to the front of which was affixed a shield inscribed in flowing script: For Special Services To the School: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley. In the year 1992. “We going to use that?” Ron asked. “Sure,” Harry said. “It's ours...we can use whatever we want. Hermione said something that looked as much like the cup in the picture as possible, and this does.” Ron grinned. “I was kind of hoping we could use Tom Riddle's award for special services.” Harry laughed. “Now that's a brilliant idea. But...Hermione said it had to be a cup.” “Why? What's the difference? It's getting Transfigured anyway.” “Yeah,” Harry said, “but it has to be a very, very low-level transfiguration spell, because a stronger spell would set off the detectors in the museum. So it'll start fading over time. The more it looks like what it's supposed to be, the longer it'll take anyone to notice.” Ron shook his head. “Does anyone have all the details of this robbery plan besides Hermione?” Harry shook his head, standing up. “No,” he said. “But I trust her.” An odd spasm went across Ron's face. Then he smiled, and reached out and touched the cup in Harry's hand. “I remember when we got this,” he said. “Second year.” Harry looked at Ron narrowly; there was something in Ron's tone he
didn't like, as if his best friend were mourning some lost, elegiac Golden Age. “Yeah. I remember.” He held the cup out. “You want to carry it?” But Ron shook his head, hands in his pockets. “No. It's all right.” He looked towards the door. “We should go,” he said, and ducked his head as Harry swirled the cloak over both of them, and they vanished from sight. *** When Ron and Harry returned to the library, Ginny had gone, and Draco and Hermione were sitting together at the table. Hermione had her head on her arms and appeared to be asleep; Draco was reading. He lifted a finger to his lips as Harry and Ron approached. Harry looked at Draco, then set the cup down on the table and crouched down next to Hermione's seat. She was indeed asleep, her head resting on her crossed arms, her eyes shut. He could see how tired she must be: her eyelids had a waxy, pearlescent sheen, and there were shadows under her eyes. Her lips were parted softly and the tumbled hair that has escaped from its bun stirred with her breathing. He forgot that Draco and Ron were there as he knelt next to her, forgot that anyone else was there besides the two of them, and for that timeless moment hung in a space occupied only by Hermione and himself. He could never forget how much he loved her, but now he was reminded again and forcefully, and he felt it as an ache inside himself, a hard pain in the depths of his soul. If she only knew... He had not spoken, but her eyelids fluttered open as if she had heard him. She smiled slowly, her clear dark eyes focusing on his face. “Harry...” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I didn't realize you were so tired,” he said gently. “I brought the cup.” “Oh!” she said, and sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “Thank you.” She yawned, and touched the cup with a smile. “It's adorable, isn't it. What a shame we have to use it for something like this.” “It's a good cause,” Draco said, without looking up from his book. Ron was chewing the side of his lip thoughtfully. “Remind me again how
this is going to work,” he said. Hermione looked vexed. “We're gone over this...” “It's, just, won't it be surrounded by guards and things?” “The cup? No more than any of the other objects in the museum. Remember, they don't know what it is – it's just a historical curiosity to them, not part of an immensely powerful magical equation.” “Are you sure?” Ron said. “I mean, maybe they just don't want to make it clear to everyone else that they do know how powerful it is...maybe they're just trying not to attract any attention to it.” Hermione blinked, and for a moment looked surprised – Harry realized that this had honestly not occurred to her. “No,” she said slowly, and then more swiftly, “No, because there's no reason then that they'd have to put it on display, they could just hide it away somewhere. It's only by chance that we even managed to suss it out. If Draco hadn't had the dreams he's had, if it hadn't connected back up to Nicholas Flamel, I'd never have twigged that the cup in the museum was one of the Four Worthy Objects.” “Might be one of the Four Worthy Objects,” Ron corrected, dropping his voice. Hermione nodded. “I know, but better safe than sorry.” “Ah,” said Ron, nodding. “This must be some newfangled usage of the word 'safe' that I hadn't previously been aware of.” Harry laughed. “I thought you were missing all our adventures,” he said. “If robbing a museum isn't an adventure, I don't know what is.” Ron flushed, then grinned crookedly. “You have a point,” he replied, then glanced at his watch. “Herm, we're meant to be down in Flitwick's office going over the student list for the trip right now...” “Oh. Right.” Hermione got to her feet, stifling another yawn, smiled at Harry, and picked up her books and cloak. “See you at supper then?” she said.
He got to his feet, and nodded. “Have fun being Head Boy and Head Girl.” Hermione made a face. “Don't knock it...we wouldn't have a museum trip otherwise.” Ron tapped his watch. “Hermione...” She picked up the cup, put it in her bag, and kissed Harry's cheek. “See you later – oh, and Draco, remember what we talked about.” And with that, she left with Ron, both of them chattering animatedly. Harry looked down at Draco. “'Remember what we talked about'?” Draco, who had his long legs stretched out on top of the table, shrugged. “We were just trying to think of different ways to create a diversion at the museum tomorrow.” “Come up with anything?” “Few things. Probably better if you're surprised though.” Harry, accepting this, threw himself down in the chair next to Draco. “I'm flipping exhausted,” he said. “I don't know about you.” “Well, six midnight meetings and intensive robbery-planning will do that to you. Fortunately, I manage to maintain my radiant glow without sleep.” “Yes, fascinating how you do that,” said Harry, reaching for a thermos of pumpkin juice that Hermione had left at the table. “So, Rhysenn not bothering you in the middle of the night any more?” Draco gave him a shrewd look. “I haven't seen her,” he said. “Have you?” Harry shook his head, alarmed. “No.” “I suspect she can't come into the castle,” Draco said. “I think you're safe.” Harry unscrewed the thermos cap thoughtfully. “What do you think she
wants, anyway?” Draco shrugged. “Ultimately that's anyone's guess. Other than wanting in your pants, apparently.” “Glargh.” Harry moaned. “Don't say that.” “I'm just offended she doesn't want in my pants.” “Maybe she does,” Harry suggested placatingly. “I don't think she's ever really tried it on with me...not like she did with you.” Draco paused thoughtfully. “Lucky me, I suppose.” “She does have quite an...effect,” Harry said, feeling himself blush. “Must be six hundred years of pent-up frustration,” Draco said. Harry choked, and spit pumpkin juice out all over the open book in front of him. “Six hundred years,” he said, and goggled. “She's that old?” “Remarkably well-preserved, isn't she?” Draco remarked. “And don't spit on that book – it's antique.” “So is she,” said Harry. He bit his lip. “Not that it helps much...” He looked up at Draco with wide eyes. “What is she, Malfoy?” “I think,” Draco said slowly, “she's some kind of demon. Or something. She seems to have the ability to, ah...well...what exactly does it seem like to you?” Harry felt himself turn bright Gryffindor red. “I think she's some kind of, um, sex demon,” he said. Draco looked as if he were trying very, very hard not to laugh. “Well, it could be worse,” he said. “She could be a nailing-people-to-the-wall-withsharp-spikes demon.” “I can't help thinking that'd be a bit easier to fight off,” said Harry. “She just makes me feel so...powerless.”
“Well, my dad always said when that happened you should try picturing the enemy in their underwear,” said Draco, then added hastily, “but given the nature of the problem, in your case that might not be a good move.” “You're not helping, Malfoy...” “All right, then, let's talk about something else. Like what I'm supposed to get Seamus Finnigan for Christmas.” Harry smiled. “Yeah, Hermione told me you drew his name.” “Who did you get?” “Eloise Midgen.” “Ah. New nose, then?” “Shut up, Malfoy. Eloise is a very nice person.” Draco grinned. “Guess who Blaise got.” Harry shook his head. “Me?” Draco looked as if he were enjoying himself. “Hermione.” “Oh, no.” Harry shot Draco a mistrustful look. “Don't you let her get Hermione anything sharp, or explosive...” Draco put his hand over his heart. “I solemnly swear,” he intoned. “Thanks.” Harry's eyes went to the clock on the wall, and he sat up straight. “Time to go down to supper,” he said, and stood up, grabbing his bookbag off a nearby chair. He was halfway to the door when he paused and turned. “Aren't you coming with me?” Draco, who was still sitting at the table, raised his head, surprised. In the half light, Harry couldn't make out his expression, only the vaguely defined shape of his face: the planes of the cheekbones, the sharp chin, the shadowed eyes. “We can't go down there together,” he said.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Right, we can't – of course we can't.” “You go – I'll head down in a bit.” Draco gave Harry a curious look. “You all right? You look like you're about to sneeze.” Harry sighed. “It's nothing. Just...” “What?” “Don't come down too soon after I do.” Draco nodded. “Good point. I won't.” “Thanks,” said Harry, and left feeling irritable, but not knowing why. ***
She's not coming. He had already told himself this three times, but it didn't seem to be making a difference. Ron stood up, easing his cramped muscles, and leaned against the wall, staring sightlessly into the middle distance. It was three in the morning and he was meant to be up in a few hours. In six hours, in fact, he was meant to be robbing a museum. Right now that all seemed distant and unreal: what was real was the fact that she wasn't here, and it didn't seem like she would be arriving any time soon. He had sent her a message...several messages, telling her to meet him in their usual place. And he had waited. The night before, and the night before that. But she hadn't come. It wasn't the first time; there had been other nights she hadn't shown herself, but never three in a row. He took a step forward and leaned his hands on the table. The four squares of light from the colored windows: blue, red, green, and gold – splashed across the center of the room, painting the floor. They glowed all the time, even at night. There was no need for other lighting in the prefects' room, another reason it was such an ideal meeting place. And
only someone with the password could get in. Of course, there had been that unfortunate Malcolm incident... Ron pushed that to the back of his mind. Malcolm didn't remember what had happened – an unexpected stroke of luck, that. Not that he felt very lucky right now. He had felt lucky, often, these past months, had felt he was the luckiest person in the world. But now...he looked down at his own hands, resting on the table. The nails were bitten down to bloody halfcircles. A surge of anger washed over him. He got to his feet, feeling suddenly energized by fury – she had no right to act like this. The least she could do was send him a message. He knew they were prevented from speaking about this to each other in public, but she could have scribbled a note. He grabbed at the door and wrenched it open, stepped out into the hallway – and hesitated. The hallway was filled with faint morning light. It must be later than he had thought. In which case...well, there was no point going to bed then, was there? And if he waited...well, perhaps she might come. They'd met later than this before. He went back into the room, and shut the door behind him. *** Waking up was like swimming through black cold water towards a distant light. Draco's head broke the surface of sleep, his eyes fluttering open, and then the rest of his body followed, shuddering awake in a series of uneven jerks. He sat up in bed, , letting his breathing still slowly. He was freezing cold. He sat up slowly, the icy air striking his skin and making him shiver even more. Lately he had been waking up soaked in sweat, his pajamas drenched and sticking to him, so he had taken to sleeping only in the thin cotton pajama bottoms he usually wore during the summer, the covers kicked down to his feet. Now, however, this was backfiring and he was frozen solid. His bones felt like ice. He got up, and, taking the blanket with him, went to the window and sat down on the ledge. He wrapped the blanket around himself and looked
out at the cold winter night beyond the misted glass. The word outside was white and wreathed in silver ice. It looked fragile, as if it would ring like a glass bell if struck. The hollow black sky seemed painted with a thousand diamonds, although there was no moon at all. The night was breathlessly quiet. Draco looked down at his hands. There was a faint bluish tinge to the nails that might have been cold or shadow; he curled his fingers in against his palms. Images from the dream he had been having moved behind the skin of his eyelids: the castle again, rising from its black nest of pine trees, the diamond-like windows, the echoing empty rooms. The tower, and in the tower the shelf on which sat the mirror, the dagger, and the scabbard. Tonight, a table had been pulled up to the window and at it had sat his father, absorbed in a solitary game of chess. The chessboard was gold and ivory, and the pieces were carved out of whole rubies and emeralds: one team scarlet as blood, the other green as poison. By the window stood Voldemort, looking out over the landscape, the trees spilling their autumnal colors down into an empty valley. “Lucius,” he said. “Surely the time is nearly at hand?” “Yes, my Lord,” said Lucius, moving the bishop. “In two weeks if I am not mistaken.” “That is good news. Time hangs heavily, here. I grow increasingly bored.” The Dark Lord turned away from the window and looked down at Draco's father. “I find I prefer these more old fashioned chess sets that capture rather than destroying,” he said thoughtfully. “It is quite novel.” “I thought you liked killing,” Lucius said, and moved a red pawn. “Sometimes capturing is a better tactic,” said the Dark Lord. “Why destroy what you can use, or make an example of?” He smiled. It was as unpleasant a sight as always. “How is the boy?” “As well as can be expected,” said Lucius, and moved the knight. “It is as I told you, my Lord. It is now a matter of waiting.” Draco was pulled out of his memories and back into the present by a
tapping sound against the glass. He realized he was shivering violently enough that his hands were knocking against the window. He pulled the blanket tighter and murmured a Warming Spell, which helped slightly – if only he could sleep, he thought, but he was wide awake. He let his head fall back against the wall, and his eyes trailed to the clock by his bed, whose numbers flared and faded in different colors every minute. Right now the violet numerals told him that it was five in the morning. In two hours they would get up to have breakfast and go to the museum. As a prefect, he would have to be there early, waiting with the professors. Harry, Hermione and Ron were meant to meet him in the entry hall before breakfast even started. He had not expected to be so nervous about what they planned for tomorrow, certainly not so nervous that it would keep him awake. Yet he was dreading it in several ways. Certainly it was hardly the most dangerous thing he had ever done, but it wasn't from fear for his own personal safety that his anxiety sprang. He wondered idly if Harry was awake yet, the thought lighting a flicker of curiosity in his brain. Without stopping to analyze what he was doing, he sent a tendril of thought out, searching the dark space outside himself for the familiar color and shape of Harry's thoughts. He felt nothing at first, which almost alarmed him. He let himself reach out farther, as if he were stepping from a bridge out into deep water, the darkness rising formless around him. Then there was a burst of light. He paused, his eyes shut tight, and reached forward again. The light refracted, splitting into various colors, which pinwheeled around him like a shower of falling stars. He seemed to look through a doorway into another world: he felt heat, saw shimmering air and blue sky. Alarmed, Draco tried to draw away, but it was as if someone had reached out and clasped his hand; he felt himself pulled forward, and then the empty space above him hollowed itself out into a pale blue sky, and the formless air beneath him became a strip of golden sand. He knew it was not real: everything around him had the soft, melting look of a dream, even the house that rose in the distance, gabled and shuttered in blue and white, looked like a dream house: faint and half-remembered. That's it, he thought, I'm in a dream, Harry's dream, and then he took a step forward and something appeared in the sand in front of him. He almost yelled out
loud. It was a boy, perhaps eight years old, perhaps seven, kneeling in the sand, a plastic bucket at his feet. Very thin, with a shock of untidy dark hair, draped in oversized clothes from which his thin wrists and ankles protruded like bundles of twigs. Harry. A child-Harry, Harry just a few years before Draco had met him. And not just Harry, but Harry the way he saw himself. The dream-Harry raised his head, and looked up at Draco. He looked as Draco would have imagined Harry to look at that age, but the scar on his forehead burned there like a livid brand of fire. There was a lost look in his green eyes, as if he neither knew where he was, nor how he had gotten there. “You have to help me,” said Harry, his child's voice wavering like a voice heard under water. Draco opened his mouth, then checked himself. Could his voice be heard in a dream, a dream that wasn't even his own? “Help you?” he asked, and to his relief, his voice was audible, if odd-sounding. “Help you with what?” “My mother built me a castle,” said the boy who was Harry, looking around at the sand. “To protect me. But I've knocked it down, and now I can't find the pieces. Can you help me build it back up?” Draco dropped down to his knees in the sand. It was neither warm nor grainy like real sand, but almost cloudy in its texture, as soft as dust. A dream of sand from the imagination of someone who had never been to the seaside. “I'll do whatever I can,” he said, and reached for the plastic bucket with the shovel in it; but before he could take hold of it, the dream-Harry had moved it away. Draco stared at him. He seemed even younger up close, younger and afraid; the burning mark on his forehead was almost too bright to look at. “Don't you want my help?” Dream-Harry dropped his plastic shovel; it rattled against the side of the bucket. He shook his head. “I waited and waited for you to get here,” he said. “But now I think you might be too late.” “Too late?” Draco asked, and then he heard something – a loud clanging
noise, like the tolling of a bell – it was a bell – some sort of alarm? An alarm clock? Was Harry waking up – and before he could even complete the thought, the sand vanished from under his feet, the blue sky spun away, and he tumbled back into himself, into his own shivery-cold body huddled in a milky spill of starlight on the window ledge in his room. He clutched at the blanket, his heart pounding. The faint dizziness of dreaming clung to him like cobwebs. He felt strangely guilty – surely it was a violation of some sort to go walking into someone else's subconscious, even if he had been pulled in against his will. He wondered if Harry would recollect his dream in the morning, and how it might have seemed to him. It was almost as if they connection between them was growing stronger these days; he could find Harry as simply as breathing, and speak silently as easily as he could speak aloud. Perhaps it was the ease that came with practice, but it was almost beginning to be frightening. He wondered if the day would come when he could not tell Harry's thoughts and dreams from his own. ***
The Stonehenge Museum is one of the greatest museums of the wizarding world. It was founded by an Act of the Ministry in 1653 and is now governed under the Stonehenge Museum Act 1793. General management and control are vested in a Board of twenty-five Trustees (one appointed by the Minister, fifteen by the Ministry Board, four nominated by Learned Societies and five elected by the Trustees themselves.) The Museum now holds national collections of antiquities: alchemical tools, enchanted curios from around the world, rare cursed objects, a library collection (Printed Books, Manuscripts, Maps, Music and Stamps), and items of historical interest to the wizarding world. Its natural history collections were transferred to South Kensington in the 1880s, becoming the J. Natural History Museum. The main Museum buildings are unplottable. The core consists of buildings of a floor area of about 600,000 square feet, designed by Sir Sidney Smirke and erected during a long evening in 1650 after Smirke had consumed a bottle of Giant beer; some say this is why the roof lists to the east. Major subsequent additions totalling about 340,000 square feet consists of the Whisp Gallery of Quidditch History (1850s-1870s), the
Cantwell J. Muckenfuss Exhibition of Implements of Indeterminate Purpose (1884), and the L. N. Malfoy Gallery of Cursed and Abominable Artifacts. There is also the Hall of Bright Carvings (1979/80). Guest Information: The museum is built in a circle, hollow in the middle where a small garden has been planted. In the center of the garden is the raised platform where museum visitors find themselves after being Portkeyed in; it also serves as a Portkey out. A limited amount of Portkeys are produced by the Museum, and because of this, the Museum curators always know how many visitors are in the museum, and who they are. This is for the security of museum visitors as well as the safety of the museum; security trolls patrol the corridors so it is best to stay with the guided tour group...wands are not allowed inside the museum, and are collected from patrons upon entry.
“So,” said Ron, when Hermione had paused in her reading aloud, “are you testing whether it's possible to be both panicked and bored to death at the same time, or what?” Harry was scratching his ear in a thoughtful manner. “Hermione, darling, don't you already know all this?” Hermione looked up from the pamphlet she'd been reading as they traipsed down the corridors of the museum. She depended on Ron and Harry to keep her steered along a straight path so that she didn't bump into the other students while she was walking. So far, they seemed to be doing a decent job, although she suspected she'd stepped on Pansy Parkinson's toe. Not that she regretted this entirely – Pansy was almost always underfoot. “I know,” Hermione replied, “but there's no harm in being extra prepared, is there?” Neither Ron nor Harry replied, and she stowed the pamphlet in her bag as the group of Hogwarts students (there had wound up being about twenty five of them in total) was instructed by Professor Flitwick to stop in a high-ceilinged room whose gold plaque proclaimed it to be the Manfred Scamander Room of Artifacts from the Natural World. She could barely
force herself to pay attention, however, as Flitwick pointed out items of interest – a knife made from dried dragon's blood, a basket of ashwinder eggs, the tailfeathers of a cockatrice, a vial containing phoenix tears. In the corner of the room stood a gray-skinned security troll, dressed in dark blue work boots the size of small boats, and wearing a grim expression. Hermione looked at it and shuddered; when she looked away, she saw Draco looking at her from across the room. He smiled faintly, and turned back to talking with Pansy and Malcolm Baddock, both of whom had come along because they were prefects, and thus required. She cast another look towards Draco as they left the Scamander Room, because they were passing a sign that denoted that the Exhibition of Dark Age Artifacts was to their left. She knew what was in that room: the remaining three Keys of the Founders. Her Lycanthe, Harry's scabbard, and Ginny's Time-Turner. They had all of them been there at the dedication ceremony over the summer: the four Heirs, and Ron as well. But Draco did not look back at her; he was deep in conversation with Malcolm, so Hermione turned to look at Ginny instead. There she had better luck; Ginny, hand-in-hand with Seamus, returned her glance with a rueful look and a smile. Hermione winked back, and thus almost missed it as they passed under an arch which declared that they were entering:
The Cantwell J. Muckenfuss Exhibition of Implements of Indeterminate Purpose
“Ooh,” whispered Hermione, “this is IT,” and in her transport of excitement, she punched Harry in the arm. “Some women get excited about earrings,” he whispered, wincing, “Others get excited about grand-scale larceny.” “Hmph,” said Hermione, and fell silent as they entered the room. The glass display cases in this particular exhibit were filled with all the magical objects the curators had never been able to identify an express purpose for. There were enchanted watches that always told the wrong
time (but why?), stone tablets engraved with magical runes that could not be translated, enchanted bells that probably did something when rung, but nobody had ever had the nerve to ring them, and a spinning pen that Hermione well knew would be spinning in perpetuity because there was a magnet in it, and not because it was magical – some wizard obviously didn't quite understand Muggle artifacts. This cheered her up, as it meant the museum curators were hardly infalliable. And there – there it was, the Cup, smaller than she had imagined from the illustrations, glimmering silver behind a glass case. She detached herself from the rest of the students and went to stare at it, drawn as if in a dream. It sat between a long bone-handled knife and a stone pestle of some sort. A plaque was affixed to the base of the display case: Cup/Goblet, Uncertain workmanship, circa 1100 AD. This cup is believed to have belonged to Gareth Slytherin, although all evidence to that end is largely apocryphal. The cup rates a startling 8.7 on the IMP scale, although what purpose it might be put to is entirely unknown. The interior of the cup is carved with a pattern of waves and scales. It may perhaps have served as a tool for use in various alchemical preparations. “Come on,” said a voice, and then Harry's hand was on hers, drawing her away. The students had already begun filing out of the room after Flitwick, who was still chattering away in his clear little voice. She cast a last glance at the cup, sitting quietly behind its thick sheet of glass, and her heart quailed. She tightened her hand on Harry's, and followed him out of the room. ***
Drink of this And take thy fill For the water falls By the wizards' will. The inscription was carved onto the base of a stone fountain containing the statue of a bearded man spitting water. When Harry looked at him, he waggled a stone eyebrow. Harry looked away hastily, and examined the
placard at the bottom of the display, which proclaimed it to be the Fountain of Brisingamen, whose waters had magical healing properties -and, the placard added helpfully, were rumored to make freckles vanish. “Best not stick your head in,” he said to Ron, who was standing at his side. “We might never see you again.” “Bah,” said Ron, by way of a rejoinder, and glanced around the room. They were in the high-ceilinged Room of Enchanted Statuary, which was pretty much what it sounded like. There were statues of mermaids singing and playing harps that actually sang and played harp music, although not particularly well, and a carving of a sleeping centaur that snored aloud, and some statues of what Ron had described as “tall Greekish looking chaps in nappies” in the corner, who had flipped their togas up at Lavender Brown and made her scream. “Those people still staring at you, Harry?” “Yeah,” said Harry dispiritedly, changing a glance to the side. They had all assumed that the museum would be closed to everyone but students on the day of the trip, given the limited amount of Portkeys usually dispensed by the curators. But it was not empty. A visiting contingent of Canadian witches and wizards was there, and many of them had hung back from their own tour to stare at Harry with curious eyes. “How are we going to get away?” he muttered under his breath to Ron, close to despair. “They're all staring at me.” Ron shrugged. “I know,” he said. “Maybe Hermione and I ought to try to get away on our own, you could give us the cloak...” “No.” It was Hermione, coming around the side of the fountain, a determined look on her face. She joined them and continued in a whisper, “We need Harry, because he can be talking to Draco out here – you know we need him.” “Well,” Ron said slowly, “and I can't believe I'm going to suggest this: we could bring Malfoy with us, and Harry could stay here. He could even create a distraction instead. Maybe he could start handing out autographs.” “No,” whispered Hermione, “the second Draco left, Pansy and Malcolm
would notice.” “And nobody's going to notice we're gone?” Ron asked. Hermione gave him a dark look. “That's why we need Draco to distract them.” She looked at Harry. “Can you talk to him for a moment for us?” “To Malfoy?” Harry looked past her, towards the far end of the room, his eyes seeking a familiar lankily graceful form, crowned with silver-tinsel hair. He immediately found where Draco stood between Pansy and Malcolm Baddock, staring at a row of unicorns carved out of marble. “Yeah,” he said. “I can talk to him.” He shut his eyes and reached out; because Draco was so physically close, contact was instantaneous. Malfoy?
Uh-huh. I think it's distraction time. How distressing. I was really enjoying this exhibit. Oh. Harry checked himself. Well, we could wait... Something bubbled like soda water in the back of his head. Belatedly, he realized it was Draco laughing.
You must be nervous, Potter. Normally you wouldn't be such a pillock. Of course I'm nervous. We're about to rob this museum, you know. Pfft. Draco actually shrugged, without turning around. And you call yourself the hero of the wizarding world. I never call myself that! Harry began indignantly, then cut himself off as something poked his ribcage. He looked down and saw that it was Hermione's quill. “Harry,'” she said warningly. “Do not get sucked into an argument please.”
Harry made a face at her, and she smiled angelically. “I mean it,” she added.
So, Malfoy. About that distraction – Harry began, but was interrupted by Professor Flitwick, loudly calling the students over towards the doors to the room that contained the Cursed Artifacts exhibits. The students began to move quickly towards him; this sounded like interesting stuff. Pansy and Malcolm detached themselves from the railing they had been leaning on and Draco followed them, hands in his pockets, not looking to the side. Hermione looked at Harry. “What did he...?”
Give me five minutes once we get into that room, Draco said. Then put the Cloak on and run like hell. Harry looked at Hermione and Ron, and, inexplicably, felt himself begin to smile. “We're on,” he said. *** Eager to see the Cursed Artifacts exhibit, the students crowded through the doors, laughing nervously and bumping against each other as they pushed to be first. Draco insinuated himself into the center of the tight knot in the doorway, brushing past Lavender and Justin, moving towards the red-headed girl towards the front of the pack. As he brushed by Ginny, he whispered under his breath, so softly he was almost afraid she wouldn't hear him: “When you get in there, go and look at the book display.” Her huge dark eyes flicked towards him, surprised. “Wh—“
“Just do it.” He dropped back into the crowd, and found himself standing next to Malcolm Baddock, who gave him a curious look. Draco ignored him. Somewhere in the crowd behind them were Harry, Hermione and Ron. He was aware that they were watching him without having to turn around and look. God, I hate teamwork, he thought, as he emerged into the L.N. Malfoy Permanent Exhibit.
The room that housed the Cursed Artifacts collection was different than the other museum rooms they had been in. This, Draco thought, was probably to be expected. The center of the room was empty: all the artifacts were displayed along the walls, and every one was inside a glassed-in case. He recognized quite a few of them. There was the usual cursed jewelry and household items: mirrors that twisted the face of anyone who looked in them, jewelry that carried blood curses. One could curse anything, if one had a mind to. Most of the class were chattering and humming near a display of medieval cursed items: goblets that turned anything poured into them to acid, jewelry that slowly poisoned the wearer. The voices of the students were hushed, echoing faintly off the high marble ceilings and stone walls. Draco, having seen all these things before, hung back, watching. Ginny and Seamus were standing by the far side of the exhibit, hand in hand, and as he watched, Seamus bent and said something to her and she laughed. Then, to Draco's relief, she released Seamus' hand, and as instructed, went over to examine the books in the glass-fronted case that lined the eastern wall of the room. Draco knew what was on those bookshelves as well. A collection of Dark Magic books that even the Restricted Section at Howgwarts wouldn't carry: the Necronomicon, fragments of The Book of Eibon, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten by von Junzt, the Pnakotician Manuscripts, the Sussex Fragments, and the Cultes de Goule by the Count of Erlette – all books his father had owned. The titles came into clearer focus for him as he walked up to stand beside Ginny and look through the glass, but he didn't read them. He was very conscious of her standing next to him, of the group of students behind them, of the hushed and reverent atmosphere of the museum. “Ginny?” he said, and she turned around, and looked at him. It was now or never. Draco took a deep breath, reached out, and took hold of Ginny's wrist. She widened her eyes, surprised, opening her mouth to speak, and he pulled her hard against him and kissed her. For a moment, she went absolutely rigid in his arms. Her lips parted under his with a sort of stunned acquiescence, and for a single split
second it was almost a real kiss. But it was only a second. Any illusions he might have had that she would melt into his arms evaporated as she wrenched her mouth away from his with a gasping sound. A moment later her hands were flat on his shoulders, shoving him away. “Let me go – let me go –” He let her go. It wasn't part of his plan, but he couldn't bear to hold her there while she tried to struggle away from him. Her dark eyes met his for a split second, full of pained shock, and then hands clamped around Draco's arms, dragging him backwards. “Get off of her!” yelled Seamus' voice in his ear. With a feeling of dark glee Draco wrenched himself free of the other boy's grip and spun around to see Seamus staring at him, absolutely livid with rage. “Malfoy, you – what do you think you're doing?” Seamus shouted, so incoherent with anger he sounded almost tearful. Draco nearly felt sorry for him for a moment. “You -- you filthy Slytherin!” “Jealous, Finnigan?” Draco said in a low voice, so soft only Seamus could hear him. “She doesn't let you kiss her like that?” -- and he might have gone on in that vein, but was prevented from doing so by the fact that Seamus chose that moment to punch him hard in the mouth. The force of the blow snapped Draco's head back for a moment. His vision blurred and then cleared, and he saw Seamus staring at him, looking shocked. He smiled, and Seamus' look of shock intensified. Then he flung himself at the other boy, knocking him down onto the ground. The breath went out of Seamus in a startled gasp, and he twisted to get away from Draco, elbowing him hard in the ribs. Draco slammed a hard punch into Seamus' face, and then another; Seamus clawed at Draco's shirt, shoving him backward, and drove his fist up into Draco's stomach. He was swearing under his breath, very colorfully, his Irish accent blurring the words almost beyond recognition. Draco was visited by a sudden memory of knocking Seamus down when they had been six years old, and pummeling him with the blunt end of a broken broomstick. Some things didn't change, did they, Draco thought as he threw himself to the side to avoid another punch and Seamus went with him; they rolled across the floor together in a tangle of punching arms and kicking legs. Draco was faintly aware that everyone around them was screaming. Excellent. A voice spoke to him then, inside his head: Harry, sounding anxious. Have
you caused a distraction, Malfoy? Oh, yes, Draco replied with some satisfaction, and ducked another punch from Seamus. Oh, yes, I have. The alarm, said Harry. I need you to trigger the alarm. Not a problem, Draco replied, grabbed hold of the front of Seamus' shirt, and flung him backward hard. against the side of the glass case holding the Dark Arts books. The breath went out of Seamus and he gasped, and Draco took that opportunity to draw his left hand back just far enough, and point it at Seamus. The other boy's eyes widened in fear, and then Draco whispered Stupefy! A white jet of light shot from his fingers; Seamus ducked, and the bolt went over his head and directly struck the glass case behind him, which shattered into a thousand pieces, sending glass flying everywhere. And over the sound of the shattering glass, and Seamus' yell of startlement, and the screaming of their classmates, Draco heard the sound of the museum's alarm. It was, probably appropriately, the scream of a banshee – unbearably loud and horrible. Everyone cowered and clapped their hands to their ears. Draco was about to follow suit when he felt strong a grip clamp itself on the back of his shirt, and he was hauled into a standing position. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Seamus receiving similar treatment at the hands of a burly museum security troll. He shut his eyes as he was dragged to his feet, and in his head he heard Harry say, “Thanks, Malfoy.” Sure, Draco thought back. Any time. *** “Harry, you give Ron a hand up,” said Hermione, looking around the deserted Cantwell J. Muckenfuss Exhibition of Implements of Indeterminate Purpose anxiously. All three of them had shrugged out from under the cloak; not that it mattered, as the room was entirely deserted. The sounds of screaming could be heard coming faintly in the distance, and all the security trolls had fled; whatever Draco had done to cause a distraction it had certainly worked. “Well, at least you can count on Malfoy to start a problem at the appropriate time,” said Ron, stepping into Harry's cupped hands and
allowing him to give him a leg up. A second later, Ron's hands were pressed against the glass which shielded the precious cup. He drew his hand back. “Wait,” Harry said urgently. “Wait for the alarm.” He paused, a look of intense concentration on his face. “Draco says he can do it,” he added, and a moment later an ear-piercing shriek reverberated through the room: a howling, terrible, mournful sound. A banshee wail, Hermione thought. She almost screamed herself as Ron nearly tumbled sideways, catching at the side of the glass to steady himself. Only Harry seemed unperturbed. “Now!” he called up to Ron. “Now!” – And Ron drew his hand back, wrapped tightly in a fold of his cloak, then slammed it forward into the front of the display case. The sound of the glass shattering was completely buried beneath the howling wails echoing through the room. Ron reached into the case, pushing aside the other objects – the glass bottle, the bone knife, which flashed briefly blue when he touched it – that shared a shelf with the cup. “No, don't touch anything!” Hermione shouted loudly, but Ron couldn't hear her, her voice was muffled by the sounding alarm. He pushed the knife aside and took hold of the cup, tossing it back to Hermione, who caught it one-handed, and shoved it in her bookbag. She drew out the transfigured Cup, and tossed it to Harry, who handed it up to Ron. Ron placed it carefully on the shelf, then leaped down to the floor. Harry raised his right hand, and pointed at the case. Hermione saw his lips shape the word, Reparo, and the glass flew up and reorganized itself just as the sound of the alarm was mercifully cut off. The three of them looked at each other, all out of breath, with identical looks of amazement. “It worked,” said Ron, and whooped out loud. “We did it!” “I know,” whispered Hermione in disbelief, staring down at the cup in her hand. It was very beautiful up close, and strangely light, even the row of emeralds lining the handle didn't seem to weight it down. Very, very carefully, she placed it inside her bookbag, and snapped the bookbag shut. “We'd better get out of here,” said Harry, practically, and beckoned Ron and Hermione to his side. “Let's get back,” he added, tossing the
Invisibility Cloak over all three of them. They hurried from the room, holding each other's arms under the cloak, moving on tiptoes. Almost at a run, they re-entered the Cursed Artifacts exhibition, huddled under the cloak... And came to an astounded stop. Ron dropped the edge of his cloak, and Harry made a grab for it, but fortunately no one in the room noticed the brief reappearance of Ron's head – they were too busy staring at the scene taking place in the center of the room. Two huge, gray-skinned burly security trolls, the like of which Hermione had only seen stomping around in book illustrations, stood facing each other across the heads of startled and milling students. Each was tightly gripping the arms of a struggling figure in its huge hamfisted hands: the one of the left gripped Draco, and the one on the right seemed to be having difficulty controlling a kicking and squirming Seamus Finnigan. “I didn't know Seamus knew about the Plan,” said Ron. “He doesn't,” said Harry grimly. “Oh, hell.” “I don't think we need this cloak,” said Hermione, not even bothering to whisper, “nobody's looking at us, anyway.” She pulled the cloak off of them, and stepped forward, the Cup in her book bag banging against her leg like a guilty reminder. She was right, nobody noticed them. There was far too much excitement going on already: Professor Flitwick was running and fro like a garden gnome that had been subjected to the Tarantallegra curse, the museum staff was urging the students to stand away from the broken glass that covered the floor so that the Reparo charms could be performed, the Canadian tourists were screaming, and the students were gawking in awed wonder at all the chaos. Meanwhile, Seamus appeared to be trying to claw his way out of the troll's grasp in order to get at Draco, who was making no such effort, and was staring back at Seamus in bored amusement. He might have been in the middle of buffing his nails for all the expression he showed, except that he was covered in blood and scratches – and so, for that matter, was Seamus. Harry shot Hermione a look. “Did you know he was going to do this?”
Hermione shook her head. “I don't even know what happened...” “He kissed me,” said Ginny's voice in her ear. Hermione spun around and saw Ginny standing behind her, looking very pale and startled. She paused for a moment to wonder how Ginny had managed to get behind them without her noticing, then dismissed it. “Who kissed you?” Hermione asked in surprise. “Draco,” said Ginny dolefully. She did not look pleased. “Oh,” said Ron, twigging. “I get it. So Seamus clocked him one, then?” “Actually, I think he hit Seamus first...possibly not. It was a bit hard to tell,” said Ginny glumly. “I feel terrible about the whole thing.” Hermione was about to tell her not to be ridiculous when she was interrupted by Professor Flitwick's high twittering voice ordering all the students to get in an orderly line and file out of the room after the security trolls, heading towards the Portkeying platform at the museum's center. Hermione almost felt herself collapse in relief; the sooner they were back at school, the less the likelihood that anyone would notice their jiggery-pokery with the Cup. She caught at Harry's sleeve and pulled him forward; all four of them fell into step with the other students. Ron and Ginny were conversing quietly behind her and Harry seemed distracted. “Harry...are they all right?” A small line of concentration had appeared between Harry's eyebrows. “Draco says he's fine,” he reported after a pause, “and he says Seamus is fine as well, they both look worse than they are.” “I'd no idea when we asked him to cause a distraction that'd he'd go quite that far.” Harry laughed low under his breath. “That's Draco. Never does anything by halves.” They were passing through the Enchanted Objects room now. Hermione tightened her hold on Harry's sleeve. It looked perfect, untouched, as if
they'd never been in there at all. She resisted looking towards the transfigured cup behind its sheet of glass. “When we get back to school,” she whispered softly, “I've got to go hide the cup, right away.” Harry nodded. “You can borrow the Cloak, then,” he said. “Draco says he's meant to go straight to Dumbledore's office; after that, I was supposed to meet him in the armory for fencing practice anyway. I mean, it is Monday. I guess I'll just go wait for him there.” Hermione nodded. “Make sure he's okay.” They were in the center of the museum now, in the small garden. In groups of five the students were being herded onto the platform, handed their wands back by museum staff, and hurriedly Portkeyed back to school. Draco and Seamus must have gone first; they were nowhere to be seen. “I feel like we ought to...” “Celebrate?” said Ron, from behind her. “Massive post-caper booze-up?” “Ron, shh,” she said, but she smiled. “Yes, exactly. Celebrate.” She paused. “Before we figure out what on earth to do next...” “I'll meet you guys in the common room before supper,” Harry said. “We can celebrate then.” They were up on the raised dais now, about to step onto the platform that was the Portkey out of the museum. Harry looked towards Hermione, and checked at her hesitant expression. “Hermione...?” “Harry,” she said, very quietly, and glanced back towards the museum. “You don't think that maybe...” “Maybe what?” “Maybe it was a bit too easy?” “You must have a different definition of 'easy' than I do,” said Harry, stepping forward, and took her hand as the Portkey whirled them away. *** That much wounded pride ought to put a slump in anyone's upright posture, Draco thought, but it didn't seem to in this case: Seamus glared at him from the other side of Dumbledore's office, standing rigid and
upright against the far wall. His face was a colorful relief map of bruises: blackened eye, bloody nose, bruised chin, swelling lower lip. Draco smiled at him pleasantly. They had been herded in here by Professors McGonagall and Snape and told to wait for Dumbledore to arrive. As soon as they had left, Seamus had commenced glaring at him and hadn't stopped yet. Smiling at Seamus hurt Draco's split lip, but it was worth it anyway just to see his hands clench against his sides in impotent fury. He supposed it was interesting to note that he hadn't lost his joy in malice via his association with Harry. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing, but at least it was interesting. Surprisingly, it was Seamus who broke the silence first. “She would never kiss you back,” he said. “Never. Never. Never.” Draco picked up a crystal paperweight from the desk and held it up to the light that poured through the window. “Never never never?'” he echoed. “That's right, Finnigan. Because if you say it three times, that'll make it true.” “What do you want, Malfoy?” Seamus demanded, his voice thick with dislike. “What do I want?” Draco echoed with a laugh. “Let's see...I've always wanted to own a Quidditch team. Maybe the Appleby Archers. And I want to be old enough to get a tattoo. And I'd like a really nice suede jacket that won't get ruined in the rain –” “No,” Seamus interrupted. “What do you want with Ginny? Why her?” His eyes slid away from Draco, and fixed on the floor. “You've got everything already. Haven't you? Why do you want her too? Just to show...that you could have her if you wanted?” The crystal paperweight felt heavy in Draco's hand. It was shaped like something, he couldn't quite tell what, it seemed to move fluidly under the touch of his fingers. “You're in love with her,” he said, feeling some surprise, although he thought he might already have known it. “Aren't you?” Seamus raised his eyes from the floor. They were intently blue, the one
beauty of an otherwise ordinary face. “If you take her away from me just to show that you can,” he said, “and then you hurt her again, I swear I'll kill you, I don't know how yet, but I'll find a way and I'll kill you. You can die, you know – even if you are a Malfoy.” Draco just stared at him. Behind them, the door to the office opened with a click, and Dumbledore came into the room. He regarded both boys silently for a moment before he spoke. His voice was grave and quiet. “Sit down,” he said. “Both of you. Please.” Draco looked down at the paperweight in his hand. It was a rose, he saw, with a heart carved out of a chip of emerald. He wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Setting the crystal flower on the desk, he sat down, and Seamus sat down beside him, leaning as far away from Draco as he could get. Dumbledore looked from one of them to the other. His expression was one of tired resignation. “So,” he said. “I have heard what transpired in the museum. I suppose it would be a truism to state that I am surprised at you both. Neither of you seems the type to employ physical violence.” “They took our wands away,” Draco said. He heard his own voice with surprise. That wasn't what he had meant to say at all. “Sir,” he added, weakly. Seamus shot him a look of grave disgust. “It was just a scuffle, Professor,” he said. “It got a bit out of hand.” “I started it,” said Draco, and batted his eyelashes at Seamus. “That's true, sir,” Seamus said, steadfastly ignoring Draco. “He did start it.” “Yes,” Dumbledore said. “Yes, I'm sure he did.” He looked at Draco, and Draco's heart dropped into his shoes. “You have disgraced the school,” he said, “and more importantly, you have disgraced yourself. Both of you.” He looked down at his folded hands, and then back at the hangdog boys slumped in their chairs. “Twenty points from Gryffindor,” he said, “and thirty points from Slytherin. You will both serve detention. A month of it for you, Mr. Finnigan. And for you, Mr. Malfoy – a month.” He saw their
horrified expressions, and for a moment it looked as if he might smile. “You will serve your detentions together,” he added. “By the end of it, I expect you to be able to write each others' life histories.” “I could already write Finnigan's life history,” drawled Draco irritably. “Was born, ate a potato, sucked at Quidditch, almost got shagged but not quite, ate a potato, died.” “Thank you, Mister Malfoy,” said Dumbledore coolly. “Let me make that two months of detention for you.” “Good,” interjected Seamus, and shot a glance at Draco. “And I think you should have to pay the bill for the damage to the museum, you smug git, Malfoy.” Draco looked at Seamus. Then he smiled politely. “That was the Malfoy wing of the museum,” he said. “I'm hardly going to have to pay off my own Foundation, am I?” Seamus turned an unbecoming shade of scarlet, and was silent. Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mister Finnigan,” he said. “I believe that will be all I need from you.” Seamus got to his feet, still puce, and stalked out of the office. Draco could feel Seamus resisting the urge to slam the door as he went out, and smiled to himself. When he turned back to Dumbledore, however, his smile melted like snow in April. The Headmaster was looking at him with a gaze so piercing Draco felt as if Dumbledore were drilling into his head. “Mister Malfoy,” he said. “I am quite sure you had your reasons for doing what you did. And Merlin knows they are opaque to everyone but yourself. However, there is no excuse for ruthless use of other people's sincere emotions. No matter what your intended ends might be.” Draco swallowed hard and looked down at the ground. In his place, Harry would likely have felt terrible. Draco merely felt terribly confused. Surely, if Dumbledore knew what they had been trying to accomplish... “I understand, sir,” he said. “I'm sorry--” “Don't apologize to me,” said Dumbledore in a clipped voice. “You will
apologize to Mister Finnigan. In public. And furthermore...” The Headmaster's voice trailed off then. Draco chanced a look up and was startled at what he saw: Dumbledore was looking at him with an expression of unutterable weariness. He seemed old in that moment, almost frail, his face very lined. “Draco,” he said at last. “I understand that I have put you and Harry in a terrible position. I know that. And I am sorry for it. I wish that there were more that I could do, but I am afraid that I cannot.” “Headmaster...” Draco said in a sudden burst. “What you told me last week – about my father and Harry's parents – do you think I should tell him?” Dumbledore shook his head. “I am afraid that is your decision to make,” he said. “But I would say that yes, you should. It is never wise to hide things.” He sighed, and shook his head again. “That is all, I suppose,” he said. “And you will not go to Madam Pomfrey to have her attend to your wounds – I wish you to bear your bruises. And, when you have a moment, give a thought to what they mean.” Draco nodded silently, not exactly sure what Dumbledore might mean, and the Headmaster smiled at him. It looked like a real smile, if a tired one. “Very well,” Dumbledore said. “It is Monday afternoon, and I know you have an appointment in the armory. Go along, and give Harry my regards.” *** Outside the door to Dumbledore's office, the only sound was the ticking of the brass grandfather clock in the corner of the hallway. Ginny tried to ignore the insistent noise as she waited, nervously, for the office door to open. The moment they'd all returned to school everyone had scattered -back to their respective common rooms to gossip, she didn't doubt. Hermione had fled somewhere, Cloak in hand, Harry had gone off to wait for Draco, and Ron – well, she didn't know where Ron had gone, but he'd scarpered pretty quickly as soon as they'd arrived back at Hogwarts. Not that she minded; she'd heard Harry tell Hermione that Draco and Seamus had been taken to Dumbledore's office, and she'd headed there without a
moment's thought. A quarter hour later and she was still waiting. A vague and displaced sense of guilt assailed her. She felt as if somehow the fight were her fault. Probably because she had been its catalyst, however unwilling. The worst part, she thought wretchedly, was that some part of her, some small part, had liked the fight...she'd never thought Seamus had it in him to get quite so passionately angry, and as for Draco -She broke off and looked up as the door to Dumbledore's office opened, wondering which of them it would be, or if it would be both of them. It was Seamus. She felt her mouth sag open a little bit – she hadn't realized quite how bad he would look. She hadn't seen most of the fight, and had somehow assumed that it was, had been, mostly staged and not sincere. But Seamus' injuries looked quite sincerely inflicted. The skin around his left eye was bright purple, and his bottom lip was swelled up to twice its normal size. “Oh,” she gasped, involuntarily. “Seamus...” He glanced down at himself. His white shirt and gray sweater were spattered with blood. “Yeah,” he said. “Not so pretty, huh. I should get to the infirmary.” “You look great,” she said firmly. Seamus snorted, then winced as if this had been painful. “I do not,” he said. “I look like I've been playing tonsil hockey with a paper shredder.” Ginny laughed. “Well, you're still making jokes,” she said. “So I'm not so worried about you any more.” Now he did look at her. “You were worried about me?” “Well, yes,” she said. “I mean – look at you.” “I thought you said I looked great.” “I lied,” she said. “You look horrible.” He looked as if he would have smiled, if he'd been able to. Something tugged at her. He looked so different like this. Bruised up of course, and
bloody, and it gave him a slightly dangerous air that he'd certainly never had before. Even his voice sounded different...“Remind me why I hang around you again,” he said. “Because,” Ginny said, and went up to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Of this,” and she kissed his chin, “and this,” and she kissed his cheekbone where the bruising wasn't too bad, “and this,” and she very gingerly kissed his mouth. He looked at her wide-eyed, and touched her face lightly with the tips of his fingers. “I thought –” he said. “I figured you'd be angry.” “I'm not. It was Draco's fault.” “Yeah, but everything you said before –” “Look, Seamus—“ “About not wanting me to protect you –” “I know, but –” “And I don't want you to think I don't respect that, because –” “SEAMUS!” she yelled, and he broke off, startled, and stared at her. She took a deep breath before she spoke, but when she did, her voice was firm. “I want to go to Ireland with you,” she said. *** Harry looked up as the door to the fencing room opened, and Draco came in. Harry hopped down off the table and came towards the other boy, smiling. “I wasn't sure you'd make it,” he said. “You're pretty late.” “Sorry,” said Draco, shutting the door behind himself. He was still standing in the shadow and Harry could see only the outline of him, and the faint glint of silvery hair in the darkness. “I got detention. And I had
to do some quick talking...and a little bit of kissing." “Dumbledore made you kiss him?” Harry snorted. “Malfoy, what kind of detention did you get?” “Not Dumbledore,” Draco clarified. “He was actually pretty understanding. Blaise, however...she wasn't.” “Blaise?” Harry bit his lip. “You know, I forgot all about her.” “Yeah,” Draco said. “Apparently so did I.” He sighed. “She was waiting for me when I got back to the dungeon. So was everyone else as a matter of fact. I had to do some quick talking.” “She forgive you?” “Not exactly,” Draco hedged. “I promised to talk to her about it as soon as I got back from detention.” “I'm detention now?” Harry suggested, a laugh building under his voice. “You know, you didn't tell me you were going to punch Seamus in the face.” “You wouldn't have let me,” said Draco, finally coming forward into the light. As he did, Harry saw that he had the beginnings of an impressive black eye, as well as a cut across one cheek. Oddly, it suited him. Only Draco, Harry thought wryly, could manage to give the impression that he had gotten up in the morning, decided a black eye might add to his ensemble, and punched himself in the face. His shirt was also ripped where he had skidded across the floor on broken glass, and even that looked intentional. “Anyway, it wasn't like I planned it,” Draco added. “It came to me in a flash of inspiration, you might say.” Harry raised an eyebrow. Draco grinned. “You told me to create a distraction.” “You,” said Harry, “have been wanting to belt Seamus in the face for weeks. You think I can't tell?”
“Oh, come on,” said Draco. “Don't you ever want to belt Seamus in the face? He's so damn smarmy.” “No,” said Harry. “I happen to like Seamus.” “No accounting for tastes,” said Draco. “Did you want to practice, or not?” Harry nodded. “Sure I do. It's been a while.” He went back to the table and retrieved his sword, and when he turned back to Draco, Draco already had Terminus Est in his hand and was looking down at it almost quizzically. His face was oddly blank, expressionless, his eyes shining with a strange light. “Malfoy...?” Harry said. Draco looked up quickly, his gray eyes lighting. “Yeah. Sorry,” he said, came forward, and met Harry in the center of the room. They saluted each other and moved apart, and then back together, Draco advancing, Harry backing away and parrying as he did so. He wondered if there would ever be a time he wouldn't hear Draco's voice in the back of his head as long as he had a sword in his hand. He had been quite patient in the beginning, explaining attack and recovery, parries and lunges. But Harry knew perfectly well he'd never have become as good as he had, as quickly as he had, if some measure of Draco's own knowledge and skill hadn't bled over to him through the Polyjuice Potion. He slitted his eyes now as Draco came forward quickly with a beat-feintfeint-thrust. Harry riposted swiftly, then began retreating, drawing Draco out. Draco knew what he was doing; Harry could tell by his smile, but they were just practicing so it hardly mattered. Often they simply went on and on and on, until both or one of them tired, with nobody winning. Now Draco ducked and tried to get through Harry's guard, low-line, and Harry smiled at the anticipated move and replied with a stop-thrust which the other boy should have been expecting – but Draco did not move at all to block the thrust and Harry, realizing this almost a split second too late, wrenched his arm to the side. The blade made a sound like a whisper as it opened a slash along the side of Draco's sleeve. Harry, nearly overbalancing, crashed into Draco, who caught him and pushed him away, steadying him. Harry jumped back as if Draco's touch burned him. He realized he was shaking and the hand that gripped the hilt of his sword was slick with
sweat. “Draco,” he said. “What – why did you – I could have killed you, why didn't you block me?” Draco's expression was almost completely blank. He looked down at his shoulder, where the rip in his shirt was already reddening with blood. Then he looked back at Harry, and Harry realized with a slight start that he was very pale, and that his white-blond hair, his shirt, his clothes, were drenched in sweat, as if he'd been running a marathon. “I don't know,” Draco said in an unusually quiet voice. He walked across the room, and laid Terminus Est down on the long wooden table there. Then he put his hands flat on the table, and made a sort of gasping, hitching noise, as if he were having trouble breathing and only leaning on the table was holding him up. “I don't know,” he said again, his voice almost too faint to be audible. Seriously alarmed now, Harry went over and dropped his own sword on the table. “Draco,” he said, “are you all right?” Draco didn't say anything. Harry stood where he was, and waited, and finally Draco lifted his head and looked at Harry. His eyes were gray tunnels, going on and on without ending, and Harry could see into and through them – could see Draco's bewilderment and rising panic. And his pain, not emotional pain, but physical pain. As if a light had been switched on he realized what was happening, the knowledge passing from Draco to himself like light passing through a crystal. “You're ill,” Harry said. “Aren't you?” Draco took another breath. His shaking seemed to have eased a bit. “There's something wrong with me,” he said. “My reflexes – they're off. I'm slower than I was. And I've been feeling dizzy a lot.” “Well, you got shot in the shoulder two weeks ago. You lost a lot of blood. Could it be – I mean, it would make sense if –” Draco looked unconvinced. “Maybe,” he said. “I've been waiting for it to get better. But it's been getting worse.” “For how long?” Harry said. “How long have you been ill?” Draco shrugged. “Two weeks. Since the accident.”
“Then it must be the injury – they must not have fixed it right – or maybe you were supposed to rest, and you haven't been resting properly –” Harry realized he was beginning to sound hysterical, and stopped with an effort. “This is why you lost the game Saturday,” he said. “Isn't it?” Draco nodded. “Uh-huh.” “You have to go to the infirmary,” said Harry. “Right now.” Draco shook his head. “No.” “Then I'll bang you over the head and drag you,” said Harry, in a decided manner. “I wasn't asking you. I was telling you.” A slight flicker of amusement lit Draco's eyes. “That's touching,” he said. “But I'm not going. I'm not so slow I can't duck a punch from you, Potter.” He held up a hand at Harry's furious expression. “Look,” he said. “I already told Hermione and she's looking into it, in case there was some sort of – well, something on the shaft of the arrow that hit me.” Harry felt as if someone had walked up and kicked him in the back of the knees. “Like poison?” Draco hesitated for a split second, then shook his head. “That's impossible. I'd be dead already. There's no poison that takes this long to work. It could be a Slowing Potion or an Enervation Spell – annoying, but fixable. And look – we're going home in four days anyway. If it doesn't get better, I can get the best mediwizards in the country to come to the Manor and have a look at me. I'll owl Simon Branford himself if I have to. So don't get your knickers in a twist about it.” “Why didn't you tell me?” Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. Draco looked him up and down, then, rather grudgingly, smiled. “I figured you'd freak out,” he said. “I'm not freaked out,” said Harry. “Right,” said Draco. “And I'm the Balinese Goddess of Plenty.”
“I think there was a statue of her in the museum,” said Harry thoughtfully. “Doesn't she have six breasts?” Draco choked on a noise that was unmistakably a laugh. “Sod off, Potter.” Harry ducked his head, and when he looked up again, he was relieved to see that Draco looked almost back to normal, no longer pale and strained. “I'm assuming if there was cause for concern, Hermione would have told me,” he said. “So I am not, actually, going to freak out.” This was something of a lie. “But I am going to expect you to see the mediwizards when we get home.” He saw Draco blink, and felt the slight jolt of gratified surprise that came from him – it was still more than slightly odd to realize that home was now, for both of them, the same place. “All right,” Draco said, and straightened up. “I said I will. So I will.” And Harry realized he would have to be satisfied with that. *** She was waiting in his room when he got back from the armory. Sitting on the foot of the bed, in an emerald blazer and short black skirt, one long leg crossed carefully over the other. As usual, from the top of her perfectly groomed red-gold head to the tip of her Jimmy Floo stiletto heels, she was perfect. “Blaise,” Draco said, feeling the exhaustion that had been haunting him seep like a cold pain into his bones. He felt dirty, in need of a shower, and the blood that had dried on his shoulder itched. “Now really isn't the...” She launched herself off the bed, and stalked towards him, her green eyes blazing. Before he could move or react, her open palm cracked across his face in a stinging slap. “Bastard,” she hissed. Draco fought not to wince. It had not been a good day so far – punched in the face by Seamus, stabbed in the shoulder by Harry, now smacked across the cheek by Blaise. He wondered what else the gods had stuffed up their sleeves as far as harm to his person was concerned. “Do that again,”
he said, “and I'll hit you back.” She glared at him. “Draco Malfoy,” she snapped. “I will not let you make me look stupid.” “You look stupid?” he said. “Impossible.” She gave him a hard look. “Why?” she said. “Why did you do it?” “Why did I kiss Ginny Weasley? Is that what you mean?” She nodded tightly. “Have you got...” She looked sick to her stomach. “Feelings for her?” Draco considered. “Define 'feelings'.” “Are you in love with her?” “No,” he said. “Then why the –” “I wanted to hack off Seamus Finnigan,” he said. “It seemed the simplest way.” “And why would you want to hack off Seamus Finnigan?” Because he's a smarmy little bastard,” Draco said. “Because he grabbed your broom last Quidditch game, and I –” She looked disgusted. “You expect me to believe that? Nice try.” “He annoys me,” Draco said with a shrug. “Make of that what you will.” Blaise bit her lip. Her internal struggle was visible on her face. She wanted to believe him, and yet her inner cynic would not let her. When she finally spoke, her voice was carefully slow. “You're using me,” she said. “I just don't know what for, or why.” Draco was jolted. “No—“
She cut him off. “Give me one good reason to stay with you, Draco Malfoy,” she said. “One.” He glanced down, and was greeted by the sight of her feet in their silver strapped shoes, her toenails painted silver to match. Her toes were curling under, which always happened when she was nervous – everyone, he thought seemed to have one mannerism that always betrayed them – Hermione's biting her lip, Harry's twisting his hands together. “I'll buy you something pretty,” he said. She laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. “Like what?” “Whatever you want.” He looked up from her feet, and saw her staring at him, her cheeks flushed. He took a step forward and put his hands on her waist; when they'd been children, he'd almost been able to span her small waist with his hands. “There was that bracelet you liked in Diagon Alley...” “I don't want any jewelry, Draco,” she said, cutting him off. “Then what do you want, darling?” he said, chancing an endearment. It worked; she almost smiled. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I always wanted a pony to ride.” He laid his hand against her cheek. Her skin was soft under his touch, her eyes enormous and lambently green. She was gorgeous – probably the prettiest girl he'd ever seen – and he felt nothing for her beyond a distant unfocused desire. “I bet I could help you make do without one,” Draco said softly into her ear. Her eyelids fluttered down, her long lashes shading her gaze, and for a moment she rested her cheek against his hand. Then her eyes flicked back up to his face, and she stepped back and away from him, pushing his hands away. “I don't think so,” she said. “You don't get to touch me yet.” Draco wasn't sure whether he felt snubbed or relieved. “Blaise...” “Make me look like a fool again and I'll rip out your kidneys and wear them as earrings,” she said. “And that's a promise.”
“I thought you said Slytherins don't keep their promises,” Draco said. “I'll keep that one,” she replied, and turned on her heel. “You can count on it,” and she stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. *** Night had already fallen when Harry left the armory and trudged upstairs to Gryffindor Tower. He was late to supper, and was sweaty, tired and in need of a shower. He spoke the password (“Ashwinder!”) and stepped into the common room, which was filled with flickering firelight. His eyes lit up when he saw that the room was empty save for Ron, who was sprawled in one of the fat armchairs pulled close to the fire. Ron looked up as Harry came into the room, and waved him over. Harry came and dropped into the armchair next to Ron's, and for a moment they sat and stared into the leaping orange flames in a companionable silence. It was Harry who spoke first. “Sorry I'm late,” he said. “I was –” “With Malfoy,” said Ron. “I know. You had fencing practice.” He was looking into the firelight; the vivid flames painted a dark gold shadow over his already bright hair. “Hedwig brought something for you while you were gone,” he said, as if remembering something, and began rummaging beside the armchair. “I put it back here...” “Thanks...where's Hermione?” “She went off to stash that cup thing. Said she had a perfectly brilliant hiding place for it.” Ron sat back up, a small package in his hand, addressed to Harry. “Here you go.” Harry sat up straight and took the package. “I'd almost forgotten I bought this,” he said, tearing it open. Ron looked curious. “What is it, then?” Harry smiled. “You want to see?” He had succeeded in getting the package open now, and tipped something out of it into his hand. He held the hand out to Ron, opening his fingers to reveal something that glimmered blue
in the center of his palm. Ron stared at it. “A ring?” he said. “I didn't know you cared.” “It's not for you, pillock,” said Harry easily. “It's for Hermione, of course.” Ron sat where he was, staring down at Harry's hand. He made no move to touch the ring. “Is that a sapphire?” Harry glanced down at the delicately worked blue circlet in his hand. “No, it's Venetian gl—“ “Is it a Christmas present?” Ron interrupted. Harry blinked, looking slightly flummoxed by this hard line of questioning. “Well, it is but it's also...” he hesitated. “I suppose it's an I'msorry present. Sorry for being distant, for being difficult – you know. What we talked about before.” He bit his lip. “I just want her to understand that my recent behavior doesn't have anything to do with whether I love her.” He looked down at the clear blue jewel. “I guess I couldn't think of the right way to say it, so...” “No.” Ron was shaking his head. “No. Harry. That's stupid.” “Stupid?” Harry blinked at his friend, then very slowly closed his fingers over the small box, and retracted his hand. “Why is it stupid?” “Because,” Ron said roughly. “Because you're supposed to give a girl an engagement ring when things are going well in the relationship, Harry, not when they're going badly.” “It's not an –” “It's manipulative,” said Ron, and then flushed to the roots of his red hair. “Manipulative?” Harry echoed in disbelief. “Because I want to give Hermione something that I think she'd like, that's manipulative?” “Tell me you're not trying to tie her to you,” said Ron. “Go on, say it. But I won't believe it.”
“She's my girlfriend,” said Harry. “We're already tied together. And frankly, I think you're being kind of an ass about this.” “Am I?” Ron had begun tapping the point of his quill against his knee. As he spoke, he tapped it more quickly and with greater force. “When are you going to do it, Harry?” he asked. Harry shook his head. “I was thinking Christmas Day,” he said. “You know. When people usually give Christmas presents.” “It's not just an ordinary Christmas present,” said Ron. “I think you should wait.” “Oh, really.” Harry's voice was irritable. “Why's that?” “Look, Harry – it's a ring. And no matter what, you give a girl a ring, she's going to think you want to marry her –” “Well, maybe I do want to marry her,” said Harry, then checked at the astonished expression on Ron's face. “Well, not bloody now, I'm seventeen, it would be ridiculous. But that doesn't mean that I –” “Marry her?” Ron echoed, and there was a strange tense note in his voice. “You can't.” “What do you mean I can't?” “Hasn't she talked to you lately? Don't you listen to her? Your relationship is falling apart!” Harry stared at Ron. His jaw was set, his shoulders rigid. “And I suppose you think you know more about my relationship with Hermione than I do?” “Bloody anybody would,” said Ron angrily, “the amount you pay attention!” “You know what I think?” Harry burst out furiously. “I think you're jealous.”
Ron went white. “What?” “Jealous. And you're hacked off because I haven't been around much lately. And yeah, I'm sorry. But this isn't exactly the way to show me the error of my ways, you know. Because all this is making me realize is why I don't want to spend time with you in the first place,” Harry added furiously. “So maybe you might want to take a second and be a bit more understanding instead of acting like you know what Hermione wants better than I do!” “You think you know everything?” Ron threw back at him, and there was an odd hitch in his voice. “How much time have you spent with her these past months? I bet you couldn't tell me what classes she's taking. You've been so wrapped up in your little world, and you don't let anyone in except that fucker Malfoy, and if you don't see the way he looks at her you're stupider than you look.” Harry shook his head. His eyes were brilliant with anger. “Nice try. I know you hate Draco and quite frankly, I couldn't care less. I don't know what the hell has gotten into you, Ron. I am going to go upstairs now, and go to sleep, and on Christmas Day I'm going to give this ring to Hermione, and if you want to sit in the corner and glare at me, fine, but –” “You're so stupid,” Ron said, and his voice came out ragged, on a halftearful gasp. “You're so stupid –” “Just shut up, Ron.” “You think you could just ignore her and she'd sit there and wait for you to wake up and start paying attention again? You think she'd be willing to let you treat her like she didn't matter –” “You mean Hermione? What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?” Ron sat bolt upright. “I'm talking about Hermione!” he yelled, so loudly that Harry flinched back. ”I'm in love with Hermione, and she's in love with me!”
A dead silence followed this announcement. Harry stared blankly at Ron; Ron stared equally blankly back. The expression on his face was one of stunned incomprehension, as if he could not believe the words that had just issued from his lips. “My God,” he whispered. “Did I just...” “Say that?” Harry's eyes were icy. “Yes, you did. And it's not fucking funny. If you want to make jokes –” “I'm not joking.” Ron's eyes were still dazed, but his voice was firm, and so was his set chin. He raised his face to Harry's. “I wouldn't have chosen this way for you to find out. But it had to be sometime.” Harry shook his head, and his black hair flew around him like a cascade of shadow. “Right. Very amusing. You can really be a jerk sometimes.” “I'm not joking,” Ron said again. He raised his eyes to Harry's. For a moment, the two gazes, blue and green, met and tangled. And finally, oddly, Ron smiled, a strangely luminous smile. “I wanted to tell you,” he whispered. “I thought about telling you. Every night I thought about it. I must have told you a thousand times, in different ways, in my head. And now...and now you know.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and halfclosed his eyes. “And now you know,” he repeated again. There was something in the simplicity of the words he spoke, in the expression of mingled relief and terror on his face, that was inarguable. Another silence followed, broken by the sound of an object striking the stone floor. It was the package that Harry had been holding; it had fallen out of his hand. “That's insane,” Harry said. His voice was also firm, but blank and colorless, lacking any music at all. A robot's voice. “It doesn't make any sense.” Ron's lips parted; he looked as if he were about to speak. Then the portrait hole swung open, and they both froze, and turned to stare. It was, as if inevitably, Hermione. She was smiling, flushed from the cold outside, her arms full of books and the fur collar of her blue cloak pulled up around her neck. “Hey, you two,” she said cheerfully. “What's all the yelling?”
“Hermione,” interrupted Ron, his voice fierce and wretched, “he knows.” Hermione paused and blinked at him. “What?” Ron got to his feet. He was standing next to Harry now. Harry had remained very still, not moving. His eyes went from Hermione to Ron, and back again. “Harry knows,” Ron said. “I'm sorry. I know we were going to wait until New Year's.” The smile had begun very slowly to fade from Hermione's face. She looked from Harry's white face to Ron's set one. “Is this some kind of joke?” she said uncertainly. “I don't understand.” “Welcome to the club,” said Harry, speaking for the first time since she had come into the room. “I don't understand either.” “Hermione!” Ron said fiercely. “Don't you get it – there's no point pretending! Harry knows! I told him!” Hermione looked at him wonderingly. “Told him what, Ron?” “I told him,” said Ron, speaking very slowly, “about us.” Hermione's mouth opened slightly, and she stared at Ron. Then she stared at Harry. Her gaze went back and forth between them and she resembled nothing so much as a small creature trapped between two much larger predators. “I don't...” she said softly, and then her voice trailed off. “Are you two...” Her gaze finally came to rest on Harry. “Harry...” she began. “Ron says he's in love with you,” said Harry in a flat voice, and Ron flinched. “And he says you're in love with him.” Hermione looked stunned. “He said what?” she whispered, still staring at Harry. “No, he wouldn't say that – it isn't true. That can't be what he meant.” Her eyes, enormous in her pale face, went to Ron. “That's not what you meant, is it? Harry just misunderstood.” Ron looked as if Hermione had hit him in the face. The blood seemed to drain out of his skin. He made a strange sound, low in his throat, and stood up, staring at Hermione. “You can't do this,” he said. “I know you're
afraid but you can't do this.” “Afraid?” Hermione echoed. “Afraid of what?” Ron spun around, and stared at Harry. His eyes were huge, almost black with intensity. “I love her,” he said. His voice was thin, but defiant. “I love her, and she loves me. We love each other. And we haven't held back, either. We're together almost every night. Together in every way.” “Ron!” said Hermione, her voice exploding out on a half-shriek. “What are you doing?” Harry looked as if he were going to throw up. “This has gone beyond a joke,” he said. “Beyond any kind of game – one of you better tell the truth, and pretty fucking quickly.” Ron turned his head, and looked at Hermione. “For God's sake, it's time, Hermione,” he said. “Tell him you love me.” Hermione's hands slowly clenched at her sides. Her voice when she spoke was as fierce and cold as an ice storm. “I do not love you,” she said, and her voice rose and rose, brushing the edge of hysteria. “I do not love you and moreover I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never been with you. I have never –” “You're lying,” Ron said, his voice as astonished as it was angry. “How can you –” “How can you?” Hermione shouted back. “How can you stand there and tell such terrible lies?” “It's the truth!” “I would never do that! Never!” Ron spoke again, his eyes never leaving Hermione's, although his words were for Harry. “Where do you think she goes, Harry, when you can't find her? What do you think she's been hiding? Why does she always look so tired? You've had that feeling she doesn't love you any more? Now you know why.”
“Why are you doing this?” Hermione's voice sounded shattered, a fragile glass bell buckling under strain. “Why? Why are you doing this, Ron?” “Because I'm tired of lying,” he shot back. “You're lying right now!” “I'm telling the truth!” Ron's voice was thunderous. He turned back to Harry, who was standing very still, unmoving, his face entirely blank. “You believe me, don't you?” he said in a harsh half-whisper. “You know it's true.” Harry said nothing. He glanced down and then back up at Ron, expressionless, as if he were gazing at a stranger. Then he looked at Hermione, who started towards him involuntarily. He held out a hand, arresting her progress. “No,” he said. She stopped where she was. “Harry—“ There was a pleading note in her voice. “You know I would never – you know I love you.” She turned and looked at Ron. “Tell him you're lying,” she whispered. “It's not too late – tell him –” Ron didn't look at her. His eyes were on Harry, the lines of strain around them very dark. “It's the truth,” he said. “I know what you want to do. Do it.” Harry raised his right hand and pointed it at Ron. “Veritas,” he said. Hermione shrieked out loud as the jet of black light shot from Harry's hand and hit Ron in the chest. Ron doubled over, gasping, then slid slowly down the wall, holding his arms tightly across his body, his legs splayed out in front of him. Harry looked at him, still with that odd distance on his face, as if he was regarding something that was happening very far away. “Ron,” he said, and Ron raised his head. His face was creased with pain. “What you just told me – is it true?”
Ron took a deep and shuddering breath. The pain had its claws in him, and when he spoke his voice cracked. But it was strong, and there was resolution in it, and surety. “Yes,” he said. Hermione went white, and swayed on her feet. She put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall; she seemed to be beyond speaking. Harry, however, was not. “You're in love with Hermione? You've...been together?” he demanded, his voice hard and sharp. Ron nodded. “Yes, like I told you.” The skin of Harry's face seemed to have tightened, pressing back against the bones. But his voice was steady. “How many times?” Ron flushed. “I don't know. A lot...I can't count...almost every night.” “Where?” Ron ducked his head, struggled, and said, “The prefect's meeting room.” Harry's breath was coming quickly now, but his voice was still expressionless. “And does she love you?” Hermione found her voice. “Harry –” “Shut up,” said Harry, his tone cold and flat. He was still looking at Ron. “Does she love you?” “She said she did,” said Ron. He was looking down at his hands now. “She said she did.” “She said she loved me too,” said Harry and there was nothing in his voice: no anger, no pain, no love and no hate. Just a terrifying emptiness. He raised his hand and pointed it again at Ron, “Finite incantatum.” Ron jumped. The pain faded out of his eyes, although the tension
remained apparent in every line of his body. Very slowly he began to rise to his feet, his hands behind him, flat against the wall. “I'm sorry,” he said, and looked at his feet. “I'm sorry.” Harry raised his head, and looked at Ron. Somewhere inside his eyes was the eleven-year old boy he had been, begging his best friend to say that he lied. Behind that child, the man that Harry had become knew that he did not. “How could you,” he said, his voice flat and utterly toneless. “How could you do that to me?” Ron said nothing. He couldn't seem to meet Harry's eyes with his own. All the color in his face had gone, and he stood stock-still, his back pressed against the wall. At the base of his throat his pulse beat, fast and hard and visible beneath the skin. “Harry.” It was Hermione, her voice a thin shell of itself. “Please. It isn't true.” Harry turned on her. “Don't talk to me.” His voice was fierce, his eyes like chips of green ice. “Don't talk to me, don't look at me. Don't ever come near me again.” Hermione's face crumpled. “Please listen—“
“I said don't talk to me!” Harry yelled, his composure cracking at last. “He's telling the truth, how can he lie under the Veritas curse? Tell me that, since you're so goddamn clever! How is it possible that he's lying?” “Harry!” Hermione said, her voice a half-scream, and then Harry's hand went to his wrist and ripped away the watch she had given him, and he flung it at her, so hard that she cried out when it struck the arm she had raised to protect her face. “Get away from me,” he said, and his voice cracked, through and through like glass shattering. “Get away from me before I hurt you, because I will if you come near me, I swear to God I will.” Very slowly, Hermione bent down and picked up the watch. When she
straightened up, there were tears on her face, although she did not move to blot them or wipe them away. She looked not at Harry, but at Ron, and her face was very white. “I hate you,” she said, “I will always hate you for this,” and then her voice broke and she turned and ran to the portrait hole, and it swung open and let her through. *** It was a cold walk from the prefects' bathroom back to his bedroom in the dungeon, but Draco was not in a mood to hurry. He'd washed off the sweat of fencing practice, and had been soaking meditatively in the bath when he'd noticed that the blood that seeped from his injured arm, as it washed away down the drain, was slightly phosphorescent – it was glowing. This had killed his enjoyment of his bath. He'd gotten out and toweled off, and left the bathroom without bothering to dry his hair. He shivered in the cold air of the unheated dungeon, and turned the last corner on the way to his room with a feeling of relief – relief which faded quickly as he saw that the hallway in front of his room was not deserted. A cloaked figure stood there, hood pulled up, almost but not quite melting into the shadows. The figure was slender, and obviously female. She straightened up as he approached. Draco paused, and sighed. “Blaise?” he said. “Look, it's been a long day –” He broke off as the figure raised two slender hands and pushed the hood back: a cascade of brown curls tumbled out, framing a white face. Hermione. Draco gaped at her, all clever commentary flying out the window. “What are you doing here? Someone might see you.” She looked at him blankly, as if he were speaking another language. “Malcolm Baddock already saw me,” she said. Her voice was distant, and very calm. “He let me in. I told him you'd kill him if he said anything.” She paused. “I think you should let me into the room now.” He looked at her more closely. “Does Harry know you're here?”
Her reaction to this question was unprecedented: she flinched violently, and her eyes filled with tears. Shocked, he reached out for her, then thought better of it, and unlocked the door instead. He pushed the door open, and ushered her into the room; with a last look up and down the corridor, he followed her in and shut the door behind them. He threw his towel over the back of a chair, and studied her. She had taken a few steps forward and now stood very still in the center of the room, between the bed and the fireplace, her hands at her sides. He felt vaguely relieved that he was generally a neat person – the room was extremely tidy: his fencing clothes, tossed across the back of an armchair, the only sign of mess. Then again, she didn't seem as if she would have noticed if he'd been collecting garbage on his floor since the start of term. She stared around her like someone in a distracted dream. Draco shifted his feet, wondering what to say, which rarely happened. He was also increasingly aware that he was wearing damp pajamas which were sticking to him. “Hermione,” he said slowly. “Would you mind telling me what this is about?” She turned slowly and looked at him. Her face, above the white-lined collar of her blue cloak, was very pale, her eyes like huge black coins. “Your room is very nice,” she said. “You never said you had such a nice room...” “Hermione,” he said, more sharply. “You have a fireplace... I wouldn't have thought you'd have a window... oh, the rooms are built into the cliff, aren't they? That's so –” “Hermione.” Without thinking about it, Draco crossed the room to her, and caught at her wrist. She looked away from him, her eyes wide and blank. A sudden horrible thought assailed him, and he tightened his grip on her wrist involuntarily. “Did something happen to Harry? Is he all right?” “I don't know,” she said, meeting his eyes finally. “Draco, do I seem...mad to you?”
“Do you seem what?” “Do I seem like I've gone mad?” Her breath was coming quickly now, in ragged gasps. His hand where it held her wrist was slippery, and he was suddenly even more conscious of his damp, half-dressed state. “Lost my mind?” he opened his mouth to say her name again, then realized it was becoming repetitive. Instead, he took her by the shoulders and propelled her towards the bed. She sat down obediently on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap. He stared at her, and she stared back. “I need to change my clothes,” he said. “Sit right here and don't, uh, don't turn around.” She nodded dully. Any fears he might have had that she would be tempted to swing around and sneak a peek were relieved by her expression. She looked about as interested as if he'd just told her he was about to go work a very dull Arithmancy problem backwards in Japanese. Feeling as if he had wandered into a very strange dream, Draco went to his clothes chest, pulled out a pair of black trousers and a Knarl Lagerfeld dark green shirt, crossed to the other side of the room, and changed hurriedly, watching Hermione as he did so. She did not move from her place on the bed, only sat where she was, staring down at her hands. He pulled his shirt on, buttoned it, went back to the bed, and sat down next to her. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Why don't you tell me what happened?” She didn't reply, only stared past him, at a point beyond his left shoulder. He reached out, and took hold of her shoulders, gripping them tightly. “Hermione,” he said firmly. “I assume you came here because you wanted my help. But if you don't tell me anything, I cannot help you.” “I know,” she said, very softly, not raising her eyes to his. “I know, but how can I tell you what happened when I don't understand it myself?” His grip on her shoulders tightened, and she winced. “I've gone mad,” she said. “It's the only explanation.” He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was very steadily. “You,” he said, “have always been the sanest person I know. If you're mad, then
we all are. I am. Harry is. Weasley is –” Her shoulders jerked violently under his hands, and he ducked his head to try to see her face. “Ron? This has something to do with Ron?” She nodded, a tiny nod. “Yes.” “Tell me,” he said. “Not what you think happened, or what you think might be wrong with you. Tell me the facts.” She took a deep and ragged breath, and raised her eyes slowly. They were so dark the pupil seemed to have disappeared into the iris; they looked like black tunnels, going on and on forever. “You won't believe me,” she said, and her voice cracked with pain. “Harry didn't believe me, and you won't either, and Ginny will believe Ron because he's her brother, and what will I do, I won't be able to stand it if you don't believe me, I won't be able to stand it –” “I'll believe you,” he said sharply, cutting her off. “I believe you already. Just tell me what happened.” “All right.” She nodded, and looked down again at her hands, balled into fists on top of her knees. “All right,” she said again, and then she began to speak, haltingly at first, then in a rush of words like a river undammed, telling him what had happened in the Gryffindor common room, what Harry had said, what Ron had said, what they both had done. And as she spoke, her small steady voice going on and on, Draco found himself at first unable to believe what he was hearing – and then, strangely able to. I knew there was something wrong. I knew there was something. “And then,” she finished, her voice unsteady, “a-and then, Harry said he never wanted to see me or speak to me again, and I should never go near him. I ran out – I saw McGonagall and Lupin rushing up, but I ran past them. I guess they ran into the common room – the Veritas curse must have set off the wards, they have those wards up, you know, the Dark magic ones, and –” “I know about the wards,” Draco interrupted her gently. “Sod the wards.” She nodded. “Of course. I'm sorry.” Her voice was empty and flat, and when she glanced down at her hands again he saw that she had something
balled up tightly in her right fist. He dropped his hands from her shoulders, and slowly reached for her hand. She let him, offering no resistance as he pried her fingers open, and he blinked at the familiar glimmer of gold that was revealed. It was the gold watch that Harry always wore on his right wrist, his gold watch with the dark leather band. “He threw it at me,” she said, by way of explanation, and closed her fingers again. “He said I should never come near him again.” “I know,” Draco said. “You told me.” “He's right,” she said. “There's something wrong with me. I don't remember – I don't remember having done anything with Ron, but I must have done, mustn't I?” Draco took a deep breath. He knew his next words must be chosen with great care. “Hermione,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with you. I knew Weasley was developing some sort of –feelings for you. I just didn't realize he was quite this delusional about it.” Her head snapped up and she looked at him almost accusingly. “How do you know he's delusional? How do you know it isn't me that's delusional?” “Because he's the one telling the bizarre story, Hermione, not you.” “You didn't see him,” she said, her voice rising, “he was so sure, Draco, he was so sure, and the way he looked at me – and he was under the Veritas curse, how could he be lying?” “Because,” Draco said firmly. “The Veritas curse makes you tell the truth, but it doesn't gift you with knowledge you don't possess. In other words, just because he believes it's true doesn't make it true. He could be under a Confundus curse – or have been Memory charmed –or just be a complete nutter, for all I know, although I doubt it. What I don't doubt is that the Veritas curse, in this case, doesn't prove anything. Anything.” He broke off, because Hermione was staring at him. Her eyes were enormous. “You believe me,” she said. “You really believe me, don't you?” “Yes,” he replied, because he did. “I absolutely believe you.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said and burst into tears. He stared at her in alarm, but before he could do anything, she had thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. She was sobbing in a way he would not have thought possible, every bit of the controlled reserve that had kept her so calm throughout this past half hour swept away as if by a flood. Very gingerly he put his own arms around her, and held her as she wept. He felt sure that there were Things One Did in these situations, soothing noises to be made, heads to be patted, but he had no experience with comforting people, much less comforting anyone he cared about. He could do nothing other than sit and hold her as the tumult of her grief spent itself. “I feel like I can't breathe,” he heard her whisper finally, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “I don't understand what's happening to me.” She still had her arms around him, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. All of her softness was pressed against him, and he could almost taste the salt of her tears in his mouth. Against his will, he felt his body react to her proximity; after all, he was seventeen, and some things were beyond his immediate control. Quickly, he reached up and firmly detached her arms from around his neck. “You should lie down,” he said, pulling away from her. “You're exhausted.” She shook her head swiftly, her hand still gripping his shirt. “No. No. I can't. I couldn't possibly sleep.” He sighed, his mind darting back and forth between various options. Holding her on his lap again was not a workable one. Neither, apparently, was she willing to lie down on her own. He slid off the bed and knelt down in front of his small bedside table; he slid the bottom drawer open, and drew out a bottle. The label on the bottle proclaimed it to be wine from the Archenland Vineyards, bottled in 1867. He looked at it for a moment – it was meant to be a gift for Sirius and Narcissa, and was worth more than he cared to remember. But, it couldn't be helped. “Apierto,” he muttered, and the cork popped out of the bottle with a faint sound. He handed the open bottle open to Hermione, and she took it and looked at blankly for a moment. Then, without hesitation, she raised the bottle to her lips.
“Whoa,” said Draco, jumping to his feet. “You're supposed to...oh, hell, whatever,” he finished in a resigned manner as Hermione knocked back a healthy swig – then gasped and choked. She looked at him with watering eyes. “Draco, what is this stuff?” Gently he reached forward and took the bottle away from her, placing it atop the bedside table. “Archenland wine,” he said. “You're supposed to mix it with water, technically...it's very strong.” She made a face. “Tastes like oven cleaner,” she said, her words very slightly slurred. Draco was not surprised. Generally Archenland wine was consumed by the teaspoon. A whole glass could knock out a mountain troll. Already her eyelids were beginning to flutter down. “Draco,” she said softly, and reached out her hand. “Could you please...” Very carefully he took the proffered hand. It was soft and warm in his grasp, a small alive thing which he held as loosely as he could; in the back of his mind, as always, was the careful thought that he must not be disloyal to Harry, and yet at the same time her pain hurt him in a way he couldn't explain. As always, the narrow space between the two people he loved most in the world was a precarious place to stand. “Could you please,” she said again, and now she was definitely slurring her words, “find him for me?” He knew she meant Harry. “You want me to try to find him?” he echoed. “Make sure he's okay?” “Yes–” Her mouth trembled. “I just want to know that he's all right.” “I know,” Draco said. “So do I,” and he shut his eyes, and willed himself to concentrate. It was very difficult for a moment, as his mind was whirling. He forced himself to think of Harry, and his mind groped through the black space that separated them, searching for the familiar shape of Harry's thoughts, the known contours of his mind. He found him, finally, a vague shimmer of light in the darkness. Harry, he said. Harry, can you hear me?
There was a long silence. Then a very faint, almost undetectable reply. I can hear you.
Are you all right? Another pause. No. I'm a long shot from all right, Draco. I may never be all right again.
Do you want me to come and get you? Draco asked, knowing that he would have to leave Hermione to do so; knowing that he would, if Harry wanted him. This time the response was immediate. No. I'm in Lupin's office. They brought me here. I'm in trouble, I think. I don't care, though.
Harry – They're coming. It's all right, Malfoy. There's nothing you can do for me. Nothing anyone can do. And Harry's mind shut down like a door being slammed shut. The force of it seemed to knock Draco back into his body; his eyes flew open. For a moment, he blinked at the light, his eyes adjusting – he had been in such a profound darkness. He hurt, but it was not a corporeal pain – he was not even sure it was his pain. It was Harry's, but then Harry was almost his own self. It was the first time in his life that he had ever thought that if he could take someone else's pain and bear it himself, he would. “Hermione...” he began, in a half-whisper – and paused. She was asleep, her cheek on her hand, her body curled among the pillows. Her long dark lashes looked like ink strokes against her pale cheeks, and her chest rose and fell steadily with her breathing. He began to stand up, but realized that he could not – her outflung hand was tightly bunched in the material of his sleeve, and he could not pull away without waking her. With a sigh, he moved closer to her, and pulled the corner of the blanket up so that it covered her shoulders. Then he lay down beside her on the bed, and stared up into the darkness.
***
The prefects' meeting room was freezing cold. He was freezing cold. Ron felt sure his fingers were turning blue, but when he looked down at them, they were the same color they had always been. It was hard to believe. Had he been able to take himself to a doctor or mediwizard, they could have told him that shock drops body temperature, but he couldn't, and wouldn't if he had been able to. He didn't want to see anyone. He wanted to sit in this room forever. He wanted to die. Over and over in his mind he kept replaying the scene in the common room. What he had said. What Harry had said. The look on Harry's face. He'd known it would be bad, but not that bad. Hermione had told him so many times, here in this very room, that she was quite sure that Harry didn't love her any more; that she suspected he knew that she no longer loved him either. And he'd believed her. Why shouldn't he believe her? Hermione had never lied to him. Only, apparently, she had. A spasm of nausea twisted his stomach as he recollected her words in the common room. I do not love you, she had said. I do not love you and moreover I have no idea what you are talking about. So she had lied. Apparently she never had had any intention of telling Harry: not at New Year's, not ever. Looking back now, he could see how she had put him off and put him off. He'd been too blinded to see it at the time. The sickness came back in a wave. This time, he was able to breathe through it. It was difficult, but he managed it by concentrating. In fact, he was concentrating so hard that he did not hear the door of the meeting room open quietly. It was only when he looked up again that he saw that she had come into the room, and was looking at him with an expression of alarm. “Ron?” she said gently. “What's wrong? You look ill.” He got to his feet and stared at her, and Hermione stared back. She looked the same – the same – the faint scarlet light from the glass window teased the gold-red glints in her tumbled hair. She wore it down because he liked it down. He'd told her that. And she was wearing her black school robes, and under them her blue pajamas that he had given her two years ago. “What,” he said, and his voice came out creaky and unfamiliar, “are you
doing here?” Her lips parted and she looked at him in surprise. “I know I haven't come lately,” she said. “But please don't be angry – you know it isn't easy for me to get away.” She took a step towards him, and when he did not move away, she took another. She put her arms around him, and he let her, unresisting. “I have to leave soon,” she said. “Don't lets waste our time being angry.” He looked down into her face. Her familiar, beautiful face. He remembered the first time she had asked him to meet her there. And she'd cried on his shoulder. Harry didn't talk to her any more. He didn't love her. She wasn't sure she loved him either. She wasn't sure she ever had. She'd made mistakes, terrible mistakes. Would he ever forgive her. Could he still care about her. And she'd kissed him. He'd about fallen off the table in shock. It had been weeks before she'd tried that again. And he had marveled. How she'd been so able to behave in public as if nothing were wrong, or strange, or different. She'd told him she was terrified of hurting Harry. Harry had so many troubles these days, they'd driven him half mad. He wasn't the same Harry. He might even be dangerous. Help me, she'd said. You're the only one who can. His thoughts, his memories, broke up into whirling fragments and spun around his head like startled birds. He clutched at her. He heard his own voice as if it came from a distance. “Why did you,” he said. “Why did you lie to him?” Her voice sounded suddenly sharp, startled. “Lie to who?” “To Harry,” he said. “Why did you lie to Harry?” When she replied, her voice sounded defensive. “We both lie to Harry,” she said. “All the time. We have to. But, I told you. New Year's –” “New Year's?” Without any conscious recognition that he was doing so, he seized her shoulders and shook her, hard. He heard her gasp. “What's the point of bloody New Year's when Harry knows already?” She froze in his grasp. “Harry knows?” she echoed, her voice utterly shocked. “He knows?” He stared at her. All the whirling thoughts in his head came together like
glass fragments under the Reparo spell. Everything seemed suddenly very obvious and very clear. He tightened his grip on her shoulders, and she gasped in pain, but he hardly noticed it. When he spoke, he marveled at the evenness of his own voice: its firmness and deliberation. “Tell me,” he said. “Who are you?” She tried to pull away. “Ron, let me go.” “Who are you?” he said again. “Who are you, and why have you been pretending to be Hermione?” *** References: The fountain in the museum with its poem is from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen; Archenland wine that's incredibly strong is from The Narnia Chronicles; all the Dark books in the Museum are from HP Lovecraft's Miskatonic University. The idea that the Slytherin dungeon is built into a cliff is from Stacey. The Stonehenge Museum historical pamphlet is adapted from the British Museum's historical pamphlet. "and trust me, Weasley, eternity with Satan and all his hellish minions will be nothing compared to five minutes with me and the pointy end of my wand." – Blackadder “crazy whirligig of fun” – Buffy “This must be some newfangled usage of the word 'safe' that I hadn't previously been aware of.” - Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “Was born, ate a potato, sucked at Quidditch, almost got shagged but not quite, ate a potato, died.” - Buffy “the Balinese Goddess of Plenty” - Blackadder
Draco Veritas Chapter Seven: Burning the Boats
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. --GBS *** "Will he die of it?" the Dark Lord asked. He stood beside a polished rosewood table on which sat a chess set carved from fluted glass. The chess set was familiar to Draco. He had seen it somewhere before. It nagged at him, but like all things seen in dreams, he could not pinpoint its place in his life. The room the Dark Lord stood in was full of shadows: Draco knew this room, and the gilded cage that stood at one end of it. At the moment, the cage was empty. Lucius, who stood a little ways away, seemed to hesitate. "That is one possible outcome, my Lord." Voldemort nodded. In his long-fingered hand he was holding a chess piece: a green knight. "And this risk is acceptable to you?" Lucius nodded. "Strategy entails risk."
Voldemort began to turn the chess piece over and over. "Perhaps he will die of a broken heart first." Lucius blinked. "I have never known you to concern yourself overmuch with hearts, my Lord." "To everything there is a season, my dear Lucius," said the Dark Lord, and set the knight down on the polished surface of a rosewood table. "Yes, my Lord. A time to be born, and a time to die." "No need to quote Scripture at me, Lucius," said the Dark Lord, sounding amused. "We have the Cup now, or at least it is no longer where we cannot reach it. When the Ritual is performed, I shall ascend, and the old order will pass away, as shall the old gods. I shall be the only ruler of not just the wizarding world, but all worlds. My name will be legion. I will show to them the true nature of gods." "Which is?" Lucius asked. Draco could hear a note in his voice that surprised him: he sounded strained, perhaps angry. Voldemort did not seem to notice. "Indifferent and cruel. And loving not mankind." Lucius looked as if he were about to speak, when the door opened. Wormtail entered, carrying a tray. He crossed the room, and put the tray down on the table beside the chess set. Draco saw that the tray held a decanter of brandy: he suspected it was Re'em Martin, his father's favorite. "Thank you, Peter," said Lucius, without looking towards him. To Draco's surprise, Wormtail then seated himself at the table, and poured a glass of brandy. He raised it to his lips, and the Dark Lord frowned at him. "Is she returning tonight?" Wormtail asked, jerking his chin towards the empty cage along the far wall. The Dark Lord's frown deepened. Without another word, he gathered his robes around him and stalked from the room. As the door shut behind him, Lucius whirled on his unfortunate companion.
"I thought I told you not to address him directly, you idiotic -" "I was just asking a question," Wormtail said belligerently, and drained the glass in his hand. When he set the glass down on the table, his hand was trembling. "An innocent question." "Nothing about you is innocent," Lucius snapped. Wormtail poured himself another glass of brandy. "Does he know where the Cup is?" Lucius' eyes narrowed. "Yes, Peter." "Does he really?" "He knows who has it - why do you question? Have you information which you have been withholding?" "I thought my opinion was of no interest to you," said Wormtail, with an odd flash of his eyes. "It is not of any interest to me." Wormtail bared his little rat teeth over the rim of the glass. "He is mad. Mad, and you know it." "Silence!" Lucius bellowed, so loud that the fabric of the dream began to rend and split, and Draco felt his eyes fluttering open. "He can hear you..." *** The dream was gone. Draco opened his eyes and the room swam into focus around him. He tried to sit up, but something was gripping his upper arm like a vise. He turned, and saw her lying beside him, drowned in deep sleep, her face pillowed on her tumbled hair - Hermione? What's she doing here, in bed with me? Good God, what've I done? - and then he remembered, and sat up so quickly he almost knocked his skull on the headboard. "Hermione, wake up." He shook her shoulder. "Come on."
She came back to consciousness if she were swimming up through deep water, her eyelids fluttering open slowly. Her dark eyes focused on him, and he saw the confusion in them for a moment. Then she seemed to remember, and half-sat up, rubbing at her eyes. "I was dreaming," she said. "You were in it." "Was I?" He sat back against the pillows, and tried not to think about how much he wanted to stay there and rest. "What was I doing?" "You were in it, and so was Harry. You were... different. We were all in London. I think you were...I don't know, gangsters or something. You had guns. It was very peculiar." Draco blinked at her. "What's a gangster?" "Never you mind." A smile ghosted across Hermione's face. "You were older. You were..." "I was what?" "Nothing." The smile widened, then vanished. She sat up straighter, her shoulders tensing. "What time is it?" "Just past midnight," he said. She bit her lip, looking tense and unhappy. Her hair tumbled around her head in unruly curls which had begun to frizz up at the ends. "I have to get back to Gryffindor Tower," she said. He leaned forward, ignoring the exhaustion which dragged him down like a lead weight. "Are you sure that's a good -" "I have to see Harry." Her voice was tense and desperate. "Okay." He hesitated. "And again, I have to ask you. Are you sure that's a good idea?" "I want to ask him to put the Veritas curse on me." Her hands balled into tight fists at her side. "Then he'll have to believe me." "What if he won't do it?"
"Then I want you to do it." Draco stared. "What?" "Then I want you to do it. In front of him." "Hermione -" "There's no other way!" He reached out for her, but she jumped off the bed and began pacing up and down the room. The fire behind her had burned down to orange-red embers, and the smoky light outlined her body through her clothes, tinting her hair a dark scarlet. She spun and faced him, looking determined. "He trusts you," she said. "Come with me to talk to him. If you put the Veritas curse on me without telling him you're going to -" "I don't want to put the Veritas curse on you without telling him I'm going to." "But you have to -" "I don't," he said coldly, "have to do anything." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and looked sharply at her. "I'd do a lot for you," he said. "I'd go so far as to say I'd do almost anything for you. But I won't blindside Harry. Maybe he trusts me now, but would he then?" She looked shocked for a moment. Then her shoulders drooped. "You're right," she said. "I'm sorry." She looked back at the fire. "Come with me," she said again. "Just to talk to him, then." Draco fought down his misgivings. "All right." He slid off the bed, landed lightly on his feet - and almost passed out. The blood roared in his ears as loudly as thunder, and black diamonds of darkness danced in front of his eyes. He grabbed at the bedpost to steady himself. "Draco?" Hermione was at his side in an instant, her hand on his arm. "Are you all right?" He nodded as his vision slowly cleared. "I'm fine."
"I'm sorry," she said softly. Her dark eyes were fixed on his face, full of concern. "I haven't forgotten about what you asked me the other day about your shoulder. I've been looking in the library..." "I said I was all right." He shook off her hand, not looking at her. He bent down again, this time carefully, and grabbed for his boots, which were under the bed. She watched him while he laced them up, biting her lip and looking anxious. It was exactly the way she usually looked at Harry, he thought - concerned and ... protective. He didn't like it - didn't want to feel worried about. He stood up and grabbed for his cloak, which had been flung across a chair back. "Let's go." The corridor was deserted, thankfully, as was the common room. The torchlight in the outside hallways was dimmed almost to nonexistence. Draco murmured lumos at his wand, and grimly smiled to himself at how they must look - the Slytherin prefect and the Head Girl, sneaking along the corridors like a guilty couple on their way back from the Astronomy Tower. Although in that case, he imagined, Hermione probably would have been clinging to his arm. Instead, she walked a little apart, lost in thought. As they turned a corner, she paused. "Draco, wait." He stopped and turned. "What it is?" Hermione was biting her lip. "The prefects' meeting room..." She turned and pointed. "We just passed it." Draco was taken aback. "You don't think...?" "I thought I heard a noise," she said, still staring off down the corridor. Draco lowered his wand. "All right. Let's check it out." As he passed Hermione, she caught at his sleeve, and they walked the rest of the way to the meeting room door like that. Now we look like a guilty couple, Draco thought, and shoved the thought back. The meeting room door was closed, but a faint bar of light lay across the bottom. That in itself meant nothing, but it was enough to make Draco turn back to Hermione. She was staring at him with huge eyes. She jerked her chin towards the door.
He sighed, and put a hand on the knob. "Eirenaeus Philalethes," he said, and the doorknob turned under his fingers. He pushed, and the door swung open. The light inside was dim, and it took a moment for Draco to focus his eyes on the scene before him. When he did, he stared. He saw Ron standing by the table. He had shrugged off his school robes, and was in a shirt and jeans. His red hair was wildly rumpled around his head, and he was leaning forward, his hands on the shoulders of a girl seated in a chair in front of him. It took a moment for Draco, noting Ron's posture, to realize that he was not touching her affectionately, but instead, holding her tightly in place. She was wearing white pajamas, sprigged with flowers, and her dark hair was pulled back. Even without seeing her face, Draco knew immediately who she was. He was not at all surprised when she whipped her head around at the sound of the opening door, and he saw her wide dark eyes, the familiar line of her nose, the curved-bow mouth. It was Hermione. *** "You're really not going to do anything?" "And what," Dumbledore asked, "would you suggest that I do?" "I don't know," said Charlie, and walked restless over to the small table by the bay window in the office. Outside, the moon hung round and white above the snowy grounds. "Something's obviously going on." "Things are often going on, as you put it," said Dumbledore, gazing calmly at him. "It does not necessarily mean I should intervene." Charlie pushed his hands into his pockets; he was very cold, although a fire was roaring in the grate behind Fawkes' perch. It seemed a year since he had run up the stairs of Gryffindor Tower, responding to the alarm wards which had been set off by the Veritas curse Harry had performed, although he knew it had been only a matter of hours. "The last time I saw my little brother cry was when he was six," he said. "And then again tonight."
"I understand, and I am sorry." "What's to be sorry about? Ron wouldn't do something like this -" Charlie broke off, and turned away from his old Headmaster. "He loves Harry, they were like brothers." Dumbledore was silent for a moment. In the silence, Charlie could hear Fawkes rustling on his perch. It seemed to him the phoenix was making a low humming noise, almost music. "I know," Dumbledore said finally, his eyes troubled. "But perhaps you are too close to this situation, Charles, to be objective. I can only reiterate that at the moment, it is not my business to intrude." "Objective about what?" Charlie demanded. "This puzzle doesn't add up, sir. If Ron's telling the truth, then both he and Hermione were acting bizarrely out of character. And apparently Hermione denied the whole thing. So either she's lying, or my brother is, or one of them has gone completely mad - which, I should think, would be a matter of concern for the school." "I talked to your brother at length," Dumbledore said. "He is not mad. He is quite lucid." "What does Remus say?" asked Charlie abruptly. "Has he contacted Sirius? Perhaps Harry could go home early. Classes are all but over, after all." Dumbledore shook his head. "Harry specifically requested that we not contact Sirius. He was anxious that the wedding not be spoiled." Charlie felt a frustrated anger tug at him - at himself for not seeing something was wrong earlier, at Harry for stubbornly refusing any kind of comforting, at his brother for being so willfully blind. His sympathies were torn - he could only imagine what it would be like for Ginny when she discovered what had happened. Ron was their brother and they loved him unconditionally, but Harry had always been an honorary member of the family as well, and he was so very obviously shattered by what had happened. Charlie's heart broke for him, not just for the teenager who had lost his two best friends in one night, but the fragile little boy who had never had a family. For years Ron and Hermione had been all the family Harry had ever known.
When he spoke, his voice was rougher than he intended. "I should think you could see there was something else going on here. I would think you'd want to protect Harry." "That has always been," said Dumbledore gravely, "my primary concern. I have always sought to protect Harry from any harm that might come to him, physically or magically. But I cannot protect him from the ordinary disappointments of life, nor would I if I could." "But that's what I'm saying," said Charlie in a low voice. "There's nothing ordinary about this. This behavior isn't like my brother, it certainly isn't like Hermione either. Obviously there's some outside manipulation going on. It might look like some irrelevant adolescent romantic tangle, but..." "Outside manipulation? Outside manipulation by whom?" Charlie opened his mouth, then shut it again. He knew perfectly well that there was no reason not to say the name, but was reluctant all the same. "Well," he said, "the obvious." "Voldemort?" snapped Dumbledore, and Charlie flinched. "Unlikely." "Unlikely why?" Charlie demanded. "Ron and Hermione have always been among Harry's greatest protections. If they were taken away -" "If Voldemort wanted them taken away, he would kill them," said Dumbledore flatly, and Charlie shivered. "Such a ruse as this would never occur to him. He is not like a human man. There are no thoughts like our thoughts in his head, no feelings like our feelings in his heart." "But he must have felt once," said Charlie. "He was born a human man, like the rest of us." Dumbledore reached out a hand and gently stroked Fawkes' head, and the phoenix hummed again. "You mean when he was Tom Riddle," he said. "Yes, perhaps then, he knew human feeling. If not love, then he knew jealousy and yearning and rage. Not just this blind grasping after power. Not this passionless killing." Charlie felt a faint surprise stir in his heart. "Are you afraid of him?"
"I would be a fool not to be wary," said Dumbledore. "And yet I do not think he was behind this current...situation." "Then who?" Charlie asked. Dumbledore shook his head. "I do not know, Charles...I do not know." *** Everything after that happened very fast. The girl-who-looked-like-Hermione-but-wasn't gasped once, and Ron spun around. His eyes widened hugely in his white face, and he stared at the real Hermione, who gaped back at him. The moment hung suspended between them, like an airplane with its engines cut, waiting to plummet. Released from the grip of Ron's hands, the girl bolted to her feet. Ron spun back around and reached for her, but she was too quick for him she tore her sleeve out of his reaching grasp and raced for the door. She avoided Draco but slammed straight into Hermione, knocking her down. This barely slowed the girl's hurtling forward progress - she stumbled, righted herself, and flew down the corridor, vanishing around the corner so quickly she almost skidded and fell. Ron immediately flung himself after her, but Draco was too quick for him. He grabbed Ron by the arm, and barked at Hermione, "Go! Go!" She didn't need to be told twice; she sprang to her feet and bolted after the girl, dragging her wand out of her sleeve as she ran. Ron tried to pull away, but Draco spun him against the wall so hard that the breath was knocked out of him. He gasped and his knees buckled; Draco caught him with an iron grip on his upper arms, and held him fast. "Who is she?" he hissed, and shook Ron, hard. "Who is she really? Ron stared at Draco defiantly. "I have no idea." "Bollocks," said Draco, and slammed him back against the wall again. Ron regarded him blindly, as if he wasn't there, as if the grip on his arms didn't hurt. "Who is she?" "I don't know," Ron said, woodenly. "That's what I was trying to find out."
"You're lying, Weasley." "Think whatever you want," said Ron, looking away from Draco, "I'm telling the truth." Draco stared at him, taking in the blank, stunned expression on Ron's face. "So you don't even know who you've been shagging, do you? That must be nice for you. She could have been anyone. Anything." "Don't," Ron said, but his tone was hopeless, as if he didn't expect mercy, and wouldn't have thought he deserved it if it were offered. Draco leaned his face in close to Ron's, and spoke in his ear. His tone was conversational. "You know, there are two simple rules of friendship, Weasley, and you've broken both of them. The first one is: you don't screw your best friend's girlfriend. Two: you don't screw your best friend's girlfriend." Draco grinned without amusement. "I recognize that's only one rule, but since you apparently failed to catch it on the first goround, I thought it was worth restating." Ron dragged his eyes back to Draco's face, and looked at him with dull loathing. "I don't see what it's got to do with you, Malfoy." "It has everything to do with me." "Why? You hated me before. Now you get to hate me with Harry for company. What's the difference? Aren't you glad I turned out to be just what you always thought I was?" "If you're waiting for me to thank you for living down to my expectations of you, you'll be waiting a long time," said Draco shortly. "Even I expected better of you than that." "You would have done it," said Ron, his voice flat. Draco's muscles stiffened. "I would have done what?" "The same thing," Ron said. "If she'd wanted you." It was a moment before Draco could speak. When he did, his tone was sharp and cold as an icicle. "Might I point out," he said, "that she didn't
want you either. Snap out of the dream state, Weasley. She never wanted you." Ron laughed. It sounded less like a laugh than a gasp of pain. "But you're not denying it," he said. "Are you?" Draco slammed Ron back against the wall, hard. "One more smart word out of you," he snarled, "and trust me, Weasley, eternity with Satan and all his hellish minions will be nothing compared to five minutes with me and the pointy end of my wand." "Let him go." It was Hermione's voice. Draco turned and saw her standing in the doorway. She was very pale but seemed composed. She was clutching her robes tightly around her, as if she were cold. Draco immediately wondered just how long she had been standing there. "He doesn't know anything." "How do you know that?" Draco asked, and gave her a hard look - but it seemed to be the real Hermione, not the pajamad imposter. She had the same tear tracks under her eyes, the same tangled hair, the same clothes. "Because I do," she said tiredly. Her eyes glanced over Ron, who looked quickly away. "We need to go talk to Harry now - that's what's important." "And the girl...?" Hermione shook her head. "She got away. She ran too fast for me to catch her, and then she turned a corner and she just...disappeared. If I didn't know better, I'd think she had an invisibility cloak." "So she's gone. Wonderful," said Draco, and added, in a low voice, "assuming of course, that it even was a she." Ron flinched but didn't look at him. With a shrug of disgust, Draco released his grip on Ron and stepped back. He looked the other boy up and down once, as if taking his measure. Then he smiled. "You saved my life," he said. "And because of that, I won't hurt you. Not now. But if you come near me again...if you come near Harry again..." "That's for Harry to say!" Ron burst out suddenly, and just as quickly subsided, as if he were sorry he'd spoken.
"I can't speak for Harry," Draco said. "Actually, sod that. I can speak for Harry. One of those fun side effects of lying to someone and stabbing them in the back, is that usually, afterwards, they're not too eager for your company. But if you want to give it a try, by all means --" "Draco," Hermione said from the doorway. "Please don't." She held her cloak even more tightly around herself. "We need to go." Out of the corner of his eye Draco saw Ron wince. As if he had finally truly felt the way she was looking at him, or not looking at him - but then perhaps it had just been her use of that one word, we. A we that obviously didn't include him. Draco felt a savage satisfaction. Good, he thought. "Later, Weasley," he said, and gave him his most arrogant smile, the charm of which, he felt fairly certain, would be wasted on such stony soil. Ron, drooping against the wall, kept his eyes on his shoes as Hermione and Draco walked out of the room. Once in the corridor, Draco fell into step beside Hermione, who was walking quickly and purposefully, her arms crossed. He gave her another hard look. "It really is you, isn't it?" She looked at him with somber eyes. "Of course it's me." "Prove it." "I could tell you more about my dream," she said. "You were wearing vinyl in it."' "Vinyl?" Draco echoed, slightly appalled. She nodded. "Vinyl trousers." "This sounds like a nightmare." They were at the stairs that curved up to the Gryffindor Tower now. Hermione led the way. "Not exactly," she said over her shoulder as they ascended. "Well, you weren't the one who had to suffer the slimy touch of vinyl against your skin, now were you?"
"I think you might have been wearing glitter makeup as well," she added thoughtfully. "Tell me any more about this dream, Granger, I'll leave you here to fend for yourself." Hermione made a face at him. They were at the portrait of the Fat Lady now. Draco scooted behind Hermione in hopes of going unspotted, but the Fat Lady seemed to be asleep anyway. Hermione took a deep breath. "Mundungus," she said, and the portrait swung wide. Draco looked at her, but she gestured that she should go first; with a deep breath, he stepped through the portrait hole. *** "How dare you?" Rhiannon gasped, staggering back against the wall, clutching the tattered remnants of her garments about her with trembling hands. The ragged strips of damp cloth did nothing to obscure the heaving, womanly curves of her bosom. Tristan feasted his eyes on the moist orbs as he advanced, his wand outstretched stiffly before him. It was, he thought grimly, not the only stiff thing in the room. He dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. "How dare you approach me thus?" she cried.
"You scorned to speak with me otherwise," he growled. "But I will force you to listen!" "You abandoned me years ago," she snarled, her eyes flashing like furious emeralds. "I never thought you would return." "But now I have!" he cried. "And now I am married to Montague!" she replied, with a heave of her honey-colored breasts. "And he is a good man, a fine man." "But you do not love him," Tristan snarled, advancing upon her, and pressing her back against the stone wall with his firmly muscled arms. She writhed within his grip, but could not escape. "Not as you loved me!" "I love you no longer," she spat. "I hate you, I despise you, nay - I loathe you!"
"And yet you cannot keep yourself from wanting me," he breathed, and plunged his lips against hers. She struggled, but it only brought her lush, ripe feminine frame into more insistent erotic contact with his rock-hard masculinity. His wand clattered to the ground between them, unheeded, but he no longer needed it to keep her at bay. She had begun to return his insistent kisses, panting desperately against his rather thick neck, "Oh, Tristan! Oh, Tristan! Oh! Oh! Oh!" "My flower," he whispered into her hair. "My angel, my flame-haired vixen...!" Ginny looked up from Passionate Trousers and frowned. The fire in the grate had died down again, and there was no longer enough light to continue reading. She was reluctant to light the candles in the wall sconces, not wanting to attract anyone else downstairs. She preferred the common room empty at this late hour of the night; she had only come down because she had been unable to sleep, and was afraid that reading in the dormitory would have woken Elizabeth or Ashley. With a sigh, she got up, took her wand from the small table next to the couch, and poked the end of it at the grate. "Incendio," she whispered, and the fire roared up in the grate with a loud crackle that almost obscured the sound of the portrait door swinging open. Almost, but not quite. Ginny looked up in surprise. Who could be coming into the tower at this late hour of the night? She did not get up from where she was sitting, knowing that the couch in front of her hid her from view - not even when she saw who it was stepping through the portrait hole, and had to cover her mouth with a hand to choke off a cry of surprise. It was Draco Malfoy. He ducked into the common room, straightened up, and looked around. Through the high bright glow of the fire he seemed outlined in gold, his pale hair turned the color of candlelight. He looked tired, and less immaculate than usual - his hair was too fine to tangle, but it was rumpled around his head, and his clothes looked as if he had slept in them. He hesitated for a moment, glancing around- even now he appeared to be looking down his elegant nose, as if mentally ticking off all the ways the Gryffindor common room was inferior to its Slytherin counterpart. Then he turned, and held out his hand, and Hermione stepped into the room beside him.
Ginny blinked in astonishment. Hermione? And Draco? What were they doing? The obvious answer presented itself, but she rejected it, a little too firmly. Hermione wouldn't do that to Harry, and furthermore, neither would Draco. Of that, Ginny was positive beyond all other doubts. He would slice off his own left hand, quite cheerfully, before he would let anyone touch a finger of Harry's; he would hardly hurt Harry himself and he would know he was doing just that. She remembered Draco in the rose garden, the night of the Pub Crawl, telling her, "Everyone has one weakness. He's protected elsewhere. Not where she's concerned." Hermione had straightened up beside Draco, and was looking not around the room but at him, as if for guidance. Ginny had never seen Hermione look like that - as if she were quite lost. She was always so confident. She, too, looked rumpled, and her face was marked with the traces of recent tears. "Draco," she said very softly, and he turned to look at her. "Are you sure I should go up with you?" Draco's expression, already serious, did not change. "Yes." "But he said he didn't want me coming near him."
Who? Ginny thought. Who said that? Draco glanced up towards the ceiling in exasperation. He seemed to be counting to ten in his head. "Hermione," he said. "You need to tell him what we just saw." "You could do it," said Hermione in a small voice. "I suppose I could," Draco acknowledged. "But I won't." "Draco..." "Either you come willingly, or I knock you down and drag you." Hermione almost looked as if she might smile. Ginny didn't blame her. There was something amusing about Draco's look of total determination. "You'd hit a girl?" "Chivalry is dead," Draco said shortly. "I'm the proof."
Now Hermione did smile. It wasn't much of a smile - wobbly and tearful both. But it was a smile. "All right," she said. She held out her hand, and Draco took it, almost absently. She began to walk towards the stairs that led to the boys' dormitory, and Draco followed her. As they started up the steps, he turned, and glanced back at the common room. For a moment, Ginny thought he saw her - a look almost of recognition flitted across his face. Then his expression darkened, as if a shadow had come between him and the firelight. He turned back to the stairs, and followed Hermione up into the darkness. *** Harry lay flat on his back, staring up into the shadows. He wasn't exactly sure how he had gotten back to his bed, put his pajamas on, and lain down, but here he was. The events of the evening were fuzzy in his mind after the point where Hermione had rushed out of the common room, holding the watch he had thrown at her. He remembered turning back to Ron, who'd looked white and sick and on the verge of throwing up. Neither of them had said anything, and a moment later, the professors had begun pouring in through the portrait hole. Charlie had been there, Lupin, McGonagall....Harry remembered being taken down to Lupin's office, and Charlie walking Ron off the other way, an arm over his shoulder, casting worried glances back at Harry as he did so. There hadn't been much discussion of punishment, not that Harry remembered. He was fairly sure he'd told Lupin what happened, and that there had been a lot of shocked silence, and some discussion of calling on Sirius, which Harry had nixed. He didn't want to talk to anyone right now, and that included Sirius. He wondered if Lupin had walked him back to the Tower. He really didn't remember. Much of the evening was like a long howl of static, punctuated by short lucid bursts of sound. Are you all right, Harry? Do you need anything? I'm fine, I just want to go to sleep. And here he was. In bed, in his pajamas. Curtains drawn, staring up into the flat darkness overhead. Sleep was a faraway country he could not touch. He heard his own breathing, felt the beat of his own heart, and wondered that his body kept on going although all feeling seemed to have stopped. Inside him was a lion on a chain, and if he let it free it would bring the castle down around his ears. Some fierce inner part of him took pleasure in the image - his Magid powers gone wild, the window glass
shattering in, the walls shaking apart. But most of him was grateful for the icy control that seemed to have settled over him like the jaws of a trap slamming shut. He did not know where it had come from. Draco, he suspected. But he was grateful for it. A soft whispering noise made him jump. He rolled onto his side, and saw with astonishment that the curtains on his bed were being drawn back. He blinked as faint light flooded the darkness, and he saw the blurred shape of an arm, pulling the curtains back, a shoulder, the glint of light on fair hair. Draco. "Malfoy?" Harry whispered, shielding his eyes against the sudden light. "What the --?" "I need to talk to you," said Draco, sounding grimly determined. Harry felt for the glasses on his nightstand, and slipped them on. Instantly, the world sprang into focus, and he saw Draco standing above him, holding back the bed curtains with one hand, his expression set and grim. And behind him - behind him was Hermione. She had her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold, and her hair had tumbled forward, almost hiding her expression. Harry heard his own voice as if it came from a distance. "I won't talk to you with her here," he said, and jerked his chin towards Hermione. Draco looked exasperated. "Potter..." But Hermione merely looked stricken. She looked at Harry as if he had slapped her, then looked quickly away. Harry felt a bitter sense of horrible triumph; it went away as quickly as it had come, leaving him feeling sick and ill. Something nudged at the back of his mind then, and he knew it was Draco, trying to think to him as he had been trying to do all night. Harry ignored it. He did not want anyone in his head right now. "You heard what I said," he muttered. Draco opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, Hermione interrupted. "Fine," she said, and her voice was slightly shrill
with tension. "If that's the way it has to be to get you to listen, Harry - I'll go." "Hermione -" Draco began, but she was gone, having turned away quickly, and Harry heard the soft sound of her footsteps as she walked quietly away. The dormitory door opened and closed, and as it closed Harry winced, feeling as if something sharp had been driven into his heart. "Idiot," said Draco in exasperation. "What did you have to do that for?" "You wouldn't understand," said Harry in a fierce whisper. He glanced around at the lumped shapes in the other beds - it seemed that Neville, Dean and Seamus were managing to sleep through all of this. "Nobody's ever betrayed you." "Oh, bollocks," said Draco succinctly. "My father tried to kill me remember? If you really want to play at Whinging Sweepstakes, that is." "It's not the same," Harry said in a bitter voice, knowing full well he was being a complete git about this. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about it." "Too bad." Draco's voice was flat. "Because there's something you need to hear." "Just leave me alone." "No. I won't do that." Draco reached out a hand and took hold of Harry's arm. "Would you come with me -"
"I said leave me alone!" Harry jerked his arm out of Draco's grasp, and as he did, the water glass on the nightstand next to the bed trembled, shook, and flew off the table, slamming into the stone wall. It shattered, spraying glass and water in all directions. Harry glared at Draco. "Now look what you made me do," he added, with illogical fury. "Harry?" It was Seamus' soft Irish voice, speaking from the other bed. Harry turned his head and saw that all three of the other boys in the room were now awake, struggling into sitting positions and staring. "Is everything all right?" "Fine," Harry said sourly.
"Is that -" Seamus broke off, sounding stunned. "Is that Malfoy over there?" "No, Finnigan," said Draco, in a voice dropping with sarcasm. "It's Santa and his twelve tiny reindeer. You've all been such good little boys, I decided to bring you your presents early." "I don't believe this," said Dean Thomas, his voice fuzzy from sleep. "How the hell did he get into our dormitory?" "Apparently he came down the chimney," said Seamus darkly. "What do you say we stuff him back up it?" "Try it and I'll break every bone in your body," said Draco in a soft and deadly voice. He still hadn't turned around to look at Seamus, but Harry could tell from the sudden change in his posture that he was very aware of the movements of the three boys behind him. "Potter...come with me. We need to talk." Harry looked at Draco's outstretched hand, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not going anywhere." Draco looked utterly exasperated. "Okay, fine." He took a deep breath. "You asked for it....Ron," he said, his voice very firm, "is not now, and never has been, sleeping with Hermione." A stunned silence. Dean. Neville and Seamus stared with open mouths, frozen in a tableaux that would under other circumstances have been very funny. Harry stayed where he was, sitting up in bed, frozen. Bizarrely, Neville, speaking from the depths of his bed, was the first to break the silence. "I'm not sleeping with Hermione either. Is that newsworthy?" "Oh, fuck the hell off, Longbottom," said Draco, but the side of his mouth twitched. He pitched his voice low, and spoke again: "Potter...?" Harry flinched once, violently, at the sound of his name, without being able to prevent it. The next words he spoke tumbled out of his mouth without him even thinking about them, "I don't believe you," he said.
"What?" Draco looked stunned - Harry had a feeling he'd been prepared for a number of reactions, but not this one. "How can you -" "You said what you came to say," Harry said. "And I don't believe you. Now go away." Draco went white, then two red spots appeared on his cheekbones. His eyes flashed. "Not until you listen." "I'm not interested." Draco moved so quickly that Harry had no time at all to pull away : his hand shot out and closed around Harry's upper arm, jerking him unceremoniously off the bed, swinging him around, and flinging him to the floor. Harry hit the ground sprawling, the breath knocked out of him. "You," said Draco, breathing hard and staring at Harry as if he had never seen him before, "are a total - a total - I don't think a word has even been invented yet to describe what you are, but you are one. And a total, total one at that. Aren't you listening to me? Did you not hear what I said? Do you not care what you're doing - to her, to everyone?" Harry didn't get a chance to reply. Suddenly, Seamus was standing between them, having moved as quickly as if he had Apparated there. He faced down Draco, looking furious. "How dare you burst in here like this, Malfoy," he said. "Are you trying to be funny?" Draco's eyes trawled slowly over to Seamus, raking up and down him with a look of amused disbelief. "At least I can be funny when I try, you tedious little worm," he said. "Now, if you don't mind, this doesn't concern you." "It bloody does concern me," Seamus said. "This is our dormitory, our house, and Harry is my friend. And I do believe he told you to go away. Translated into Slytherin, that means: 'fuck off, you stupid bastard'." He took a menacing step forward. "Got that?" "Finnigan, you'd lose a battle of wits with a dead monkey," said Draco, sounding weary. "If you want to hit me, hit me. But quit with the attempts at repartee. It's painful." Seamus' mouth twitched. Then he rolled up his sleeves - an almost quaint gesture - and began to walk toward Draco. Draco kept his arms at his
sides, his eyes still on Harry. He wore an expression of amused detachment. He wasn't going to hit Seamus back; that much was obvious. Even without being able to read Draco's mind, Harry could tell what Draco was thinking - this was Harry's dormitory, his place, his responsibility to do something. Draco didn't plan on doing a thing. Harry sighed. He felt suddenly exhausted, tiredness welling up within him like blood welling from an open cut. "Let him alone, Seamus," he said quietly, and sat up. Seamus, looking astonished, half-turned to look at him. "What?" "I said let him alone," said Harry in a dead-tired tone. He looked at Seamus, and Seamus did a double-take, as if what he saw in Harry's expression had shocked him. "He has a right to be here." "So you want to talk to him?" Seamus asked, very quietly. Harry nodded. "Yeah. I guess I do." Draco smiled: a cocky, sideways smile. "In that case..." Harry started to get to his feet. "We can go down to the common room -" "No." It was Neville. "There'll be people there." He looked at Dean, and then at Seamus. "We'll go." Dean looked miffed. "We will?" "Yes," Neville said, and cast a pointed, sideways look at Harry. "I admit I don't know what this is about, but it's obviously important. So we'll go, and we'll come back later." "We will?" said Dean again, now sounding gloomy. "Yes, we will," said Neville firmly, took hold of Dean by the back of his pajama top, and marched him towards the door. After a moment Seamus, having cast a considering look at Draco and Harry, followed them. They all three went out, and the door shut behind them.
"Typical," said Draco, turning back to Harry. "No Slytherin would give up a night's sleep just so his dorm mate could work out his interpersonal problems." "It doesn't matter," said Harry, still feeling bone-weary, "just tell me whatever the hell you came here to tell me, and go away." "I already told you," said Draco, crossing his arms across his chest, "and you didn't believe me." "Because I -" "Which," Draco went on as if Harry hadn't spoken, "considering I'm the one person in the world who cannot lie to you, is pretty damn ironic." Harry paused. There was a note of sharp bitterness in Draco's voice that Harry had rarely heard there. "How," he began, and paused again something seemed to have caught in his throat - "how do you know they aren't - that it's not true?" Draco sighed, and looked down at Harry. Had Harry been in another mood, he would have noticed how tired and drawn the other boy looked: his eyes swam in blue hollows, and there were dark lines of strain by his mouth. "I can tell you so you'll have to believe me -" "No. No. I don't want anyone else in my head." "Fine, then." Draco sat down on the trunk at the foot of Harry's bed. "I know because I saw it for myself, all right? I saw Ron with the girl he thought was Hermione. Of course, it wasn't Hermione. You know how I know that? Because the actual Hermione was standing next to me at the time." Draco gave a short bark of laughter and looked up at the ceiling. "You honestly think she'd ever do that to you?" he demanded. "You honestly think she'd even want to?" Harry looked at him, but he was hearing Ron's voice in his head. I'm in love with Hermione, and she's in love with me. "And you're so sure..." "Of course I'm sure. I told you why I'm sure. I'm absolutely, utterly sure. Ron's been shagging someone, but it isn't and never was Hermione.
Someone's playing bloody tricks on all of you, I promise you that. Now do you believe me?" Harry looked down at his hands, and said nothing. He wondered when he had started biting his nails again. Bitten they certainly were, down to the bloody cuticles. He curled his fingers in protectively against his palms. Draco's voice tightened. "Potter? Why would I lie?" "You might," Harry said. "If she asked you to." The whiplash crack of the other boy's anger struck Harry like a blow, even though he had closed his mind off as best he could. He flinched back as Draco's inner voice cut into his thoughts, And would I lie if you asked me to? Is that what I do - lie at the behest of others? Have I so little will of my own? "Don't." Harry scrambled to his feet, his hands fisted at his sides.
I'm telling you what I saw! The girl he thought was Hermione, wasn't Hermione. I don't know who she was -"Stop it!" Draco nearly tipped off the trunk in exasperation. "I'm telling you! I saw it for myself! Why can't you listen? Isn't this what you want to hear?" "It's exactly what I want to hear!" Harry shouted back. "That's why I can't listen!" He spun away from Draco, and faced the wall. There was a tightness in his chest, as if something was constricting his breathing. A yell of anger was pressing against the inside of his ribcage, choking him, struggling to get out. "I don't trust this," he said. "I can't trust this. I don't trust anything any more." "She never lied to you -" "He did, then." Harry stayed where he was, staring at the wall. "What about Ron?" There was a long silence. When Draco spoke, finally, it was in a low voice. "I'm sorry about that, Harry."
Harry noted, vaguely, the use of his given name. He supposed it ought to make him feel more kindly towards Draco. It didn't. Rage was beginning to crash against the inside of his head, in rhythmic waves like the ocean crashing against the shore. "You didn't really think about that, did you," Harry said in a hissing half-whisper. "You never even tried to like him, or treat him kindly, not even for my sake. I bet all this makes you glad." He spun around then, and glared at Draco, who had gone a chalky sort of color and looked appalled. "How am I supposed to believe what you say, when you'd never let yourself believe she'd do that - not for a second. Because you could stand to see her with me, but you could never stand to see her with Ron. Maybe you even like her being with me, because it's the closest you'll ever get to being with her yourself. But Ron, you've always hated him, you think he's beneath you -- you always have - she'd be dirty if she let Ron touch her - admit it! Admit you felt that way! -- and maybe if you didn't, maybe if I hadn't let you treat him like that, he wouldn't have felt like I wasn't his friend any more! Like I picked you over him! And I never picked you, Malfoy -- I never picked you! Whatever there is between us, it was forced on me -- I never wanted it!" His voice broke on a half-shout, and cracked, although he was not crying. He felt a bleak triumph. He had been hurt, and terribly. He wanted to hurt someone back. And judging from the way Draco had flinched away from him, he was succeeding in doing just that. "I never got a choice," he said again, harshly - and then broke off, staring at the other boy. Draco's eyes were huge in his white face, huge and startled. He looked very like a child who has reached for a parent's hand, only to be slapped away with no explanation. And Harry fell silent, realizing suddenly that he had hurt Draco nearly as much as he had been hurt himself. More, perhaps. The feeling of satisfaction vanished instantly. "Malfoy, I -" But Draco was on his feet, backing away from Harry's outstretched hand. "Fuck you, then, Potter," he said, his voice a serrated dagger of ice. "You want me to leave you alone? Consider yourself left. Stay here and rot, for all I care. Ruin everyone's life. Ruin your own --" He broke off, as if he couldn't stand to look at Harry any more - spun around on his heel, and stalked to the door and out of it, slamming it hard behind him. *** "Ginny, I have to talk to you."
She looked up from Passionate Trousers, and to her surprise saw Seamus, coming down the boys' staircase. He was wearing a dark cloak, thrown over a pair of red and white striped pajamas. His feet were bare. She set her book down on the table beside her. "Seamus...what are you doing awake?" "Hey." He sat down next to her, and in a very uncharacteristic gesture, put a hand on her wrist. She looked at him in surprise. His dark blue eyes held a troubled, anxious look. The firelight behind him turned the edges of his light hair to a fringe of pale gold: a faint halo. "I went to your room, you know...woke up Elizabeth and Ashley. They said you were here, reading." "And here I am," she said. "What's going on, Seamus? You're scaring me." He told her. Somewhere in the middle of the explanation, Passionate Trousers fell off her lap and hit the floor with a bang. Ginny stayed where she was, rooted to the spot, staring at Seamus with awful amazement. "How..." she whispered finally. "How do you know?" "I bumped into Hermione in the hallway when I left," he said. "She explained...she asked me to explain it to you." He bit his lip. "Ginny...." She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp. "I can't believe this! I can't believe it! It's - it's - it's so unfair!" Seamus looked at her in surprise. "Unfair?" "Everyone falls in love with Hermione! Everyone!" Ginny leapt up out of her chair, picked up the poker she'd been using to stir the fire, and flung it at the grate. It hit the metal with a clang, and bounced off. Seamus winced. "First Harry, then Draco, now my own brother...." She whirled on Seamus, who was slumped down in the armchair, staring at her. "Who's next? You?" Seamus looked justifiably startled. "I'm not in love with Hermione."
Ginny put her hands on her hips. She realized she was being ridiculous, but didn't seem able to stop. "Why not?" "Why not?" Seamus looked even more startled. "Because I'm not!" "That's not an answer!" she snapped, and crossed her arms over her chest. Seamus looked exasperated. "I don't know, Ginny...she's Harry's girlfriend, isn't she?' "Well, isn't she pretty?" Ginny demanded. "Of course she's pretty." "Isn't she nice?" "She is, at that," Seamus replied, with a brief flash of a smile. "And isn't she clever?" "Of course she's clever...it's a bit intimidating, really." "Oh, so is that why you like me? Because I'm not that clever?" Ginny raged. "Because I don't intimidate you?" Seamus looked terrified. "No, not at all -" "Well, then what? Is there something wrong with her?" Seamus cast a hunted look towards the stairs. "I think I'll go back to the dorm," he said. "There may be glass flying around, but it's a bit more peaceful up there." Ginny stamped her foot. "So what's the problem with her then? Not good enough for you?" "What? Nothing's wrong with her, Ginny --" "Why aren't you in love with her, then?" Seamus, finally, lost his temper. "Because!" he shouted. "I'm in love with you!"
Ginny stared at him. He stared back, looking astonished, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just said. Neither could Ginny quite believe it. She'd dreamed of having a boy tell her that. What girl her age had not? But it had never been like this in her mind - the words had never been shouted - the eyes gazing into hers had never been blue. Blue was the color of her brothers' eyes: the color of steadiness and dependability and kindness, not of passion or romantic love. She thought suddenly and irrelevantly of Tom. She could no longer remember the color of his eyes, although she knew they had not been blue. They had been green...or was it that they had been gray, was that why she loved gray eyes, that bitter-cold color that said so little and hid so much? "Oh," she said into the silence. "Seamus, I...." Her voice trailed off. He was sitting, looking at her very steadily, his hands in his lap. The firelight played shadows over his just-mended, bruiseless pale skin, the strong straight nose, the lightly freckled arc of his cheekbones. He was handsome the way picture-book heroes were handsome - he looked like he ought to be slaying a dragon with one hand, and carting off a fainting maiden with the other. And yet his handsomeness didn't touch her - not the way Harry's melancholy-prince looks had touched her once, or Draco's fallen-angel beauty, or Tom's.... She shook off thoughts of Tom. "Oh," she said again, softly, and then, to her own great surprise, she added, "I have to go find him." Seamus' eyes widened. "Find who? Harry?" "No - my brother." "Ginny -" "I can't now, Seamus," she interrupted. "I need to find Ron." Seamus nodded without looking at her. "I saw him come up the back stairs and go into his room." "How did he seem? Was he all right?" "All right? - no," he said, and then at her expression, amended himself. "He looked pretty devastated. But physically, yes, he looked fine."
She sighed - in relief, in fear, in despair, she didn't know. She went to Seamus then, and kissed his cheek, and he let her. But he did not look at her. "Thank you," she said. He didn't reply, and Ginny did not stay to ask him why. She made a beeline for the boys' staircase, all her thoughts now focused on her brother. *** Draco ran down the front steps of the castle and out onto the snowy path without looking where he was going. He shivered, but did not stop walking - it was an icy night, and he had not brought his cloak. Throwing his head back, he stared up at the sky - it arced above in black and silver, the moonlight a steel-colored shriek raining shards of light down onto the snow. For the first time in days, there were clouds: heavy as blocks, they seemed about to collide with each other. He wondered if that meant it was going to snow again soon. He had reached the bottom of the path, where the Quidditch pitch was, and veered off sharply towards the right, alongside the Forbidden Forest. Some part of him knew he was following a route that Rhysenn had set for him, that he had often followed to meet her. He did not think about why he was going this way: he wanted to be alone, he wanted to be far from the castle, and he wanted...what did he want? He was at the low wall now, that ran perpendicular to the forest's border. He leaped over it and landed on the other side, silent as a cat in the deep snow. This was where he had met her all those weeks ago, that night he had bumped into Harry and they'd gone to get drunk in Hogsmeade. His boots sank up to the ankles in the snow as he took a few steps forward into the clearing, and paused. He stood there for a moment, gasping in lungfuls of icy air, trying to still the pounding of his heart. There was no way for him to know it, but the same thoughts that had run through Harry's mind earlier, in the dark, ran through Draco's now. Inside him, too, was the same lion on a chain, and its roaring was loud in his ears. Iron control had been drilled into him since he was a child - hours spent locked in dark places, waiting for his father, hours spent in enforced silence without speaking. Over his emotions he had laid his own will, like heavy bars of steel, keeping everything contained. And yet....he visualized for a moment the steel bars snapping, the rage and grief inside him
breaking free, how he could tear down the trees with the force of his anger, crack the world in half. But of course he could do none of those things, not in reality. Instead, like a petulant child, he flung himself face-down in the snow, and buried his head in his arms. The cold bit into him instantly; the snow freezing under his body, his bare hands. He ignored it, hearing his own voice in his ears. Stay here and rot, for all I care. Ruin everyone's life. Ruin your own! It was better, still, than hearing the things Harry had said to him. Horrible things. Not that no one had ever flung insults at him before, but it was worse, coming from Harry. Especially since he suspected that Harry had been right about most of what he'd said. "Draco?' said a voice in his ear. "What are you doing? Did you fall out of a tree?" He knew that voice. He supposed he should not be surprised that she was here, but he burrowed his head further into his arms anyway, willing her to go away. She didn't. "Poor baby boy," she said, her voice lilting with amusement. Her breath tickled the back of his neck, and when she spoke again it was in a theatrical tone. "How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer son of the morning?" Draco sighed, and rolled over on his back. Rhysenn was kneeling above him, her hair tumbling down, a tent of black silk around them both. She was cloakless, her shoulders bare and white under the moonlight. Draco spat snow out of his mouth, and sat up. "I'm hardly an angel," he said. "Maybe a fallen one," she said, and smiled. "Now get up." She stood, in a rustle of silk, and he got to his feet as well, mostly because he didn't want her standing over him. He had been right, she wore no coat, or any covering against the cold. She was dressed in black with her black hair loose down her back. Her feet, where the black dress ended, were bare on the snow, and where she walked, they left no marks behind
them. The bodice of her dress was tightly corseted and above it her breasts and shoulders were very white.
"It is going to snow," she said. "Why did you summon me here, when it is going to snow?"
He looked at her, breathing hard, as if he had been running - he was exhausted. "I did not summon you here," he said. "I heard you crying out for me." She made a little pirouette, her skirt flying out, and suddenly her clothes had changed - now she was wearing a French maid's outfit, complete with fishnet stockings, a feather duster, and a peaked cap. "I came as soon as I could." Draco blinked at her, and took a step back. "So you came here to help me?" She lowered her eyes. "Of course I did." "Good. I know exactly what you can do to help me, then." She looked up inquiringly. "You take messages from my father, to me," he said. "I know you do. Now I want you to take a message back." "Back?" she laughed. "I do not take messages back." "You'll take this one," he said, and there was something in his voice that made her look at him sharply. "Tell him," Draco said, "tell the Dark Lord, and my father too, that I know that they had something to do with what happened tonight. They did this. And I will find out why, and how, and they will regret what they have done. They will regret what they did to my friends." He paused. "I will make them pay for it." Rhysenn smiled her cool little smile. "Is there any more to that speech?" she asked. "You could add a bit about drowning them in their own blood, or some stuff about cold vengeance - up to you of course." Draco's voice was clipped. "No, I think it's fine as is, thanks." "It's just a long list of unspecific threats," said Rhysenn, sounding disappointed. "Honestly, if you could add something about ripping out their spinal columns, or roasting them over an ever-burning fire of pitch and molten lava..." "No," said Draco, coldly. "Oh all right." Rhysenn looked vexed. "But it's a very boring message, if you want my opinion."
"The only thing I want less than I want your opinion, is syphilis," said Draco pleasantly. "Well, your father won't like it." "Fine. I don't like him." "But he's your father." "So he is.” Rhysenn pouted. "You're very disagreeable tonight," she said. "What, you didn't think that was funny? I thought it was rather funny. All right, the delivery was a little off, but chalk that up to the freezing temperatures." "It was childish," she snapped. "Why are you in such a difficult mood?" "I've had a hard day," Draco said tightly. "And you, with your ridiculous " he made a vague, irritated gesture in her general direction - "outfits, I mean what the hell do you need a feather duster for, it's ten degrees below zero out and there's nothing to dust!" She looked annoyed. "I suppose you'd like it better if I wore a potato sack?" "Knowing you, it'd be a see-through potato sack." She rolled her eyes. "Well, then. There's always the outfit I wore to charm your little Gryffindor friend. Would you prefer pigtails and knee high stockings?" Draco gave a short bark of laughter. "How do you know that's what Harry prefers?" Her lip curled. "Just look at his girlfriend," she said silkily. "Saddle shoes, cardigan sweaters, short wool skirts. A little girl. So I expect, that's what he wants." Draco's heart thumped hard and sickeningly against the cage of his ribs. It had never occurred to him that she would have seen Hermione, or
noticed her. But of course, she would have. "And what about me?" he asked, trying to change the topic. "What do I want?" She smiled. "Only what you cannot have." "That explains why I don't want you, then." "Oh, very funny." She laughed, and shook her hair back. "You suffer," she said, "I feel it. Perhaps you are foolish to spurn what comfort I might offer you." He looked at her then, as calculatingly as he could, and she looked back at him out of her oddly shaped gray eyes that were like his own. It was strange how she could look quite ordinary from some angles, even ugly, and from others so beautiful that despite his dislike of her he felt his own awareness of her beauty strike through him like a note of music sounded through the depths of sleep. "You offer me nothing," he said. "You never try with me, not like you try with Harry. Why not?" She stepped away from him. "Are you insulted?" "No." It was true. "Just curious." She shrugged. "Why do you think?" "I think my father told you to stay away from me," he said. "Apparently Harry's another matter." "What I choose to do with Harry, or he with me, is hardly your concern," she said lightly. "I don't think he's choosing anything," Draco said bluntly. "If he was, he wouldn't go near you. And what do you want from him?" "Maybe I just like him," she said with another smile. "A seventeen-year old virgin with skinny chicken legs? I somehow doubt that." Rhysenn burst out laughing, and sat down, still gracefully, in the snow. As she sat, her short skirt fell away from her thighs, allowing Draco to see that, distractingly, she was wearing hot pink knickers. On the other hand,
he supposed it could have been worse; she could have been wearing no knickers at all. "Harry's a virgin?" she said. "Oh, that's priceless." Draco suddenly wondered if this had been supposed to be some sort of secret. Then he wondered if it was even true. He'd always assumed, but... "I don't really know," he said, a bit stiffly, feeling somehow that he had lost ground here. "I was just guessing." "That little girlfriend of his must not be much use," said Rhysenn, and there was a cool contempt in her voice that shot a bolt of ice up his spine. "Leave her out of this," he said, his tone clipped. "As a matter of fact, leave them both out of this. Stay away from Harry from now on." "But I like him." "No, you don't. You just want something from him. Well, too bad. He's been through enough." "Oh, I don't know," she said, tilting her head back as if she were bathing in the light of the moon. "I think you underestimate him. All that untapped power, it's attractive. And empirically of course - those eyes, that hair. He's very appealing on his own merits." "That's great," Draco said. "I meant what I said. Stay away from him." "Don't tell me you can't see it," Rhysenn said, tracing lines in the snow with a bare toe. "I so enjoyed watching you two fight just now... all that delicious tension. Tell me you didn't enjoy manhandling him about just a little bit." Draco looked at her as if she had sprouted an eleventh toe. "You're a very strange woman." She shrugged voluptuously. "You're fond of him," she said, "so why not?" "I-" Draco spluttered, then paused. "You just really don't understand people, do you?" he said, sounding weary. "Have you never had a human emotion, or was it just so long ago that you forgot?"
An odd flicker came and went behind her eyes, and for a moment she looked almost angry. Then her expression smoothed itself out into a mocking half-smile. "I would have thought Lucius would have told you that it's hardly good manners to mention a lady's age like that," she said. "He said I shouldn't mention a lady's age, sure," said Draco, finally fed up. "I don't remembering him saying anything about demon bitches from hell." She leapt to her feet, her eyes flashing. "How dare you," she said, and he shrank back - she seemed suddenly to tower above him, her eyes flashing, her hair whipped by an invisible wind. She came towards him and it took all his self-control not to step away. "Stupid child," she said, and her face had taken on the narrow, predatory look of a veela's. "Stupid, impatient little boy." "I am not a child," he said hotly. "Oh, you are," she said. "So painfully young, and that is why it is so sad," and she took his face between her long and narrow hands, not sounding sad at all. He did not move away - could not move away. "Are you cold?" she whispered, and her breath stirred the hair at his temples. "Not now, but always? Do you wake up freezing from nightmares you cannot remember? Does your breath come short, does your heart pain you when you breathe? Does your vision begin to blur?" Her hand slid to cup his chin, and she drew his face up, until he met her gray gaze with his own. My sick and beautiful angel-boy," she said, and her voice was like liquid silver. "Too pretty to go mad or blind, and die of it...but it is long past stopping, now." "Die of what?" Draco said, and he heard the note of blind panic in his own voice. "What's long past stopping?" She took her hands from his face and stepped back from him. "If you cannot guess, you will know soon enough," she said, and smiled like a devilish angel.
What is wrong with me? he wanted to ask her, Am I ill, and how ill am I? -but he knew that if he did, she would respond teasingly, with more questions; so instead he turned, and took a few steps away from her. It seemed to him that the horizon had lightened, a paler pewter blue ribbon
between the black earth and the blacker clouds overhead. "Please leave him alone," he said, finally, without looking back at her. "Leave us alone." He waited, but she did not reply. When he finally turned, she was, as he had known she would be, gone; the snow underfoot showed no marks at all where she had walked. *** "Mundungus," he said, and the portrait door opened. Draco paused a moment to admire the irony of the fact that he now knew the Gryffindor password. Years ago, he would have paid good Galleons to know it. Now, it seemed trivial. He stepped into the Common Room and the portrait swung shut behind him. The room was not empty: someone was standing over by one of the overstuffed armchairs, apparently putting something into a pocket. He knew immediately it was Ginny, even before she turned around, knew from the flaming-red hair that was currently screwed into a topknot at the back of her head. Curling tendrils escaped and wound around her face like licks of fire. She looked harried. "Draco, what are you doing here?" "Delighted to see you too," he replied. "Nice pajamas." She glanced down at her kitten-printed flannel pajamas, and pulled her robe closed around her. "Where's Harry?" she said. "Not the faintest idea," said Draco. "Don't care either." "What are you doing here, then?" "Came to see Hermione," Draco said, rather shortly. "Unless you have a problem with that." Ginny gave him an extremely superior look, as if he were a troublesome toddler. "I don't," she said. "But Hermione might." Draco looked at her narrowly. "Meaning...?"
"Meaning Harry went to talk to her about a half hour ago, and she slammed the door in his face," Ginny said. "Then he took his cloak and left, and I haven't seen him since." "Good for her," said Draco shortly. "Best thing for him." Ginny looked very taken aback. "What on earth do you mean?" Draco frowned at her and stalked over to the fireplace. There was a poker lying beside the grate; he bent and picked it up, and prodded moodily at the glowing coals with the pointed end. "Harry needs to grow up," he said. "He's acted like a complete arse, and he might as well know it. The only thing that might do him the blindest bit of good at this point would be if she kicked him down the front staircase and he bounced down every single step." "That sounds possibly fatal," said Ginny. "Ah, well," said Draco, and prodded savagely at a coal. "You win some, you lose some." There was a short silence. Draco raised his eyes to Ginny, expecting her to look angry, or appalled, or disgusted with him. Instead she looked merely sad. "I take it he got angry at you," she said. "You could say that," Draco said, hearing the acid in his own voice. "He accused me of lying to him, and despising his best friend, and basically causing all this, which I apparently did by being a selfish, overbearing, snobbish and despicable bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help, and he indicated that he might perhaps feel a bit better if I were to swallow six pounds of lead and throw myself into the lake. So I left." "Ah," said Ginny thoughtfully. "The lake's frozen over, you know." "Thank you, I can always trust you to cut to the heart of the matter." Ginny pushed a lock of red hair back from her eyes, and sighed. "I thought you couldn't lie to him," she said. "Not...mentally."
"Yeah, well," said Draco, in a flat voice, "He blocked me. I couldn't reach him at all." "Nobody could have," she said gently, and put a hand on his shoulder. The contact was strangely comforting, perhaps because he was so cold and her hand was warm. "You have to go find him." "I don't have to do anything," Draco said. "Except, possibly, go back to my room, get unbelievably pissed on Archenland wine, and sleep until the middle of next week. Maybe when I wake up, the Boy Who Lived will have sorted out his hellishly complex love life without my assistance." "Without your assistance," Ginny said in a quiet voice, "he'd be dead." Something half-remembered from a dream chimed inside Draco's head, and he laughed, not happily. "He won't die of this. It's just a broken heart." "I don't mean this. I mean all the other times you saved his life." "Well, I'm glad you remember them," said Draco, and his voice was colder than the ice forming on the windowpanes. "Because I don't think he does." "Don't be ridiculous." "What would you know about it?" Draco said, and instantly regretted having said it. She looked startled, then hurt, and then annoyed. He didn't blame her. "So what are you going to do, then?" she demanded sharply. "Go back to bed and see if you can sleep? I'm betting you can't. Not knowing that he's somewhere, needing you, and you didn't go and help him." "He doesn't need me," Draco said. "I think he made that pretty clear." Ginny sniffed. "You're scared," she said in a superior tone. "What do you mean, scared?" "As in 'frightened.'" "Thank you. That clears it up nicely. Frightened of what?"
"Of feeling anything," she snapped back. "Caring about people makes you vulnerable, and you hate that. You need Harry, and whatever you might think, he needs you. And he's all alone right now, and he's more miserable than he's ever been in his whole life, and so what if he yelled at you? So damn what? Like he hasn't forgiven you for worse. When you were injured, when that arrow hit you, I've never seen anyone as upset as he was. And then he slept on the floor of the infirmary all night, remember? Or don't you? So whatever this massive poncy diva sulk of yours was inspired by, let it go. It doesn't matter. Spank your inner child, stiff upper lip, shut your eyes and think about your country - I don't care what you have to do. Just do it, and go out there, and find Harry, because I'm worried sick about him and you should be too." Draco looked at her narrowly. She was slightly out of breath now, and flushed, her cheeks bright pink. "You done?" he asked. She set her chin. "Don't I seem done?" "Hard to tell with you. Sometimes you get a second wind." "Not this time," she said severely. "So are you going to go?" Draco leaned the poker against the mantel, and paused for a moment. "Let me ask you something." "What?" "Why don't you go, if you're so worried about him being alone?" Ginny sighed. "Because I have to stay here," she said. "I actually just came down here to get my book, and then I was going to go back and sit with Ron. I have to take care of my brother," she added, looking down at the book in her hands, and then back up at him. "And you should go take care of yours." Draco looked at her - she was still pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, and in her kitten-print pajamas looked like a little girl, although she most manifestly wasn't. "I don't even know where to look," he said in a low voice. "I can't....find him."
Ginny shook her head, without looking at him - she seemed to be glancing around the room to see if she had forgotten anything. "Of course you can find him," she said. "Not everyone has telepathy to rely on, you know. Sometimes all you have is how well you know the other person, and you know him better than anyone. Where would he go?" He felt something loosen in his chest at her words - she was right. As a matter of fact, he had a fairly good idea exactly where Harry would have gone. "I wouldn't know what to say to him." "You'll think of something," Ginny said, extinguishing the last lit candle with a pinch of her fingers. Now there was only the fire for illumination. It turned the edges of her hair to candleflame. "I have faith in you." He almost laughed. "Well, that sets you apart from the masses, doesn't it," he said. "Maybe," she said. "Don't tell anyone." "Any other dark secrets I should know about?" She looked thoughtful. "Well, I can eat an entire ice cream sundae without using my hands." "Really?" Draco asked. The side of her mouth curled up. "Really. Now, go on - I have to get back upstairs." He nodded. "Okay. And ... thanks." "What are friends for," she said lightly. "I wouldn't know," Draco said. "I think that's maybe why I..." He trailed off, unable to formulate the statement properly. Ginny smiled at him, a little sadly. "You want to know what I think? I think you don't know a good thing when you have it," she said, "that's what I think," and she disappeared back up the stairs.
***
By the time Draco found the room again, through some amount of trial and error, it was full morning. Night had passed like a wheel turning, and in his exhaustion, the corridor walls and even the floor beneath his feet seemed to shimmer in the pale gray light. He knew where he was going. A dark room, not that far from the main staircase, a room filled with old furniture and dusty unused books. And on the wall, a mirror framed in tarnished gold, a mirror he had never looked in. I show you not your face, but your heart's desire. He had been there once, and walked out - it was not a place that figured happily in his memories. But for Harry, it would be different. That he knew. Standing by the lake, drenched in rain, that afternoon, he had felt what Harry was feeling as if it were water pouring through a sluice gate that could not be closed. Harry's happiness had layered itself over his own pain until he was no longer sure exactly what he was feeling, his emotions wavering light and dark like a Flickering Charm: happy/sad happy/sad happy/sad. He had put his hands over his ears and slid down the trunk of the tree, waiting for it to be over. He was not used to feeling with such intensity: not such happiness, nor such misery. It was like bleeding to death.
And I'm here. He remembered the door now, the corridor outside. It had been wide open that day, now it was open only a crack. He put a hand on it, pushed it wide, and stepped into the room. The pale dawn light drowned the walls of the room in silver. The furniture, shrouded in white sheeted coverings, looked like icebergs looming up out of the grayish darkness as Draco navigated his way across the room. Through the bay window in the east wall, he could see the world outside: white sky, white snow, the slender penciled shapes of winter trees. And on the window ledge sat Harry. He had his legs drawn up, his hands clasped loosely across his knees. He was looking out the window, and the faint light chased the planes of his face with silver. As Draco approached, Harry turned and looked at him. He seemed unsurprised to see him there, or if he was, Draco couldn't tell. Harry's face was a mask.
The two boys looked at each other across the dark space that separated them, as if they faced each other across a Quidditch pitch. Had the mirror on the wall been a true mirror, it would have cast back a curious reflection: the two boys both the same height, the same slenderness, one so fair and one so dark, one in black and one in white. Some odd tableau of perfect opposites seemed to be being enacted. No living soul could have failed to notice it, but there were no other souls in the room, and Harry and Draco could not see themselves. "I thought you'd come," Harry said. Draco hesitated. A bitter voice spoke in the back of his head, wanting to snap back at Harry, Why did you think I would come? Because I have nothing better to do, because I follow you, pathetically, believing in our friendship, while you call me a liar to my face? But another voice shouted that voice down. Oddly, it was Sirius' words, words he had spoken months ago... I would forgive you if my forgiveness were required... The things we do for love, those things endure. "Well," Draco said. "I'm here." "I see that," Harry said. "How did you find me?" Draco glanced around the shadowed room, and back at Harry. "I thought you'd come here." "Because?" "It's what I would do." Harry looked down at his hands. When he spoke, his voice was rapid. "I'm sorry." Feeling suddenly exhausted, Draco leaned against one of the sheeted white pieces of furniture. He suspected from its shape that it was an ottoman. "Sorry for what?" "For what I said." Harry's voice was deadly quiet. "All of it."
"Even the part where you said, 'Hey, Malfoy, what're you doing here?" Draco asked, but Harry didn't crack even a slight smile. The faintness of the light smoothed the lines of strain from his face, made him look younger, a solemn-faced child. "I hate everyone right now," Harry said. His voice was still even. "I looked at you, up there in the dorm room, and I hated you too." "I know," Draco said. "It's okay." "It's not okay." Harry took a ragged breath. "I've got no reason to hate you. You were just trying to help." "Don't," Draco said, and straightened up. He began to cross the room towards Harry, who was still looking down at his hands with that same look he had worn in the graveyard: that look like blindness, as if were seeing through this world to another and terrible place beyond. "I wanted to hurt you," Harry said. "I had to keep my mind locked down so I wouldn't hurt you." It occurred to Draco to remark that Harry had managed to hurt him just fine anyway, but that seemed a childish and petty thing to say. Most of his anger was gone, now that he had seen Harry; he felt only terribly exhausted and horribly sad. "You apologized," he said, "does that mean that you believe me now?" Harry nodded, ever so slightly. I believe you now, he said, and Draco almost jumped at the unexpected contact. Some part of me believed you then, but I didn't want to admit it.
Why not? Doesn't it make things easier? She still...loves you. Except that she hates me. Harry unclasped his hands from around his knees and swung to face Draco, dangling his legs over the side of the window sill. And not without good reason. I was horrible to her. I wouldn't forgive me, either. She'll forgive you, Draco replied. She'll understand.
How can she understand when I don't understand? I don't understand what happened, and I don't understand why I never noticed anything, and I don't understand why Ron would...Harry raised his eyes to Draco's; in the half-light, they were black. Do you? Understand what happened? No, although I have my guesses, Draco replied. Do I understand why Weasley did what he did? Yeah. I think I do. I also think I'm not the best person to explain it to you. Harry's mouth tensed. Why not? Because I hate him for what he did, Draco said flatly. And a big part of me wants you to hate him too, but my reasons for that are selfish reasons, and I know that. There was a short silence and then Harry, apparently having decided that pressing Draco on this point would be a bad idea, nodded again, and scooted sideways on the window sill. Draco accepted the unspoken invitation and went to sit beside Harry. They sat for a while without speaking, in neither a companionable nor an awkward silence - Draco felt it was somehow a watchful silence, as if he were waiting for Harry to reach some sort of conclusion. He sat where he was as the sky outside the window lightened and lightened, the clouds parting to reveal strips of silvery gray sky. The light began to spill into the room, turning the mirror on the far wall into a gleaming sequin, starring Harry's pitch-black hair with jewelry light. The light showed, as well, the lines by the side of his mouth, the mother-of-pearl half circles under his eyes. He held out his hand, and for a moment Draco just looked at it, unsure what Harry wanted. It was his right hand, and along the flat palm the thin zigzag scar shone like silver wire. He turned his own hand over to see the counterpart scar there, and flinched in shock when Harry took the hand he had extended, and held it tightly. Draco looked at Harry in surprise. He had always watched Harry and Ron with wonder and some envy of their easy physical camaraderie - the pats on the back, the hugs when they won a Quidditch match, how Ron would hold Harry up if he was laughing too hard to stand, or casually shove him while they were walking, and catch him when he fell. He and Harry had none of that: they touched each other only in extreme circumstances, and
then it was a light brush on the shoulder, a tap on the wrist. Even when he'd thought Harry was dying, he had not touched him. The pressure on his hand increased, and he flinched, because now it hurt. Harry was less holding his hand then crushing it, his grip so tight that Draco could feel the bones of his fingers grind together. He winced but didn't move. Harry's grip grew tighter and tighter until Draco thought he could no longer keep from exclaiming at the pain, and then Harry let go. Draco took his hand back, and looked at it with trepidation. He half expected to encounter a shapeless blob of crushed flesh, but his hand looked the same. He wiggled his fingers. They worked. "Ouch," he remarked conversationally. "So you've decided to blame my hand, then?" Harry blinked for a moment, as if waking up out of some kind of dream. "Sorry. Did that hurt?" "Does Professor Sinistra want into Charlie's pants?" Harry blinked again. "I don't know, does she?" "You don't pay attention to anything at this school, do you, Potter?" "I don't follow every tedious bit of gossip, if that's what you mean." "There's nothing tedious about gossip." "Oh blah blah, Dean's dating Eloise, Parvati's marrying a Death Eater's son, Blaise is fooling around with Malcolm behind your back..." Draco almost fell off the windowsill. "Blaise is fooling around with Malcolm behind my back?" Harry looked worried. "I figured you knew. Everyone knows." Draco was speechless. "Oh, dear," said Harry, looking, if possible, even more wretched. Draco recovered himself, and snorted. "Don't worry about it. I don't care." "I know you don't," Harry said. "I wish..."
"You wish what?" "That I could be a bit more like you," Harry said. "I mean, not in most respects of course. But it'd be nice not to care." "Not caring's overrated," Draco said. The idea of a Harry who didn't care was foreign and somewhat bothersome to him. "Anyway, on that topic, have you decided what to do about Hermione?" "I guess I'd better talk to her," Harry said. "Only I don't know what to say." "Far be it from me to tell anyone to apologize," Draco said. "because, myself, I'd rather be chewed apart by rabid weasels. Then again, I've never been a git like you were last night." "That is such a lie," Harry began indignantly, then paused. "Right, you're just winding me up. Okay, so I was a git." "Yes, you were. You were a git of epic proportions. You were such a git, they should name a town after you. Dorksville springs instantly to mind. Or, perhaps, Little Wankerton. I suspect that one's not taken." "Argh," said Harry. "Let me alone. Crushed, fragile ego, remember?" "I decided a tough love approach might work wonders here," Draco replied. "Because frankly all the intensive moping and 'death, death, oh welcome death' stuff is starting to get on my nerves." "Then what's your advice?" "Well," Draco said thoughtfully. "If I were you, which thankfully, I'm not, I would recommend that you recognize the fact that Hermione's about six times smarter than you, or me either for that matter, and therefore you should be honest with her. Because if you aren't, she'll see right through you anyway." "Be honest? That's your advice?"
"Well, take a whack at it. If that doesn't work, groveling makes a solid backup plan. Then again, why are you asking me? I'm not the one with the girlfriend." "You have a girlfriend," Harry said. "Not any more," said Draco, and hopped down off the window sill. "Look, try again with Hermione today, and if she still slams the door on you, I'll talk to her." "Thanks," Harry said, a little stiffly. Draco could tell that he loathed the thought that Draco could talk to Hermione and he couldn't. On the other hand, he was biting it back, which Draco appreciated. "I have to get some sleep," Draco said. It was true. Exhaustion seemed to be drizzling through his bone marrow like cold water. Harry was starting to look very blurry indeed and he could hear his own pulse beating in his ears. "Will you be all right?" "I'll be all right," Harry said. He caught Draco's expression, and almost smiled. "I'll be fine. You look knackered, Malfoy. Go to bed." Draco was halfway to the door when Harry spoke again, and Draco turned around instantly, wondering if Harry was calling him back. He wasn't: he was standing now, obviously getting ready to leave as well, but he had paused, one hand on the window sill. "Malfoy?" "Yes?" "Who do you think she is?" Draco knew immediately what he meant. "I don't know," he said honestly. "She looked like Hermione. It was a good disguise." "But you have guesses? I know you do." Draco nodded, slightly. The sun had risen outside the window, but there was still no color in Harry's face. He looked wan and ghostly, and Draco was suddenly reminded of the way he had looked second year, when he'd toppled off his broom during a match, and the bone in his arm had broken with a sickening crack. Draco hadn't been at all sorry, but a
certain primal empathy of feeling had made him wince all the same. He remembered Harry's sick, pained, white-faced look then - he looked the same now. "Who hates me that much?" Harry said, and his voice was a little wistful. "To plan something like that?" "If it's any consolation, Potter," said Draco, as gently as he could, "by my calculations, it didn't have anything to do with hating you." *** The sky outside Dumbledore's office window was pale gray, streaked with darker gray clouds. Hermione kept her eyes apathetically fixed on it while she waited for the headmaster to arrive. She was exhausted, having not slept all night, and she felt slightly dizzy. She had been absolutely dreading breakfast, but to her relief, McGonagall had been the first person to knock on her door in the morning, and had requested that she come straight to Dumbledore's office. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Harry had knocked on her door late in the night, and she'd opened the door, taken one look at him, and shut the door in his face.
I know he came to apologize, she thought. She'd seen it in his face. But she hadn't wanted to hear it then. She didn't want to hear it now. She wondered if she ever would. The door opened behind her, and she heard someone come into the room. A throat was cleared, and a voice spoke: it was Dumbledore, as she'd known it would be. "I'm afraid I need to speak with you, Miss Granger." Hermione turned and looked listlessly at the headmaster. "I know, sir." He moved to stand behind his desk, looking very grave indeed. "Please come and sit down, Miss Granger." Hermione nodded. She had no idea how much the professors knew about the events of the night before. A great deal, she imagined - she'd seen it in McGonagall's face, and saw it now in Dumbledore's. At another time this would have withered her with humiliation, but now she was beyond the point of caring. She went towards the seat that Dumbledore had indicated, in front of his desk, and sat down, clasping her hands in her lap. "What did you want to talk to me about, Professor?" she asked.
Dumbledore took the seat behind his desk, and regarded her gravely over the top of his gold-rimmed spectacles. "A rather serious matter, I'm afraid," he said gently. "Normally I would not call you in to discuss the private business of another student, even a close personal friend of yours..." "I know," she interrupted, her own voice sounding a little desperate in her ears. She kept her eyes fixed on his desk : "You want to talk to me about Harry." There was a short silence. Hermione kept her eyes fixed on Dumbledore's desk: Finally, he spoke, still gently, "No, Miss Granger. I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Weasley." She raised her eyes slowly, and the compassionate kindness she saw in his expression almost undid her. "About Ron?" she whispered. He nodded. "Mr. Weasley has left us," he said. For a brief and bizarre moment, Hermione thought that he meant that Ron was dead. The room seemed to tilt crazily around her, and she grabbed tightly at the arms of her chair. "He's what?" "He has resigned as Head Boy," said Dumbledore. He glanced down, and she followed his gaze. Only then did she realize that the shiny square she had noted earlier was a badge...Ron's Head Boy badge, to be precise. It was upside-down, and she could see the inscribed lettering where his name was printed, backwards. "He has left Hogwarts." "Left school? But how could he..." "Classes are over for this term," Dumbledore said. "I could compel him to stay, if I wished. But I saw no point in it. I hope he will want to return, once the holidays are over..." "No," Hermione whispered, staring at the silver badge on the desk. "He can't have left, he can't -" "Miss Granger, I had hoped that we could discuss the fact that, since there is no longer an acting Head Boy at Hogwarts -"
"No," Hermione said again, and stood up so fast that her chair crashed to the ground. "Headmaster, I - is there any chance he's still here, do you know, has he left yet?" Dumbledore regarded her with cautious alarm, rising from his seat. "He went to clean out his room and to collect his belongings," he began, and might have added something else, but Hermione did not wait to hear it. She turned on her heel, and ran out of the room, leaving Dumbledore staring after her. *** The door to Ron's room was closed, but not locked. Hermione flung it open, and stepped inside. Her heart sank. The room was bare. The Chudley Cannons posters had been stripped down from the walls, the trunk was gone from the foot of the bed, and the school books from the shelf by the door. The patchwork duvet cover Mrs. Weasley had made for Ron fifth year was also gone, and the bed looked as bare and impersonal as a hospital cot. The only sign that Ron Weasley had once lived here was a small object tucked into the frame of the mirror that hung on the wall by the window. Moving slowly, Hermione crossed the room and gently pried the object out of the frame. It was a photograph. Not a wizarding one, but one that had been taken with her own very ordinary Muggle camera, on a delayed timer. It showed herself, in her school robes, standing between Ron and Harry, a hand on each of their shoulders. They all looked well and happy and smiling. Staring at the photo, she felt a fist clench at her heart. Slowly, she set the photograph down on the window sill, and turned away. The door behind her opened. She spun around. She saw a slender white hand on the doorknob, then a bright red head. It was Ginny, and she was talking to someone behind her. "If you want to look one more time to make sure you haven't forgotten anything," she was saying, "then we could..."
Ron, Hermione thought numbly. She stood frozen in place, the rest of Ginny's words lost on her, as Ron came into the room after his sister. Unlike Ginny, he saw her instantly - his eyes went straight to hers across the room, and for a long moment they stared at each other in silence.
"...or you could wait downstairs with the coach driver, and I could look -" "Ginny," said Ron, very quietly. Ginny broke off, and turned to follow his gaze. When she saw Hermione, she paled, but held her ground. "Hi," she whispered. Hermione nodded. She felt unable to force a sound past her tight throat. "I was....Ron and I were just going downstairs," Ginny said. She glanced around quickly, and then back at her brother. "It doesn't look like you left anything behind, we should probably just -" The hitch in Hermione's throat loosened. "You left this," she said, and plucked the photograph from the windowsill. She held it out to Ron, who looked at it, and whitened. "Don't you want it any more?" It was Ginny who moved to take the photo, but Hermione retracted her hand. Ginny looked at her brother, her eyes alight with concern. "Let's it's better if we just go." Hermione bit her lip. "Please," she said imploringly to Ron. "Just talk to me for six minutes, and you can go, I won't ask you again. I promise." Her voice shook. "You owe me six minutes, at least." Ginny looked faintly bewildered. "Six minutes?" But Ron understood, as Hermione had expected he would. "Six years," he said in a remote voice. "One minute for each year we've been friends." Ginny looked even more miserable. "Ron..." But Ron was looking past his sister. "Fine," he said. "Fine. I'll talk to you." Ginny's face fell, and she glanced at her brother, but his mouth was set in a stubborn line. With a resigned shrug, she went to the door. "I'll meet you on the steps," she said to Ron, and went out. The door shut behind her, and Ron and Hermione were alone together in the empty, silent room. Ron crossed his arms over his chest, hugging his elbows as if he were cold. He was staring at a point just past Hermione's left ear, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to look directly at her.
"You can't leave," she said to him. It wasn't what she'd meant to say at all, but there it was. "You can't." He still wouldn't look at her. "I'm leaving," he said. "It's done. And don't tell me I didn't have to resign -" "I'm glad you resigned," she interrupted coldly. "That's not what I mean. You can't leave without talking to Harry." Now he looked at her, his blue eyes gone wide with amazement. "Talk to Harry?" "You owe him an apology at least -" "An apology?" Ron's voice was a slap. "You think this is like that little disagreement we had back in fourth year; you think this is something that can be solved with an apology? Hermione, he hates me now, after what I did." "But you didn't really do it -" "Yes, I did." He was hugging himself again, his knuckles white. "In every way that matters, I did." "Why?" The question she had promised herself she would not ask, burst out of her. "Why did you do it?" He was silent. After a minutes had gone by, he dropped his hands from his elbows, and straightened up. And his eyes met hers. "I thought you loved me," he said. "I thought..." His voice trailed off into silence. She looked at him, seeing as if for the first time how white and drawn he was. His red hair fell in dank tangles over his forehead, his eyes were shadowed with a violet as dark as any of Pansy's horrible eyeshadows. His clothes were crumpled, as if he had slept in them. He looked like someone who had been ill for days. She wanted to hate him and reached for the anger she knew was there, the rage that ticked away just below the numbness that had claimed her thoughts. Instead, she saw a series of images cast like shadows against the walls of her mind.
Ron, on the train to school, eleven years old in threadbare robes. Sitting in class, chewing a quill, a look of intense concentration on his face. Degnoming the Burrow garden with determined glee. Facing down Snape, facing down Sirius Black, teetering on his broken leg, wincing in pain. Soaking wet when Harry dragged him out of the lake. The first time he had kissed her. The way he had looked when he had brought Harry up out of the Bottomless Pit, and Ron had pushed Harry towards her, and then turned away while they embraced. His face in that prison cell under Slytherin's castle, and she wondered again what he had been about to tell her. Her eyes went to his left hand where the hilt of the sword had burned its cross-shaped mark. I want to hate him, she thought, but I can't, any more than Ginny can. He's part of me, my own blood and bone. My childhood. "Of course I love you," she said. "And you love me. And you love Harry, and he...he loves you." Ron winced. "Don't," he said. Hermione ignored him. "And you threw all that away. And for what?" "I don't know." His voice was fierce. "I told you I don't know. I can't explain it. It's like I went mad for a while. It's like I was looking down from some high place, seeing myself do these things, and it seemed right and justified. And I loved you..." He looked away again. "I never have loved anyone else." "You didn't love me. Whoever she was...that's who you loved." "She never existed," Ron said. His voice was bitter. "That's what I think. There never was a girl I loved...just something evil that took the shape of what I wanted." "Like a demon?" Hermione asked, her mind suddenly flipping the pages of her DADA textbook. "Like a succubus?" Ron looked faintly exasperated. "I told you I have no idea." "You spent all that time with her and you never -"
"I thought she was you!" he burst out. "Maybe I'm a fool, and I just saw what I wanted to see, but she did a damn good impression of you, Hermione. She had your mannerisms down - the way you curl your hair around your finger when you're thinking. The way you bite your nails. She had your clothes -" "I know. I saw. My pajamas." Hermione shook her head. "Six years of friendship," she said in an icy voice, "and all it took to convince you was a little bit of nail-biting and a pair of stolen pajamas." Ron made a little gasping sound, as if she'd walloped him in the chest. "Maybe I believed it because I wanted to believe it." "You wanted to believe I'd do that to Harry?" "Not everything," he said in a deadly cold voice, "is about Harry." "Bollocks," she shot back. "This is all about Harry." Ron put a hand up, as if to ward off her rage. "This -- this is why I have to leave." "Why? Because I want you to face what you did? Because I want to know why?" "Yes, because you want to know why. And there is no why." His voice was flat with exhaustion. "I don't have any answers." "You must know why you did it..." "I don't. It seems like a fever dream." His shoulders hunched, and he shoved his hands in his pockets, shivering. "I close my eyes, I see her face. Your face. I was sick all night, thinking about what I did. I've been sick all morning. I've been throwing up till there's nothing left to throw up, and then I throw up again." His eyes were bleak. "I touched her, I spent nights with her, hours and hours talking. It wasn't just sex, you know. We talked, we ate together, we did our Potions homework. And I don't even know who she was. She could have been anyone - anything." He shook his head, and leaned back against the wall. "So don't ask me why I did it - because it's what I've been asking myself, and I still don't know."
"Don't try to tell me how much you're suffering." She heard her own voice in her ears, and was shocked at its cruel tone. "I doubt it could be enough." His mouth hardened. "Let me ask you something, Hermione. If I'm so horrible, if I'm so awful ... then why do you want me to stay?" "Because -- because I can't do this alone." There, she had said it. "I can't." "You can't do what alone?" "Put Harry back together. I..." Ron looked at her blankly, and she bit her lip. "I saw him tonight...just now, and he..." A muscle spasmed next to Ron's mouth. "How did... how did he seem?" Hermione looked away. "Broken," she said. Ron's blue eyes darkened, but when he spoke his voice was steady. "He's been broken for a while now, Hermione," he said. "You never saw it because you didn't want to. That other Hermione...whoever was pretending to be you...she saw it." He looked, then, at the photograph in his hand. Abruptly, he shoved it into his breast pocket. "She saw it better than we did." She looked at him, then turned away quickly and went to the window. She put the palm of her hand against the cold glass, and looked out. The sky was heavy, leadenly gray, the clouds weighted with their freight of incipient snow. The only color in the white expanse of ground before the Forest was a cluster of moving black dots where some students were having a snowball fight. Hermione closed her eyes, remembering Ron's cold hand in hers, her other hand gripping Harry's. Promise me...that we'll always be friends. "He can't be broken," she said, not opening her eyes. "I won't let him be." "And what'll you do if he won't let you fix him?" "That doesn't matter," she said, in the same remote voice. "I'd do anything for Harry. Anything. Even if it made him hate me."
"Would you leave him?" That made her eyes fly open. She stared at Ron, who stared grimly back, his blue eyes steady. "You mean if he wanted me to? If he - despises me now?" "No," said Ron. "Not exactly." He took a few steps towards her, and then, seemingly assured that she was not going to lunge at him and slap him, came to stand beside her. The gray light from the window cast a sickly pallor over his already pale skin. Hermione wished she had a Pepper-up Potion to give him. Then she tried not to wish it. She was, after all, still angry. "Hermione..." He took a deep breath. "I know you won't believe this, because you're too angry, and you - you have every right to be angry. But when I say I don't know why I did it, I mean it. It was like I went mad for those few hours every night. Pieces of my memories come back to me now and they seem like hallucinations - not like dreams, too real and vivid for that, but like waking nightmares. And yet they're memories of happy times. At least, I thought I was happy." "Ron...what are you trying to say?" "That maybe I don't know why I did it because...because I wasn't in control of what I was doing. I know it sounds like an excuse, but I'm not making excuses. I blame myself, I do, but at the same time - at the same time, maybe you're right, and all this really is about Harry. After all, what better way to get at him than through you and me?" "No." Her nails dug into her hands. "Don't say that." "It's true. You know it's true. They used us to get at him." "Who are 'they'?" Ron spun away from her and stared at the wall. "I don't know. But I know I'm right." "Is that why you're leaving?" she asked, in a small thread of a voice. "To keep him safe?" "Maybe. A little bit." He covered his face with his hands. "I don't know. I'd like to think so. But ... I've spent all these months missing him, wondering
where he'd gone, where we went. Us, our friendship. I blamed Malfoy for all of that being lost. But now I wonder." He took his hands away from his face. The redness of his eyelids (so he had been crying) made his eyes look bluer, his face consequently even younger. "I don't think it is Malfoy. I think it's something inside Harry. There's something he's dreading, but he's obsessed with it, too. I just don't know what it is." He looked at her, hard. "Do you?" After a long moment, she shook her head. "No. And I still don't see how you can justify leaving him." "Leaving him?" Ron gave a short bark of almost-laughter. It was the most unhappy sound she had ever heard. "How can I leave him? He's already gone." "You think...you really think...that I'm putting him in danger?" Hermione asked. "I try...I try to protect him, however I can." Ron said, flatly, "You can't do him any good if he won't let you." Hermione looked at him. "Why," she whispered, "do things have to get this bad before we can talk like this? You never said any of these things.." "Yes, I did," Ron said. "Just...not, apparently, to you." She stared at him, a question blossoming in her mind. "How did I never know," she whispered. "How did you never say anything to me, anything that would have given you away..." Ron looked at her out of haunted eyes. "You...there was a spell..." he began, but the door opened then, interrupting him, and Ginny came in. She had her dark brown cloak pulled around her, and her cheeks were red with cold. "The carriage is here to take you down to the station," she said softly. "We have to go." "Are you leaving as well, Ginny?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off Ron. "No," Ginny said. "I'm going to stay."
"Okay," said Hermione slowly, ""Okay," and then, looking at Ron, she said, "And you're really going to go?" "I have to go, he replied, not looking at her. "I have to," and he looked so miserable that she took a step forward towards him - it was her instinct to put her arms around him, but he stepped away from her violently, almost knocking into his sister. "I can't," he said. "I look at you - I see her." "Ron," Hermione said miserably, but Ginny had already taken her brother's arm shaking her head. She cast a desperate look at Hermione, who blanched and stepped back. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor, and waited until she heard the sound of the door clicking shut before she raised her eyes. They were gone.
*** He had sworn not to do this unless it was an emergency, but he had begun to think that all this was exactly that. Sitting at his desk, Lupin reached with a sigh for the brass-bound box that sat on the left side of his desk, and drew it towards him. He opened it, and took out a parchment, which he unrolled across the desk blotter. He remembered Sirius asking him to make a new map, at the beginning of term, handing him the last of the Zonko's Reality Pencils. He'd demurred it was hardly something a Hogwarts professor wanted to have discovered stashed in his office. But Sirius was very persuasive when he wanted to be. "Just make a rudimentary map," he'd said. "One that shows the boys, at least." And so it did: as Lupin's eyes scanned the parchment, he saw the two blue dots that were Draco and Harry - Harry seemed to be sitting in Gryffindor Tower, and Draco was making his way up from the Slytherin dungeon. Lupin sat and watched the progress of the second blue dot, his mind awhirl with confused thoughts, until it drew near enough to the corridor where his office was. Then he got to his feet, and went to the door, slipping the map into his breast pocket. The hallway was empty, and for a moment Lupin almost rechecked the map. Then Draco came around the corner up ahead. He was walking with
his hands in the pockets of his black trousers, his silver head bent, but he seemed to sense Lupin's presence, and glanced up as he rounded the corner. "Hey," he said, slowing down slightly, "Professor Lupin. Hi." "Hello, Draco," Lupin said. "Have you got a moment to talk to me?" Draco glanced down at the silver watch clamped around his slender wrist. Lupin spared a moment towards wishing that the Malfoys weren't biased quite so heavily towards that particular metal. "I'm meant to be meeting Harry and Ginny..." "This," said Lupin firmly, 'is important." Draco lowered his arm and shrugged. It was an elegant shrug. Everything he did was elegant. Sirius, at his age, had had much the same panthery grace. "All right." Lupin ducked back into his office, and Draco followed, shutting the door behind them without being asked. He leaned against the door, and looked at Lupin with wide-eyed, put-on innocence. In the faint winter light, his eyes were bluish, like the shadows under them. "What is it, Professor?" "The wedding," Lupin said, feeling it wise to start off with something safe. "It's in less than a week, and since everything has been ... chaotic, I wanted to make sure you have everything you need -" "Harry and I had our clothes tailored months ago," said Draco coolly. "And sent to the Manor. We're fine." "And Harry, he is -" "Just say what you want to say, Professor," said Draco, rubbing the back of a hand across his tired eyes. The scar across his palm flashed once: brightly, vividly silver. "I know you know. Harry told me. You're worried about him." "I'm worried about you." Draco looked momentarily surprised. "Me? Why be worried about me?"
"Because you're obviously not doing well," Lupin said bluntly. "You lost that Quidditch match, your marks are down in your classes, you seem distracted and upset, you've not written your mother in over a month..." "I also forgot to send my grandmother a toffee cake for her birthday," Draco supplied helpfully. "And you look..." Draco's eyes narrowed. "I look what?" "Bad," Lupin said, and Draco immediately looked so offended that he was almost amused. "Ill, I should say," he amended himself gently. "You're pale, you've lost weight again..." "It's winter and I haven't been hungry," Draco said. Lupin just looked at him: at the very thick fair hair that wanted cutting (and it wasn't like Draco to neglect his hair); Draco had always been slender, but now he looked thin. More than that, there was a translucence to him, a faint sort of silvery light that seemed to be shining through his eyes and skin. It was alarming. "How much does Sirius know?" he demanded abruptly. "I have told him nothing that Harry asked me not to tell him," Lupin said heavily, "although I wish it were otherwise, as I believe he could be a great help to Harry." "Mmm," said Draco, noncommittally. "I should also add that I was quite concerned about your altercation with Mister Finnigan at the museum," Lupin added. "It makes me wonder exactly what your motivation could have been. It is not like you to resort to fist fighting. I can only imagine you were trying to create some sort of distraction. But from what?" Draco looked at his watch. "I ought to go. I..." "I know. You're meeting Harry." Draco smiled a sideways smile. "Hermione agreed to talk to him. I'm meant to lend moral support."
"Won't that confuse the other Gryffindors?" Lupin asked, somewhat amused. Draco lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "Harry doesn't seem to care about that much anymore," he said thoughtfully. "And since I'm persona non grata with the Slytherins..." "Are you? Why?" "The façade's pretty cracked at this point," Draco said. "Harry and I are friends. People know it. Word gets around. The Slytherins won't tolerate that. I don't blame them, really. And when I break it off with Blaise, that'll be the nail in the coffin." "You're breaking it off with Blaise?" Lupin asked in surprise. Draco nodded. "As soon as I can find her." "Is this because she was fooling around with Malcolm behind your back?" Draco looked aggrieved. "Does everyone know about that except me?" Lupin shrugged regretfully. "Sorry," he said. "And I'm sorry about the Slytherins as well." "Yeah," Draco said. "Right now, it just doesn't seem all that pressing." Lupin nodded, and stood up. Draco looked at him apprehensively as he approached, and when he laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, Draco looked every so slightly panicked, as if he wasn't sure what to do. "I know there are things you aren't telling me," he said gently. "And I know it can't be easy...but you can tell me anything, I hope you know that, and it will remain in my strictest confidence." Draco raised his face; the glare from the window struck through his fair hair, firing it to individual strands of white light. He had his father's coloring, and all his mother's beauty, but somehow, Lupin thought, he looked like neither of them: only wholly somehow his own person. "There is one thing," he said. "What is it?"
"Something Dumbledore told me," Draco said. "But it's about Harry's parents, so you might not want to hear it." "About James and Lily?" Lupin asked, drawing his hand back. "Uh-huh." Draco's face was impassive, but the gray eyes begged for understanding. "How...how well did you know my father, back in the seventies?" "Not well at all," Lupin said, wondering where this was going. "I knew of him. Everyone knew of Lucius Malfoy." "You know he sat on the board at the Daily Prophet," Draco said, and Lupin nodded. "He was also wholly responsible for the running of certain of the smaller magazines...the Malfoy Park Banner, of course, and the Hogsmeade Gazette..." Lupin simply looked at him, curiously. "Yes, and?" "And very few people knew he ran the Hogsmeade Gazette. After Peter Pettigrew graduated from Hogwarts, it was one of the few places to offer him a job.." "Right," said Lupin slowly. "Right, he was a reporter..." "And that put him in my father's pocket, although he didn't know it at the beginning, apparently. I'm fuzzy on the exact details, but at some point early on my father arranged that certain sensitive papers be discovered in Pettigrew's desk," Draco said. "Papers that tied Pettigrew into the illegal exportation of dragon's blood. You know the penalty for that, especially in those times: he would have gone to Azkaban for life without trial, or gotten the Dementor's Kiss immediately." "Yes," said Lupin. "I know. And I think I see where this is going." "My father blackmailed Pettigrew into turning informant against his friends. He drew him into the Death Eaters...my father was the one who was responsible for the plot against the Potters...the Secret-Keeper idea...he turned Harry's parents in to the Dark Lord...and he went with him that night in Godric Hollow. He was there when they died," Draco
finished, and slumped back slightly against the wall, as if this recitation had exhausted him. Lupin held himself silent for a long moment, thinking. None of this, really, was that surprising: certainly it was nothing he would have put past Lucius Malfoy, who, it had always seemed to him, sat at the Dark Lord's right hand. However, in the context of Harry's new relationship with Draco and all things Malfoy, it was disturbing indeed. "And you haven't told Harry?" Draco shook his head. "No. Dumbledore only told me a few weeks ago, and since then...there hasn't been an opportunity, really," which Lupin knew was only half-true. "You're afraid that he'll react badly." "Wouldn't you react badly?" "Harry knows his parents are dead," Lupin said bluntly. "For a child to grow up knowing his parents are not just dead but were murdered....he's already had the worst of it, don't you think?" Draco seemed to consider this. "He's very angry," he said. "Especially now...and its sort of an uncontrollable rage. I don't know how to explain it, but I can feel it. When he was younger, Voldemort always came after him, looked for him, but now, if he could, I think he'd go after the Dark Lord on his own...it's that kind of anger." "And you don't want to make him more angry? Or are you worried he'll focus his anger on you? Because he won't, Draco - Harry knows you aren't responsible for the things your father did." "Maybe not, but it seems a little stiff to ask him to come and live in a house owned by his parents' murderer," said Draco with a bleak sharpness, and Lupin stared at him. "But your father's dead," he said. "That house has passed to you; you own it. And when you turn eighteen, if you choose, you can rip it down brick by brick."
A shadow passed across Draco's face. "Right," he said. "Because my father is dead." Lupin didn't know quite how to respond to this. Draco seemed to have shut himself off, his brief confiding mood having passed. "If there's anything I can do..." "It's all right," Draco said. "There's nothing you can do."
*** When Hermione received the owl from Draco asking her if she would see Harry that day, she'd thought about it a long time. She'd just come from talking to Ron, and felt wrung out...but she had to see Harry. She needed to. She agreed to meet him later, in neutral territory - Ron's empty room. She sent the owl back to Draco. Then she looked around her room. Then she began to pack. She was nearly finished when the clock struck noon, and she straightened up from her packing. She hadn't eaten in almost a day, and felt dizzy when she stood too quickly. She regarded her haggard reflection in the mirror with a sense of distant dismay. An attempt to apply a lipreddening charm only made her look more washed out, so with a sigh, she straightened her cardigan and headed out the door. Ginny and Draco were waiting outside Ron's room when she got there. Draco was leaning against the wall, Ginny sitting on the floor at his feet. She had a book on her lap, but she wasn't reading it. They both looked at her and Ginny smiled waveringly; Hermione smiled back as best she could, not wanting Ginny to think that she was in any way angry with her because of the situation with Ron. Then she opened the door and went in. The door swung shut behind her, and she was alone in the room with Harry. He was standing next to the bed, with its colorful counterpane, holding on to one of the bedposts. He looked up as she came in, and for a moment his eyes lit up with relief. Then they darkened, and he looked down at the tops of his boots.
Hermione turned and shut the door on Draco and Ginny, who were waiting in the corridor. She turned to face Harry, and took a deep breath. "Hello, Harry," she said. The sound of her voice seemed to galvanize some electric response inside him. His head went up, and he crossed the room to her. She didn't move. He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, and she stiffened. Slowly he lowered his arm. "Hermione..." Her voice was raw with exhaustion. "What?" "I'm so sorry," he said. She just looked at him. She could tell he meant it. He looked halfdesperate to make her understand: he was very pale, and the eyes behind the glasses were intently green. She noticed, vaguely, what he was wearing: a black sweater that was at least three years old, with frayed, far too short cuffs that showed his thin wrists. It was a sweater Ron had given him; she wondered what that meant. He seemed unnerved by her silence. "I know now. I know it wasn't you -" "Draco told me," she interrupted shortly. "I'm glad you listened to him. God knows, you wouldn't listen to me." "No - it wasn't like that." "It was exactly like that." He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You're right." The tone of his voice made her look at him again, and she was startled at what she saw. He looked pale, tense, unhappy, but he was there - present in a way he hadn't been present in months. "I'm right?" she echoed. "You're right," he said again, heavily. "I didn't listen to you. I didn't let myself listen to you. And there's no apology that I could construct that would make it up to you for that. I didn't trust you even though you've never given me a reason not to trust you. And I hurt you, and I'--"
"You did hurt me," she interrupted. "If you'd spent years thinking about it, and planning it, I don't think you could have come up with anything that would have hurt me more." He winced. "I know," he said. "Tell me what to do. There must be something I can do...to fix this." "I think," she said coldly, "you've done enough." "Don't -" he reached out for her again, and this time she let him. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face. She had stood this way with him so many times -- it was familiar, and yet she felt as if she were looking at a stranger. Despite their physical proximity, she had never felt further away from him in her life. "I'll do anything," he said. "Anything you want me to do." "Make last night never have happened, then," she said. His hands tightened on her shoulders. "Something I can do," he said. "Hermione - help me." "That's all I ever do," she said. "Help you. But I can't if you don't let me." "Let you? I'm asking you. Hermione, I'll apologize to you every day for the rest of your life, if that's what you want, because you deserve it. I'll get down on my knees and beg you to forgive me -" "I do forgive you," she said. "I'll -" he broke off. "You what?" "I forgive you," she said. A look of relief so enormous it almost undid all her plans passed over his face. He ducked his head and kissed her. She had been expecting it, and let him. She tried to lose herself in it, knowing as she did that it might be the last time, but she could not. Those words, the last time, the last time, echoed in the back of her head. She closed her eyes, and put her arms around him. Holding him tightly was more satisfying than the kiss itself, which seemed as if it was taking place somewhere far away. But the feel of him under her hands, the slightness of his body, the fragile bones, the
sharp blades of his shoulders, made her want to protect him again. But this was one thing she could not protect him against. She drew away. "I forgive you," she said again. "But that doesn't mean things are going to be like they were." "What do you mean?" he asked, the look of relief beginning to fade from his expression. "You don't really think things can be the same again, do you?" she asked, her voice wistful. "Not after what happened." "Nothing happened," he said fiercely. "Nothing happened - I was a git, that's all. Nothing happened to us." "That's not true, Harry. You showed me something important last night. You showed me you don't trust me." "That's not true -" "It is true," she said inexorably. "You don't trust me. You don't trust anyone. And I know why." He just stared at her. From the look in his green eyes, she could tell he was dreading her next words, and she wished in some way she could spare him, even as she knew that this was necessary. "You don't trust me because you know you can't be trusted," she said, her voice very flat. "You lie to me, so you imagine that I could lie to you. You hide things from me, so it makes sense to you that I could hide something so huge, so horrible, from you, and pretend as if everything was all right. It makes me wonder...how bad is it, Harry? What you're not telling me?" He went very white, and stared at her as if she had turned into something monstrous. "It's not the same," he said. "How? How is it not the same?' "Because what I don't tell you - it has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with you and me, or how I feel about you."
"That's where you're wrong," she said, suddenly furious. "I'm your friend, your best friend, and I'm your girlfriend. And I'm sick of asking and getting evasive answers, or no answer at all, or patronizing half-answers. Something's eating at you, something's chewing you up from the inside out. I love you and it kills me to see you suffering, Harry, but it makes it ten thousand times worse when you won't even tell me what it's about. You can't keep some huge secret and expect it to be separate from the rest of your life. It doesn't work that way. We don't work that way. I'm not Draco, I can't read your mind, but I can see what you're feeling. It shows on your face. Except lately...I can't even look at you." Her voice dropped, miserably. "I don't know what to do." She waited, braced for him to say anything - to say something angry, or bitter, or defensive. He raised his head to look at her finally, and she was shocked at the look in his eyes - the bleakness in it, the despair. "So you're going to leave me?" he said. "Because of this...you'd really leave me?" "Harry," she whispered. She wanted to go and throw her arms around him, wanted it badly, but she held herself tightly where she was. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. "I'm not leaving you - I could never really leave you." "Then what are you doing?" he demanded, and some small part of her cursed the Dursleys bitterly and for the thousandth time for all of this. "I don't understand." "I'll still be with you, Harry, just not the way we were -" "In other words," Harry interrupted, his voice suddenly sharp, "we should 'still be friends'." She stared at him. "You say that like it's nothing." "You love me, and you're still my friend, but things can't be the way that there were. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but before, we were friends, and we loved each other, so what exactly is different now?" "I can't be your girlfriend," Hermione said, her voice remote and flat. "That's what's different."
He hardly seemed to hear her. He was very white, and the skin of his face seemed to be pressing back against the bones. She wanted to tell him not to look like that, but she couldn't. "Can't? Can't or won't?" "I don't know, Harry," she replied despairingly, "when you say you can't tell me what's bothering you, do you mean you can't tell me, or you won't?" He looked as if she had slapped him. "That's not fair." "It is fair! It's completely fair!" She hugged herself tightly, willing herself not to cry. "You're lying to me and I hate it. I hate it and pretty soon, I'll hate you too." "Hate me, then," he flung back at her. He was holding the bedpost again, so tightly his knuckles were white. His face was white, too, his green eyes the only color in it. "If you could hate me over something like that, then maybe you never loved me in the first place." She had thought she was beyond being hurt again, but apparently not. His remark went into her like an arrow in her heart. For a moment, it was hard to breathe. "I can't do this," she whispered. "I can't." She turned automatically towards the door, but his voice stopped her like a hand on her shoulder. She had never heard him sound like that. "I love you," he said. "Please don't go." "Then tell me," she said, without turning to look at him. "Tell me what it is you've been hiding. Tell me, Harry. Please." His silence was the only answer she needed. She shut her eyes, willing her voice to remain even. When she did speak, she was startled at the calmness of her tone. "I'm leaving school, Harry," she said. "I'm packed, and I'm taking the train out of Hogsmeade to London tonight. If you want to say goodbye to me, I'll wait for you on the platform. I hope you'll come. I do love you. I always will love you. Believe that, if you don't believe anything else." He was still silent, although she could hear his uneven breathing, and she wanted very much to turn around. But she didn't. Blindly, she walked
towards the door, and blindly turned the knob, and blindly stepped out into the corridor. Draco and Ginny were still there, staring at her silently, but now her vision was so blurred with tears that they looked like distorted, funhouse versions of themselves. She saw Draco reach a hand out to her, and a voice from a long way away asked her, "What happened?" She shook her head. "Go in there," she said, "go take care of him," and then she fled down the corridor without looking back. *** Ginny looked at Draco. Not surprisingly, he was looking away from her, down the corridor where Hermione had fled. "She shouldn't be by herself," he said. "I know," Ginny said. "Do you want to go after her?" He shook his head slowly, and brought his eyes back to hers. "You should. I'm not particularly good at girl talk." Ginny sighed. "I'm not sure I am either. All those brothers..." she trailed off. "Still. You'd better talk to Harry. Whatever happened, he'll tell you." "Mmm." Draco sounded thoughtful. "What about Finnegan?" Ginny was taken aback. "Seamus?" "You remember him? Quiet fellow, square jaw, Irish flag up his arse? Probably dyes his hair?" Ginny frowned. "What about him?" "Well, shouldn't he be around through all this? Lending you a massive, unsightly shoulder to lean on?" Ginny sighed. "I think Seamus is upset with me." Draco raised an eyebrow. "Really? Why?"
"It's complicated," she said, but she had the unnerving feeling that his clear gray eyes saw right through her. For a moment, he almost looked sympathetic. "Well, don't break his heart," he said. "We've got enough broken hearts around here already," and with that, he pushed open the door to Ron's old room and went inside. Ginny caught a brief glimpse of Harry sitting on the edge of the empty bed before the door shut, blocking her view. With a sigh, she headed off down the corridor. It was a small flight of steps and a turn to get to Hermione's room; the door was closed when she got there. She raised her hand to knock, then hesitated, trying to think what she should say. She had no idea, and no idea what Hermione might be feeling, and no idea if she would hate seeing Ginny at this moment. After all, she was Ron's sister. She slowly lowered her hand, and on impulse, put her ear to the door. Hermione was crying. Ginny could hear it very clearly through the door. It was a terrible, sad, desperate sort of messy crying, the way a child might cry - the way her mother had cried, all those years ago, over Andrew, night after night for months. It was the crying of someone who knows they have lost something they will never get back. Ginny hesitated, one hand on the doorknob. Then she slowly stepped back, and leaned against the wall. She slid slowly down it until she was sitting on the floor; then she put her head on her knees, and did not move for a long time. *** Hermione had been standing shivering on the platform for nearly an hour when she finally understood it: he was not coming. It was almost midnight, and it was freezing cold, so cold that the chill seemed to have soaked into Hermione's bones. The Hogsmeade train station was utterly deserted; she was the only person on the empty platform, and a light, dusting snow had begun to fall. With a sigh of resignation, she glanced down at the watch in her hand. It was Harry's watch, that he had thrown at her. She had not been able to bring herself to give it back to him. It was, apparently, five minutes to
midnight, and there was no point waiting any longer on the platform. He wasn't going to come. She turned, climbed wearily onto the train and went into the nearest compartment. She sat down close to the window, and propped her chin on her hand. From here, she could see the lights of the castle, faint in the distance, glimmering on the clifftop. The mountains behind were wreathed in mist, and there was a shroud of vapor around the moon. She felt the sting of tears fierce at the back of her eyes. I can't leave him here, alone...he only has me...how can I? And then she heard it: the sound of running footsteps on the platform. She stood up so fast she nearly banged her head on the overhead luggage rack; swiftly she seized at the window, and pulled it down hard, leaning as far out as she could. Someone was running along the platform towards her: a slender, shadowy figure, turned to a silhouette by the mist: she saw a black cloak, recognized the dark school clothes, and then as he emerged from the shadows she saw in the torchlight that the banding at the wrists of his cloak was green and silver, and she realized with a queer stab at her heart that it was not Harry after all, but Draco. "I'm here!" she shouted. He had been gazing up and down the empty platform; now he turned, and blinked at her. "I'm here! Draco -" He cam quickly to stand below the train window. He threw the hood of his black cloak back; they were almost on a level, but he had to tilt his head to look up at her. He was flushed from exertion, his hair a crackling white halo around his head. Flakes of melting snow clung to the dark silver blades of his lashes. She drew in a breath: sometimes he was almost too beautiful to look at -- nearly girlishly pretty, but no, there was too much steel in his expression for that. "I know I'm not who you were expecting," he said, low-voiced. "He told me you would be here. I came as quickly as I could." Her voice shook. "But he wouldn't...?" Draco shook his head, a firm negative. "He wouldn't come." "Oh." She blinked back tears. "Did he send you?"
"Not exactly." Draco shrugged, elegantly. "I hated the thought of you going off like this, with no one to say goodbye to you." "Thank you," she whispered. She reached out then, and touched his shoulder gently; he looked at her in surprise. "I need you," she began, "I need you to promise me something." He didn't move, only his eyes narrowed slightly. Harry would have said, "Yes, anything," and Ron would have said, "If I say I'll do it, I'll do it. You don't need to make me promise." But Draco just looked at her out of long diamond-gray eyes, and said, "That depends on what it is." "It's about Harry," she said. "He doesn't understand." "Why you left him, you mean?" She nodded. "I'm not sure I understand either." "Because," she said, and paused - but it seemed right to explain, in fact, she could not imagine anyone else who would understand. "They used me to get to him, Draco," she whispered. "They used me - and Ron - they know how to hurt him the worst, and I can't be part of that. I won't be." "But you didn't tell him that." "No." She shook her head. "He wouldn't understand." "Try him," said Draco, firmly. She sighed. "The other things I said to him - they were true as well. Nothing else I say would change anything. He still wouldn't tell me what's been tormenting him, and I -" She sighed, and bowed her head down. "I don't suppose you know, do you?" He shook his head. "No. I don't." "And you wouldn't tell me if you did. Would you?" He said nothing, only looked up and down the platform, and then back at her. The cold air ruffled his hair, turned it to blown silver tinsel. There
was no reading his expression, or his gray eyes; he had nothing of Harry's transparency. But there was no one else. And she trusted him, because she had to. "I still think you should talk to Harry again," he said stubbornly. "You shouldn't have to go. Not like this." The train whistle sounded then: a long, high piercing shriek that made her jump. Draco took a step back away from the train. "I haven't got time to talk about this any more," Hermione cried out, close to despair, "I need you to do this for me, I want you to promise, to swear it - swear it on your family honor, Draco Malfoy. Swear it on your own name." He was properly alarmed now. "To do what?" "Stay with him," she said. Draco looked taken aback. Hermione went on, not really knowing what she was saying, just letting the words come. "Stay with him always - and watch him - and make sure he's all right. Don't leave him, and don't let him go off on his own - and if he does, you have to follow him, because I can't now. I want to take care of him, but he won't let me. He won't let any of us near him. Until I know how to fix that, you'll have to do it. Owl me every day - tell me how he is, what he's doing, if he's all right." "He's not," Draco said, a little distantly, "all right." "Oh, you know what I mean!" Hermione cried out. "Keep him safe. Stay with him - promise me, please!" There was a long silence. It stretched out between them like a length of silver cord unspooling. Hermione stared down at him, her hand still on his shoulder, although she hardly felt as if she were touching him - he seemed so far away, as if he had gone beyond the mountains, into some far cold place she couldn't imagine. His face was still, expressionless, the pale skin burned silver by moonlight, eyes opaque as mirror glass. When he finally spoke, his voice was as slow as it was steady. "Very well," he said. "I promise." She tightened her grip on his shoulder. "Swear it." "I swear it," he said, in a flat voice.
She might have imagined it, but she thought she felt something leap between them then, like an electrical spark. She slowly loosened her grip on his shoulder. "Oh, thank goodness," she whispered. "Thank goodness." "I would have done it anyway," he said, looking down at his shoulder, where her hand rested. His voice was remote. "I know," she said, "but now you have to." The train whistle sounded again, shrill as a scream. The next few moments were a blur. She took her hand away from his shoulder, wondering at what she had just done, at what she had made him do. He raised his face to hers, his lips shaping words that were drowned out by the sound of the train's brakes releasing. Suddenly something snapped inside her. She could not bear to leave him here like this, alone and with such a burden placed on him. She leaned forward, and did something she had never done before: she kissed him on the forehead, and as she did he closed his eyes.
She drew back. "Draco..." she began. His eyes opened, but there was no chance for him to reply, for with a jerk, the train began to move. Hermione grabbed at the window's edge to steady herself, and leaned as far out as she safely could, the cold stinging her eyelids, staring back towards the lighted platform and the solitary figure standing there - hands in his pockets, looking after her. He did not wave in farewell, and neither did she; she only stood watching as the platform and the station and Draco himself grew smaller and smaller in the distance and finally vanished altogether, swallowed up by the encroaching darkness.
*** At one in the morning, the Slytherin common room was deserted. Draco's boots left dark wet marks on the stone as he crossed through; he had not bothered to clean off his boots. He was enjoying making a mess. Something in his chest was twisting savagely - he felt angry, not at anyone in particular, but at life in general. Everything seemed to be falling apart around him in huge shattering chunks, and for a change, the mass destruction was due to nothing he'd done. "Bloody Weasley," he muttered as he reached his door - and paused. "Right," he said to himself. "Better do it now," and he turned and went back along the hallway to the other side of the dungeon, where the girls' rooms were. The door to the room Blaise shared with Pansy was closed - not surprisingly, since it was long past midnight. Draco raised his hand and rapped sharply on the door: one, two, three sharp knocks. He heard the sound of swift feet, and the door opened. It was Blaise. Her red hair was down, tumbling around her shoulders, her face bare of makeup, but her glittery barrettes in place. She wore a long silky pale green dressing gown, printed with an embroidered blue dragon which curled across her shoulders and rested its head on her breast. Her eyes widened when she saw him. "Draco?" "Hello, darling," he said, leaning against the door jamb. "All dressed up for Malcolm?" She looked briefly surprised, then smug. "So you heard about that." "Apparently, I heard about it late. Can I come in?" She stood back from the door. "If you like." Draco unpeeled himself from the door jamb and sauntered into the room. It was a large room, separated in half by a huge Chinese screen printed all over with blue and green water lilies. This side was Blaise's: decorated with an understated simplistic elegance, everything she owned was nevertheless obviously expensive. He turned to look at her. She stood with
her hands on her hips, her silk gown pulled tight across her chest. She was very obviously wearing nothing underneath. "It's rude to point," Draco said, his tone kindly. Blaise flushed and crossed her arms over her chest. "It's a bit rich you coming here and tweaking me about Malcolm," she snapped. "He told me he saw Hermione Granger coming out of your room this morning. Explain that, why don't you." "I'd like to know what Malcolm was doing lurking around my room this morning," Draco said. Blaise shook her head. "You're unbelievable." "You should talk." She threw up her hands. "I've never fooled around with Malcolm," she said. "I just started that rumor to see if you'd care. Which, patently, you don't." Draco raised an eyebrow. "You started a rumor you were snogging that weasel-faced tosser just to annoy me? I'm touched." "But not annoyed." "Not particularly," he said. Blaise shook her head. "Get out," she said. "I never want to see you again." "Oh, no," Draco said, in a bored, deadpan voice. "Please reconsider." Seizing a glass candlestick from the table by the bed, Blaise flung it at his head. Draco ducked, and it hit the wall and shattered. "I said get out!" "You'll wake up Pansy," he said. "She's...not...here," Blaise snarled. "Good," Draco said. "Then she won't stop me from doing this," and he waved a hand at her. Silver cords sprang out of the air and snapped around her wrists and ankles. She shrieked in surprise, and sat down hard
on the floor, struggling against the cords. "What is your problem?" she hissed at him, her green eyes full of rage. "I don't know," Draco said thoughtfully. "I guess I'm just not a very nice person." "I hate you," Blaise snarled, but he had set himself to ignoring her. Walking quickly, he crossed the room and flung open the trunk at the foot of her bed. He kicked it, and it fell sideways, spilling clothes, books and papers all over the floor. Blaise shrieked out loud. "What are you doing? You -- leave my things alone! Leave them alone!" Her voice rose into a piercing scream. "I hate you, Draco Malfoy, you lying, cheating, stealing, pointy-faced bastard! I hate you!" Draco glanced over at her and smiled. "Scream if you want," he said pleasantly. "It won't make any difference. I'll stay here until I find what I'm looking for." *** References: Rhysenn's quote: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, oh Lucifer, son of the morning?" is from the Bible , a description of Satan's fall from grace. If that doesn't work, groveling makes a solid backup – Buffy “And a total, total one at that” – Red Dwarf
Draco Veritas Chapter Eight: The Master of Malfoy Manor
No exorcisor harm thee, And no witchcraft charm thee. Ghost unlaid forbear thee, Nothing ill come near thee. -Cymbeline When Draco was six years old, his father had given him a bird to carry his mail. The other children Draco knew had friendly owls, or the occasional bluebird, but Draco's father gave him a falcon, with bright black eyes and a beak that curved like the mark on a Sickle. The falcon did not like Draco, and Draco didn't like it either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: for weeks, his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He did not know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But Draco tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he could not do it - instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat: later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But he was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if it had to consume his blood to make that happen.
He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like forked lightning. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly cried with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father, and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. Instead, his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands, and broke its neck. "I told you to make it obedient," his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. "Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: they are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken." Later, when his father left him, Draco cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a house-elf to take the body of the bird away and bury it. Draco never cried again, and he never forgot what he learned: that to be loved was to destroy, and that to love was to be the one destroyed. *** Blaise's trunk was overturned; the contents spilled out onto the floor at Draco's feet. He sifted through them with a leisurely hand - books, makeup, jewelry, parchments, stacks of photographs. Nothing terribly interesting. He'd pulled the drawers of her bureau out as well, and her clothes were tossed haphazardly on the bed in a heap of blouses, skirts, camisoles, and expensive silk underthings. Her journal, a pale green book with a butterfly-shaped lock, had also fallen onto the bed, but some obscurely motivated chivalry prevented him from opening it. "Are you done yet?" Blaise asked, breaking a half-hour's worth of silence. Her tone was cold and sharp. She sat where he had put her: propped against the wall, her hands still bound behind her back. The look on her face was one of such withering contempt that even Draco, no slouch at sneering himself, was somewhat daunted. "Mostly," he replied. "And did you find what you were looking for?" Her voice held so much frozen scorn, it could have kept a year's supply of Ice Mice from melting.
Draco sighed. If lime green push-up bras had been what he was looking for, he would have been in business. Alas, they were not. "How come you never wore any of these things while we were dating?" he asked, lifting a transparent black something or other off the bed with a crooked finger. "Maybe I did. You never got far enough under my clothes to find out." "Disappointed, are you?" Draco dropped the transparent lace object and looked narrowly at her. "Not at all," she spat. "You're disgusting." Draco decided to let that one pass. He got to his feet and went to crouch down beside her so that their faces were on a level. Her dark green eyes, minus their usual sparkle, looked into his with loathing. "In answer to your question," he said, "no. I didn't find what I was looking for. Which leads me to another question." Her lips tightened. "What?" "Where are the slippers I gave you for your birthday? Back in October?" Her eyes widened with disbelief. "Why, do you want them back? You cheap son of a bitch, Draco Malfoy - just because I broke up with you -" "You break up with me? I believe I was the one who broke up with you." She called him a very rude name. Draco was impressed. "Nice one," he said. "This is not, however, addressing the matter at hand..." "What matter? I don't even know what you're raving about now -" "The slippers. Where are they? Remember them? They were very expensive, embroidered, raw gold silk -" "They were not pure silk," Blaise snapped, looking haughty again. "They had some cheap material mixed in that irritated my skin. I couldn't wear them." "So what did you do with them?" She shrugged. "I gave them to Pansy."
Draco expelled a long breath. He wasn't sure if he felt relieved or not. "I didn't really think it was you," he said slowly. "But I had to make sure." Her lips tightened. "You didn't think what was me?" "I thought maybe you were trying to throw the blame on her, because it was you. You're devious enough." "Because what was me?" Draco shrugged and stood up. He pushed aside the hand-painted screen that separated Blaise's side of the room from Pansy's. Blaise's half of the room was slightly bigger; Pansy's was more crowded with things - several chairs, a sofa, a vanity table with a curved mirror. The surface of the vanity was thickly covered with jars, bottles, and tubes of unguents and cosmetics, just as Blaise had told him weeks ago. Why hadn't he known? I knew she had to be a prefect, he thought. And a Slytherin. Only a Slytherin would think of this. He turned away from the vanity table and went over to the enormous, brass-bound trunk at the foot of Pansy's bed. Blaise leaned around the screen and glared at him. "You can't open it," she snapped vindictively. "It's got sixteen different anti-Alohomora charms on them and only Pansy knows the passwords -" "Sixteen?" Draco said softly. "Really? That many?" He took another step towards the trunk and looked at it consideringly. With the tip of his dragonhide boot, he nudged lightly at the lock. Then he raised his foot and brought it down hard. Once, twice, three times, putting all his pentup anger into it - a fourth time, and he heard the creaking protest as the wood began to splinter - a fifth time, and the lock ripped away from the wood and clattered to the floor. The lid of the trunk sprang open. "Alohomora," Draco said. Blaise said nothing. She seemed to have set herself to ignoring him. Still, she stared as he knelt down by the trunk and began to rifle through the contents. Books tumbled out first, neatly piled, and underneath them were empty jars and bottles, and underneath those were a pair of pale gold silk slippers and a neatly folded set of white pajamas sprigged all over with blue and yellow flowers.
Draco's heart began to pound like a triphammer. He'd been right. He had known he was right, but not that the proof would present itself so readily. She must have been positive that no one would guess. He plunged his hands into the trunk, shoving the pajamas and slippers aside - there were folded papers underneath them; he took them and shoved them haphazardly into his cloak pockets. Under them was a long enamel box, which sprang open when he put pressure on the ends. Folded inside was a long swath of multicolored fabric, which shimmered when he touched it... "An Invisibility Cloak," he whispered under his breath. A smile came and twitched the corner of his mouth. Clever Pansy. He rolled the cloak into a small ball and stuffed it into his pocket. He was sure he was beginning to look extremely lumpy. He put his hands back into the trunk, but there was nothing else, just grit gathering under his fingernails. He stood up, and went back past the screen into Blaise's room. She twisted around to glare at him. "Are you stealing Pansy's things?" "Evidence," he said shortly. "You're a thief," she said. "And a bastard. Turning on the members of your own House for a bunch of Gryffindor scum -" "Shut up, Blaise." "I'll tell. I'll tell everyone." Draco knelt down and looked into her eyes. Face scrubbed clean of makeup, hair free of its jeweled barrettes and tangled around her face, she looked much less polished than he'd ever seen her. "Do it," he said evenly, "and I'll tell everyone exactly why you agreed to this dating charade with me in the first place." Her breath hissed between her teeth. "You unbelievable bastard. You'd blackmail me?" "Just keeping things fair. I don't like power imbalances. Unless, of course, I have the upper hand, which right now, I do."
"Maybe right now." Her eyes narrowed. "But not forever. Everyone knows where your loyalties really lie, Draco. And if there's one thing Slytherin House hates, it's a backstabbing traitor." "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, Blaise. Are you suggesting that I no longer have a shot at winning Most Popular Slytherin of the Year?" "I protected you," she snarled at him, and he was startled to see that for a moment, her eyes were oddly bright, as if she might be about to cry. And for that moment, they reminded him so strongly of another, dissimilar, pair of green eyes that he felt a spark of sympathy for her light inside his chest. "You never paid attention, but I protected you - I lied for you - I covered up how much time you really spent with Potter and his little minions, invented reasons for you to be with him - lose me and you lose the last person in this House who had any faith you might come back to us. Lose me and you're on your own, Draco." He sighed. "Then I'm on my own. Thanks for protecting me, if you really did, but it wasn't necessary. I'm not afraid of Slytherin House." "You should be," Blaise said, and looked away from him. "You should be, Draco." He fought back another sigh. He felt very tired. "I'm going to untie you now," he said. "I want you to promise not to hit me the second your hands are free." "I promise," she said, without looking at him, and the moment that her hands were free, of course, she hit him anyway. *** A light touch on the shoulder awoke him. Harry rolled over and blinked. The world was blurry, but he knew the shape hovering above him was Draco. He reached for his glasses and sat up slowly. His muscles were stiff and sore from falling asleep on the common room couch, but he had not wanted to go upstairs and face Seamus, Neville and Dean. "Hey," he said, his voice slightly rusty. "Is she...?"
"Hermione?" She's gone," Draco said, crouching down next to the sofa. The fire was high in the grate, and the room was very hot. Draco looked bright-eyed and almost feverish. A hectic red color flushed his high cheekbones. "I have to tell you something." "Oh, God," said Harry, with finality. "Not something else." He looked at Draco more closely, taking in the disheveled hair, the muddy boots, the scratch marks along his left cheek, as if someone had raked him with their nails. "Is it something bad?" "Not exactly," Draco said. "I found out who it was." "Who what was - oh," Harry said. "Oh, you mean..." "Ron's..." Draco grinned suddenly, a wolfish grin. "Ron's mystery woman." Harry felt his heartbeat speed up. "And are you going to tell me?" "That depends." Draco cocked his head to the side, fair hair falling in his eyes. "Do you want to know?" Harry sat up straighter. It was very quiet in the common room. He could tell it was extremely late, just from the quality of the silence and even of the lightless dark he could see through the windows. The crackle of firewood was loud, like shattering ice. He could hear Draco breathing. Very tentatively, he reached towards Draco's mind with his own, trying to gauge what the other boy was feeling about the news he had to tell. Guilt, rage, pain, terror, amusement, horror? Was he afraid to tell Harry, did he worry that Harry couldn't handle it? Was it very bad? Not exactly, he had said. Whatever that meant. "Is it someone I know well?" Harry asked softly, finally. "Is it a friend of mine? Is it someone I care about?" "No," Draco said. "On all those counts." A wave of relief so intense it was almost nausea passed over Harry. "Was it about me? Did it have anything to do with me?" The light in Draco's eyes flickered. "I don't know for sure."
Harry crossed his arms over his chest, although it was hot in the room. "What are you going to do?" "Investigate," Draco said simply. "The uh, guilty party has already left school. But that's all right. Gives me some time. I have to look into things. Opportunities, motivation. Accomplices. Purpose." Harry felt his lips curve into a shaky smile. "You sound like a detective." "Read a lot of Auror comics as a kid," Draco said. "Always wanted a trenchcoat." "Do you need my help?" Harry asked. "What should I do?" Draco shook his head. "I don't need your help, not right now. If I do, I'll tell you. And if you want to know, I'll tell you. But maybe right now you don't need any more on your mind." He got to his feet, a swift graceful gesture. Harry looked at him hard, remembering Draco's weakness in the Quidditch game and while they were fencing. However, he did look much better. There was high color in his face, and his eyes sparkled. Hopefully he was over it. "Go to sleep," Draco said, and headed towards the door. "I'll see you -" "Will you make them sorry?" Harry said. He had gotten to his feet without realizing it, and he put his hand out to steady himself on the sofa arm. His legs prickled with waking-up pains. Draco turned, one hand on the portrait door, and looked at him curiously. Even disheveled and tired he had an elegant remoteness that Harry vaguely envied. He knew he wore his own heart on his sleeve, not as a badge of honor but because he knew no other way to be. Whereas nothing ever seemed to touch Draco so much, or so deeply, that he could not control his expressions. Nothing ever put a slump in those straight shoulders. "Will I what?" "Make them sorry," Harry said. His voice rasped slightly. "I know...that you can do things I couldn't do. You're ruthless in ways I could never be. And you know about revenge." "I do?" Draco's expression was unreadable.
"I know you do," Harry said. "Don't you?" Draco said. "That's what you told me..." "Oh, I know about hating," Harry said, his voice flat and empty. "But I'm not clever about it, like you are. I couldn't think of a really imaginative way to make anyone suffer. Not like you could." "Is that what you want?" Draco asked. His eyes were flat, metallic gray. Nothing came off him: no emotion, no fear or worry or regret. He stood where he was, illegible as a parchment written in Gobbeldygook. "Yes," Harry said. "It's what I want." "Then I'll do it," Draco said, and he smiled, and for a moment a faintly wicked inner brilliance illuminated his expression. If there was any bitterness or sorrow underneath it, Harry didn't see it. He was too busy fighting his own relief. "I'll make them sorry." He went out, and shut the portrait door behind him. *** Ginny had once read somewhere that the difference between memory and recall was that with memory, you knew empirically that you had been in a certain place in a certain time, while with recall you once again felt that you were there. When she looked back on those last few days before the end of winter term her sixth year at Hogwarts, it was always with a sense of recollection. She could not have said exactly how the days proceeded, but various images and moments were burned into her brain - she remembered the cold that descended on the castle, both literal and figurative, after Ron and Hermione had gone home. The flowerlike slivers of ice that formed on the windowpanes overnight, the water freezing in the mug beside her bed. Sitting at the Gryffindor table with Seamus, waiting for Harry to come downstairs. Watching him sit alone, not saying anything. And Draco. Always with Harry, or watching him from across the room if he was not beside him. He seemed to have taken the words Dumbledore had spoken to him weeks before - "Harry is strong and can endure much, and for what he cannot endure he has you" - as if they were some sort of sacred trust.
She wondered if he was trying to expiate some sin he thought he had committed; she could imagine such devotion came only from guilt. Of course, she did not know until later that Hermione had made him promise to stay with Harry always - and he tried to, as best he could given the obvious restrictions. The professors, in those final days, turned a blind eye to the fact that Draco was sometimes in the Gryffindor common room. He never tried to go further than the common room, however, sensing probably that he was not welcome. Harry seemed to notice all this only barely. He went through everything in a dazed sort of sleepwalking manner, probably because during the night he did not sleep - Seamus had told her as much. Apparently he spent the night sitting in the widow embrasure, looking out over the snowy grounds. He was starting to look translucent, as if he had been very ill, the bones showing sharply under his skin. Ginny had seen him walk accidentally into Draco several times, as if he'd forgotten Draco was there at all. One afternoon she came into the common room and found that Harry was there, lying on the couch, a blanket over his legs, apparently asleep. She walked towards him, and reached to pull the blanket up over his shoulders, when a hand darted out of nowhere and seized her wrist. "Shhh." It was Draco's voice. She turned her eyes towards him. He had been sitting sunk into the shadows of an overstuffed armchair next to the sofa, and had blended so completely with the darkness that she had not seen him. "Do not wake him up." "I wasn't going to," she whispered back, annoyed. "I was just going to pull up his blankets." Draco, looking weary, released her wrist. "Just...let him be," he said. "He hasn't slept in three days." "I know," said Ginny. She looked down at Harry and her feeling of annoyance vanished, buried under a flood of sympathy. He looked like a little boy, curled sideways on the couch, his head pillowed on his arm, his pale cheeks flushed with feverish sleep. His dark hair curled all around his head in tangles like licks of dark flame. "How is he?" she asked, sitting down in the chair next to Draco. "How is he really?"
Draco looked considering. "Rotten," he said finally, and his voice was flat. "Pretty much like you'd expect." She bit her lip. "I wish there was something I could do," she said. "he's had so much suffering in his life - I wish I could take it for him, you know?" He looked at her, his gray eyes dark, slightly unfocused with tiredness. "You still love him," he said. "I always will love him," said Ginny, "if not that way. We all do. He's like that." "Not your brother," said Draco, and his tone was bitter. Ginny sighed. "Especially my brother," she said. "I wouldn't expect you to understand." "I don't want to understand," Draco said. "And I can't be bothered - I've got enough to be bothered with without pondering your brother's motivations for creating this fucking mess." "He didn't create it," Ginny said sharply. "It was already there -" "Shhhhh," Draco said. "Keep your voice down." She looked more closely at him. "How long has it been since you slept?" "Hey." Draco cocked a finger at her. "I slept a whole hour on Tuesday." "You should sleep," she said firmly. "You'll crack otherwise." He shrugged. "It's not so bad. I hallucinate occasionally and I think that takes care of the problem. Yesterday I thought I was a teapot. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't also thought that Malcolm Baddock was a teacup..." Ginny smiled at him. The warmth of the fire was making her sleepy, and she was conscious of the slumbering form of Harry on the sofa. She wanted very much to hug him, and some part of her almost wanted to hug Draco as well, despite him being a prickly non-hugging sort of person. She recognized it was simply stress that was making her feel close
to both boys when really, it was Hermione who loved and mothered them, and was loved in return. But Hermione wasn't here...she shoved that thought down. "Draco..." "Maybe I will take a walk," he said, his eyes going past her to the window. "I feel like I haven't seen the sun in days." She nodded. "I'll sit with Harry, if you like." A flicker of relief passed across his face. "Would you?" He stood up, and she held out his cloak, which had been draped across the back of the sofa. Their fingers touched briefly as he took it and shrugged it on, closing the heavy fastenings across the front. "I'll just be outside..." "It's fine," she said. "Go," and he went, closing the door quietly behind him. Ginny settled herself into the armchair he had vacated. She was about to reach for the paperback book in her pocket when a sudden movement startled her. It was Harry, who had lowered his arm from his face. His eyes were open. "You're awake," she said, surprised. "Yeah." Harry sat up and reached for the glasses propped on the arm of the sofa. "Sorry if I scared you." "How long have you been awake for?" she asked. "Hours," he said briefly. "I heard you come in..." "You heard us talking? You should have said something." "No, you were right. He should go for a walk. Get some air. It's got to be boring, watching over me all the time." Ginny was fairly sure that Draco did not consider it boring, per se, but held her tongue. "Anyway," Harry added, "I wanted to ask you something, and I wanted to ask you when we were alone."
"Me?" Ginny was surprised. "What did you want to ask me?" Harry looked just past her at the fire. "I was wondering if you'd do me a favor and touch something for me." Ginny looked at him incredulously. "Pardon?" Harry blinked, then blushed. "That sounded bad, didn't it?" "Yes," Ginny said. "It did." Harry smiled. "Let me start over. I know that you can sometimes sense Dark magic if it's present in objects, or people. I was wondering if you would take a look at something for me, let me know if you feel anything unusual about it." Ginny tugged nervously at the gold chain around her throat. "Of course." "Thanks." Harry bent his head, then looked up at her again, quickly. "It's on my belt," he said, "hang on one second," and went back to sliding his leather belt through the loops on his trousers. As he bent his head, his hair fell away, showing the nape of his neck, cleanly exposed between the dark hair and the round collar of his black sweater. The knobs of his spine were faintly visible beneath the skin...he had gotten so thin. "Here," he said, and held out his hand. She took what he offered: it was a heavy circle of what looked like red glass. But it was much heavier than glass. Its weight in her hand was as substantial as if it had been carved out of stone. She turned it over slowly between her fingers, marveling at its smooth texture, despite the engravings all around the edges. "Do you feel anything?" he asked her, eyes anxious. She shook her head. "No. Nothing." She handed it back to him, and he took it unsmilingly. "You weren't hoping it'd be something evil, then?" she asked, half-jokingly, but he seemed to take the question seriously. "No, not really, but I was hoping for some kind of clue as to what it is," he said. "I hate not knowing things."
"Tell me about it," Ginny said. "I've about given up on feeling like we ever know anything, though. I mean, that cup you guys took from the museum - what did Hermione do with it?" She immediately regretted the question. At the sound of Hermione's name, Harry stiffened and visibly retreated back into himself like a rabbit fleeing down a rabbit-hole. "I don't know," he said stiffly. "I have no idea what she did with it," and he stood up suddenly, tossing the covers back onto the couch. "I think I might go upstairs for a while," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'd probably benefit from some time alone. And I need to pack." Ginny felt obscurely hurt. By now, however, she was a past master at hiding hurt feelings. All she said was, "When are you leaving, then?" "Tomorrow morning, same as you," said Harry. He reached out and ruffled her hair lightly, as if she were a little girl. "Thanks," he said. "I appreciate you looking at the bracelet." "Of course. If there's anything else I can do..." "You could go keep Draco company. It'd be good for him, I think, to spend some time with someone who actually talks." "I don't know where he went, though," Ginny protested. Harry's eyes unfocused for a moment. "The lake," he said, took the blanket off the couch, and with a nod, headed towards the boys' staircase. *** It was a brilliant winter's day outside. It had snowed the night before, which made it easier to follow Draco's distinctive boot prints in the snow. Ginny pulled the hood of her cloak up - it was very cold out, despite the sunshine glinting off the snow - and headed out to the lake. She was halfway around the perimeter of the frozen water when she realized with an odd pang that Draco seemed to be following the exact path that Harry and Hermione usually took around the lake's edge. She could not count the times she had looked out a classroom window and
seen the two familiar figures walking together, shoulder to shoulder, around the same track. She wondered if Draco realized it. It was not hard to find him. She rounded a bend and there he was, sitting on a black tree stump. Later, she could not remember exactly what he'd been doing at that moment. Tossing stones at the iced-over lake, or denuding an evergreen sprig of its last leaves. She stood for a moment and looked at him, at leisure to examine him without him noticing. Under his black cloak he had on slightly worn corduroys and a dark red pullover - she had rarely seen him look so un-put-together. He wore a strangely pensive expression, alert yet dreaming. It made her wonder what he was thinking about. She took a step forward towards him and a patch of ice cracked under her boot heel. He looked up, and when he saw her, looked startled. He began to rise to his feet. "Is there a..." "Harry's fine, you aren't needed," Ginny said. "Relax." He didn't relax exactly, just shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at her with an expression almost of resentment. "Well, if you want me to leave you alone..." she snapped. His expression relaxed slightly. "That cloak," he said. "Is it new?" She blinked at him, then down at her cloak. It was in fact new, her mother had sent to her as she had complained she was growing out of her last winter cloak. It was long, made of a pale yellow wool, not particularly distinctive. Draco noticed clothes more than other boys did, but she was surprised that even he would be struck by it. "Yes, early Christmas present." "Huh. It looks familiar." He sat back down on the tree stump, hands still in his pockets, and looked away from her. Ginny turned to go, when his voice prevented her, "Wait," he said. She turned and saw him looking at her, an odd sort of pleading in his eyes. "Stay." With a sigh, she went and joined him on the tree stump. For a moment they sat and looked out at the gray lake together in silence. The sunlight
touched it here and there through the pattern of bare branches, casting lucent patches of gold against the silver. It was Draco who broke the silence. "Something in your robe pocket," he said evenly, "is banging against my leg." "Oh." Ginny reached into her pocket and pulled out Passionate Trousers. She was about to tuck it into the pocket on the other side of her robe when Draco stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "Aren't you done reading that yet? How long can it take?" Ginny threw him a miffed glance. "Well, if I didn't keep getting interrupted by mad love triangles and grand-scale larceny I might be making better time." Draco released her wrist and shrugged. "I just have to ask myself whether you're trying to punish yourself, or what. If you want a book, I have plenty of good books I could lend you. A Tale of Two Wizards, Great Incantations..." "I do read good books. These are just...comforting." "Comforting how?" "Because they're predictable. You can tell what's going to happen just by looking at the front cover illustrations." "Oh, really?" Draco leaned forward and looked over her shoulder at the book cover. "How do you figure that?" "Well, look." She moved her finger across the page, acutely aware of his eyes following it. "That's Rhiannon, the girl in the white dress. She's the heroine. She'll go through some hard times, but basically, she'll win out in the end with her one true love by her side. And that guy, the one in the breeches, that's Tristan. He's brave and dashing and he only wants to be with Rhiannon, but sinister forces keep them apart. Not forever, of course. The girl in the tight red leather corset, that's Lady Stacia. She's evil and rather slutty, and she'll definitely die in the end, but not till she's shagged half the male characters first. And the man in the black cloak, that's the Dark Wizard Morgan, he's evil too."
"And who's the prat in the dress?" Draco inquired. "That's not a dress, they're robes of state. And that's Geoffrey Montague, he's a childhood friend of Rhiannon's and very dependable. It's touch and go there. If Tristan dies, she'll probably wind up with him, but she'll always really be thinking of Tristan. If Tristan lives -" Ginny broke off. Draco's shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. "What is so funny?" Draco made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Let me tell you what really happens," he said. "Given the available information and these fabulous illustrations, I predict that Montague there will finally come out of the closet and run off with the Dark Wizard Morgan, who wasn't really all that evil, just lonely. They move to the country, buy a tower with a view, and spend the next sixty years renovating it and purchasing antiques. Rhiannon opens a convent school for young witches and installs Lady Stacia as the headmistress, where she amuses herself by trying to get the dress code changed to include leather corsets and spanking the girls when they get out of line." Ginny glared at him. "What about Tristan?" "Oh, him. he's far too vain to be a decent love interest for anyone. Look at his boots. It takes hours to polish boots like that. No, Tristan is better off alone." "Tristan," said Ginny firmly, "wants to be with the one he loves." Draco grinned at her. "Well, for that all he really needs is a pile of naughty magazines and a door that locks." "Aaargh!" screamed Ginny, and threw the book at him. "You make it all sound so dirty!" "Thank you," he said. "I make what sound dirty?" "You know." She felt suddenly embarrassed. "Love." Draco tilted his head back and looked consideringly up at the sky. "Well, it is dirty," he said. "It's not some holy, exalted thing, you know. It's about appetite and wanting and need and all those other things that make people do ugly things to each other. There's no betrayal without love, no
loss without it, no jealousy. Half the ugliness in this world comes from it. It cuts and burns and makes wounds that don't ever heal. Give me hatred any day. Now there's an emotion I can get behind. You always know where you stand with it." "That isn't true. Love makes people unselfish -" "Like your brother?" His voice was soft. "Like your brother was unselfish?" "That wasn't about love -" Ginny was furious. How dare he bring up Ron. "Oh, it was," Draco said. "I saw his face when he looked at her. He was in love with her, whatever you might think." "Well, at least he was sincere about it," Ginny snapped. She knew she sounded spiteful. "He didn't pretend he didn't care." That made Draco sit up. He opened his eyes and splashed his cold gray ice-water gaze over her. "Oh, and I do?" He shrugged. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't really care about anybody. Or maybe it just looks that way to your idealistic eyes, did you think about that?" "I'm not idealistic. Just because I think it's ridiculous of you to pretend you don't care about anyone when you obviously do, doesn't make me idealistic. People can't live without someone to care about." "No, people can't live without food, water, shelter, and in my case, 3000thread count cotton percale sheets. Other people are a luxury and not a necessity." "Then why are you taking such care of Harry?" "That's different." "How is it different?" Something indefinable moved behind his gray eyes. "It just is." Ginny felt suddenly very weary. There seemed no point in having this conversation. It was impossible to win an argument with Draco, especially an argument like this one. She had no idea why she kept bothering; it would be equally productive to try to tunnel her way into the Chamber of
Secrets using a spoon. "I'm going back to the castle," she said, and stood up abruptly, shielding her eyes with one hand - she didn't want him to see how close she was to crying. She held out her hand. "Could I have my book back, please?" She heard a rustle of crackling snow, and then he was getting to his feet. "Are you all right? You're not crying, are you?" "No - something in my eye," she lied. "Oh. Come here, then." With brisk professionalism, he took her wrist and drew her towards him, his other hand under her chin. He tilted up her chin, and his eyes searched hers for a moment. "Stay still," he said. She held his gaze without blinking. She hadn't stood this close to him since the night of the Yule Ball. (Later she realized this was not strictly true - she had been this close when he had kissed her in the museum, but that had been such an obvious attempt to annoy Seamus, that she barely considered it a real kiss.) In fact, she had just about never been this close to him in daylight. She wanted to not stare, but she couldn't help it - some part of her mind seemed determined to print this moment on her memory, as if somehow she felt as if she might never see him again. She tried to concentrate on the things that were wrong with his face, the imperfections - the scar under his eye where Harry's ink-bottle had cut him, the fact that his eyes were slightly different shapes, that one side of his mouth was higher than the other, which accounted for the fact that he smirked so well, even the fact that his hair wanted cutting and was falling in his eyes. No, he wasn't perfect-looking when you took it all apart, Seamus was just as handsome - more if you liked them less delicatelooking. It didn't matter, of course. Seamus couldn't send reverberations shuddering up her arms just by touching her wrists. His eyes grazed her face like a touch. He spoke slowly. "I don't see anything," he said. It took a moment for her even to realize what he was talking about. When she recollected herself, she firmly detached her wrist from his grasp and stepped away, barely noting his surprised look. "I know," she said. "I know you don't."
*** The next day was the last day of term. Ginny rode from Hogsmeade back to King's Cross station in a train compartment with Dean, Seamus and Charlie. She could tell that Seamus was eager to talk to her alone but that the presence of Dean embarrassed him and the presence of her tall, muscular brother terrified him. At one point she saw Harry and Draco pass by through the compartment window, but was not particularly surprised that they didn't come in Harry would hardly want to be around Charlie, and Draco's loathing for Seamus was unabated. She waved at the two of them once they had disembarked onto Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. Harry waved back; Draco turned to see what he was looking at, and then they were blocked from her sight by Sirius and Narcissa. Ginny turned away to see her own family coming towards her from the other end of the platform - her mother and father, the twins, Percy, (Bill, she knew, was still in Egypt) - but Ron was not with them. She felt a pang but supposed she could hardly blame him for not coming. "Ginny..." said a voice in her ear. She turned and saw without surprise that it was Seamus. He had his hands in his pockets, and a black watch cap pulled down over his light hair. She realized she hadn't properly looked at him in days - he looked tired and downcast, but managed to smile at her. "I just wanted to say Merry Christmas." "Oh, Merry Christmas," she replied awkwardly, but before she could say anything else they were engulfed in a sudden tide of Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley descended on Ginny and hugged and kissed her; Mr. Weasley clapped Charlie on the back, Percy made officious welcoming noises, and Fred set off a miniature Filibuster Firework that played 'Jingle Bells' at obnoxiously high volume. Only George seemed to notice Seamus' presence amongst them. "Hey, Finnigan," he said equably. Seamus, looking shell-shocked, did not reply. Mrs. Weasley released Charlie from her embrace and turned a friendly glance on Seamus. "Oh, hello," she said. "And you are...?"
"This is Seamus, Mum," said Ginny pitching her voice an octave higher so that her mother could hear her over the sound of Jingle Bells. "He's the same year as Ron and he's a Chaser on our team and," she added, without having the faintest idea why, "he's my BOYFRIEND." There was a startled silence. Everyone looked shocked, no one more so than Seamus. "Your...boyfriend?" echoed Mrs. Weasley faintly. "Well, well," said Mr. Weasley, and held out a hand to Seamus. "Nice to meet you, son." Some of the color had come back into Seamus' face. "Nice to meet you too, sir," he replied, and shook Mr. Weasley's hand firmly. "My parents have always spoken very highly of you, my mum especially. She says you're the best Minister of Magic Britain's had since Felonius Plum." Mr. Weasley flushed with pleasure and pumped Seamus' hand with renewed vigor. "Well, well," he said again. "That's good to hear, very good to hear. Will we be seeing your family at the wedding?" Seamus shook his head regretfully. "No, I'm afraid not. Renovations on the family home..." "Family home?" echoed Mrs. Weasley. Seamus smiled at her. "Yes, you know how these big old castles are, always a bit tumbling down here or there. " "Castle?" Mrs. Weasley said. "Mum," Ginny half-groaned through gritted teeth. Seamus flashed a bright smile at Mrs. Weasley, who dimpled in a way usually reserved only for Gilderoy Lockhart. "It must be lovely in Ireland in the winter," she said kindly. "Oh, it is, although it's very cold," Seamus said, somehow managing to sound as if he found the conversation fascinating. "I could certainly use
one of those wonderful sweaters you're always knitting for Ron and Harry, Mrs. Weasley; I'd be the envy of my whole town." Ginny thought her mother might be about to asphyxiate with joy. She knew Mrs. Weasley was excessively proud of the sweaters she knitted every Christmas. She also knew that Ron annually attempted to give his sweaters away to Seamus, Dean and Neville with no takers. "What use have I got for a sweater with a bloody great RW embroidered across the front?" Dean had demanded last Christmas with his usual diplomacy. "You could pretend it stood for Royal Wanker," Harry had suggested amicably, and then he and Ron had fallen about laughing and making further suggestions, each ruder than the last. Ginny snapped out of her reverie to find her mother gazing at Seamus as if he were a long-lost child. "Call me Molly," she was saying. "And Ireland sounds really lovely. I'm sure Ginny would enjoy a visit there." "Muuuuuuuuuuuuum," Ginny wailed, scandalized, but her father had thankfully begun tugging her mother towards the far end of the platform, suggesting that they say a quick hello to Narcissa, Sirius and Lupin. "You two say your goodbyes," Mrs. Weasley beamed at Seamus and Ginny as her husband drew her away. Charlie and Percy followed them, and George and Fred sloped off to greet a few of their friends who had not yet graduated. Ginny turned slowly to Seamus, who was wearing a smirk that would have done a Malfoy proud. "WELL," she said, in an accusatory tone. "What was that all about?" Seamus opened his dark blue eyes very wide. "What was what all about?" "You, Transfiguring yourself into Super Boyfriend Guy." "Hey, you started it. I didn't even know I was your boyfriend. Was there a memo I didn't get?" Ginny was suddenly contrite. "Oh, I know, I'm so sorry. That was awful. I have no idea what came over me."
"Neither do I," Seamus said. "But I hope it happens again." Ginny looked at him quickly. She could tell he was nervous, because when he was nervous his soft Irish accent reasserted itself more strongly. "I'm just glad you're not angry at me," he said. She shook her head. "Of course not. Why would you think I would be?" "Well," he said, "you haven't spoken to me in three days. I haven't even had a chance to give you your Christmas present." "My Christmas present?" she echoed. "You got me a Christmas present?" "Of course I did." "Oh, but - I haven't gotten you anything!" "That's all right," he replied with a smile. "You can bring me something when your mother makes you come visit me in Ireland." "But I feel so guilty..." "Don't." His voice was firm. "I want to give you this. I've been thinking about it for yonks, and well..there isn't anyone else I'd rather give it to. And it was kind of expensive, and it would look stupid on me." "It better not be lacy underwear," she said. "Hardly. Anyway, I look fabulous in lacy underwear." He reached into a pocket of his cloak and drew out a small box. It was not the sort of box you put books or clothing in. It was, most definitely, a jewelry box. She hesitated. "Take it," he said gently. She took it, vaguely wondering if her family was watching all this and hoping desperately that it wasn't a ring. She herself was rather hoping it wasn't a ring, as she had no idea what she'd do if it was. "Go on," he said, "open it," and something occurred to her. No boy who wasn't her brother had ever given her a present. Not once. Not ever.
She opened the box. Inside, on a bed of brightly colored tissue, lay a bracelet. And not just any kind of bracelet...the tag attached proclaimed it to be a Porte Bonheur Enchanted Charm Bracelet. Ginny almost dropped the box. Charm Bracelets were both very expensive and very famous, because each charm had to be handcrafted with intricate spells, then Transfigured into an object that could be activated later. In fact, she'd never met anyone who owned one. "One of my uncles makes them," Seamus said a bit shyly as she took it out of the box and held it up to the light. The bracelet itself was a delicate but unremarkable band of silver links, but the Charms themselves were what was interesting - a tiny musical note, a small gold candelabra, a miniature arrow, a glass heart, a dish and spoon, a little quill, and a dozen more. "Just throw the charm into a fire to activate it - here, let me help you put it on..." She held out her hand and with a deft motion he snapped it closed around her wrist. He glanced up at her through his eyelashes. "Do you like it?" Ginny realized she had not said one word for the past five minutes. "I am such a git ," she gasped, without thinking. "Oh, it's wonderful. - I love it, and I -" But her family was back, surging around them in a wave of red hair and loud voices, and now they were tugging Ginny towards the car. She had time to grasp Seamus' hand briefly before they were pulled apart as Ginny's mother led her away, taking excitedly into her ear as they walked. Ginny made out only some of the words, "Castle, so polite, such nice manners, and so handsome too!" She nodded without replying as she looked back towards the platform, watching Seamus recede into the distance until he was lost from view. I love it, she had told him. And she had nearly added that she loved him too. What, she wondered, had prompted her to nearly say that when she was almost positively sure that it wasn't true? *** Two days after arriving at the Manor, Draco lay on his back in the middle of his bed, staring out the window at the clouds racing across the paleblue winter sky.
Lately he had decided that he rather liked his new bedroom. He had been initially annoyed when Harry had destroyed his old room. Then he had remembered that he'd never really liked it, with its ugly heavy dark furniture and gloomy black curtains. (He had once had somewhat fond memories of the wardrobe, but Harry had reduced that to matchsticks.) So he'd gathered up what belongings he wanted and relocated to a room farther down the hall, one he had always preferred. It had dark wood wainscotting, and the walls were painted a blue so light it was almost gray. It reminded him of winter sky, which he liked. He also liked the sizeable marble fireplace along the north wall - Harry had been right, Malfoy Manor could have used a better central heating system. The fireplace was hooked to the Floo Network, which had proved, lately, to be very useful. "Are you listening to me, Draco?" Hermione's voice had taken on a slight edge of impatience. Draco rolled over onto his stomach and rested his head on his crossed arms. "Do I ever do anything else?" Hermione scowled at him through the flames. He supposed he didn't blame her; he knew it cost money to use the fireplaces at the Leaky Cauldron for private Floo Communication, and the service wasn't the best. Occasionally they would be interrupted by other people's conversations, and the day before, Hermione had reported to him, pink-faced, that she'd been taken to "quite the wrong fireplace" where she'd seen "really shocking things." To his great disappointment, she refused, despite being plied with curious questions ("Did they involve balloons, marmalade, or a live marmot?") to elaborate on what the shocking things had been. "All right then," she sniffed, "what was I saying?" "You were," said Draco in a bored tone, "telling me about Rhysenn and Nicholas Flamel." "Oh, right, and the Four Worthy Objects...you know he was the last person ever to have assembled them all together?" "Yes, you told me that." "And then he was robbed and the objects were scattered and lost -"
"Was this before of after she died - Rhysenn, I mean?" "Oh." Hermione consulted a book he could not see. "After. Although, like I told you, she did die in 1616 but that's not the last reported sighting of her." "Considering that I sighted her last week, I'd think no, it wouldn't have been." "Hmph!" said Hermione. "I meant the last historical sighting." "Oh, did you?" Draco drawled. She smiled despite herself. "I did." "Well, then, tell me a bit more about these historical sightings." She did. It appeared that Rhysenn, who had other surnames besides that of Malfoy, reappeared again and again in the illustrations of the books on alchemy Hermione had checked out of the big library on Diagon Alley. She was often in crowd pictures behind one Malfoy or another, dressed in the fashion of the day, instantly recognizable with her narrow pale face and waist-length black hair.
"So she trails Malfoys around, leaving a trail of blood, death and devastation in her wake, is that it?" Draco asked when Hermione was halfway through her recitation. "That's encouraging." "The question is," Hermione said, "what does she want?" "No," Draco countered, "the question is, how do we get her to leave us alone?" "Maybe if we give her what she wants, she will," Hermione said. Draco thought of Harry in the graveyard, being sick after Rhysenn had touched him, and the drugged look in his eyes. "You might not want to give her what she really wants." "I've been thinking what she wants must be something in the possession of the Malfoys, since she seems so fascinated with your family. There are all sorts of examples of people being magically linked to objects, unable to be away from them. Souls can be embodied in various heirlooms, precious stones -" "Like Epicyclical Charms," Draco said. Hermione sighed. "Yes, Like Epicyclical Charms." "Mmm." Draco plucked at his duvet cover. "What's the last recorded sighting of her?" "In 1824, she was engaged as a nanny for the children of Octavian Malfoy - some great-uncle of yours - in Romania. She left when...oh, dear. The manor house he was living in burned down." "More death and destruction?" "Only Octavian died. He went back into the house to save his children...they all survived." There was a short silence. Draco lay where he was, gazing dreamily at the fire. It licked up around Hermione in tendrils of blue, green, and dark violet. "I'd like to die like that," he said, a little distantly.
Hermione dropped what she'd been holding. "Burned to death? No you wouldn't, Draco, it's an awful way to die." "No, not burned to death. Saving someone else's life - if you have to die, that's the way to do it, isn't it? Saving someone else's life." Hermione's intake of breath was so sharp it sounded like snapping firewood. "Don't say that. Don't talk about death like that." Another wave of tiredness rolled over Draco. "I guess you haven't had any luck researching..." "Your injury? No," Hermione said in a small voice. "I'm telling you, I'm about reduced to cross-referencing "injury" and "magical things that glow" and just seeing if I come up with anything." "Not a bad plan," Draco said equably. "You said you were going to see a mediwizard -" "I've got an appointment to see one tomorrow." She squinted narrowly at him. "Are you really or are you just saying that to shut me up? And are you still having those dreams?" "The ones about Snape's heart pajamas? No, thank God." "Draco..." Hermione's voice came out on a wail. "Honestly, I don't even know what aspect of your life to worry about first." Draco was spared answering as his bedroom door swung open with a bang, and Harry came in, scowling. "Malfoy, have you seen -" He broke off, his eyes widening fractionally at the sight of Hermione in the fireplace. Hermione herself paled but said nothing. There followed several moments of a Very Uncomfortable Silence. "I'd better be going," Hermione said finally. "They close the library at five o'clock, and I wanted to get in a few more hours of research. Give Sirius my best," she added, and with a slight wave, in the general direction of both Harry and Draco, she vanished.
Draco rolled into a sitting position and looked at Harry, still half-in and half-out of the doorway. The stricken look was gone from his face; now he looked as if he'd forgotten what he'd come for. "It's all right, Potter, she's gone," he said. "Cue the sulking." "I'm not going to sulk, it's just...I thought...her house wasn't connected to the Floo Network." "It's not. She's in Diagon Alley at the Leaky Cauldron. She told her parents she had a research paper to work on. Which, I suppose, is partway true. She's looking into the Four Worthy Objects. Life goes on, you know." "Right." Harry finally seemed to make up his mind, and came into the room, shutting the door behind him. On the small table by the door stood a collection of antique toy wizard soldiers; Harry picked up one desultorily and pretended to examine it. "So how often do you talk to her, then?" "Every day," said Draco, who saw no reason to lie about it. They did talk every day; today had been the first time that the majority of the discussion hadn't been about Harry. "Ouch," Harry said. It was a moment before Draco realized Harry wasn't reproaching him, but was in fact reacting to the fact that the toy wizard had stabbed him in the thumb with its wand. He dropped it back on the table and stuck his bleeding thumb in his mouth, which had the instant effect of making him look about eight. "Well," he began slowly, as if the words were being dragged out of him. "How is she doing, then?" "Rotten," said Draco, quite honestly, "you're both doing rotten; not eating, not sleeping, thwarted young love, very tragic. Here, borrow my quill, you can go write a poem in your journal all about it." Harry looked indignant. "I do not write poetry," he said, around the thumb. "Well, perhaps now is a good time to start." "I can't rhyme," Harry said. "I've tried."
"It's not that hard," Draco opined cheerily. "Oh, yeah?" said Harry unwisely. "You try it." Draco grinned evilly and knelt upright on the bed, one hand placed over his heart. "Woe! The pain that is my life," he declaimed. Woe! The pain that is my life The constant strain, the endless strife! Hermione won't be my wife Cause I'm a silly tart. So now I'm pining for my ex, I'm whining 'bout the lack of sex, The wand of fate has cast a hex Upon my noble heart. My dearest friend has shagged my girl -" "He did NOT SHAG HER," yelled Harry, turning approximately the color of an eggplant. "I hate you, Malfoy, and I hate your stupid poem!" Draco looked vaguely offended. "I was simply taking artistic licence. Come to think of it, your life makes an excellent epic poem - in a pathetic kind of way. I wonder what rhymes with 'cupboard'? Or 'lonely nights of wanking off in the Gryffindor dormitory'-ow! OW!" he yelled as Harry launched himself onto the bed and vigorously attacked him with a green embroidered pillow. A furious but silent fight ensued, which ended when Harry managed to jam an elbow into Draco's solar plexus while simultaneously sitting on his legs. "Take it back," he said. Draco made a face at him. They were nose-to-nose, and Harry was looking even more wild-eyed and wild-haired than usual. "I'm sorry I said you were a tart," he said.
Harry ignored this. "You know what I mean! Why are you bringing up you know - Ron and all that? Aren't you supposed to be being sensitive and brotherly and -" "Yeah, well, I tried that but it didn't seem to be working. So I thought maybe I ought to just keep mentioning it as rudely as possible until you get desensitized." "Oh that's a great idea. A real world-beater." Draco struggled to prop himself up on his elbows, putting himself at eye level with Harry, who was still kneeling on his legs. "Look, Potter," he said evenly. "This wedding is tomorrow. And you know who's going to be here. Weasley, for one. Half Slytherin House - their parents are all friends with my mother. I know Blaise and Pansy will be here. You're not going to be living in a world of people who don't know or are too polite to say anything, not any more. And the way you are these days, the first nasty comment anyone makes will cut the legs out from under you. Better you start getting used to it now, and hearing it from someone who doesn't really want to hurt you." The anger vanished from Harry's expression like a candle blown out. "You know, Malfoy," he said grudgingly. "You're probably the only person in the world who could be a huge jerk to me, then turn around and convince me that they're actually doing me a favor." "Yes," Draco agreed, deadpan. "I am a unique and beautiful snowflake." "Argh," said Harry, and rolled off him. He flopped onto his back and lay next to Draco, staring up at the ceiling. Draco manfully quashed the urge to tell Harry not to put his feet on the bedspread. "I guess..." Harry said slowly, his gaze unfocused, "I guess I have been a bit mopey lately..." Draco almost fell off the bed. "A bit mopey? A bit mopey?" "I - " Harry began, but Draco was having none of it. "You call that a bit mopey? I suppose you'd say that the inhabitants of Pompeii were a bit surprised when the top blew off their local hill and buried them all in ash? Or that the crew of the Titanic was a bit annoyed about hitting that iceberg? Or that -"
"I get it," Harry interrupted, wriggling slightly with annoyance. "So I've been mopey." "I'll tell you, Potter," Draco confided, "there've been times lately when I've been tempted to go hang about with Moaning Myrtle just to have someone upbeat to talk to." "Well, why bother hanging around me at all then -" Harry began irritably, then caught himself. He bit his lip. "Look, I'm sorry," he said more quietly. "I know it hasn't been pleasant for you. I don't want to seem like I'm not grateful -" "Grateful," echoed Draco, his voice faintly tinged with disgust. "Whatever. Look -" "You think I don't notice what you do for me," Harry said flatly. "Well, I do notice. It might not seem like it, but I do notice." Draco felt suddenly self-conscious. "I know," he said. "Look, I wasn't complaining -well, I was, actually, but now you've made me feel stupid about it. I hate that." Harry almost smiled. "I need a favor," he said. "And it's a weird one." Draco blinked. "Already this conversation has had more alarming twists than Snape doing the rhumba." He shrugged. "I'm all ears." Harry looked sideways at him, his expression open and confiding. It was that look that was very hard to say no to, because it made you want to trust him, and to believe that whatever idea he had was the right one. "I need you," Harry said, "to take my memories away." *** "You don't have a choice about this, Ronald Weasley," his father said, in a tone that clearly indicated that he would brook no argument. "Do you understand me?" "Yes," replied Ron, and his tone was as implacable as his father's. "But I'm still not going."
"Yes, you are. You're going." "No," said Ron. "No, I'm not." Ginny looked with mute appeal at her mother, who returned her gaze with one that was equally despondent. The two Weasley women sat together at the kitchen table; through the open door to the living room they could see both Ron and Mr. Weasley. Mr. Weasley was pacing furiously up and down on the hearth rug; Ron sat quietly on the sofa, his clasped hands dangling between his knees. His head was bowed, his tangled hair falling to hide his expression. "Don't fret, love," said Mrs. Weasley and patted her daughter's hand across the table. "Your Dad will make him see reason." Ginny just looked at her silently. For the first time in her life she felt briefly sorry for her mother, who really had no idea what was going on with her youngest son. Not as sorry as she felt for Ron, of course. She didn't blame him for not wanting to attend the wedding. Not at all. "...At least offer me a decent explanation!" Arthur was thundering, having moved on from All the Arrangements Have Already Been Made and But The Whole Family Is Going to the more general, but still effective, There Is No Reason For This Kind of Behavior. "I told you," Ron said in a monotone. "I had a fight with Harry. He won't want to see me. It'll make the whole wedding awkward. It's not fair on Sirius." Mrs. Weasley sighed. "Poor baby," Ginny heard her murmur under her breath. She had no idea if her mother was referring to Ron or to Harry. Of course Mrs. Weasley adored her youngest boy, but she was also positively ridiculous about Harry, worrying over him as if he were another one of her children. Ginny thought to herself with an inward smile that it might perhaps be a good thing that she and Harry had never dated - her mother would have taken his side in any arguments, and she would have wound up hitting her mother over the head with a plank, or wanting to. For Mrs. Weasley, the idea of Ron and Harry not speaking was as distressing as Fred and George or Bill and Charlie not speaking - a horrid warp in the familial weft.
"And I told you," Mr. Weasley replied furiously, "that I received an owl from Sirius just this morning. He told me how much they're looking forward to seeing us at the Manor and how much, in particular, Harry is looking forward to seeing you." "Sirius has to say that," Ron said woodenly. "No, he doesn't! And if you two really did have a fight, then maybe this is your chance to patch it up. You've fought before. It never lasts." Ron didn't reply but Ginny knew what he was thinking. This will last. "Your absence would really mar the happiness of this event for Sirius and Narcissa," Mr. Weasley said calmly. "It really would." Ron's head snapped up at that. He stared at his father. "You can't honestly expect me to believe that they'd care. Why would they?" he said, and his voice was so toneless that it was hardly a question. "Why do you?" "Of course I care!" Mr. Weasley began explosively. Then he threw up his hands. "I can't talk to you," he glowered. "I can't talk to you at all!" He spun on his heel and stomped out of the study into the kitchen. He paused to glare at Ginny and her mother, his face tomato-red. "TEENAGERS," he announced, in the same tone Wizard Wireless Network reporters usually reserved for reporting an outbreak of goblin fever, and flung himself out the kitchen door and into the garden. Mrs. Weasley's face was the picture of dismay. "Oh, dear," she said, gazing anxiously out the window at her husband, who had begun a violent and probably unnecessary de-gnoming of the lettuce patch. "I suppose I'd better go talk to Ron." "No." Ginny got to her feet with a sigh. "Let me do it. I think I understand what's going on." She left the kitchen without another glance at her mother, shutting the connecting door to the study firmly behind her. Was it her imagination, she wondered, or was the temperature in the study actually several degrees colder than the temperature in the rest of the house? Certainly a chill seemed to be emanating from Ron, who was still sitting on the sofa in the same position he'd been in for the past two hours - head down,
shoulders bowed. She went and sat down on the sofa next to him. He didn't move. "I'm not going, Ginny," he said. "I know," she said. "But you have to." His head went up and he looked at her, betrayal evident in his eyes. Ginny winced. When she'd been eleven, the summer after the diary incident, she'd been plagued by nightmares. Her brothers had taken turns sleeping on the floor by her bed so that she wouldn't be alone. Her parents had offered to do the same, but Ginny had wanted her brothers there. Brothers were for protecting you. It was what they did. "Don't look like that," she said. "You know why." "Because of Mum and Dad -" "No, not because of Mum and Dad. Because of Harry." "Harry? Harry's the reason I want to stay away! He can't possibly want me there." "No," Ginny admitted. "Possibly not. But think about it for a minute, Ron. Harry is famous. Draco is famous. Sirius and Narcissa are both famous. This wedding is going to be a huge media event and there will be reporters there. If you don't go, they'll have a field day with it. 'Harry Potter's best friend, son of the Minister of Magic, was conspicuous by his absence from the gala affair...'" Ron buried his face in his hands with a groan. "Don't," he said. "Anyway, fine, maybe I have to go to the wedding but why do I have to go a day early with the rest of you? I thought the luncheon thing tomorrow was supposed to be top secret anyway, there won't be any reporters there, nobody even knows about it except the people who're invited." "I know, Ron, but don't think they won't ask around at the wedding and find out who was there the day before." "They wouldn't," said Ron, miserably.
"They would," Ginny replied flatly. "They'll dig around, too, and they'll find someone willing to talk. And then they'll splash it all over the gossip pages of Teen Witch Weekly just like they did third year with that Krum business, and fourth year with that whole Harry and Cho thing - and none of that stuff was even true. And Harry will be humiliated all over again. Do you want that?" "No! No, of course I don't!" Ron flung himself to his feet and paced over to the fireplace. THe hearth was empty and cold; there was no fire lit. In the momentary silence between them, Ginny could hear that it had begun to rain outside. "If I could go back and change things, don't you think I would?" "It doesn't matter. You can't," she said. "You can't fix what you did in the past. But you can maybe make the present a little more bearable." "If you had told me a year ago," Ron said quietly, still staring down into the empty fireplace, "that I'd be expected to go to Malfoy Manor on my Christmas holidays, to attend a wedding of all things, and that Harry would be there too because he lives there now - and that I'd be expected to be happy about this, because everyone else is - I would have laughed at you. I hate Malfoy. I hate all the Malfoys and everything they stand for. And sometimes, still, I wonder if Draco is the only one besides me who remembers how things used to be. I can tell by the way he looks at me like he's gloating about how he's finally won. He always wanted Harry on his side and now he's got him. I miss him, Ginny -" Ron's voice broke, and she stood up, wanting to go over to him, but she could hear the live undercurrent of pain in his voice, and was afraid that any expression of sympathy might crack the last of his self-control. "I miss my best friend," Ron said, more quietly. "He loved what I loved and hated what I hated, and always put me first. And now - now I don't know. If we had to go through that Second Task again right now, who do you think he'd be rescuing from the bottom of the lake? Not me, that's for sure." "Ron," Ginny said softly. "People change." "I don't. I don't change." Ron looked at her and through her; she knew he wasn't really seeing her at all. "I'll go," he said. "I'll go to the wedding, for all the reasons you said. But I have a bad feeling about it. Something is telling me that there's darkness coming. Bad things are going to happen terrible things."
Ginny was suddenly on the alert. "Bad things? Are you just saying that, Ron, or do you see something? Because if you do -" Ron smiled bitterly. "It doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter what any of us does. What's coming will come and we can't stop it." *** Draco sat bolt upright and stared. "You want me to what?" "You heard me," Harry said. "Uh-huh," Draco said. "Would this be select memories, or do you want them all gone? Planning to start life over again as somebody else? Going to enter the Wizarding Witness Protection Program? Spend the rest of your life wondering where that funny-looking mark on your head came from, are you?" "Ahem," Harry said. "You're hysterical." "I am not hysterical," Draco said with dignity. "Yes you are, and anyway, I never said anything about you taking all my memories away. I don't want you to take all of them away, or even most of them. I just want to not remember..." His voice trailed off. Draco sat very still. In the past seven days, he had only once heard Harry say Ron's name, and that had been because he was angry. He had not said Hermione's name either, referring to her only as "she" and "her" when he absolutely had to. Despite Draco's light words about desensitization he was, on some very deep internal level, badly frightened by Harry's reaction to everything that had happened. He would never have admitted it to himself or anyone else, but he was. "I just want not to remember all of that," Harry finished. "You know. Just for tonight, because it's Sirius' party and I don't want to ruin it by being miserable. I ought to be happy for him, and I am, it's just..." Harry closed his eyes, and for a moment, held his breath. Eyes shut, his eyelashes brushed the tops of his cheekbones in fine black penstrokes. "I'm so tired," he said finally, wearily. "It's such an effort, acting normal."
'It's just a night," Draco said. "I know," Harry replied, opening his eyes, "and then there's the next night, and the night after that, and I have to get through them all, and I will - I will. It's just tonight - tonight is special. It's Sirius, you know?" His last sentence hung in the air with a plaintive sound. Draco did indeed know. Sirius was indeed special, even more so now when Harry felt he had so little left to depend on. Draco cleared his throat. "No," he said. "I won't do it." Harry struggled into a sitting position and stared. "Why not?" "Because I'm not trained to do Memory Charms. Because they can backfire. You might lose the wrong memories, or lose your memories altogether." "But I thought you - I mean, with all that Dark Arts training..." "Memory Charms aren't a Dark Art!" Draco almost yelled. "And I can't believe you'd be dim enough to think that if they were a Dark Art, I'd go about practicing them on you!" Harry looked startled. "I..." "Sirius would kill me, for a start," Draco said angrily. "Anyway, think how it'd look if, in the middle of the party, you forgot his name or something." "Oh, all right. I reckon I see your point. But there must be something..." "How about a Cheering Charm?" Draco asked grudgingly. Internally it was his opinion that asking Draco Malfoy for a Cheering Charm was not unlike asking Snape for a love potion, or Filch for a pink-iced birthday cake. "It couldn't do you too much damage." Harry shrugged. "Can you do one?" "It's bloody third-year magic, of course I can do one." "I suppose I meant, will you do one?"
Draco sighed. "Against my better judgement, yes I will. But not right now. I need to look them up, and anyway, I don't want you going around grinning like a lunatic all afternoon." Harry grinned - in a calm and un-lunatic-like manner - and rolled off the bed, landing lightly on his feet. "Thanks. I'll come back before the party, then." "What joyous news. Potter -" Harry turned. "What?" "Nothing." *** Malfoy Manor was so huge, Harry thought crossly, that he wished Sirius would just break down and draw a Marauder's Map for the place. He seemed to be able to find his way around fairly well when he didn't think about it - probably another leftover from the botched Polyjuice spell, an echo of the little bit of Draco still lodged at the back of his skull. Hey there Malfoy, he thought with dark amusement as he approached a drafty intersection of two corridors, which way do I go? He went left, partly because instinct told him to, and partly because Draco was on his mind and he associated Draco with all things leftwards and sinister. The turn brought him to another corridor, this one lit by candelabras in jade brackets. It didn't take a Hermione-level genius to realize he was in the Green Wing - green tapestries depended from the walls, and the floor was overlapping tiles of white and green marble. Green, green and more green. Bleh, Harry thought. At least he was going the right direction, however. The conservatory was in the Green Wing. He ducked past a sour-faced Malfoy ancestor glaring from a green-framed portrait and around another corridor, and there he was, in the conservatory. Harry looked around him in quiet wonder. He knew Draco's family had money. They were money, almost the richest wizarding family in England. But he himself was possessed of such an abstracted nature, especially lately, that he had never really paused to think about, or notice, the
Manor's grandiose interiors. Probably because most of the house, while impressive, was coldly ornate without being beautiful; the conservatory, however, was beautiful. The walls were tinted glass, rising high above his head, and the pale winter sunlight poured through, turning the air to a silvery-gold haze. Hyacinths floated atop still pools of water. Huge trees rose overhead, wreathed in melancholy moss; there were palms, tree ferns, a pine and a giant bird-of-paradise plant. And of course, this being the home of the Malfoys, one wall was devoted to carnivorous plants which Harry recognized from Herbology class: among them sundews, butterworts, pitcher plants, Venus flytraps and bladderworts. He whistled through his teeth, and the sharp sound echoed off the glass. It recollected him to his task. Quickly crossing the conservatory floor, he knelt down by a freshly turned bed of earth, like an altar boy kneeling at a railing. He reached into his cloak, and began to draw the objects he had brought with him out, one by one, placing them on the marble floor by his right knee. He had no idea what he was doing, really; he was proceeding almost entirely on instinct, but then what he was trying to reproduce was an instant of the most instinctual magic he could imagine. So the objects he had brought with him had not been collected with a specific purpose in mind, exactly. They were simply what seemed to him right at the time: the Pensieve Draco had given him for his birthday and the album Hagrid had once given him full of photos of his parents. The eagle feather quill that had been his twelfth birthday present from Hermione. A playful line drawing Sirius had once sketched for him, showing the Gryffindor team on their broomsticks. A letter from Lupin. He had wanted to bring something Ron-related as well, but had been unable to look at any of the gifts his best friend had once given him. He could have forced himself, but it would have required a soul-searching he felt himself incapable of. He didn't want to think too much about what he was doing. Thinking might destroy the fragile web he was weaving here, a web spun out of instinct, love and desperation. It was as if the instructions he was following had been laid down for him in dreams. He had not consulted any spellbooks, had not been to the library. His mouth twitched as he imagined how horrified Hermione would be by what he was doing.
Hermione. The thought of her brought a sour taste to the back of his throat. He looked at the small scatter of objects on the floor at his feet, then stretched out his right hand. "Apparecium incendio," he whispered, and a fire leaped up from the stone floor in front of him, making him jerk his hand back quickly. It was hot, hotter than a normal fire. He waited a moment to see if it would spread, but it remained contained within a small, inviolate space about the size of his own outstretched arms making a circle. Keeping his mind blank, he took the eagle feather quill and hurled it into the heart of the fire. The flames burned blue for a moment. Harry took hold of Sirius' sketch, and tossed that in as well. The letters from Lupin followed, the ink showing up black and brilliant as the pages crumbled away into ash. Harry lifted the photo album - hesitated a moment - threw it in. Tears he was unaware of spilled from his stinging eyes as the fire turned a violent azure color, flared up, and went out, leaving a handful of ashes behind. Harry took the handful of ash, and slowly sifted it through his fingers into the bowl of the Pensieve. His heart was beating hard against his ribcage. The inchoate white smoky stuff inside the Pensieve turned to scarlet, and began to swirl faster, like angry thunderclouds. Harry reached into his back pocket, and took out his much-used pocket knife. He flicked the blade open, wrapped his fingers around it, held out his hand, and squeezed tightly. A zinging silvery pain shot up his arm, and a slow thread of scarlet blood unraveled from his clenched fist and spilled into the Pensieve. The smoke's scarlet color deepened. Now it was the color of old blood. Harry felt it was time. He dropped the knife, and with his bloody hand reached inside his shirt, and drew out the small glass vial of dirt on the end of its frayed cord. He uncapped it and poured the dirt into the Pensieve, then threw the vial aside. He heard the glass smash on the stone floor; it sounded like distant rain. The next words Harry spoke left his lips without any conscious thought at all. The smoke, the dizziness of not having eaten for days, the pain in his hand, and the instinctual magic he was conjuring had put him into almost a trance state. In that state, his mind reached back into itself for what was almost his earliest memory - his mother, leaning over him and singing softly, and the song she sang was one of magic and protection.
No exorcisor harm thee, And no witchcraft charm thee. Ghost unlaid forbear thee, Nothing ill come near thee. There was a soft sound, like the threads of a frayed rope parting under strain. The smoke in the Pensive suddenly shot upwards, out of the bowl, like a serpent rising up under the ministrations of a snake-charmer. The scarlet smoke rose up and up, winding around Harry. It wound around him three times, tightly, and he felt the pressure as if the smoke were a silk cord binding him - once around his forehead, once around his throat, and once around his heart. He was, for a moment, blinded by the red smoke, and deafened by it, too. He saw only scarlet shadows, heard only the beat of his own heart. Then the silence was broken. He heard a voice inside his head. It spoke to him as he had thought only Draco could speak to him : without words, but saying everything.
It is done. You are protected. And the smoke vanished, funneling back into the Pensieve like water being sucked back down a drain. Within a moment, the smoke had returned to its previous color, and the Pensieve looked just as it had an hour before, entirely untouched. Harry blinked and gasped in air - his throat burned from breathing the acrid smoke, and his face was sticky where his tears had made tracks in the dirt and soot that covered him. He felt worn with exhaustion, but strangely relieved. Slowly, he lowered his head, and rested it on his bleeding hand. It's done, he told himself, echoing the voice in his head. I am protected. Now I can do what I have to do. What I was born to do.
Now I can kill. ***
Hermione scrubbed the back of her hand wearily across her eyes. This was the third afternoon she'd spent inside the Althea Thoon Memorial Library in Diagon Alley. She'd never thought she'd feel this way, but she was sick of the inside of the library. Probably because her research wasn't getting anywhere. Hermione had always been able to bury herself in work, the more complicated the better. But she had never been quite so preoccupied as she was now - thoughts of Ron and Harry crowded her mind, compounded by worry over Draco, who looked worse each time she talked to him - and didn't anyone else notice? Didn't they care? She knew he was clever enough to hide things from Sirius, but what about Harry, the one person who should have known instinctively, the one person who might actually be able to get Draco to do something about it. She itched to owl Harry but she knew perfectly well that he'd tear up any letter she sent without reading it. Oh, he was stubborn. Damn it. She glanced up and around her and sighed. The library walls were paneled mahogany, very dark, and hung with paintings of famous witches and wizards. Hermione had taken a seat underneath a portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw in dark blue robes, hoping it would give her inspiration. Instead she was haunted by the lingering feeling that Rowena looked disappointed in her. She stood up, stretched her aching muscles, and went back to the floating card catalogue along the east wall. She'd already asked the bookworms to do at least four searches for her, and she was fairly sure they were tired of her requests - it was hard to tell, though, when dealing with worms, even extremely intelligent, magical, slightly fuzzy ones. One slithered over along the top of the catalogue and waved its pale gold antennae at her curiously. Hermione sighed again. She'd already run searches on poison, injuries, blood, glowing, silver, weakness/debilitation spells, and phosphorescent. She hadn't come up with anything - there didn't seem to be a potion or poison that caused blood to glow. There were potions that caused people to glow, and several cosmetic spells that promised glowing and revitalized skin, but she had a feeling that this wasn't a cosmetic spell gone horribly awry. (Although, with Draco, anything was possible.)
The bookworm waved its antennae impatiently. Hermione sighed again and gave it her last shot, "Could you search the Magical Armaments section for me? I want to know what weapons glow themselves, or cause glowing injuries to be inflicted." The antennae waved again, and the bookworm wriggled busily away. Hermione watched it go, stifling a yawn. She knew it could take hours for the worm to scour all the books in the Weaponry section, and she really was deathly sick of being indoors. With a resolute shrug of her shoulders, she went back to her desk, retrieved her blue wool cloak, and hurried out the doors of the library into the weak winter sunshine. Diagon Alley was a hive of activity. Less than five days were left until Christmas, and it seemed as if every witch and wizard in England had descended on the narrow maze of shopping streets around the Alley. Floating red and green ribbons wreathed the tall metal lanterns, tiny enchanted gold angel statuettes trilled from the tops of Christmas trees. Hundreds of owls swooped overhead, carrying packages emblazoned with the WPS logo (the Wizarding Postal Service, for those who didn't own owls of their own - the owls were notorious for losing packages en route, and Ron tended to call the WPS "Whoops" for short.) Hermione passed a brass colliery band energetically playing "Adeste Fidelis" as she rounded the corner of Petticoat Lane. The windows of the Lane were devoted now to displays of beautiful winter dresses and dress robes. Hermione slowed her pace, looking in the windows. She had never been terribly interested in clothes, and still wasn't - she liked to look nice and clean and presentable, and every once in a while to wear a smart skirt or sweater, but the sad truth was that everything she owned tended to get ink stains on it after a while. She liked pretty things but never seemed to have the time or inclination to work tirelessly on her appearance the way Blaise or Pansy did, unless it was a special occasion. Having Harry in her life a boyfriend had made her think about her appearance more, but now...she looked at her reflection in the nearest shop window and sighed. Tangled hair, draggled face, nubby old sweater and wrinkles in her tights. Ugh. Her gaze drifted upwards towards the dresses in the window display. She narrowed her gaze. Hermione loathed frothy party dresses, anything covered in lace or beads or masses of
flowers made her queasy. But these were really rather nice - straight clean lines and jewel-colors, dark reds and greens and blues. And she did need a dress for the wedding. And she didn't want to arrive looking like she'd been dragged backwards through a jungle of Fluttering Ferns, since Harry was going to be there. She intended to look fabulous and sweep past him with a haughty glare that would crush him like a bug. Well, she didn't want him crushed, really. Perhaps just slightly squashed. Dented, maybe. It was decided. Hermione squared her shoulders and pushed the shop door open, smoothing her hair down as best she could with her gloved hand. She knew she didn't look her best, but it was unlikely she'd run into anyone she knew. Unlikely, but apparently not impossible. Hermione took a few steps into the store, her eyes adjusting to the dimmer light. Rose-shaded lamps threw a pinkish glow over everything: elegant dresses were displayed like bonbons under glass cases and hanging on walls. There were daring short dresses, long dramatic black sheaths, and confectionery-pink frocks with lace edgings. Over by the window, a short-haired brunette girl stood patiently which a tall witch with an iron-gray bun deftly applied Pinning Charms to the hem of her rose-printed dress. The bell chimed as the door shut behind Hermione, and the tall witch turned. "Hello, dear," she said. Her voice was cool and remote, belying her warm words. "I'm Madam Magsby, and this is my shop. If you'll wait, I can be with you in a moment." Hermione didn't reply; she was too surprised. For the girl in the rose dress had turned around, and was staring at her with a look of utter horror on her face. It was Pansy Parkinson. *** Draco stood and surveyed himself in the mirror that hung on the inside of his wardrobe door. He looked good - well, this was a given. He always looked good. He would probably have possessed the same amount of natural arrogance had he been born plain or even unfortunate-looking; the fact that his arrogance, looks-wise, was justified, was something he rarely even thought about. The Malfoys were a good-looking family and
always had been. Girls had started staring at Draco (and some boys, too) around the time he was fifteen; before that, as his mother kindly put it, he hadn't quite grown into himself yet. He'd always been small and slight, like Harry, and had started to grow at the same time Harry had. He suspected he'd willed himself into it - he couldn't have borne being shorter than Harry Potter. He made a minute adjustment to his tie, tilted his head, and gave himself a last critical once-over. He wasn't sure what one was supposed to wear to a stag night that wasn't really a stag night. Sirius had been very clear on that point. There would be no naked witches lunging out of pastries, he'd said - just a quiet night at the Cold Christmas Inn with friends and some of the locals from Malfoy Park, who Sirius was hoping to become more friendly with. The Park denizens had always had a touchy relationship with the Malfoys of the Manor, and Sirius was hoping things could be patched up. Draco knew Sirius was doing this for his own benefit, and was grateful. The idea of Sirius at the Cold Christmas Inn also made Draco smile - the Inn had been a staple lounging-place of his father's for years. "Quit fiddling with your tie," said a voice behind him. "You always fiddle about with it and it always winds up looking just the same." He spun around. Harry stood just inside the doorway, an inquiring look on his face. He wore Kenneth Troll dark blue trousers and a dove-gray pullover under a long wool winter cloak; Draco recognized the clothes as ones he had suggested Harry ought to buy. Harry had no fashion sense of his own, Draco mused, but at least he could take instruction. "Merlin's bloody ghost," Draco muttered. "Don't you ever knock?" Harry looked indignant. "I did knock. You were too busy admiring your own reflection to notice." "Knock twice, then. Don't just come waltzing in. What would you have done if I'd been sitting here stark naked covering myself in tapioca pudding?" An alarmed look passed over Harry's face. "I don't know, is it the sort of thing you're likely to do?" "I might," Draco said haughtily. "It's my room, I can do what I like in it."
"Well," Harry said diplomatically, "to be honest, I'd have to say I'd think you were very strange." Draco glared at him. "Besides," Harry added. "You hate tapioca." "I think you're missing the point." "Oh, you had a point? I'm sorry, it must have gotten buried under all the pudding." "Ahem." The sound of a polite cough interrupted their discourse. "I'm not even going to ask what this is about." It was Narcissa, peering in around the open door and looking amused. "Draco, darling - five-minute warning. Sirius is waiting for you two downstairs." She left with a smile. Harry looked anxiously at Draco. "We'd better do it now," he said, "What? Oh - the Cheering Charm. Yeah, all right. Come over here." Draco sighed and reached for his winter cloak, shrugging it on while Harry came slowly across the room towards him. "You sure about this?" Harry paused in front of him. "Yeah, I'm sure. It's just a Charm, anyway." "All right." Draco finished fastening the gryphon-shaped brooch that held his cloak together in the front, pushed his sleeves up, and regarded Harry for a thoughtful moment. "Close your eyes," he said. Harry looked worried. "Potter," Draco said in a warning voice. Harry sighed and shut his eyes. Draco reached out and hesitantly put his forefingers to Harry's temples; Harry didn't react at all, just bent his head so his dark hair fell forward over Draco's hands. It was still damp from being washed, and the strands were cold on Draco's skin. Just below Harry's temples, there were streaks of soot; Draco wondered what on earth that was about.
"Stay still," Draco ordered him, and thought as hard as he could of cheerful things - the more cheerful the thoughts of the spellcaster, the more effective the spell, in this particular case. He thought determinedly of Quidditch victories, Christmas presents, amusing jokes...the look on Seamus' face when, somewhere in Ireland, he unwrapped his Christmas gifts and found that an anonymous benefactor had sent him a brand new shovel set... A small smile came and tugged at the corner of Draco's mouth. He bent his own head and concentrated as hard as he could on sharpening his will into a point as sharp as the point of a knife, as strong as unbendable adamantine. Tension like a strung bow tautened along his nerves, gathering - he shut his eyes "Felicitus," he said. He felt the magic leave his fingertips like an exhaled breath. Harry stiffened; Draco dropped his hands and stepped back. Harry's eyes had opened wide. "Wow," he said. Draco gave him a narrow look. "Why wow?" Harry grinned. It was a happy grin, full of life and light and joy, the sort of grin no one would possibly fake. "Amazing," he said. "Amazing...?" Draco echoed. "I feel like a thousand pound weight's been lifted off me," Harry said, staring down at himself, then back up at Draco. "I feel - normal. Thanks, Malfoy." He looked at Draco, wide-eyed. "I mean it. Thanks." "Sure," Draco said. A sense of vague disquiet had settled on him. "Glad it worked." "Worked..." Harry seemed to be speechless, and possibly on the verge of dispensing hugs, flowers, bunnies, and God only knew what else. Draco backpedaled hastily, picked his gloves up off the table, and gestured at Harry.
"We ought to go," he said. "Isn't your adoptive father downstairs waiting for us?" "Right, right." Harry nodded and headed for the door. He paused there, hand on the knob, and swung around to look at Draco. "You've done a good thing, Malfoy," he said simply. Draco paused and stared at him, arrested in the act of putting on his gloves. Harry's eyes were full of light; he hadn't seen him like this in months. He was not sure if Harry was looking at him or through him What is he seeing? Not me, someone better than that. "I hope so," Draco said, and followed Harry out of the room with an unshakable sense of profound misgiving. **** "Hi," Hermione said, after a very awkward moment had passed. "Hi, Pansy." Pansy did not reply. Hermione looked at her in astonishment. All the blood had drained out of the other girl's face and the bright, pretty color of her dress stood out in stark contract to her papery skin. Her dark brown eyes were wide with horror, as if Hermione were some hideous ghost. "I take it you two know each other," said the witch with the iron-gray bun, looking amused. "We're in the same year," Hermione said, still staring at Pansy. "At Hogwarts?" the witch inquired. "Y-yes," Hermione said, since Pansy appeared to have been stunned into silence. A strange idea was beginning to take shape in Hermione's head. But no. That was ludicrous. "Seventh year." "I take it you are also attending the Malfoy-Black wedding on Saturday?" the witch began, but this time Pansy interrupted her.
"You're going to the wedding? I thought you --" Pansy began, then snapped her lips shut. Color had come back into her face in a flood; she was as pink as one of the roses on her dress. "I mean, after -" "Of course I'm going," Hermione said evenly, struggling to conceal her annoyance. It wasn't entirely amazing that Pansy would know about her breakup with Harry - surely the whole school knew that. Still, it was rude of Pansy to bring it up. Then again, when had Pansy not been rude? "I wouldn't dream of missing Sirius' wedding." "Well," Pansy said, her voice unnaturally shrill, "Just a word of advice: it looks a bit pathetic showing up at the family home of a bloke who's just binned you. I wouldn't do it if I were you." It took Hermione about four seconds to go absolutely rigid as she digested Pansy's truly appalling remark. When she spoke again, her voice had a rasping note, as if she were struggling to keep it even. "I don't like you, Pansy, and I never have," she said. "But it seems to me that lately you've been even more vicious than usual. What, exactly, is your problem with me?" Pansy's features thickened, her eyes hardening and almost sliding together. "What do you care," she hissed, and the seamstress who'd been fixing her gown stepped back, her eyebrows raised. "You, with your perfect little life and your perfect boyfriend, and Ron and Draco drooling over you as if you were something special, which you aren't. You treat them like they were less than you are, and they're pureblood wizards. How dare you? Mudblood!" she yelled at Hermione, in a paroxysm of abandoned rage. "Mudblood!" "Pansy, has it ever occurred to you that none of those boys like you because you're a complete bitch?" Hermione snapped, fed up at last. "I don't treat them like they're less than me, but I don't drool and fawn over them just because they're boys, and purebloods - you even fawn over Ron, and he hates you -" Pansy screamed aloud, and seemed for a moment as if she'd throw herself at Hermione, but Madam Magsby caught at her and held her back. "Now, now, dear," she said. "You'll damage the material."
"You're pitiful!" Pansy cried at Hermione, her eyes wet. "Dangling Potter and Draco along after you like you have all the time in the world to make up your mind, you think we all don't look at them and laugh? You've made a laughingstock out of them, and they're pureblooded wizards, whatever else they might be. Everyone thinks you're so special and clever - well, I see right through you. Just because you're popular and you're Head Girl doesn't mean -" "You want to settle this with a duel? Is that what you want?" Hermione interrupted, her voice careening upward. "I'll duel with you, Pansy - I'll duel with you, and when I'm done with you there won't be enough left of you to stuff a Pumpkin Pasty!" "Oooh," said Madam Magsby. "I do love a Pumpkin Pasty." Pansy burst into tears. As Hermione looked on in astonishment, she tore herself away from the seamstress, raced across the room, and flung herself into one of the dressing compartments. The door banged shut behind her, and the sound of loud crying was audible therein. "Honestly!" said Hermione, to no one in particular. "Well, well," said Madam Magsby, a small smile crossing her face. "Very impressive, my dear. Would you like to try a dress on now?" "I..." Hermione wanted nothing less. She wanted to go back to the Leaky Cauldron, get a pillow, and cry. But she was determined not to let a snob like Pansy drive her out of the nicest shop on Petticoat Lane. "I suppose I could." "Well, stand over here by the window, then, and do take off that cardigan. It's frightful." Hermione did as she was bid, and was soon swathed in layers of a peachgold chiffon material printed with tiny birds. She felt tense all over, waiting for Pansy to emerge from the dressing room, and Madam Magsby kept sticking her in the neck with pins. Hermione held her hair away from the collar of her dress and sighed a martyred sigh. The bell at the front door of the shop sounded. Hermione craned her neck around and was rewarded with another pin in the neck. A tall, stylish-
looking witch had entered the shop. She had a tight, attractive face and lacquered-looking blond hair. Her eyes scanned the room quickly, and landed on Hermione. "Darling, have you -" she began, then broke off. "You're not my daughter," she said, as if Hermione had somehow affronted her personally. The door to the dressing room banged open. "Mummy!" exclaimed Pansy, and ran towards the tall witch. "You're late." Mrs. Parkinson looked down at her daughter with amusement. "You cannot possibly be getting all those dresses, Pansy." "Oh," Pansy gasped, and glanced down at the pile of clothing she'd removed from the changing room. "No, I - I -" "Do decide quickly, darling, Daddy's waiting at Nutkin's Beauty Supply; he's just delivered a shipment and you know how he hates to wait." "I'll - I'll take this one," Pansy declared, and seized a dress from the pile, obviously at random: it was a hideous pale green with frilly cuffs and collar. She tossed the rest of them over the back of a padded chair. "Does it fit?" her mother asked, "it looks a bit -" "It fits fine, Mummy," Pansy said, so obviously eager to leave that even her mother noticed. "Very well," Mrs. Parkinson sighed. She glanced up at Madam Magsby, "Put it on our account," she declared, took the dress from her daughter, and swept regally from the shop like a boat departing from a harbor under full sail.
She is the strangest girl, Hermione thought to herself, as the door banged shut behind Pansy. Now, what was that all really about? **** The sun was going down outside the windows of the Cold Christmas Inn in a torrent of gold and blood: a Gryffindor sunset. Sirius watched it through the diamond-paned windows from his place at the bar next to Lupin, and felt that all was well with the world.
"Try some elm wine," Lupin said, and pushed a glass towards him. It was filled with a pale-gray liquid that shimmered like mother-of-pearl and smelled vaguely of socks. "Romanian wizards swear by it." "I bet they do," said Sirius with deep suspicion. "I bet they say, 'What the bloody hell is this stuff'?" "True," said Lupin. "Only they say it in Romanian." He grinned, and his gray eyes lit up. "Come on, you have to try it. The Mayor bought a whole bottle of it in your honor." Sirius groaned to himself. This particular gathering was something of a political move, along with a social one. He'd invited both the Mayor of the town of Malfoy Park and the bailiff as well, since the township had rarely gotten along well with the Manor - Lucius had kept them crushed under an iron boot heel. He was hoping they'd have a better relationship with the Manor's current occupants, and inviting them to the party seemed like a step in the right direction. He waved down the bar at the Mayor now - both he and the Bailiff were tall, spare, gray-faced men - and reached out for the glass of Elm wine. He drank it. "Bleh," he said under his breath, and set it down. Lupin chuckled. "Better you than me." "I thought the Romanian wizards swear by this stuff?" "They do," Lupin said agreeably. "But then, they also eat bats." "You're dead to me," said Sirius. "I hope you know that." Lupin chuckled again, and puffed on his cigar. Blue smoke swirled up from the tip. "You could go sit with Snape," he said. "He looks bored." "He's not bored. He's playing darts." "He sucks at darts. He's always sucked at darts. And he uses 'Expelliarmus' to cheat." "Surely he doesn't do that any more." "Hush," said Lupin.
Sirius hushed. A moment later a faint "Expelliarmus!" could be heard from the far end of the bar, and he glanced up to see a badly-aimed dart go zooming back into Snape's hand. "He's evil," said Sirius, impressed. "Hey," said Lupin. "You invited him." "I invited everyone here," Sirius said. "I seem to know a lot of gits, don't I?" He smiled politely and waved down the bar at the Mayor again. The Mayor waved back; the bailiff, a Mr. Stebbins, just glowered. "See what I mean? Gits." Lupin pointed. "They're not gits." "Who?" Lupin pointed again, and this time Sirius followed his gesture and saw that he was pointing at Draco and Harry, who sat apart from the rest, over by the enormous dressed stone fireplace that occupied most of the south wall. Sirius hadn't been particularly surprised that they'd wanted to sit off on their own; they were fifteen years younger than the rest of the partygoers, after all, and Harry especially had been very quiet lately. Sirius smiled. "No," he said, turning to study them more closely. "No, they aren't." The two boys sat side by side on one of the long, pillow-strewn couches, both looking into the fire, both silent, or apparently so. Sirius knew, however, by the intent, inward expressions on both their faces, by the half-smiles that came to tug at their mouths at the same time, prompted by some unseen and unheard joke, that they were not silent at all; they were talking, inhabiting a locked world of conversation only they could hear. Like any teenagers, he thought with amusement, they have their own private world - take the secretiveness of ordinary adolescence to its logical extreme, and it would look a lot like this. Not, of course, that they were ordinary, either one of them. Sirius looked more carefully. The candles and bracketed torches, coupled with the fire in the grate, seemed to catch them both in a net of dark gold light, turning the drinks in their hands to transparent jewels. He could not
really see the details of what they wore, only that they were dressed similarly, in dark clothes of expensive material, elegantly cut. It was a little odd, or perhaps just interesting, that Draco, who had always been so careful about his appearance, had lately let his hair grow untidily too long, while Harry, who always looked as if he got dressed in the dark and cut his hair with nail scissors, had finally seemed to come to some understanding and appreciation of clothes: what looked good on him and what didn't, what colors did and didn't suit him. He dressed well, now. They even had some of the same mannerisms, although who was mimicking who, Sirius couldn't have said. It all contributed to that peculiar juxtaposition of like and unlike that characterized them when they were together. Dark and light, candle and shadow: two halves of one imperfect whole. "It's funny to see you looking fatherly," Lupin said. "Not as funny as it is to see you smoking a cigar." "The trick is not inhaling." "So I've been told." Sirius looked away from Draco and Harry and back at his friend. "Do I look fatherly, then?" "Well, you look a bit like I remember my father looking. Pleased and worried at the same time. Of course, my father had reason to worry about me." "And I don't have reason to worry?" Lupin made a face at his cigar and spoke quietly. "No. You do. They're very special, your boys." "My boys? I suppose they are that," Sirius said. He waited a moment, wondering how he felt about that, and decided he felt good about it. "Not boys very much longer." "Oh, I don't know." Lupin put the cigar down, still frowning. "They're very young." "They are and they aren't. I mean...look at them."
"I have been. They look like they're having a good time." "That's not what I meant. I meant, think of all they've dealt with. Loss, parental death, difficult decisions..." "I know. I'm glad they have each other to talk to." Lupin smiled. "Remember when we were that age and we used to talk about everything?" Sirius nodded. "I do remember. I wonder what they're talking about right now? Something of life and death significance, I'm sure..." *** "It is not a stupid girly drink," Draco said. Harry snorted, in the process almost inhaling the rest of his drink through his nose. "It so is. Look at it. It's pink. Why do you drink that stuff? It even tastes nasty." Draco glared down at the drink in his hand. "It does not taste nasty." "Oh, yeah?" Harry plonked his own drink down on the table, reached out, plucked Draco's glass out of his unresisting fingers, and drained it. He coughed, made a face, and handed the empty glass back to Draco. "It tastes like lighter fluid," Harry said. "Lighter fluid with sugar." Draco fought the urge to stick his tongue out. "It's not that sweet." "It's sweet, it's fruity, it's pink - it comes in a poncy little glass -" "Oh all RIGHT!" Draco yelled. "I didn't know Mai Tais were pink! I thought they were green! That's why I ordered one that time - and now I can't go back. It's my thing. It's my signature drink." "Can I just say what a prat you are for having a signature drink? I mean, you're seventeen, you should be allowed to change your mind. What's next? Signature outfits, signature broomsticks, endorsing lines of products, soon you'll be such a pillock that no one will be able to stand you -" "Thank you, Potter. Thank you for that vote of confidence in my future."
"Apple martinis," said Harry. "What?" "Apple martinis are green. I'm almost positive." "Really?" Harry grinned. "Yeah, really." He waved a hand at a passing levitating silver platter. "Apple martini," he said, and a cocktail glass appeared. The liquid inside it was, indeed, pale green. He handed the glass to Draco. "Potter?" Draco said, accepting the drink. "What?" "I thought I was already such a pillock that no one could stand me." "Oh, shut up, Malfoy, and drink your drink." *** "So does he know about Lucius and Peter yet?" "Harry? No, no he doesn't. I appreciate you telling me, by the way," said Sirius, taking a sip of Archenland beer to wash down the taste of the elm wine. "I thought you should know, and anyway, Draco didn't ask me not to tell you." "Did he ask you not to tell Harry?" "No," Lupin said slowly, "not in so many words, no. But I think he was probably right. I think that Harry would take it badly. I think whether it made logical sense or not, he'd feel somehow that he couldn't talk to Draco about it and he really has no one else to talk to right now. He's very dependent on Draco. I think he'd feel terribly alone." "He could talk to me," Sirius said. "No he can't." Lupin grinned. "You're old."
"Ahem," said Sirius. "Pot. Kettle. Black." Someone in the vicinity cleared their throat. "Pardon me, Mister Black, Mister Lupin." It was the round, gray-haired Mayor and his ever-present sidekick, the rail-thin bailiff. Sirius recollected that the Mayor's proper name was Michael Gray, which seemed to fit, as his hair, eyes and skin were all a grayish color. The bailiff, thin as a reed with a narrow, beaklike nose, was also gray all over. Sirius had never once heard him speak, even though he had met him before at the Manor when he'd come by to officiate over the notarization of some papers. "I just wanted to thank you, Mister Black, for extending us an invitation to this event. I'd always wanted an opportunity to meet the inhabitants of the Manor socially, so to speak." "Ah, yes. It's a pleasure to meet you, too," Sirius lied. "Did you, er, meet Harry yet?" "Yes, yes, young Draco introduced us. Harry Potter! Very exciting." "He's exciting all right," Sirius agreed, deadpan. There followed at least a quarter hour of polite and slightly stilted conversation. The Mayor wanted to know if Sirius found the weather too severe; Sirius replied that it was quite pleasant to have a white Christmas. Lupin asked about the history of the town, and the Mayor shared some salient facts. The Mayor then opined that the fellow over in the corner in the black cloak was cheating at darts by using the Expelliarmus spell, and Sirius told him in confidence that the fellow in the corner was his distant cousin Dunforth who had a reputation for eccentricity and tended to grow violent when harassed. The Mayor sidled away, and the bailiff followed. "And it only took fifteen minutes for you to scare them off," said Lupin. "A new record!" "Bah," said Sirius, and hid a grin. "Sorry." "It's Snape you ought to apologize to," began Lupin with mock severity, then broke off as a echoing crash sounded from outside the Inn. He blinked. "What on earth was that?" Sirius sat up straight, and stared. Out of some newly acquired paternal instinct, his eyes went immediately to the sofa by the fireplace to see if
the boys were all right. The sofa was empty. "I don't know," he said. "But...where are Draco and Harry?" *** "How are you doing, Harry?" "Fine. I guess." He didn't look fine. Draco felt anxiety stir in a knot underneath his ribcage. Harry was sunk down in the armchair beside him, staring vaguely at the fire. He seemed taut and strung up and feverish. Bright spots of color burned atop his angular cheekbones and his eyes were very bright. There were three empty glasses on the table beside him. "I don't think you should drink any more," Draco said. "I know," Harry said. Draco noted with growing alarm that Harry was very flushed, and that his dark hair was pasted down to his forehead with sweat. "It's just hot in here - because of the fire -" Harry unknotted at the tie around his neck and tilted back his head as if he were having trouble getting enough air. "Doesn't it bother you?" "No. You just drank too much. It's the alcohol. Maybe you should go in the back and lie down." "I don't want to. I want to go outside. I need air." Harry got to his feet, using the back of the armchair to brace himself. "I need a walk." "You'll fall into the river," Draco said. Harry blinked. "There's a river?" Draco wondered if Sirius would notice them leaving, but he seemed to have fallen into a deep conversation with Lupin and the Mayor, and did not look up as they went out into the anteroom. Harry paused to pull down their cloaks from the rack, then pushed the door open. The fierce cold hit Draco so hard he was dazed for a moment, drawing his cloak on over his head hurriedly. When he emerged from it, the doorway was empty. He ran out onto the front steps, looking around for Harry, his feet skidding on the iced-over brick.
"I'm here," Harry said. He was down at the bottom of the path already, his cloak pulled awkwardly about his shoulders. He seemed to be staring at something just beyond the border of hedges. Draco went slowly down the stairs and joined him. "What is it, Potter? What are you looking at?" "It's beautiful," Harry said. "Isn't it beautiful?" Draco looked at him in surprise, and then back at the winter landscape. The moonlight had the clear unblemished purity peculiar to very cold winter nights. It lit the surrounding snow to white fire and silvered the dark air and the tops of the distant trees. Above the trees a mass of winter stars glittered with crystal flashes of vivid green and icy blue, while down at the bottom of the hill, Draco could hear the water of the river running underneath its shroud of ice. It was indeed a very beautiful night, although he doubted he would have thought to notice it if Harry hadn't pointed it out. He turned to look at Harry. In the darkness he could see the other boy only as textures of light and shadow: dark hair, white skin, dark clothes. His eyes had lost some of their smoky hollowed exhaustion and were alight behind his glasses. "I want to fly," Harry said. "That's nice," Draco said. "We haven't got broomsticks." "I know where some are," said Harry, and sat down on the frozen ground rather suddenly. "Ouch," he said. "Help me up - I'll show you." "Potter - you're in no shape to do anything." "I'm not drunk," Harry said very clearly. "I'm just happy - let me be happy. It's been a long time since I last was." "Harry," Draco protested. "Don't."
Harry took no notice. He had managed to get his legs back under him, and held up his hand. "Help me up," he said again. Draco took the proffered hand and pulled Harry up to his feet. Harry smiled at him. It was a smile filled with light and happiness, and yet Draco knew that it was almost entirely artificial. Draco felt a little sick. "What are we doing?" he asked. "Come on," Harry said, turning and starting off across the frozen lawn. Draco followed him. He was getting used to this. It seemed to him that all he did these days was follow Harry various places. It was like having a toddler, albeit an oversized and crabby one. The lawn sloped down behind the Cold Christmas Inn to the service road. The carriages they had come in were lined up along the low kerb, in an orderly procession. Harry skidded sideways down the last of the incline and fetched up alongside Sirius' carriage. Draco saw him tap the boot with his right hand, and it popped open. Harry reached into and drew out two objects, both wrapped in colored paper. They were long and narrow, each flared at one end. The shape was unmistakable. "Broomsticks?" Draco said blankly. "What the hell...?" "Our Christmas presents," Harry said. "I heard Sirius telling your mother he got us these. They're Cloudbursts. Brand new." "I know what Cloudbursts are." The prototypes for the Cloudburst broom had been featured in the last issue of Quidditch World News. They had been designed by a well-known company and featured a number of experimental additions, the unremembered details of which were nagging at the back of Draco's mind in an annoying manner. "I read the same Quidditch journals you do." "Good. So catch." Harry tossed one of the wrapped packages to Draco, who caught it instinctively. Harry turned his attention to ripping the wrapping paper off his own broomstick. It came away quickly under his swift fingers, and he looked up and grinned. The grin vanished when he saw Draco was still standing staring down at his own broomstick, without moving.
Harry made an impatient gesture with his right hand. "Relasio," he said, and the wrapping paper melted away from Draco's broom like snow under sunlight. For a moment, Draco forgot all about Harry and the cold air and his burgeoning anxiety, and just stared in admiration. The Cloudburst was a sleek, narrow object that felt almost more like metal than wood under his hands, it was so dense and so smoothly polished. The shaft was black, the twigs at the far end jet-colored and banded with silver. It hummed when he touched it, a sound like the purr of a curious cat. "You like it?" Harry's voice. Draco looked up. The wind whipped his hair across his face. For a moment, he could see nothing. "Oh, yes. It would have been a great surprise gift." He reached up a hand and pushed back his hair, and saw that Harry was already sitting astride his Cloudburst, and his grin was back. "Potter, what are you -" Harry pushed off, and his Cloudburst rocketed into the air at approximately the speed of a hurtling comet. "...doing?" Draco finished. He sighed. "Goddammit," he said wearily, swung his leg over the stick, and kicked off from the ground. Immediately it felt wrong. The broom soared upward after Harry's on a near vertical pitch with a soundless, slippery, gliding motion that made Draco feel as if he were about to fall off. He grabbed desperately at the broom, which succeeded only in canting him violently to the right. He held on tightly as the Cloudburst spun once, righted itself and subsided into stillness. Cold air whistled in his lungs as he gasped mouthfuls of oxygen. His heart was pounding. I'm sick. I shouldn't be doing this. I'm sick. I can't fly properly. Harry knows that. Where is he? Draco tilted his head back. The icy air stung his eyes to tears, but he could see Harry just beyond the immediate blurred field of his vision, hovering above him, a patch of darkness against the silver clouds. Harry looked down at him, laughing, then took off again. Later, Draco would wonder why he'd followed; at the time, it seemed the only thing to do. He
leaned forward and the Cloudburst exploded under him, rocketing up into the sky like a meteor in reverse. In winter, the Hogwarts teams usually flew in heavy sweaters, with shin guards and elbow guards and high leather boots. Now, the elegant party clothes Draco was wearing provided hardly any barrier to the cold. He shivered as he soared upward and the wind cut through the fabric of his shirt like so many tiny knives. His cloak blew back; up ahead, he could see that Harry's cloak was doing the same, snapping behind him like a flag in the wind. He fixed his eyes on that as a target and willed his broom forward. It banked sideways instead. Draco's hands, icy and numb with cold, clutched convulsively at the broomstick's shaft. His heart was pounding. He had remembered, suddenly, what he had read in that issue of Quidditch World News.
The new Cloudburst models carry a unique anti-theft charm. Before being used, the broomstick must be calibrated to its specific user, or it will not respond properly to attempts to fly it. "Hell," he muttered. "Bloody, bloody hell." He threw his head back. Harry was a disappearing speck high above him. "Potter!" he shouted, and pulled back on his broom. It jerked upwards several feet, went into a lazy slow roll, and righted itself reluctantly. "Potter!" he shouted again, leaning far forward. This turned out to be a mistake. As if shot from a cannon, the Cloudburst hurtled forward so swiftly that Draco had no chance to do anything other than clutch at it blindly. It veered hard to the left, and then to the right, and then shot forward, as straight as an arrow. Directly towards a large oak tree. Draco jerked hard at the Cloudburst, but it would not be budged from its course. He thundered towards the tree as inexorably as the Hogwarts Express - the branches scraped at his face - he threw his arms up - and something hit him hard, not from the front but from the side, knocking him decidedly off his broom. The same something tangled in his cloak
and then he was falling, which felt almost like flying but was far more terrifying. It only lasted a moment, though. He hit soft-packed snow and the impact knocked the wind out of him. He choked and rolled over, spitting snow, blinded by it. There was a sharp stinging pain in his arm. "Hey - Malfoy -" It was Harry, of course. Draco sat up, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. Harry was kneeling on the snow next to him. His glasses were frosted with snow; so were his clothes. "Sorry about knocking you off your broom, but you were going to hit the tree. Why didn't you steer away from it?" "I'm fine, thanks for asking," Draco said, through his teeth. "Potter where are the broomsticks?" Harry waved grandiosely in the direction of the oak tree they had narrowly avoided smacking into, and almost overbalanced. "They weren't as lucky as we were." A feeling of foreboding in his heart, Draco got shakily to his feet and looked where Harry had indicated. At first he didn't see what Harry meant; then, craning his neck back, he saw both broomsticks, high above their heads. The force of impact had driven them into the tree; they looked like two oversized arrows that had been fired, willy-nilly, through the branches and into the tree's trunk. "Those Cloudbursts must be made of something really tough," Harry observed, with desultory interest. "You'd think they just would have shattered, really." "You mean like our skulls would have, if we'd hit that tree?" Draco said, seething coldly. "Is that what you mean?" "But we didn't hit the tree," Harry pointed out breezily. "No thanks to you, you daft bloody Gryffindor!" Draco exploded. "'Let's just ride these broomsticks, shall we, never mind that they need to be calibrated first, never mind we're going to get ourselves killed--'" "I didn't know that," Harry said, surprised.
"Five more seconds and I would've been splattered all over like an Impressionist painting. 'Head Smashed Into Oak Tree,' you could've called it." "Don't joke about that. Look, if you knew they needed to be calibrated then you should have said -" "I didn't have time, did I? You just jumped on that broomstick and took off -" "You didn't have to come after me!" "I always have to come after you!" "Good God, what's all this yelling?" said a voice, and Draco whirled around to see Sirius standing just behind him, Lupin at his side. Several other figures were standing on the path back where the carriages were; Draco couldn't see who they were, but knew that they were staring. His heart sank as he stared up at Sirius. Sirius looked absolutely furious. "What on earth have you been doing?" he demanded coldly. *** The two boys looked up at Sirius with their mouths open. Draco had never really seen his stepfather-to-be angry before. He seemed to loom over them, his eyes black with anger. "And just what is this meaning of all this noise?" he demanded. Lupin cleared his throat. "Ahem," he said. "Sirius..." Sirius turned to look at his friend. "Yes?" In answer, Lupin pointed upward. Sirius turned to follow his gesture, and gaped up at the two broomsticks embedded in the tree. "I see," he said slowly, his voice flat. "I knew you two were flying. But I didn't think you'd be quite such bloody fools as to fly two uncalibrated Cloudbursts!" "We didn't know they needed to be calibrated," said Draco in a small voice. He turned to Harry for some assistance, but immediately realized
there would be no help from this corner. Harry had his hand over his mouth and appeared to be laughing. "Ah, but you still felt qualified to fly them? Not even addressing the issue that those were your Christmas presents, which I will certainly not be replacing. Of all this damn fool, impetuous, thoughtless, rash and stupid things you could have done -" "We're sorry," Draco interrupted desperately. Harry was still giggling beside him. He resisted the urge to smack Harry across the back of the head. "I don't think you realize how serious this is," Sirius glowered. The laughter finally escaped from behind Harry's hand. "Sirius," he said. "Your name means two things. Hee." Sirius blinked at his godson. "Harry? What on earth is wrong with you?" Harry just giggled in response. "He's fine," Draco said in a small voice. "It's just an, er....a Cheering Charm. I put it on him earlier." To his surprise, Sirius reacted as if he'd said "It's just a bucket of poison" instead. "A Cheering Charm? You gave him a Cheering Charm and then you let him drink alcohol?" "Er..." Draco said, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye. "Well, yes a bit. Sort of. Why?" "Were you trying to get him killed?" Sirius demanded. "Yes," Draco said, anger sparking in him. "Yes, that was my brilliant plan." "You, Draco - you of all people should know better than to mix Cheering Charms and alcohol." "Why? Why should I know better? Cheering Charms wouldn't exactly have been something my father would have accepted. They're for weak people. According to him. Why should I know about them?"
Some of the anger died out of Sirius' expression. "Yes, but still. Couldn't you see there was something wrong going on with Harry?" Draco almost shouted. He wanted to say that of course there was something wrong going on, there'd been something wrong going on for months, and this was in fact the most normal he'd seen Harry in ages. But he couldn't. He swallowed the words, and his resentment along with them. "It all happened fast," he said, instead. "Besides, I didn't even know what I was supposed to be looking out for." "Hysteria," Sirius said. "Sudden mood swings." "Wibble," said Harry, gloomily, from the snow. "I don't feel at all well." "Ah," Sirius added. "Also nausea." Draco sighed. "Will he be all right?" "Probably," Sirius said, bent down, and helped Harry to his feet. "He just needs to sleep it off, is all." Harry swayed slightly, and Sirius' expression softened further. He bent down to lift Harry up into his arms as if he were still a child who weighed next to nothing. "Come here," Draco heard him whisper, in a gentle tone. Draco would have thought Harry was long past hearing much of anything, but at the sound of Sirius' voice, Harry turned his head into his godfather's chest, made a little sighing noise, and went limp. Sirius straightened up, cradling Harry in his arms, then looked up and over at Lupin. "I haven't carried him since he was a baby," he said, "he hardly weighs anything, even now." Lupin said something back, so softly that Draco didn't hear it, and then both of them turned, and began to walk back towards the lights of Malfoy Park. Sirius turned and looked back at Draco. "Are you coming?" he demanded. "We're taking a carriage." Draco shook his head. "I'll Floo back on my own," he said. He wanted to be alone to think for a bit.
Alas, it was not to be. No sooner had he reached the door of the Inn than Snape stepped out of the shadows and accosted him. "Mister Malfoy," said Snape. "A word with you?" Draco gazed dispiritedly at his grim-faced Potions professor. "I don't suppose," he said, "that if I passed out right here, you'd be likely to carry me home?" Snape's eyes had narrowed, and he raised a black-gloved hand. "What," he said coolly, "is that?" Draco looked where Snape was pointing, and felt a shock like a punch at his heart - the right sleeve of his shirt, where his cloak fell away from it, glittered with threads of silver that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Blood. He pulled his cloak closed quickly but it was too late; Snape had seen. "Professor..." Draco began. "Let me see your arm," Snape said. Draco didn't move. "It's not what it -" "Let me see your arm, Mister Malfoy!" Snape barked, and Draco jumped. "We may not be at Hogwarts, but I can still take points from your House!" This seemed monstrously unfair to Draco, who gaped. "But it's Christmas holidays!" "Yes," Snape concurred. "And my Christmas gift to you will be that I will not immediately take points, but will instead give you a second chance to show me your arm." He tapped a booted foot on the snow. "I'm waiting." With a rebellious glare, Draco stepped forward and threw his cloak back over his left shoulder. He held his arm out towards the Potion Master, who took hold of it - much more gently than his fierce expression might lead one to believe he would - and peeled back the sleeve of Draco's sweater. His immediate sharp intake of breath was loudly audible in the still air. Reluctantly, Draco glanced down and saw what Snape was looking at : a long, shallow gash ran along his forearm where he had thrown up his arm to shield his face. The gash itself didn't look serious; what had caused
Snape to gasp was that the blood leaking from the wound was dark redsilver, the color of mercury seen through scarlet glass. "What is this?" Snape demanded. "Is this the first you've seen of this? You don't seem surprised." Draco shrugged. "I don't know. It's nothing." "I find it very unlikely that it is nothing." Snape dropped Draco's arm, took hold of his shoulder, and steered him forcibly back towards the Inn. Draco stumbled slightly on the uneven snow but Snape didn't slow his rapid pace until they reached the nearest lantern, where he paused, turned, took hold of Draco's shoulders, and thrust him under the bright pool of light cast by the lantern. Draco blinked in the sudden bright light and tried to twist away, but Snape held him fast, his coal-black eyes studying Draco's face with an unblinking intensity. "How long has this been going on?" he demanded finally. Draco tried to hold his professor's gaze, and failed. "How long has what been going on? The blood thing? Because - I can explain that." "Really?" Snape cocked an eyebrow. "Do go ahead." Draco fidgeted. "I, er...." "Yes? Overdosed on Jelly Glow Worms? Got sozzled and ate a pack of fairy lights? Tried to practice on of those charms on yourself that assures you'll light up a room with your smile, but got one of the incantations dreadfully wrong?" "Well, if you're just going to be sarcastic..." "Explain yourself, Mister Malfoy, and truthfully. It is cold, and I would like to go back inside." "Well, so would I," Draco muttered. "Look, I don't know what it is. I'm meant to see a mediwizard, and I will, it's just..." "Then you told Madam Pomfrey about this?" "Sort of."
"What do you mean sort of?" "I mean, I told her, sort of, in that way where I didn't actually." "I rather thought so." Snape released his hold on Draco's shoulders, and out of nowhere, it seemed, produced a white handkerchief. He handed it to Draco. "Bind this around your cut," he instructed. "And then tell me how long this has been going on." "How long what's been going on?" Draco demanded, doing as instructed. "The funny-looking blood thing? I don't honestly know. A few weeks maybe. It's not serious -" "The hell it isn't serious. You're ill. You know that. I'd say you look like you're suffering the effects of a serious Dark curse or hex -" "I haven't been hexed." "Can you be sure of that?" Snape demanded. Draco nodded. "I'm sure." He suddenly felt very tired. "It's not a curse or a hex - or if it is one, it's not one that I've been able to detect, and you know I'm not ignorant where Dark magic is concerned. I don't know what it is." "Well, you look like death." Snape spoke bluntly. "I shall speak to Sirius Black immediately." "No!" Draco bolted upright in alarm. "No - don't do that. Not Sirius." "It is out of your hands, Draco. And Black is your guardian. Were we at school, I would speak to Dumbledore -" "The wedding is the day after tomorrow," Draco said desperately. "Guests start arriving tomorrow for the rehearsal dinner. Can't it wait two days?' "I cannot help but feel that with some unknown magic affecting your health, it would be irresponsible of me not to -" "Please," Draco said. "I'm not that sick, I'm not dying right now. It would ruin the wedding - my mother would panic - and for what? For me to find
out that there's something terribly wrong with me a few days earlier? I already know that. Thanks but no thanks." Snape looked hesitant. "Does anyone else know about this? Does Potter?" "Harry? He knows a little. Hermione knows. She's looking into it." "Oh, indeed," Snape said acidly. "You're well taken care of then, aren't you?" "Please," Draco said again. He could think of no elegant argument, and no grounds on which he could logically appeal to Snape. Snape was probably right; Sirius should know. It was just that Draco hated the idea. Once everyone knew, it would become real. Something with which he would have to cope. And there would be mediwizards and infirmaries and people panicking and none of it would help - of that he was sure - and he wouldn't be any use to Harry after that. "Isn't there anything..." "Very well," Snape said, unexpectedly. Draco blinked at him. "Pardon?" "I said very well. We will wait until after the wedding. It will give me time..." Snape removed the handkerchief from Draco's arm, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket. Draco watched with wide eyes. "It will give me a chance to run some tests on your blood. I'm hardly a mediwizard, but I can certainly detect if a potion has been used on you." There was a long pause. "Thanks," Draco said finally. Snape's coal-black eyes glittered. "Do not thank me. It is unnecessary. I will return to my laboratory and run some tests on the blood. It will give me an excuse to miss the rehearsal dinner." Draco found himself almost smiling. "Glad I could help out." "I do not enjoy parties," Snape ruminated. "Unless, of course, there is karaoke." "Right," Draco said tactfully.
"In any case, you should return to the house. You should not be out in the cold when you are ill. Shall I Apparate you back?" Draco shook his head. "I'll take a carriage. It's fine. Thanks again." For a moment, Snape seemed to hesitate, and Draco had the thought that Snape might pat him on the shoulder - but the moment passed, and the thought with it. Snape released his hold on Draco's arm, nodded briefly, and Apparated away, leaving Draco standing in the snow under the lantern, lost in thought. *** Harry had recovered enough by the time they reached the Manor to make it up the stairs to his bedroom without any assistance. He left Sirius and Lupin looking half-worried, half-amused in the entry hall, staggered up the steps, found the door to his bedroom, yanked it open, and halfcollapsed inside. Someone had lit the fire in the grate and the candles bracketed on the walls. Usually this sort of thing bothered Harry, who liked to do things himself, but now he was happy not to have to fumble for a light. Dizzy and swaying on his feet, he stripped down to his boxers, folded his clothes and left them in a neat pile outside the door for the laundry elves, and crawled between the sheets on his bed. He had thought he would drop off instantly, and he would have, if only the bed would have stopped spinning. He could feel it rotating under him, the world tilting slightly. The buoyant happiness of the Cheering Charm was fading, replaced by a whirling pale-gold dizziness. It felt a little like flying, if one could fly lying down. Harry would have expected it to fade as he sank towards sleep, but it did not. Instead, it intensified. Eyes closed, he saw again the vast and inky winter sky above him, the shards of stars, the broken clouds; he felt the icy wind in his hair, tearing at him, heard his own voice cry out as he fell. I cannot die, he had thought, tumbling through the air, I cannot die, because I have not yet done what I must do. Therefore I must be invulnerable. And if he was invulnerable, surely Draco was also immune to harm, because it was impossible that one of them might cease to exist
and the other one would still continue. Draco's anger had confused him for this reason. Didn't he understand? And Harry had not died. Here he was, and he felt better than he had in months and months. He both seemed to have left his body and to be acutely aware of every molecule. The soft rasp of the wool blankets against his skin as he turned over; the loud crackle of the fire popping in the grate, the heat in the room pressing down on him, pressing down, as if a heavy weight had settled on top of him. It was all part of the same dream of ice and fever. Something brushed against his face. Eyes still shut, he turned his head aside, but the light touch on his face remained. He raised his hand to brush it away, but stopped: it felt pleasant. Where he had been too hot, he felt cool fingers brush across his skin - and they were fingers, he realized that - and the same light cool touch at his temples and at his throat and in his hair. Someone was brushing his hair back, softly. Only one person had ever done that for him. Hermione, he thought, and then, I'm having a dream. I don't want to wake up. He kept his eyes shut, firmly. He was dreaming, of that he was positive. He had dreamed of her several times since he had come to the Manor again. Each time he woke up against his will, miserable at leaving the dream world behind. This, though, this felt realer than anything he'd ever dreamed. He felt the light touch of hands on his face again, and then a shadow moved beyond his eyelids, and he felt lips against his own lips, cool and smooth. His breath caught in his throat; he was suddenly dizzy, so dizzy he felt as if he were tumbling off the edge of the world. He fell through a radiating cool darkness; he felt pleasure, and the pleasure was sickening; he felt pain, and welcomed the pain. He hurt, he burned, he froze and shivered; he felt - and he had not felt in a long, long time. This was what he had been reaching for that night in the alley with Hermione; this was what he could not bring himself to tell her he wanted, because she would hate him for it. But now he was dreaming, and he could have this from her in dreams; she would forgive him for that; she would never know. "Harry," she said. He opened his eyes; he could see only crazily swinging shadows. Her hair fell down around them both like a tent. She was a genie in a bottle: a dream born out of loneliness and alcohol. It was a dream,
and he knew it was a dream, but he did not want to leave the dream, and could not have if he had wanted to. Lassitude like nothing he'd ever experienced had invaded his body; his blood had been replaced by slowly flowing golden syrup. It burned in his veins. "Keep your eyes open," she said, and her voice was as sweet as poisoned candy. "Look at me." He tried to, and maybe he did. He would never know, later, if he had. A darkness as black as her hair came rolling down over him; he fought it for a moment, but the current swept him away and he remembered nothing else after that. *** Draco woke early the next morning after passing a restless night to find the rest of his Christmas present from Sirius in a small envelope next to the bed. It was the instruction manual for a brand-new Cloudburst broom. "Here's the rest of your bloody present," said the note attached. "Hint: it doesn't fly." "That's what you think," Draco announced rebelliously, and proceeded to make a paper airplane out of the front cover. He abandoned this amusing pastime when an eagle owl bearing a rolled letter tapped on the window with its beak. He threw the window open, letting in great bursts of cold air, and took the parchment from the bird. Propping his elbows on the windowsill, he read aloud to himself:
Draco, Albus asked me to send along a word of reassurance as he was afraid you might be worrying. I say worry is good for a growing boy. However, he wanted me to let you know that all the plans are in place for tomorrow and we have everything under control. The Constant Vigilance Synchronized Auror Auto Response Team will be at your disposal in case of any unexpected or unwanted guests who make it past our wards system. Enjoy today, try not to worry about tomorrow. I look forward to the wedding itself and will be sure to wear my festive leg. Yours, Alastor Moody.
"Mad as a brush," Draco announced, and tossed the crumpled-up parchment onto his bed. Still, he did feel somewhat reassured although a small knot of nervousness did form in his stomach when he thought about the wedding. It was likely to be somewhat socially awkward, and on top of that... The sound of wheels on snow interrupted his thoughts. He glanced down to see a carriage pull up at the base of the enormous stone staircase that fronted the Manor. It was one of the hired carriages from the village that had brought them to the Cold Christmas Inn the night before, and would be bringing all the guests from Malfoy Park to the house today. The carriages were black, with the Malfoy Park emblem on them - a wand crossed with a dagger on a silver field. Draco had already watched several guests arrive, including the Parkinsons and the Zabinis. Blaise had not been with her parents; Draco suspected she didn't think they should see each other, which, it seemed to him, was probably the one opinion they had ever held in common. The carriage pulled to a halt and the doors opened. The occupants began to pile out. A witch and a wizard in dark blue cloaks with the hoods pulled up exited first, then a tall wizard whose hood was down, his red hair bright and unmistakable in the bright winter sunshine. Charlie Weasley. He turned and held out a hand to help his sister down next: Draco couldn't see her clearly, just her familiar yellow cloak and the scarlet curls like a river of bright fire down her back. And after her, moving slowly and reluctantly, came Ron. Draco looked down at him for a moment, then pulled back from the window and stood for a moment, lost in thought. He'd wondered if Weasley would actually show up; had suspected he would, but had not been entirely sure. Now that he was here, Draco found his tiredness falling away and a faint anticipatory nervousness taking its place.
Make them sorry, Harry had said. Draco smiled. Then he went to the wardrobe and began to get dressed. ***
It was so dark when Harry finally opened his eyes the next day that he thought it was still the middle of the night. It was a moment before he realized that the curtains had been drawn firmly closed around his bed. He blinked. How odd, he thought. I never do that. One of the house elves must have come in and closed them. He sat up slowly, wincing, and fumbled for his glasses. He slid them on, his head pounding. He felt decidedly peculiar. And he was fairly sure that he'd had a most unusual dream... "Hey there, tiger," said a voice at his elbow. Harry whipped around so quickly that later he'd be surprised that he hadn't dislocated anything. He knew, somehow, what he'd see before he even turned - and yet it hardly lessened the shock: black hair tumbling down over white shoulders, big gray eyes full of mischief, and a sheet wrapped around an obviously naked body. Rhysenn. Harry tried to say something, but all that came out was a whistling noise like a teakettle on the boil. Her smile widened. "Speechless, are you?" she said. "I'm not surprised, after last night. I'd be shocked if you were in any shape to talk at all." That freed his voice. "What - what - what -" he stammered. "What are you doing here? How did you get into my bedroom? Where are your clothes?" She waved a breezy hand. "Probably where you threw them, kitten." Harry goggled speechlessly. Surely this was a horrible nightmare. Surely he would wake up soon. "But," he began. "But I was dreaming." "Tsk tsk." She pursed her lips. "Really, now. Do I look like a dream to you? Do these?" And she held out her thin white arms. There were bruises all up and down them: the marks of fingers. "I had no idea you'd be so forceful. I mean, I knew you were something special. The Boy Who Lived -" "Shut up!" Harry hissed, and covered his face with his hands. "Just shut up - I wouldn't. I couldn't have."
"Oh, but you would and you could." Her voice hardened, although she still sounded amused. "How upsetting that you don't remember. Last night was certainly one of the most unique nights of my life. Things happened to me last night that - well, that have never happened to me before." Harry made a gurgling sound, low in his throat. "I don't believe this," he whispered. "I don't believe it. I have a girlfriend." Rhysenn looked interested. "I thought you broke up?" "I - no - but - where do you get off knowing so much about my personal life?" She shrugged, and the sheet slipped down. Harry averted his eyes. "I get the paper," she said. "Everyone knows you're broken up. Except you, apparently." "We're just - we're taking a break." "Well, darling, in that case, next time you can bring her." "Next time? There isn't going to be a next time! There wasn't a this time!" The left corner of her mouth twitched. "Can you say that for sure?" Harry was silent. Rhysenn leaned forward. "You said her name last night," she said softly, and reached out her hand to touch his face; Harry jerked away. "You said Hermione. But you only said it once." Harry shrank away from her even farther, or tried to. But he found he couldn't move. Something about her, despite his horror and feeling of nausea, still compelled him; her gaze mesmerized him like a cobra's gaze. It wasn't that she was beautiful; she was, but in a strange, removed, adult way that unsettled him more than anything else. And her eyes, those Malfoy eyes, gray as winter seas, they frightened him. And yet he still found he could not pull away from her as she reached her hand out, brushed the backs of her long fingers against his cheek, and he felt it like the pain of biting down on a broken tooth, all his nerve-ending screaming at once -
He would probably have tumbled off the bed had there not been a knock on the bedroom door at precisely that moment. Harry snapped out of his befuddled state instantly, and stared in horror. Rhysenn sighed and looked vexed. "Are you going to get the door, or should I?" "Mister Potter," said a voice at the door, quite loud and sepulchral. One of the Manor's ghost servants, most likely. "Mister Black has sent me to wake you up. It is noon, sir." "Go away!" Harry shouted desperately in response. "I'm - I'm not here!" Rhysenn snorted. "Oh, well done." The knock sounded again, more powerfully this time. "Mister Potter, I am afraid Mister Black impressed upon me the need to awaken you without delay." "Aaaaaaargh." With a half-wail of despair, Harry got to his feet, wrapping a sheet around himself, and staggered to the door. He opened it a bare crack to see Anton, the ghost butler, hovering just in front of him, looking severe. "Mister Potter," he said. "Mister Black also instructed me to bring you your clothes for the par--" "Oh, yes, thank you, I'll take those," Harry stammered, seized the pile of clothes from the ghost, and hurled them to the floor behind him. "Thank you, Anton, now if there's nothing else -" "Oh, but there is," the butler said. Harry hesitated miserably. "What?" "Mister Malfoy also required me to pass along a message for him. I believe it was, 'Get downstairs now, you big oversleeping git.'" "That's great," Harry said, and began to push the door closed again. "Mister Potter! A moment, please. There is one more thing," said the butler, and held out a half-transparent hand. Shimmering in the middle of the ghost's palm was a familiar circle of scarlet glass, shot through with
gold and black. Harry stared at his runic band, his mind racing. It was impossible - he wore it always - he'd been wearing it last night on his belt - he remembered unbuckling the belt and - and leaving his clothes out for the house-elves to take away. "The laundry elves asked me to return this to you, sir." "Thank you," Harry replied mechanically. "Thank you, Anton," and he reached to take the runic band from the ghost. Then he shut the door, and turned slowly to face the girl sitting in his bed. Only, of course, she had vanished. *** Hermione was not in good spirits when she arrived at the library at noon. She had slept badly the night before - very badly. Her room at the Leaky Cauldron had seemed too hot, and she'd been plagued with awful nightmares of a weight pressing down on her, cutting off her breath. She'd awoken at dawn with the sound of Pansy's voice shouting "Mudblood!" at her ringing in her ears and had been unable to get back to sleep. All in all, a bad evening. She had to wait in a longish line before she reached the bookworms. She passed the time by fretting about the upcoming party. The thought of seeing Harry was like a black wall of dread rising up in front of her; he would mope around the party looking depressed and handsome and she would want to drown him in a bowl of fruit punch. Or, even worse, he would have gotten over her completely and would be in the peak of high spirits. Draco would have set him up with some fabulously sexy veela cousin who would be draped all over his lap, feeding him peeled grapes with a pair of solid gold tongs. And she would still want to drown him in a bowl of fruit punch. "Grapes," she said in a deathly voice to the bookworm when she reached the head of the line. "Who eats peeled grapes? How lazy is that?" The bookworm waved its antennae in a worried manner. Hermione sighed. "Never mind," she said. "I'm Hermione Granger. Reference number #97356. You were cross-referencing for me...?"
The worm scurried away and returned with a trolley trundling along behind it, piled with several books. Hermione took them and retreated to her now-familiar corner of the library under the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. Most of the books were ones she had already looked at. Several seemed to be general weaponry guides. She began flipping through them dispiritedly. There were chapters on Living Blades, pages on elf-arrows that never ran out or missed their targets, knives that cut stone, shilellaghs and maces and daggers and .... Hermione paused, and flipped back several pages to a full-page illustration of a dagger. It had a unicorn bone handle and a sturdy silver blade, and the box of text underneath it was slightly blurred with age:
The Angurvadel Blade. Only one known to exist, on display in the Stonehenge Museum of Wizardry. The exact nature of the dagger is not known, but it produces cuts that never heal. When touched by a witch or wizard who is bound by a Dark Oath, they glow phosphorescent blue. Hermione stared at the words, her mind whirling. A Dark Oath? But only a true necromancer could bind anyone by a Dark Oath - they were horrible dark magic, deadly and impervious - but she remembered the blade of the knife turning blue as Ron pushed it aside and her stomach churned. Ron! she thought. She bolted to her feet, almost knocking over her chair, and began to cram her books haphazardly back into her bag. *** Harry gazed bleakly at his reflection in the mirror. He actually looked better than he felt. Although, he suspected, if he'd looked like he felt he would have been gazing at the reflection of a severed head on a pole. Instead, he looked all right. Mostly due to the clothes he was wearing, which were expensive and very well cut. They took away from the fact that he was deadly pale, with black shadows under his eyes. He began to see why Draco was so attached to clothes. They made you feel that at least you looked all right, even if you felt like hell.
There's something wrong with me, he thought, looking glumly at himself in the mirror. Rhysenn had never affected Draco the way she affected
him. Obviously there was some terrible flaw that he possessed that other people did not. Either that, or he was a sex fiend. Some kind of demented sex fiend that nobody else would ever want to be around. Hermione - she would never want to touch him or be anywhere near him again. Sirius would be horrified. So would Narcissa. They wouldn't let him stay in the house anymore; he'd have to move out and live in the toolshed at the bottom of the garden. Draco would go off and find other friends, friends who weren't depressed all the time, friends who didn't sleep with sex demons. Then again, maybe not. He realized that Draco would find his current train of thought infinitely amusing. You, a sex fiend? he'd smirk. Potter, you couldn't possibly be an anything fiend. I mean, just look at you. Or, Oh, good, congratulations, you've found something else to beat yourself up about. It's a red-letter day! Let's make the most of it! Harry looked down at his hands; they had, for the moment, stopped shaking. Yes, he definitely needed to talk to Draco. He had no idea how he'd face the party otherwise. Thank God Hermione had said she wouldn't be there; she was coming to the wedding proper, but not the luncheon today. He couldn't possibly face her. It was nearly killing him just to think about it. He turned away from his white-faced reflection in the mirror, and caught sight of the bed with its rumpled covers. Nausea rose in his throat. He grabbed for his cloak and hurried out the door. *** "Do I look all right?" Ginny asked Ron for the third time as they ascended the steps of Malfoy Manor. She'd forgotten what a forbidding building it was. A pile of steel-gray stone, necklaced with dozens of balconies, crowned with spires and turrets, fronted by a huge double staircase the size of the Burrow itself. And there were gardens around the Manor; there had not been the last time she had been there. They were filled with roses, scarlet roses, which showed up like blood against the snow. The charms that kept them alive in this weather must have been very expensive ones. Ron, who had already told his sister she looked beautiful twice, sighed a martyred sigh. "I keep telling you that you look pretty," he said. "Is that
not what you want to hear? Fine. You look horrible. Just looking at you makes me sick." Ginny glared at him. "I hate you." "Yeah," Ron said. "I get that a lot." Ginny didn't say anything to that; she just speeded up her pace slightly in hopes of catching up with her parents. Both she and Ron had been lagging behind; Ron out of obvious reluctance, Ginny out of nerves. After all, she'd been planning for this day for several weeks now. She and Ron went through the double doors to the entrance hall just after Fred and George; Ginny looked around, pleased and amazed as always by the beauty of the Manor. It was a cold beauty, but it was still beautiful. The black-and-white parquet floor shone, and the walls were strung with thousands of diamond-like crystal globes, each of which flickered with a single pale flame. Sirius was there, greeting people; Narcissa, he said, was somewhere inside the main hall, entertaining guests. Ginny barely heard her parents exchanging small talk with Sirius, who looked extremely handsome in a black suit. "I believe Draco is also in the Hall, and we're still waiting for Harry to come down...out a bit too late last night," he was saying, and the Weasleys laughed. Ginny couldn't stand it another moment; she was too impatient. Refusing the house-elves' offer to take her cloak, she excused herself and went into the Hall; the only person who even seemed to notice that she was leaving was Ron, who muttered that he would catch up with her in a moment. "Oh, no you won't," she murmured under her breath. The room that Malfoys had for years called the Greater Hall was already half-filled with guests: women in casually pretty dresses, men in suits and robes. Ginny recognized Lupin, Pansy Parkinson in a hideous green dress, and a few other faces in the crowd. She cut diagonally across the room, heading for a small door on the west side of the hall, and ducked through it quickly.
She was in a stairwell, one she remembered well. A narrow staircase led upward, and there were bracketed torches on the walls on either side of a square mirror. Ginny glanced into it, seeing her own face very pale between her yellow cloak and her curling red hair. The gold chain around her throat gleamed brightly. She reached a hand up to draw it out from under her dress "Ginny, what are you doing back here?" She turned. It was Harry, standing on the lowest step of the staircase. He wore a dark shirt that made his skin look very pale, and black trousers. In the dim light, she could not clearly see his face, but she thought he was frowning. "Are you lost?" he asked. She let the gold chain drop. "No. I was just - I was -" "Are you looking for Draco? Because I don't know where he is." Ginny almost smiled. "That's very helpful, Harry. But no, I wasn't looking for Draco. I was just - going to fix my hair. The wind ruined it." Harry blinked. "It looks fine to me. You look pretty." "Thanks." Ginny looked at him, oddly touched. He looked somehow distracted and a little lost, as he had looked lost seven years ago standing on the platform at King's Cross Station, and that lostness seemed to cling to him even now and forever would. Women would always fall all over Harry, Ginny thought, he was somehow vulnerable without ever being weak, attractive without seeming to know it. One never asked oneself if he was handsome because his face was so familiar and so arresting in its detail: the smoky-hollowed green eyes, the jet blades of lashes, the sharp fine bones. Even now, when he looked so unhappy, his melancholy seemed to suit him. "Are you all right, Harry?" "Oh. Yes." He shook himself a little, like a dog shaking off water. "Just tired. I had a late night." "I know, Sirius told us."
"Us?" "Yes," Ginny said slowly. "We're all here. And Harry - Ron's here as well." Harry's expression didn't change; only the shadows under his eyes darkened. "I had rather thought he wouldn't come." "Well, he did. It's for the best, Harry, really -" "Hell," Harry said flatly. He took his hands and shoved them in his pockets. "Now I really wish I could find Draco." "Can't you..." She tapped the side of her head. "You know. Find him?" Harry shook his head. "He seems to be blocked at the moment. Busy probably." He shrugged, and tried to smile; it wasn't very successful. "I guess I'd better head in there and face the music." "It'll be fine. Really." He squared his shoulders. "I hope so." She watched him as he went past her and through the door, closing it quietly behind him. Her heart went out to him. It went out to her brother as well, and to Hermione. And then there was Draco. It wasn't sympathy she felt for him, exactly. It was fear. She was afraid for him. She had been for a while now. Her hand went back to the chain at her throat. She gripped it once, tightly. Then she began to climb the stairs. **** Draco was lurking. He'd never thought of himself as much of a lurker - he liked the spotlight too much - but there was no other word for it; he was lurking. In a disused hallway, no less, lit only by a single torch. He was waiting for Pansy Parkinson. He was tired. His head hurt. He'd slept poorly the night before, and he suspected his hair looked bad. But time, tide and revenge waited for no
man, and he'd stood on an upper balcony until he'd seen Pansy in her green dress walk up the Manor stairs with her parents. Then he'd headed back inside. He needed, he'd realized immediately, to detach her from her parents. So he'd sent a house-elf along with a message for Pansy that an urgent note was waiting for her in the Green Room. The house-elf had instructions to lead her to this hallway, and then leave her there. Draco wasn't fond of house-elves - they made him nervous - but sometimes their unquestioning obedience had its advantages. It seemed like an hour, although was probably more like half of one, before he heard the sound of someone walking towards him along the corridor. The someone was walking fast, and was obviously wearing high heels. Draco smiled to himself. It was time. He waited until she was almost upon him, then stepped out of the shadows and swung around to face her. It was as rewarding as he could have hoped; she shrieked, and almost staggered backward. "Hello, Pansy darling," he said. "Nice to see you here." "Draco!" Pansy gasped, her hand ostentatiously over her heart. "Scaring me like that! I mean, really." She lowered her hand, glaring. "Now, If you couldn't tell, I was on my way somewhere -" "To get an urgent message. I know." The urge to twirl his moustache was almost overwhelming; luckily, Draco didn't have a moustache. "Only the message doesn't exist. I made it up. I wanted to get you alone so I could talk to you." "You what?" Pansy was the picture of outraged respectability. "Do you mind? I was busy at the party and I should get back." "You didn't look all that busy to me," Draco interrupted. He spoke softly, but there was a menace in his tone that made Pansy look up sharply. He began to circle slowly around her and could feel her resisting the urge to turn around and look at him. "Although I've heard you've been very busy lately."
Pansy's irritable expression wavered. "What do you mean by that?"
"I think you know." Draco was looming over her now. Her curls trembled just above the round collar of her ill-fitting green dress. "You know, Pansy, the point of social climbing is to make your way up the social ladder. Not slither down it. Although I've heard you're talented in that area, too." "In what area?" He leaned close, so that his whisper stirred her hair. "Going down," he said. It took Pansy a moment to react to Draco's appalling remark. Then she jerked, and whirled around. "That's disgusting. You're disgusting. I don't know why you'd say a thing like that, but -" "Don't you?" His voice was suddenly sharp, and she winced as if he had quite literally cut at her. He could see the fear in her dark eyes. "Well, maybe I can jolt your memory with a little recitation session. You don't mind if I read out loud, do you?" He cleared his throat ostentatiously, and drew a folded parchment from his pocket. "This is a little something I like to call 'Sonnets from the Tragically Deluded.' I think you'll like it." He snapped the parchment open with a flick of the wrist and read out loud:
Hermione I'm writing this in Potions class. I'm sitting here looking at you from across the room, but you can't see me. You're looking straight ahead. I can see your hand moving over your parchment as you take notes. Maybe you're writing to me, as I'm writing to you. I'm not good at this. This letter writing business. Harry would be better. Hell, Malfoy would be better at it. But I'm writing you because I have to. Because it hurts to be this far away from you, especially after -" "Stop it," Pansy whispered. "Stop." "But why? It's catchy. You can dance to it." Draco smiled at her. She didn't seem to notice. "'Don't worry," he continued, reading from the letter's
end, "'I will leave this for you in our usual hiding place. I'm sorry about what I said last night - about us coming clean and telling everyone. You were right. And even if you weren't, it doesn't matter. We're so beyond all the arguing we used to do - when I see the way you look at me, I feel -'" "Stop it!" Pansy shrieked. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" And Draco knew he had hit pay dirt. Her voice was raw and uncontrolled, her eyes rounded into grotesquely huge ovals. "Give me that - give it to me -" She wrenched the note out of his grasp and tore it into shreds, which she scattered over the floor with a triumphant air. Draco laughed. "There's thirty more where that came from. Weasley seems to have been an astonishingly dedicated correspondent." "How -" She was staring at him. "How did you - my trunk - it's impossible " "Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones." "Does he know? Does Potter know?" Draco raised an eyebrow. "Are you more afraid of him than you are of me?" he inquired sweetly. "You shouldn't be." She looked dazed. "What are you going to do?" "Before or after I go to your parents and tell them everything about what you've been up to lately?" Surprisingly, some of the color came back to her face. "Maybe you should try telling them something they don't know." It was his turn to stare. "Don't tell me you confessed to them in a fit of tormented guilt." "It was their idea, Draco," Pansy said flatly, having recovered some of her self-possession. "My father's the one who developed the glamour charms where did you think I got them, anyway? They're prototypes - brand new."
"And you expect me to believe they'd think it was a good idea to whore out their only daughter to a Weasley?" Draco struggled to put the disgust he was feeling into words. "I don't-" He paused, and fell silent. He could almost hear the cogs buzzing and whirring inside his head as things fell into place. "No. They wouldn't do that. They'd support you disguising yourself as Hermione, to get information, to spy - but sleeping with him, that was your idea. Either you hate him that much, or - but no, I don't think you hate him. You fell in love with him, didn't you? With a Gryffindor. Oh, that must have hurt your pride." Pansy's head snapped back. Her eyes were very bright. "It was..." "It was what?" His tone was cruel, but cruelty seemed to be what she was expecting. She spoke softly, "It was the way he looked at me," she whispered. "Nobody's ever looked at me like that." "It wasn't you he was looking at. It was never you." "And you don't know what that's like, I suppose?" Her tone was suddenly spiked with venom. "Being loved even for something you aren't - it feels real, doesn't it, Draco?" Her eyes were very bright. And for a moment, he was speechless. He had no idea how much she knew, and how much of what she had said was a wild jab in the dark, but uncontrollably the memory of Hermione putting her arms around him in the wardrobe rose up in his mind, of her voice calling him Harry. And Harry's voice earlier that day, You've done a good thing, Malfoy. And that moment, looking back at Harry, and wondering, What does he see when he looks at me? Not me. Somebody else. Somebody better. And for just that moment, a arrow-thrust of sympathy for Pansy went through him, and he felt pity for her, and then Harry's voice recollected itself to him, telling him to make her pay. Because, of course, he possessed reserves of cruelty that Harry didn't. Didn't he? "They don't know who you really are," Pansy said, breaking his reverie. He noted with a disconnected interest that her voice was very peculiar: both husky and squeaky at the same time. "And I'm beginning to think
you don't, either. Blaise always said differently - she always said you were a true Slytherin, in your heart. I don't believe that. I think you turned on us the first chance you got. Well, you picked the losing side, Draco Malfoy. I know things you don't - we all do - none of us trust you anymore, we keep you out of our plans. But that doesn't mean we don't have plans -" "Pansy?" Draco interrupted. She blinked, cut off in the middle of her tirade. "What?" "Shut up," he said. She compressed her lips into a thin line. "Fine. Stick your head in the sand. But you'll think about what I said, later - I know you will -" "Pansy," Draco remarked kindly. "I didn't think about what you said while you were saying it. Now come on." He took hold of her arm, and she didn't pull away - she seemed to have gone beyond panic, into a cold, trapped fury. "We're going back to the party."
*** Several wrong turns had led Ginny nearly to the wine cellars, and it was only with the assistance of a passing ghost butler that she managed to find her way back towards the front of the house. Finally she found herself in a long wood-paneled hallway that ran the length of the house's façade; just outside the window she could see the stone balcony that looked out over the gardens. Right now it was piled with snow, the diamond-paned windows fastened shut against the cold. Just down the hall was the doorway she remembered: when she'd been at the Manor before, they'd spent most of their time in this room. She went to the door and pushed it open and stepped through it into the library. It looked just the same. The same blue and green glass in the windows; the same high shelves full of books. It was quiet in here, so quiet that she could hear the beat of her own heart over the soft ticking of the gold clock on the north wall. Ginny took a deep breath. Then she reached into the neck of her dress and drew out her Time-Turner on its thin gold chain. *** Harry badly wanted a glass of wine, but had forbidden himself to have one. After the events of the previous night, he never wanted to drink again. What he really wanted, in his heart of hearts, was to go back to bed and never get up. Failing that, he wanted Draco to talk to. But Draco seemed to be missing - he was nowhere in the Greater Hall and when Harry reached to try to find his mind, he felt only a faint buzz in the distance like an interrupted radio signal. Draco was obviously still busy. "Oh, Harry, lovely to see you - don't you look handsome." It was Mrs. Weasley, bending to kiss his cheek, smoothing down his hair, admiring his new clothes. Harry made small talk with her without really looking at her - she looked too much like Ron, it was painful. Ron himself was hanging back against the far wall with the rest of his brothers. Harry could see him in the mirror that hung over the long table covered with plates of food. He could also see himself, Mrs. Weasley tilting her head back to look up at him - he remembered when she had had to bend down to talk to him. He
could also see the scarlet gleam of the runic band at his waist. Why had he been stupid enough to take it off? "Although all black seems a little depressing for a wedding," Mrs. Weasley added. This time Harry looked at her, and wondered suddenly what she knew - although he knew Ron well enough to be certain Ron wouldn't have told his parents anything. He was about to reply when he saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and in the mirror saw the double doors at the far end of the hall open and Draco come through them. He wasn't alone either; he was holding Pansy Parkinson by the elbow. Maybe he'd promised to escort her for some reason? "Excuse me," Harry said to Mrs. Weasley. "I have to - uh - I have to - I have to go over there," and he beat a hasty retreat, leaving her looking after him in surprise. Draco was standing just inside the door with Pansy, his eyes roving over the room. As Harry drew closer to them, he noticed that Draco seemed to be less steering Pansy by the arm than gripping her tightly against her will. She was pulling away, a look of obvious distress on her pale, fox-like little face. As Harry approached, Draco looked up and his face cleared. "Ah, Potter - glad you're here." "Where have you been?" Harry asked under his breath, aware that a significant portion of the room's occupants were looking at them. Draco looked at him, obviously frazzled. "What?" "Where have you been? I need to talk to you." "I went spear-fishing in Alaska. Where do you think I've been? Anyway, Potter - I'm a bit busy here. Hang around for a minute, will you? You'll see what I mean." His eyes went past Harry, scanning the room. "The Weasleys get here yet?" Pansy made a squeaking noise and redoubled her efforts to pull away. Harry blinked and pointed. "Yeah, they're over there - Malfoy, it's important." "This is important too." Draco began to walk across the room, pulling Pansy with him. Harry fell into step beside him, feeling that something
very strange was going on. "Pansy here forgot to bring a wedding present. She's in big trouble." "Oh, who cares about wedding presents?" Harry demanded. Draco shot him a look. "You know, for someone so bright you can be a blinkered idiot much of the time." His eyes suddenly narrowed. "You look different, Potter - did you cut your hair or something?" Harry made a strangled sound. Pansy glanced over at him. "You do look a bit different," she agreed. Harry choked, and grabbed at Draco's sleeve. "Dammit - Malfoy, listen to me - I have to talk to you!" "Harry, not now!" Draco hissed, stopping dead in his tracks. He still, amazingly, had hold of Pansy, who had ceased trying to get away and was staring at Harry with what looked like curiosity. "Can't you see I need to talk to you?" Harry said desperately, abandoning all pretense. "What I see is you doing a dead-on impression of an electric squirrel. Stop hopping up and down and just wait a second -" "It can't wait -" "Are you dying?" Harry's eyes flew wide. "No." "Then it can wait. WEASLEY!" Draco shouted unexpectedly, pitching his voice very loudly. Most of the room turned around and stared, and all the Weasleys, who were grouped by the punch bowl, turned as well. Draco's narrow mouth curled into a long smile, "Ron! Oi! Over here!" Ron, arrested mid-motion with a glass of pumpkin juice halfway to his lips, stared. Draco reached out his free hand and made a beckoning motion. Ron's eyes went to Harry; Harry stared him down, challenging him to come near, to look away. With a nervous glance at his brothers,
Ron set his glass down on the table and began to make his way across the room towards Draco and his two companions. Pansy, a stricken look on her face, began trying to get away again. Draco only held her tighter. Harry could see that his fingers were digging hard into her upper arms; it must have hurt her badly. Under other circumstances he might have been appalled at Draco's ruthlessness; now he was not. He was beginning to have an inkling of what was going on, and his heart started to beat faster against his ribs. What did Draco think he was doing? The world seemed to narrow down to a single path of motion: Ron, walking towards them. He passed by Pansy's parents, who were close by and observing. Heads turned as he walked. Everyone was staring, with the half-embarrassed, half-fascinated expressions of people watching A Scene take place. Ron stopped in front of Draco. Harry had not been this close to Ron in almost two weeks. He could see violet shadows under his friend's eyes. They stirred no compassion in him. His rage consumed any compassion he might have felt and left him speechless. "What's this about, then," Ron said, softly, looking not at Harry but at Draco. "If you wanted my attention, Malfoy..." "If I wanted your attention, I'd dress up like Hermione and try to shag you in the broom closet," Draco said with a smile like the edge of a knife. Ron colored slightly, but didn't move. "Say whatever you want, Malfoy," he said. "But don't ruin this wedding. I'm asking you." "It's not the wedding yet," Draco said, the same wicked brilliant smile never leaving his face. "It's the rehearsal dinner." At that, Harry looked past his friend and saw that Sirius was coming towards them. Behind him, Lupin stood frozen. Everyone was still staring. He felt himself shrink under their gazes, knew Ron must be curdled with humiliation beside him, but Draco was at his best when everyone was watching. Draco alone among them looked as if he was enjoying himself.
"The rehearsal dinner," Draco went on smoothly, "is meant for family and close friends of the family. You, I think, are neither." "That's not for you to say," Ron said. "I came for Harry's sake, not yours." His eyes went to Harry, and they were huge and almost black with entreaty, "Harry," he whispered. "Harry, I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry --" Harry felt each apologetic word like a knife point driven into his skin. "Don't," he whispered. "Don't, I don't want to hear it -" "Harry -" Ron said. "No!" Harry shouted. "Don't you know I -" "Shut up, Potter! Just - shut up!" It was Pansy, speaking for the first time, her squeaky little voice trembling with emotion, and Harry knew - in that moment, he knew. She had started away from Draco, who still held her arm tightly from behind, and her eyes were on Ron's face. Harry had seen that look before. Hermione looking at him, Draco looking at her, Seamus looking at Ginny, the same look on his own face, caught in photographs or mirrors - "Leave him alone," Pansy cried. "Like you've never done anything wrong -"
She broke off, as if she realized she had said too much. Harry could see by the dawning look of horror on Ron's face that he, too, was beginning to understand. But it was Draco who acted. It was Draco who bent his head, and spoke into Pansy's ear. It was low enough that she didn't pull away, loud enough that they could all hear it. "He never has done anything wrong, Pansy darling," he whispered, and his voice was velvet soft. "But I have." And he pushed her, suddenly and violently and hard, towards Ron. Who, being Ron, caught her instead of letting her fall. She stumbled and clutched at him, and Draco laughed. "That's right, Weasley," he said. "Cop a decent grab, would you? See if you feel anything familiar? You should - whatever glamour spells she used, I'd think she'd still feel the same. And you ought to know that body pretty well - so many nights together in the prefects' room. You seem the type
for clumsy fumblings to me, but after all that time even you ought to have -" With a guttural little exclamation of horror, Ron pushed Pansy away, and wrapped his arms around himself; he was shaking. Draco made no move to recapture her and she made no move to run away, just threw her hands up over her face and burst into loud, spasmodic sobbing. Ron stared at her, turning rapidly green. "Now you know," Draco said to Ron, and smiled. Harry was conscious that there was movement all around them; Sirius hurrying towards them, the Parkinsons almost running to their crying daughter, the whole room bursting into whispers - but he saw, as if lit by a single spotlight, only the narrow circle that held himself and Ron, Pansy and Draco. Pansy weeping, Ron shocked and silent, and Draco - Draco looked like nothing on earth. He looked like drawings Harry had seen in his childhood of avenging angels. There was something inexorable about him and Harry knew he himself was the one who had set this in motion he had asked Draco to make her pay, and pay she would. Somewhere in the back of Draco's eyes, he seemed to be asking Harry a question, Is this what you wanted? Is this enough? Is this as you imagined it would be? And some part of Harry, some cruel undreamed-of part, whispered back to Draco that he should not stop. The smile left Draco's face. He was still looking at Ron. "Now you know," he said again. "What you threw everything away for - for this, for her. For a girl you can't even stand. For a pack of stupid lies. For a fantasy that wasn't even worth having. I would have given everything to have what you had once, Weasley." Harry looked at Draco in surprise, but he wasn't lying - he meant it. "I would have given everything, and you threw it all away for nothing, and you'll never have it back. Nobody will. It's ruined now. One of the only truly good things I've ever seen in this rotten world, and you ruined it." Draco looked at Ron as if he loathed him; Harry wondered how much of it was acting. "Was it worth it, Weasley? Was she?" It was worse than any insult he could have thrown at either of them. Ron went an agonized white, and his voice broke as he replied, still looking past Draco at Harry. "What do you think, Malfoy?" he whispered.
Draco was silent. His silence said everything he could have needed to say. Pansy's sobbing crescendoed to a shriek that could have shattered glass. Harry stared at her and stared at Ron and a sick feeling began to spread through his stomach. He raised his eyes and met Draco's gaze over Pansy's head, and he didn't know what he would have done or asked Draco to do after that and he never got a chance to know, because at that moment the double doors to the Hall opened and Lucius Malfoy came walking in. *** "What do you mean they aren't working?" Hermione demanded, halfhysterical, of the harried-looking man behind the desk at the Leaky Cauldron. "How can they all not be working? I've tried three times to reach Malfoy Manor, and I can't! There must be something wrong with your fireplaces! Do something! Get a - a chimney sweep!" The desk clerk looked amused. "One with an enormous broom, I suppose?"
"Don't you try to be clever with me!" Hermione shrieked, so forcefully that he quailed before her. "Look, Miss," he said. "There's nothing wrong with our fireplaces here. There must be something wrong with the remote fireplaces at the Manor. Obviously, they're blocked. Someone in the Manor must be blocking all Floo connections." "But why would they do that?" The clerk shrugged. "I really couldn't tell you." "Well, what can I do?" Hermione wailed. "I have to reach Ron or Draco, and they're both there, and it'll take forever to get an owl, they're all booked up taking Christmas presents!" The clerk looked as if he obviously regarded this as Somebody Else's Problem. "Can't you Apparate wherever you're going?" "No! I haven't got a license, and besides, there are anti-Apparition charms there."
"Well, why don't you fly then?" "I haven't got a broomstick..." Hermione suddenly narrowed her eyes at him. "Have you got a broomstick?" "Er," he said. "You want to borrow my broomstick?" Hermione crossed her arms and glared at him. "The future of the wizarding world might depend on me getting to Malfoy Manor," she said. His eyes widened. "Really?" "Well, no," she admitted. "But I'm very worried about a friend of mine. Please let me borrow your broomstick? Please?" The clerk appeared to waver. "If you don't," she added, "I'll tell the manager you drill holes in the doors so you can watch people getting undressed in their rooms." His eyes popped. "You wouldn't." "I would." He glared at her. "You must be a Slytherin," he said. Hermione smiled. "I'm not," she said. "But thanks for saying so." *** The clock continued to tick and Ginny stared at the tiny hourglass in her hand as the minutes went by. It had not been easy getting her Time-Turner back. In fact, it had been very difficult; but, in the end, not as difficult as perhaps it should have been. If she had been the sort of person people paid attention to, it would have been impossible. But they ignored her, and so she could slip away. And slip away she had, at the crucial moment. And it had gone unnoticed by everyone, even Draco, sharp-eyed Draco who saw everything. And she had put the Time-Turner back on its chain and kept it hidden and only
Seamus had asked about her new necklace, and he didn't know enough to be suspicious. She had planned this. She had been planning it for weeks. So why was she so nervous? It wasn't as if she hadn't gone back in time before. You've gone back hundreds of years, she told herself. This is only five. What are you afraid of? She shut her eyes, and slowly raised the hand with the hourglass in it. She heard the sound of a rushing wind and people shouting - they're looking for me, she thought in terror, although later she would realize that what she had heard was something quite different. Quickly, she flipped the Time-Turner over, and the world disappeared. *** "Greeting, everyone," said Lucius Malfoy. "How kind of you all to come to my homecoming party." Someone cried out; a champagne glass dropped and shattered on the floor. Otherwise, the room was deathly silent. Harry would have expected himself to be more shocked, but instead he felt merely a weary sense of inevitability. Then again, he had known Lucius was alive. Everyone else must have thought they were looking at the ghost of a man dead for six months. "Oh, my God," Pansy whispered, distracted from her weeping. Her eyes were huge. "Oh, my God, Draco - your father just walked in." "Yes," Draco said, woodenly. "Yes, I had noticed that." Harry wanted to lay a hand on Draco's shoulder but didn't dare. It seemed like the sort of thing that would be unwise to do in front of Lucius. Not that Lucius didn't know they were friends. But still. Harry felt as if his thoughts were being strained through several layers of cheesecloth. Perhaps it was the result of too many shocks, one after the other. He watched with a disconnected horror as Lucius made his leisurely way into the room. He was not alone, either; at least ten Death Eate