HPSlashFics - 10 The Descent Beckons

For what we cannot accomplish,
For what is denied to love,
What we have lost in the anticipation,
A descent beckons, endless and indestructible.

Although it was winter, the light that came through the infirmary window was deceptively clear and transparent gold: summer light. Dumbledore sat and looked at the fair-haired boy in the bed by the window, and sighed inwardly.

"Master Malfoy," he said. "I hope you know I am trying to help you. You are making it very difficult for me."

The boy raised his eyes to Dumbledore's. Unusual eyes they were, the eyes that ran in the Malfoy family. His father had had the same eyes. Clear gray, untouched by hints of blue or green or hazel. "I told you," the boy said. "I don't need help."

Dumbledore sighed again, this time aloud. "Lucius," he said. "Show me your arms, please."

There was a short silence. Then, unwillingly, the boy stretched his arms out towards his Transfigurations professor. His chin was set, as if he were proud of his injuries, and perhaps he was. They were certainly dramatic: from wrist to elbow, on both arms, six parallel cuts were slashed into his skin. They were deep cuts, long and clean-edged, as if they had been made with a particularly sharp knife. Headmaster Dippet had nearly fallen out of his chair when he'd seen them. They looked bad, and Dippet was terrified of Lucius' family already.

"How did you get these, Lucius?" Dumbledore asked, knowing already what the response would be.

"I already explained this." Lucius' voice was toneless. "They're from a Slashing Hex. I got them in a duel. I don't have to tell you with whom. It's my business. My father told me –"

"I have no interest in what your father might have to say on this topic." Dumbledore's voice was sharp as razor wire. "The interest of the school is in you and your well-being. These are the aftereffects of necromantic magic. The physical signs of the toll it takes."

"Are you accusing me of practicing dark magic at school?" Lucius' gray eyes blazed. "My father –"

"Tom Riddle." Dumbledore's voice was edged with softness, but unyielding nevertheless. "He is a friend of yours, isn't he?"

Lucius' expression was unreadable. "If you have something to say about Tom Riddle, Professor, perhaps you should say it to him."

"And what makes you think I have not?" Dumbledore asked. "I am not a fool, and I know what Tom Riddle is. I have tried to talk to him. Merlin knows, I have tried. But there are some tasks that are impossible, and that is one of them. He is set in what he is, unchangeable. But Lucius, you are not. You are thirteen years old, and that is young to hear what I have to tell you, but it is the truth: the decisions you make now will affect the rest of your life."

Lucius sat still; Dumbledore could see the thin chest rising and falling quickly under the flannel pajama top. When he spoke at last, there was scorn in his voice. "You know nothing about Tom," he said. "And nothing about me. You think if you tell me he's not my friend, you can get me on your side. Well, you can't. You've never seen anyone like Tom before and it scares you, because you know that no matter what happens, he'll win in the end. He's more powerful than any other wizard at this school --"

"Tom is very clever," Dumbledore said. "But he is also very young. Has it occurred to you that he may be overestimating his power?"

Dumbledore looked at him with weary surprise. He wished he could be more amazed at this small child with the deadly-looking injuries, his soft little boy's voice, not yet broken, saying these ugly and distasteful things. But he was not amazed. He had known Malfoys before Lucius. Preternatural unpleasantness simply ran in their blood.

Lucius went on. "Tom has the right ideas. He wants to change the world, and he will. And there will be a place for me in his world -- he's promised me that."

"And you believe his promises?" Dumbledore's voice was grave. "He will abide by them only so long as he has use for you, Lucius. He feels nothing for you, or for anyone. There is no friendship in him. Only hate and resentment, the marks of which you bear for him. When crisis comes, he will sacrifice you along with all the rest."

A rattling noise interrupted Dumbledore's next remark. It was the sound of the curtains around the bed being drawn back, the silver rings clinking together. Dumbledore turned around to see Madam Pomfrey standing behind him, a tall, dark-haired boy at her side. The Head Boy badge gleamed at his chest.

"Pardon me for interrupting, Professor Dumbledore," said Tom, his voice as smooth as oil. "But Professor Coulter has requested Lucius' return to the Slytherin dormitories."

She looked unhappy, but nodded. "He's well enough to leave, if he keeps his bandages on. Those cuts will take weeks to heal, though. There's absolutely no spell that can hurry the process. Not with cuts like those."

Tom's voice was soothing. "We'll take care of Lucius while he's recovering," he said. "Don't trouble yourself."

Tom smiled. So Lucifer must have smiled, Dumbledore thought, upon waking after the Fall to find himself the master of an unpopulated Hell. Only Tom still looked like an angel, and Lucifer had not. "His friends, of course."

"Of course," Dumbledore said, and, raising his eyes to Tom's, gave him a measuring look. For a moment they locked eyes, Tom returning Dumbledore's searching gaze with an affectedly innocent stare. Tom had very unusual eyes, often the topic of discussion among the Hogwarts girls: so dark a blue they were nearly black, the iris seemed to meld with the pupil, giving his eyes a peculiar, almost blind look. They appeared shrewd sometimes, blank others, knowing always. But they could not quite manage innocence.

It was Tom who looked away first. "Lucius," he said, and held out a long-fingered hand towards the younger boy, index finger crooked in an imperious gesture. "Are you coming?"

Lucius, in the process of hurling his robes on over his infirmary pajamas and quickly buckling his boots, looked up and nodded breathlessly. "Almost ready, Tom -- wait for me?"

"Yes," said Tom, and lowered his hand. His blue-black eyes were suddenly full of some secret amusement. "I'll wait for you."

"You know, Draco," Hermione said, looking wearily at the fair-haired boy in the infirmary bed, "sometimes you make it awfully difficult."

"To resist my manly charms? Yes, I know," said Draco, currently engaged in resolutely pulling all the feathers out of an overstuffed pillow Ginny had lent him. Tiny white feathers tangled in his fine fair hair, stuck to his eyelashes, sifted down onto the shoulders of his blue silk pajamas. "You must be strong, Hermione, for all our sakes. I've been told that breathing exercises can help."

"To feel sympathetic towards you, is what I was going to say," Hermione corrected him primly. "And now you have proved my point. Plus, you are ruining that pillow."

"It was tubby," Draco said, yanking out another handful of feathers and tossing them into the air. "I can't sleep on tubby pillows."

Draco grinned at her through an obscuring rain of feathers. Hermione hugged her book to her and tried not to smile back, not wanting to encourage him. Draco had been in the infirmary now for almost three days, ever since they had arrived back at Hogwarts. They took it in shifts to sit with him, all except Seamus. (Seamus had offered to sit with Draco one day, but upon his arrival in the infirmary, Draco had nonchalantly hurled an entire box of bandages at his head.)

Hermione had assumed Draco was being forced to stay in the infirmary by Madam Pomfrey, but now she was beginning to wonder. He really seemed to be --well, enjoying himself wasn't it exactly, but he wasn't moping around, either. She got the impression that he had been, somehow, running himself ragged for weeks and weeks and now, he was resting from it. His old playfulness had come back, and he unmercifully teased or flirted with everyone who came near him -- odd behavior for someone under a tentative death sentence, but there it was. She had never thought she'd actually see anyone tease Snape before, but Draco managed it. He flirted with Madam Pomfrey, who had given him nearly every pillow and extra blanket in the empty infirmary, and who allowed him to wear his own silk pajamas instead of the infirmary's standard-issue flannel stripes. Ginny and Harry, meanwhile, were constantly bringing him books, food, magazines and anything and everything they thought might be either diverting or helpful. Hermione was convinced that one day she would arrive in the infirmary to discover them fighting over who had earned the privilege of staging a sock puppet revival of Death of a Salesman at the foot of the bed for Draco's amusement.

Meanwhile, Draco presided over it all like an ailing prince of the realm, accepting the attention as if it was his due, all rumpled hair and sprawled gracefulness and wide silvery eyes with foot-long lashes that seemed to get batted at everyone. Only Hermione felt herself immune to the ridiculousness. She suspected that somewhere, inside him, Draco was as well -- that the ailing-prince performance was just that, a performance, and in its own way, an attempt to distract everyone. He was behaving like someone recovering from a terrible illness, when after all, the opposite was true. The terrible part was only just beginning.

"You know, I talked to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said, unsuccessfully attempting to take the no-longer-overstuffed pillow away from Draco. "She said there isn't any reason that you have to stay in bed; if you're careful, and don't exert yourself, you can get up and go back to your dormitory."

"Of course it is." Hermione took the empty pillowcase from him, and put it on the nightstand. "Do you understand me, Draco?"

"No," Draco said in a decided manner. "There's no one there and it's really boring."

This was true. There were very few students still at school for these holidays, but the complete lack of Slytherins was notable. Not one had stayed behind.

"All right, fine," Hermione said. "But I, for one, am not going to be peeling you big piles of grapes, or fanning you with a handkerchief. I'm sorry you're ill, but you will get better. Snape's found every ingredient but two in the antidote, did I tell you? And he said he'll find the other two today or tomorrow at the latest. And I do wish you'd at least come and open Christmas presents with us tomorrow morning --"

"You forgot Christmas?" asked a light voice and a hand drew the curtain back. It was Ginny. She smiled at Draco, a smile that immediately vanished as she surveyed the wreckage of her pillow. "Draco!" she snapped. "What have you done with my pillow?"

"I'm not sure," said Draco, removing a feather from his hair. "I think I went mad with fever."

"That was my pillow I've had since I was eight! I've slept with it every night for years!"

Ginny made a hmph-ing sound, yanked the curtains shut, and flung herself down into the chair next to Hermione's. Ostentatiously removing a book from her bag -- she was now halfway through Trousers Revisited, which she had begun upon giving up on ever finding her copy of Passionate Trousers again -- and began reading, ignoring Draco and Hermione both. Draco glanced at Hermione with dancing eyes.

"I told you you were spoiled," Hermione snapped, determined not to be moved by his contagious mirth. "You just enjoy lolling about, having everyone wait on you hand and foot and bring you sandwiches. I swear, Harry's worn a hole in the portrait pear, he's been in and out of the kitchen so much."

Draco flushed a delicate and indignant shade of mauve. "I do not make people bring me sandwiches."

As if on cue, the curtains around the bed were drawn back again. This time Draco lit up like a Filibuster Firework. Hermione twisted around to see Harry standing at the bed's foot, a covered plate in his hand. "I brought you a sandwich," he said, and handed the plate to Draco.

Hermione shot Draco a glare, which he studiously ignored. Ginny made a faint noise and glanced briefly over the spine of Trousers Revisisted. Draco ignored this, too. Instead, he bestowed upon Harry a smile that somehow managed to communicate that his gratitude for this gift of a sandwich had briefly -- ever so briefly -- drawn him back from the brink of complete dissolution. If not for this sandwich, Draco's smile seemed to say, the pain of merely going on might have become too great to bear. As it was, he would probably manage to hang on a bit longer.

"It's all right," Harry said, and reached to take the plate back. "I'll get you something else."

"No, you won't. There's no reason for you to eat something you don't like. Give me the plate."

A sudden obstinacy seemed to strike Draco. He clung to the plate as if it were a departing loved one. "No," he said.

Harry hissed an exasperated breath through his teeth. "I don't mind," he said.

Draco allowed his eyes to grow huge and woeful. "Well, I mind. It's not your fault I don't like peanut butter. Anyway, I said I'd eat it."

"You haven't, you're just being ridiculous." Harry's eyes flashed. "Give me the plate, Malfoy."

"AAARGH," said Ginny, stood up (dropping Trousers Revisited as she did so), reached forward, grabbed the plate out of Draco's hand, yanked open the nearest window, and flung out the plate. There was a moment of silence as all three of them stared at her, frozen with astonishment -- then the loud sound of shattering china interrupted the silence as the plate struck the stone courtyard below the window.

Hermione, unable to help herself, winced. "Oh, the poor house-elves," she said. "They do hate broken crockery."

Draco slowly lowered his hands to the coverlet, wide-eyed. "I would have eaten it," he said.

Ginny, her cheeks flushing suddenly scarlet, looked at him furiously. "You're so selfish," she said, her eyes sliding from him, to Harry, to Hermione. Hermione winced again, under Ginny's gaze, feeling suddenly and inexplicably guilty -- but what for? "You're all so selfish," Ginny said again, her voice fierce. She scrabbled blindly for her book, seized it, and ran past Harry and out of the room before any of them had a chance to move or react.

Down the hall, a door banged shut as Ginny slammed her way out of the infirmary.

"So it does." Draco didn't seem very exercised about this; in fact, laughter was dancing behind his gray eyes. Harry seemed to notice this, and looked pleased.

"Having plates thrown out the window makes you feel better?" Hermione asked, hiding a smile.

"I can't help it," said Draco. "I may be ill, but I'm still callous and strange."

"I'd throw plates out the window all day if it would get you better," said Harry absently, as if his mind were on something else.

Draco looked surprised; his eyes widened and his lips parted as if he were about to say something. Hermione interrupted him.

Harry, snapping back to the present, agreed with a slightly mournful air: Hermione had a feeling that if he didn't find Ginny, he'd be back in the kitchens shortly. He left, taking his abstracted mood with him.

"Don't say it," Draco said, as soon as the infirmary door had closed behind Harry.

"Say what?" Hermione's voice was severe. "That Harry might not show you how upset he is, but that doesn't mean he isn't? He's only making you sandwiches because he doesn't know what else to do."

"I know that," Draco said quietly. The affected air of haughty weariness had left him, replaced by a grave seriousness Hermione found infinitely more sympathetic. "And I'd rather he had something to do, honestly. Otherwise he just feels like he ought to be doing something else, something bigger. And there's nothing to do. This isn't the kind of enemy he can fight. He can't crawl inside my veins and kill the poison before it kills me."

"Don't you ever," Hermione said, her voice trembling, "ever, ever, say that in front of Harry. Don't you ever."

He stared at her. In his white face, his eyes were the color of rain: luminous but leaden. All his previous playacting had hardly moved Hermione's heart, but this Draco, eyes dark with haunted apprehension, made her ache inside. She hated the poison that, as it killed him, seemed to burn away all impurities from skin and hair and eyes, turning his eyes to flaring crystal, lighting the roses of fever in his pale cheeks, paring away all excess flesh from the lovely arcing bones of cheek and chin and jaw. He had never been as eerily beautiful before and it bothered and upset her.

"Oh, Draco," she said. A sudden weariness came over her, and she hugged her arms about herself, feeling chilled. "What am I going to do with you? You make everyone you meet either love you or hate you and sometimes I wonder which is worse."

A faint smile touched the edge of Draco's mouth. "A keenly felt observation," he said. "Thank you."

"And you treat people appallingly." Hermione's tone was glum. "Blaise, for instance. Paying her to date you. That's just eewy."

"Please clarify for me the exact dictionary definition of 'eewy,'" said Draco, sounding unforgivably amused.

Draco cocked his silvery head to one side. "Nope, I don't think I know that one either," he observed. "Is that like having three equal sides?"

"That's equilateral," Hermione snapped. "And you're really despicable sometimes, you know that?"

"I mean, how do you justify an arrangement like that? It would be one thing if it was just for show entirely, but you actually did things with her. Didn't you?"

"Define 'things'," said Draco. "You mean like did we spend time together knitting booties for underprivileged infants? Because if so, no. If you mean did we occasionally take off our clothes and --"

"That's what I meant," Hermione interrupted hastily. "And please, spare me the details."

Draco crossed his arms behind his head and arched his back like a cat in the sunshine. "Well, what did you expect me to do, anyway? Realistically speaking. I'm seventeen years old, you know. I ought to be having sex with everything that has legs and isn't a table. So I messed about with Blaise a bit. I didn't sleep with her."

"Not that it's any of your business, but no. I could have. On occasion, I wanted to..."

Hermione chuckled to herself. "So using sex to get what you want didn't work out, then?"

Draco shrugged and pushed his fair hair out of his eyes. "I'm a boy. I can't use sex to get what I want. Sex is what I want."

"It wouldn't have been fair to her," Hermione said. "So I'm glad that you didn't, for what it's worth."

Draco looked merely confused. Hermione knew he didn't understand, and probably never would understand, that what he had done to Blaise was wrong. With an inward sense of here goes nothing, she reached into the pocket of her robes and drew out the small box she'd been carrying for the past three days, opened it, and took out Blaise's three barrettes. She handed Draco one.

Draco's expression changed to one of complete confusion. "Blaise's barrettes? What the bloody...?"

Hermione smirked. "Look, she just did, okay? She said they had protective magic of some sort. I don't know why. They look like perfectly ordinary barrettes to me."

"They're basilisk scales, actually," Draco said absently, looking down at the one in his hand. "Tiny baby basilisk scales, overlapping -- there was a custom among pureblood families generations ago to wear ornaments containing bits of Dark creatures: Hellhound teeth, dragon blood pendants, werewolf bones. My signet ring --" he held up his hand -- "has gryphon blood in the stone. It's a traditional thing."

"Well, she seemed sincere about wanting you to have one," Hermione said. "I worried about giving it to you..."

"You shouldn't," said Draco, with a supreme and obnoxious confidence. "She loves me."

"Suddenly I feel pretty," said Draco, doing as instructed. "Is there one for Harry?"

Draco narrowed his eyes at her, but before he could speak, the door opened and Harry came back into the room. He was carrying another plate, and this time he was surrounded by at least nine house-elves, all carrying plates, bowls, and platters. He looked very proud of himself.

"I didn't know what you might want," he said to Draco, "so I got a little bit of everything."

"What department do we want again?" Lupin asked, studying the embossed Ministry Directory with some confusion.

Sirius, leaning against the wall nearby and fiddling with the lid on his coffee cup, glanced over with a slight yawn. It was still early morning, and neither of them had gotten much sleep lately. "Department for the Regulation of Underage Wizards," he said. "It's usually on the third floor on Tuesdays."

"I don't see it," said Lupin, and turned back to the directory. Privately, he thought they were wasting their time and knew that Sirius did as well. But Ron had now been gone for three days, and Molly and Arthur were panicked. The clock on the wall still showed him to be traveling, and the goldenrod in the window box, planted the day of Ron's birth and linked magically to his health and well-being, was blooming and upright. But Ron was nowhere to be found. Owls had been sent to all relatives, the old crowd dispatched, Dumbledore notified. It now remained to make it an official matter of a missing underage wizard. That Arthur still trusted the Ministry surprised Lupin. But then, he had never trusted the Ministry himself.

There was, however, something very peculiar going on with the Ministry directory. Lupin scanned the list of departments with a raised eyebrow.

Sirius tossed the coffee cup over his shoulder. "What's wrong with the directory?" He came to stand beside Lupin, smelling strongly of coffee and flowers. Lupin's nose twitched. The full moon would be on shortly, and his sense of smell was always stronger just before he changed.

"I asked you a question first." Sirius scanned the directory with curious dark eyes, then laughed without amusement. "Well, everything's arsed up properly, isn't it. Come along then. We'll just keep opening doors until we find someone who knows where we need to go."

"Bollocks," said Sirius succintly, and took off for the nearest staircase. He raced up it quickly. He still ran like he had when he was a boy: as if he were being pulled onward and upward by celestial cords. Having spent his early years not having gone much of anywhere, Sirius had always been the one who wanted to go faster, fly higher, run farther. Lupin, who could run faster than any of them, had been too frightened of his own speed to do so, and James has always been happy enough where he was. As for Peter...

Lupin followed Sirius up the stairs. At the top was a long corridor, identical to hundreds of other Ministry corridors. The polished marble floors seemed to stretch into infinity, lined with oak doors. Sirius strode up to the first door, whose plaque declared it to be the Department for the Regulation of Regulations, and pushed the door open.

Inside, a small, pixie-faced witch, sitting at a desk, looked up and frowned. Her nameplate proclaimed her to be a Miss Alice Wack. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for the Department for the Regulation of Underage Wizards," Sirius said in his most charming voice. "Might you be able to assist me?"

Usually Sirius' most charming voice melted the hearts of witches like chocolate in the hot summer sun, but this one looked merely nervous. "I'm sure I don't know where that is. This is the Department for the Regulation of Ensorceled Fruits and Vegetables."

"Actually," said Sirius, glancing at the plaque and then back at the witch behind the desk, "it seems to be the Department for the Regulation of Regulations. Or isn't it?"

Her flush deepened. "I think you'd better talk to Master Malfoy," she said. "He's in charge of the renovation plan."

"Bloody Lucius Malfoy," said Sirius through his teeth. "I'll show that maniacal bastard renovations. I'll renovate his face."

Lupin pulled Sirius away from the door. "Thank you," he called back to the witch, "you've been very unhelpful," and he shut the door firmly behind them.

"Sirius, this is ridiculous. All roads lead to Lucius, you know that. I doubt there is a Department for the Regulation of Underage Wizards any more, or if there is, it's been transfigured into an espresso bar. Why are we bothering?"

But Sirius' eyes were bright with anger. This, Lupin knew, meant there would be no talking to him. He strode up to the second door on his right (Department for the Regulation of Divination, according to its plaque) and threw it open.

The office inside was empty save for a desk upon which sat an enormous crystal ball. It lit up when they poked their heads in, and spoke in a high trilling voice.

"Welcome to the Department for the Regulation of Divination," it said. "We were expecting your visit and have therefore elected to be out of the office."

"No," Lupin said gently. "Look, if you like, we can look for Frances Parkinson instead. He's temporary Minister."

As Sirius reached for the door knob, the crystal ball piped up one last time. "I'd tell you to have a nice day," it announced, "but I already know you won't have one."

Upon leaving the infirmary with her books in hand, Hermione found Harry tooling around in the outside corridor with a disconsolate expression. She sighed and looked at him severely. "If they awarded points for moping, we'd have the House Cup in the bag for this year and for several years to come," she said.

"I can't help it," he said. "Oh, I found Ginny, by the way. She bit my head off. Thanks for sending me off on that fun expedition. Maybe tomorrow you can send me out to offer Snape a backrub."

Hermione ignored Harry's sarcasm; she knew this was his way of dealing with tension. "Bit your head off? That's not like Ginny. Are you sure you didn't misunderstand?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, she called me an oblivious moron pig. But maybe she meant it in a nice way."

"Possibly." Harry did not sound as if he cared. "Are you off to the Potions dungeon?"

"I am, actually." They'd been taking turns helping Snape with his attempts to find the antidote, although Hermione suspected Snape neither wanted nor needed the assistance and that this was something Dumbledore had arranged to give Harry, Hermione and Ginny the impression that they were not completely useless. "Did you want to come?" Hermione asked, beginning to walk off down the corridor.

"I can't -- I'm supposed to be talking to Sirius in the common room this afternoon. I'm meant to be helping Snape tomorrow morning instead. He made me promise to show up at the crack of dawn." Harry made a face, falling into step beside Hermione. "I think he just wants me to miss opening presents on Christmas morning."

"So we'll do our presents in the afternoon instead," said Hermione, and patted his shoulder lightly. "We can make a party out of it. It would be good if we had something cheerful to do. And besides, it wouldn't be the same opening presents Christmas morning without --"

But he evaded her reaching hand. "I'll see you later," he said, and set off towards Gryffindor Tower.

Hermione sighed and veered the other direction, heading down the east stairs to the library to pick up the book she'd left there last night. She had borrowed it from Snape's laboratory and could imagine the heinous punishments that would be visited upon her if she lost it.

To her surprise, Ginny was in the library when she went in, sitting at one of the long wooden tables with a book open in front of her and a distant look on her face. She glanced up when Hermione sat down across from her, but her expression hardly changed. "Hi," she said coldly.

Hermione reached into her cloak pocket, took out the second of Blaise's barrettes, and set it down on the table in front of Ginny. "Put this on your cloak," she said.

Hermione, who had explained the story of Blaise's midnight Burrow visit to Ginny the previous day, nodded. "Draco says they're all right."

"Isn’t that wonderful." Ginny could not have spoken with less enthusiasm had she been describing an upcoming date with Professor Flitwick.

"No." Ginny spoke with her eyes on the table. "But I need your help with something. A spell."

"I know there's a spell that will tell you when a magical object was created," Ginny said. Her hand had gone to her throat and was twisting the gold chain that lay against her lightly freckled collarbone. "But I can't find it, and I'm sort of in a hurry..."

"Ginny," said Hermione severely. "You're not planning on using that Time-Turner of yours again, are you?"

Ginny's eyes darted up and met hers: they were dark with a complex mixture of anger and resentment and a hurt that Hermione couldn't quite put her finger on. "Draco told you?"

"Well, yes," said Hermione, surprised. "He knew I wouldn't tell anyone, and he was asking if there were any ill-effects to using a Time-Turner too much --"

"He's probably told Harry as well," said Ginny bitterly. "I suppose I should have assumed he wouldn't keep anything from either of you."

"Yes, well, there are ill-effects, Ginny. It takes a toll on your body, going back and forth like that --"

"But I only went back an hour. You went back years. And there aren't just ill effects for you, there are all sorts of rules and regulations about using a Temportal Enhancement Device so that you don't change the past. You've been awfully careless--"

"It's not that I don't appreciate what you did," Hermione said evenly. "This book is invaluable--" She pushed the Liber-Damnatis across the table at Ginny. "But that doesn't mean it wasn't stupid of you to take it. Do we really want something of Lucius Malfoy's here in our possession? I know you have the best intentions, Ginny, but intentions aren't always what we..." She trailed off, seeing the cold expression on Ginny's face. "Fine. Never mind. Just -- send that book back to the Manor. I've made a copy of it, and I'd rather the original was out of Hogwarts, just to be safe."

Ginny was trembling all over as she stared at the book lying on the table between them. "I can't believe you all," she said in a coldly quiet voice. "If it wasn't for me, Harry and Draco would still be stuck at the top of that bloody tower. I saved their lives. A little gratitude from at least one of you would be nice!"

Ginny said a word so rude that it left Hermione blinking in surprise. "You don’t act it. All you do is patronize me, and as for Draco and Harry, they wouldn't notice if I dropped dead on the floor. I don't know how you can stand it. Doesn't it bother you?"

Ginny laughed; it was a short, unpleasant sound. "Doesn't the way they are with each other bother you? Like nothing else matters and nothing else exists. They’ve turned so much into each other that I hardly know which of them is which anymore. Ask Harry a question, you get an answer from Draco. When Harry's not in the infirmary he's so jumpy he bites off your head if you say anything. He just wanders around the Potions laboratory, dropping vials and spilling powders and looking miserable."

"Of course he's miserable," Hermione said. "He's got every reason to be miserable."

"He goes around saying Draco isn't going to die," said Ginny. Her hand was still at her throat, worrying the gold chain there. The charms on her bracelet clinked lightly as her hand moved.

"And most of him believes that, but some small part of him is probably terrified," said Hermione. "This is the way he's dealing with being frightened. We're all frightened. If you're asking me if I'm sorry they're friends, well, I'm not. I'm glad Draco has Harry to take care of him and I'm glad Harry has Draco to take care of him. Neither of them ever had any proper family before. I don't know why I'd be bothered by that."

"If I were you," said Ginny, her voice flat with a harsh clarity, "I'd be afraid that if Draco dies, he'll take Harry right along with him."

"Because you don't want to!" Ginny's released her hold on her bracelet and let her hands drop to the table. "You say 'they're friends,' like they're ordinary friends, but I've got friends, Hermione, and we're not like that. They're dependent, both of them, like the other one was some kind of ... of addictive drug they need to stay alive. How is it good for either of them to be like that? Like half a person? It's so painful and terrible it hurts me just to look at them."

"Painful?" Hermione was bewildered, and beneath the bewilderment was a small but growing anger. "Terrible? I don't see anything painful or terrible about it. Of course they don't have an ordinary friendship; they aren't ordinary people. Do ordinary people have to face death every day? If you're going to be friends with Harry you have to know that you might die because of it. You have to be willing to face death for him. And Draco would. He'd die for Harry. If Harry needed him, he'd run a thousand miles to be with him. If he couldn't run, he'd walk. If both his legs were broken, he'd crawl. Everyone else wants the world saved and they expect Harry to do it. Well, Draco doesn't care about saving the world. He cares about Harry. And someone has to put Harry first, because God knows he isn't allowed to himself."

Ginny's hands where they gripped the edge of the table were white. "So Draco's supposed to do what? Sacrifice himself for Harry? Die in his place? He idolizes Harry. It's not fair."

"Harry's everything good he's ever wanted to be," Hermione said quietly. "He loves him like you love the better part of yourself."

"Because it makes him hate himself!" Ginny almost shouted. "And love, I thought, is supposed to make you stronger, not weaker. It's supposed to be something to live for, not die for. But you don't care. You don't care about him any more than any of you care about me. But you'll see. You'll see what it's like when they shut you out just like you and Harry and my brother used to shut me out for all those years and years. All those things Tom did to me and you never cared or noticed because you never looked -- you just saw what you wanted to see -- just like Harry looks at Draco and sees what he wants to see -- I could have died right in front of you just like Draco's doing now and you wouldn't have cared --"

"Ginny!" Hermione exclaimed, getting to her feet so quickly that she almost knocked over her chair. "That's not true."

"The hell it isn't," Ginny shot back, and now her eyes were bright with angry tears. She scrabbled for her book-bag, shoved the Liber-Damnatis into it, and stood up, throwing her bag over her shoulder. "And I don't want that stupid barrette -- I wouldn't want anything that belonged to Blaise -- she's nothing but a - a prostitute! You all make me sick!"

Hermione flinched back as Ginny flung the jeweled ornament at her feet: it landed there with a faint clink. She knelt to pick it up and stayed there for a moment, on her knees, feeling as if she never wanted to get up again.

"Origio," she said finally, looking down at the barrette in her hand. "Origio -- that's the spell you wanted."

It had taken Percy almost two days, but finally he had managed to get his makeshift new office into a workable state. There were his quills and his inkpot; there were his stacks of parchment in the Out box, and the much smaller stack in the In box. Here was his desk, with its neatly labeled files; here was his FiloParch, with its meticulously detailed record of appointments. The only thing his office lacked was, well, more than two walls.

"Ahem." Overhead, someone cleared their throat. "Pray tell, what is the meaning of this? Why is your desk in the middle of the hallway?"

Percy glanced up to see Lucius Malfoy standing over him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and an expression on his pale, pointed face that would have curdled milk.

"It’s not just my desk," Percy pointed out helpfully. "It's also my filing cabinets and Roll-o-Scrolls. Oh, and all my quills. Dashed inconvenient it was moving it all, too."

"A Weasley." Lucius spat the word out as if it tasted foul. "I should have known. Why, Mr. Weasley, are you not in your office? Are you aware that Ministry Regulations forbid the placement of furniture in hallways reserved for official use?"

"It’s a broom closet now," Percy complained. "I tried to work in there, but mops keep falling on my head."

"Perhaps they are trying to tell you something," Lucius suggested, a glittering look in his eye. "It was my impression that all personnel affected by the recent office...mixup had been instructed to return home until it was straightened out."

Percy was as appalled as if Lucius had suggested that he set fire to an orphanage. "Go home? When I have a report on flying carpets due to the Moroccan Minister at ten o'clock on Friday? I'll be lucky if I get to go home on Christmas Day!"

"Go home," Lucius repeated, a dangerous tone to his voice, "before another office mixup occurs and you find that your desk has been Transfigured into a turtle, or perhaps some kind of repulsive insect."

Percy turned a dark pink, which clashed with his freckles. "My desk? Not my desk! This desk used to belong to Mr. Crouch! It's real mahogany! You can't possibly --"

Even those Ministry officials toiling in the bowels of The Department For Regulation of Sugar Quills And Other Writing Implements heard Percy's cry of anguish as it echoed off the walls. "Not my desk!"

With the tip of a polished Oxford loafer, Lucius, a look of smug satisfaction on his face, prodded the largish brown turtle which had appeared, dazed-looking, at his feet.

Ron had suffered a number of rude awakenings in his life. When he was seven years old George and Fred had practiced an Accio spell on him while he was sleeping and he had awakened the next morning in the lettuce patch. Just the year before he'd gotten quite drunk during the Halloween Feast and had woken up in the third floor girls' bathroom. But nothing had quite prepared him for waking up on the bare stone floor of a deserted castle, surrounded by broken chess pieces and being tickled through the bars of a gold cage by a stark naked girl wearing only her long black hair and a thoughtful expression.

"Auuuugh," said Ron, and bolted upright so swiftly that his head spun. "Get your hands off me."

The girl in the cage giggled and sat back on her heels. Her hair was long and opaquely black. It almost covered her, but not quite. "Good morning," she said cheerfully. "Sleep well?"

"Ugh." Looking away from her, Ron felt his head. There was a painful bruise just above his left eyebrow, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. He was still in the clothes he'd worn to the Manor party. His hand ached where the snake-shaped burn scar was, which sometimes happened when he was tired.

"You know who I am." The girl spoke again, leaning as close to his ear as she could get. "Don't you."

"The Dark Lord's gone, if that's what's worrying you," she said. "He won't be back until nightfall."

"Well, pardon me, I'm sure." She sounded indignant. A moment later, she asked him, "Is this better?"

He turned and looked at her. She had her long hair looped back over her shoulders and was wearing some kind of brief black corseted dress. It seemed an improvement if not by much.

"Thanks," said Ron, and stood up. He looked around. The room was as he remembered from the day -- hours -- minutes before, although the first time he had seen the room he had not noticed the beauty of it. The chairs that glowed like thrones on the polished stone floor, the torches held up on pillars wound with carved vines, the enormous fireplace carved with angels. Upon closer examination Ron would later discover that the carved angels were hiding their eyes behind their wings. Within a huge grate a fire burned fiercely green and orange. "Nice place you have here," he said.

It was a thin cold voice, not immediately recognizable, although familiar. A shudder ran up Ron's spine as he turned.

It was Wormtail, lurking in the shadows by the door. His pale sweaty face gleamed in the torchlight, and below the cuff of his robes, the glint of his silver hand was visible.

"Although," said Ron, still addressing his words to Rhysenn, although his eyes were on his former pet, "it seems to be infested with rats."

Rhysenn chuckled. "That's not very nice," she said. "Peter is so awfully sensitive about his former condition, aren't you, Peter?"

"Shut up, you demon bitch," Wormtail snapped, his small, deep-set eyes flashing at her.

Rhysenn hissed at him through the bars of the cage. Ron was reminded briefly and surreally of being in some kind of zoo. "Sniveling rodent," she sneered.

"Fascinating as this conversation is, I think I'm going to take a walk," said Ron loudly.

"Away from you, for a start," said Ron. He straightened his shoulders. "I'm hungry. I'm tired of this room. You-Know-Who didn't tell me I have to stay in here. So I'm not staying." He narrowed his eyes. "Feel free to try and stop me."

"Oh, I wouldn't bother." There was a high-pitched giggle somewhere behind Wormtail's voice. "Enjoy your walk. I remember when we used to stroll around the lake together, me in your pocket..."

"Oh, belt up," said Ron, exasperated. "I was thirteen. I'm seventeen now. I'm over the whole pet rat debacle. I've moved on. You were a lousy fucking rat and you're a lousier fucking person. Now get out of my way."

Wormtail stepped aside as Ron stalked over to the door. His small eyes glittered malevolently. "Before you go...perhaps we might go somewhere to talk," he hissed, his teeth yellow in the lamplight. "I have a suggestion you might be interested in..."

"And I have one for you," said Ron, jerking the door open. "Drop dead," and with that, he stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"You know," Rhysenn observed, into the subsequent silence, "I really think I'm starting to like him a lot better than the last one."

When Sirius and Lupin arrived on the third floor they found it empty save for Percy Weasley, who was leaning against one of the hallway walls, a stunned look on his face. Sirius paused and looked at Lupin, who shrugged as if to say, All up to you, mate.

"Percy," said Sirius, stepping forward, "we're looking for Minister Parkinson. Have you seen him?"

Percy continued to stare vacantly off down the hallway. "That turtle," he said. "That turtle ran off with my report on flying carpets."

Lupin stifled a cough. Sirius swung around and looked at him sternly, then turned back to Percy. "You know, Percy," he said, "There are many brands of decaffeinated coffee on the market that taste just as good as the real thing."

Percy's head snapped around and he shot Sirius an indignant look. "I'm not mad," he said. "Or overtired, either. You told me to stay around the Ministry and take notes, so I've been staying. Only Lucius Malfoy turned my desk into a turtle."

Percy raised a hand and pointed off down the hallway towards a distant door. "He went that way, by the way."

Sirius set off down the hall with Lupin in tow. The distant door turned out to have a plaque on it: The Department for the Regulation of Memory Charms.

Sirius shrugged and pushed the door open. Inside was an ordinary Ministry office: desks, chairs, floating Roll-O-Scrolls, piles of empty inkbottles waiting to be refilled by office elves. He recognized very few of the dark-robed men milling about between the desks, but a few he knew by sight, and did not like.

In the center of the room stood Lucius Malfoy, a silvery-tall presence in black robes. He was talking to a stoutish, balding wizard with a round, hard face and a pug nose whom Sirius recognized instantly as newly-elected Minister Francis Parkinson. "What do you mean the dragon hounds have found no trace of her, Parkinson? I thought we knew every safe house in Britain --"

He broke off as if he sensed Sirius' presence, and turned. For a moment they locked eyes; Lucius smiled, showing sharp canine teeth.

"Ah, Sirius Black," said Lucius, flashing a cool smile. "Here to give me a headache, I suspect."

Francis Parkinson made a low rumbling noise in his throat. "I really don't think --"

But Lucius silenced him with a wave of his hand. "Francis...perfectly all right. Black here and I are old friends." Lucius leaned back against the desk behind him, looking bored. "I suppose this is about your contesting of my adoption claims, Black," Lucius said. "Alas, as long as we're awaiting our court date, my soliciter has forbidden me to discuss the matter with you. So sorry. Care to talk about the weather instead?"

"I didn't come about that," Sirius said. "I came about a missing person. Ron Weasley."

Minister Parkinson flinched, and his expression darkened. Lucius himself snorted. "The Weasleys suddenly missing a brat?" he inquired. "How can they even tell?"

Sirius gritted his teeth. It was Lupin who spoke. "He's been missing since the party on Saturday," he said. "He was whirlwhinded away with everyone else, but he hasn't returned."

"It could be that he simply has no interest in going home," said Lucius. "There's another Weasley spawn moping about the corridors here who refuses to return home despite all inducements to the contrary. Perhaps the Weasleys beat their children."

"Percy is here because he works here," said Lupin tightly. "Ron is a child, and quite possibly lost somewhere, injured, unable to return home...it could be bad publicity for the Ministry if nothing was done to find him."

"Oh, no," said Lucius. "Not bad publicity." He smiled malevolently, and perched himself on the edge of the desk, looping his hands over one knee. They were very like his son's hands: elegant, delicate, elongated, perhaps a trifle prettier than their owners might have wished. "Come, now, Black," he said. "You're an intelligent man. Brilliant, in your own way. And not without insight."

"You know, I keep telling myself these things every day," said Sirius. "But they just sound so much better when somebody else says them."

Lucius ignored this. "We all saw what happened at the party. I daresay teenagers will be teenagers, after all. But after what young Weasley did -- well, sleeping with your best friend's paramour is never a bright idea, but when that best friend is Harry Potter, famous and powerful wizard, Magid extraordinaire, and when your transgressions against him have been publicly revealed in the most painful and humiliating possible way...well, wouldn't you be afraid to return home?"

"Are you suggesting that Ron is afraid to return because he's afraid of Harry?" Sirius demanded, incredulous.

The Death Eaters - for that was what they were, Sirius acknowleged to himself, not Ministry officials but Death Eaters -- sniggered appreciatively.

"Harry Potter is dangerously unstable," Lucius went on smoothly. "The wizarding world has known this for years but fear and recalcitrant administrators have prevented us from doing anything about it. Need I remind you that the last time a Magid went renegade a team of hit wizards had to be dispatched to deal with the problem."

"Renegade..." Sirius sputtered. "Hit wizards? Harry's not going to go berserk just because his best friend -- I mean, that's ridiculous, he's a perfectly well-adjusted child, he's never shown a spark of interest in abusing his powers..."

"Perhaps," said Lucius, examining his nails, "the impetus simply hasn't been there before. All sorts of things could trigger it. Rage, of course. A desire for revenge. Grief over a terrible loss of some sort..."

"Bastard," Sirius seethed, unable to hold himself back any more. The desire to leap over the desks and smash in Lucius Malfoy's leering, smug face was almost more than he contain. "If you think..."

"That will be enough," said Lucius, and the smug mask flickered. Beneath it, Sirius could see the other man's hatred of him, as cold and immovable as a Durmstrang glacier. "You are a fool for coming here, Black," he said softly, and around him the Death Eaters pressed closer. Their faces, like Lucius' were set and frozen. "You may be shielded by powerful magics and more powerful friends, but they cannot always be there to protect you, nor will their protections last forever. If I were you, I would not return here again. There is nothing here for you, Sirius Black, or for your werewolf pet."

At that Lupin, who had been almost entirely silent up until this point, stepped forward, placing a hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Why, Lucius?" he said quietly to the blond man in front of the desk. "Not that I expect you to tell me, but why? What larger purpose is this serving? What can one boy mean to you, even a boy who used to be Harry Potter's best friend? He's just a child."

Something flickered in Lucius' face, at the back of his arctic eyes. "Ronald Weasley is the same age as my own son," he said coolly, looking straight at Lupin for the first time. "And as you can see he has not been spared either. In war, there are no innocents."

Harry, sitting crosslegged on a sofa in the middle of the Gryffindor Tower common room, looked at the fireplace with an expression of polite inquiry. "What did you want to talk to me about, Sirius?"

"Look, it's about Ron," Sirius said. "I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to worry you unduly, and also I know this isn't your favorite subject at the moment."

"I--" Harry began, indignation and sheepishness chasing each other across his face.

"I know all about it," Sirius said. "Everyone knows all about it, Harry. Which I wouldn't normally tell you but unfortunately it pertains to the discussion at the moment. Ron," he said heavily, "has not yet come home to the Burrow."

"No," said Sirius. "And it's been kept quite quiet. I know Arthur and Molly have not even told Ginny. This afternoon I went to the Ministry and spoke with Lucius --"

Harry's teeth set visibly. "Lucius," he said, and managed somehow to make the simple two-syllable name carry an unsettling freight of rage and hatred. "Why him?"

"It was his Whirlwind Charm," said Sirius. "And he's quite high up in the Ministry of course, under the current regime. It is his considered opinion," Sirius went on tensely, "that Ron has simply run off. Legged it for France, or some such nonsense. He thinks Ron is ashamed to face you after what he did, and he also says..."

Sirius trailed off reluctantly, but Harry was more than happy to supply the rest of the sentence.

"He says Ron is afraid of me," Harry added coldly. "Because I'm Harry Potter and I'm dangerously unstable and all that."

"Pretty much, yes," Sirius agreed. "Not that Lucius himself is going to make the cover of Sanity Fair any time soon, but this afternoon didn't seem to be the time to bring that up. Obviously, something's going on. If something's happened to Ron, are they covering it up? Do they want something from Ron? If they're trying to get at you --"

"Then why no blackmail messages?" Harry said, his eyes blank with tension. "No requests for money, no severed toes arriving in the post?"

Harry's eyes flashed. "He didn't," he said. "He wouldn't do that, and he's not afraid of me. At the party, when Draco called him over, he took everything Draco threw at him and just accepted it. He didn't fight back at all. He knows what he did wasn't right, he wants to make it up to me...he wouldn't just run away."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at his godson; Harry returned the look, his eyes even more intently green with the blue shadows around them. "You miss Ron?" Sirius asked.

"All the time," Harry said. His tone was not welcoming of further questions about his feelings. Sirius did not pose any.

Harry shook his head. "Not that I can recall. He whirlwhinded everyone away -- after that, everything's a bit of a blur. Next thing I remember, really, we were up on the tower."

Sirius blinked. He suddenly recollected Percy, leaning against the corridor wall, pointing down the hall at the door through which Lucius had disappeared: The Department for the Regulation of Memory Charms...

Sirius narrowed his eyes at Harry. "So you don't remember anything from the casting of the Whirlwind Charm to the point where you were up on the tower?"

For a moment Sirius waited for him to get up and fetch Draco, before he realized that of course Harry didn't have to do that. Instead he watched as his godson's eyes unfocused, as his hands uncurled and went loose in his lap. He could see the rapid pulse that beat at the base of Harry's throat, the tensile energy in the slender hands and set jaw. There was a strength in Harry that ran through and through him like coils of steel wire. Lately it had been more evident. Sirius was glad to see it; James, much like Harry though he had been, had had none of that strength. He had been able to be brave when needed, of course, but he not had any capacity for ruthlessness of purpose or action. Sirius wondered now if Harry did. If he could be cruel if he had to be.

Harry's eyes came back into focus, dark lashes sweeping down to cover the expression in them. "He's coming."

"That's good." Sirius paused a moment and then plunged ahead with a question he was fairly sure would not be well received. "How does he seem? His spirits, I mean, not his health. Madam Pomfrey keeps me updated on that."

A spark of green fire between lowered lashes; Harry spoke evenly. "Well, I think he's sick of being stuck in the infirmary. And I'm sure he wishes Snape would hurry up with the antidote. But he's fine."

"He's fine." Harry's voice was still even. "I think he's tired of stupid questions about how he's feeling, but he's fine."

Before Sirius could reply to this, the portrait door opened and the subject of their discussion came in. Sirius wasn't sure what he had expected, but Draco looked much as he always had - perhaps a little thinner, more tired looking. He wore a red sweater that hung slightly loose and his eyes were dark smoky gold in the firelight. He nodded at Sirius and came to sit next to Harry, who moved slightly aside to make a place for him without having to look to see where he was. Sirius found himself clearing his throat. He wasn't exactly sure why but the pair of them made him nervous suddenly, two sets of eyes - green and gray - - fixed on his with polite inquiry.

"Harry already explained to me what you were talking about," Draco said helpfully. "And now, I don't remember being taken upstairs either. I had thought it was just me, but apparently not."

"Kind of hard to bring up something you don't remember," Draco pointed out kindly.

Draco crossed his legs and settled his elbows on his knees. "I think my father used a Memory Charm on us," he said calmly. "I think something happened that he doesn't want us to remember. He's always been a devoted practitioner of memory alteration spells and he can create charms that are impossible to detect or remove. I suspect we might never know, but…"

"I…" Draco hesitated. "I think it might very well have. I mean, since that was the last time anyone ever saw him…"

Tensing all over, Harry wrapped his arms around his knees. "I hate your father," he muttered, staring down at his shoes. "I hate your fucking bastard father."

Draco flinched and glanced sideways at Harry. For a moment his expression was laid open, so intent in its flawless uncluttered devotion that Sirius felt the press of old memories against the backs of his eyes. Then Harry turned to look back at Draco, and the concealing barriers went up again, Draco's face now blankly unreadable.

"It's not your fault," Harry said, although without much feeling. His tone was flat and dead. "I just feel so … stupid."

"I could have figured it out," Harry disagreed flatly. "I just didn't want to think about it. When we got back here - when I came up to my dormitory - I found something on my bed, wrapped up like a present." He reached into a pocket on his jeans and drew something out of it. He reached his hand forward and opened it. On the palm of his hand was what looked for a moment like a broken toy. Blinking, Sirius realized it was a chess piece. A knight, made of green stone. It was broken in half.

"I thought…" Harry's voice had taken on a slightly ragged edge. "I thought it was from Draco's father. I thought he was trying to say that my move was over, it was his move now. It seemed like something he'd do. But now I don't think it had anything to do with me or Draco at all."

Draco's eyes flicked from the chess piece to Harry. "You didn't tell me," he said.

"No," Harry admitted. "I'm sorry. I didn't think it was important. Is it one of your father's?"

Draco frowned at the chess piece. "It looks kind of familiar," he said. "But I'm not completely sure where I've seen it before."

Sirius sighed. "Let me have it," he said, and reached out from the fire to collect the chess piece from Harry. It had been snapped in even halves, as if a knife had cut it cleanly in two. The marble was smooth, weighty and expensive. "So someone sent you a veiled taunt," he said. "Lucius, or one of his Death Eater cronies, or even --"

"Voldemort himself," said Draco, his voice toneless but intent. "But it doesn't make any sense..."

"No," Harry agreed. His own voice was tense with fear and something else. There was a dark light behind his green eyes. "No, it doesn't make any sense. After everything that's happened ... what would the Death Eaters want with Ron?"

It took Ron less than an afternoon exploring the castle to realize why Wormtail and Rhysenn had laughed at him when he said he was going to take a walk.

The castle was full of beautiful things, that was undeniable. Silver serpent pillars with topaz eyes and swords for teeth. Walls of books bound in bronze and agate. Heavy velvet curtains held with jade clasps. Huge leaded windows paned in blue and gold and scarlet. They looked out on a countryside of tinder-dry winter mountains, jagged as teeth. The sky was an arched blue bow overhead, and far below Ron could see a fast-moving pale silver river, as thin as one of Lucius' smiles.

But there were two things that were missing. Nowhere in this vast jewel box of a castle were there any other people. And nowhere were there any doors or windows that opened to the outside.

"Hello again," Ron said wearily, walking at last back into the room he had come from, with its gold cage and chessboards. He looked around: Wormtail was gone, although Rhysenn still sat quietly inside her shining prison. The scattered chess pieces on the floor had been cleaned up and placed back on their boards.

Rhysenn looked up. "They brought you some food," she said, a bit listlessly, and pointed at a silver salver set atop one of the tables. Ron almost ran over to the table and flung himself on the food there. It was extremely simple: bread, cheese, some chocolate. He didn't care; he was starving. "I get why you were laughing at me, by the way," he said between mouthfuls. "There aren’t any doors here that lead outside. Are there?"

"There are no such doors at all here," Rhysenn said, twirling a lock of silky black hair idly around a finger. "The only way out of this castle is to Apparate."

"I could leave this place," said Rhysenn, a slight frown puckering the space between her eyebrows. "But then I would have to leave Lucius without his permission, and that I cannot do. I am bound to him."

"The cage restricts my ability to use certain powers of mine," said Rhysenn, with a moue of distaste. "Lucius, I suspect, fears me, although he should perhaps know better than that. Gold is the metal most unloved by demons, for it resembles the sun which we despise. It also affects our abilities."

Ron did not hear this last sentence of hers; his mind was whirling. "You're a demon?" he demanded.

"I am demon only by half," she replied. "My other half is mortal, entirely. My mother was a demon herself; my father was a Malfoy."

"Right," said Ron, picking up the nearest chess piece. It was a rook. "So, you're all demon, then."

She frowned at him. "I do not think you understand the honor I do you, telling you the truth of my nature. I have told none before."

"Because there is no one here for you to betray me to," she said simply. "And never again shall you return to tell this story. Like a mortal man who has walked into Hell, there is no road back for you from this place."

"That's not true," Ron said, and tightened his hand around the chess piece until it hurt. "I'll escape."

She raised her eyes and looked at him. He saw how gray they were: had seen it that first day when she had come down the stairs with Charlie. And now that she had said she was a Malfoy, he could admit it. She had Draco's eyes. But where Draco's eyes were the color of moonlight seen through a silver shade, hers were moonlight seen through fever. They had a scarlet cast and inside the pupils burned tiny flames.

"Oh, don't I?" Her voice was amused, curious. "You imagine he will come for you because he loves you. He gives love out carelessly, that one, and often where it is undeserving. I am a demon and perhaps you will think I do not understand, but I do not see what your love for him or his for you has done for you besides bring you to this pass. I have lived six hundred years and I have seen the results of love. Pain and terror, conflagration and despair. Fate may be impartial and Justice blind, but Love hates mankind and knows well that the best way to make him suffer is to kiss him with her sickness."

Ron did not look at her. He looked instead at the chessboard, with its repeating squares of light and dark. When he spoke, his voice was even. "Harry will come and get me if he has to walk through fire to get here. I know he will."

For a moment, she looked almost startled. "Where have you heard that?" she demanded.

Ron hesitated a moment. Then he replied with the truth, because after all, she had had a point. There was no reason to lie. "In a vision," he said. "It was something I saw in my head."

"You mean just last night?" Rhysenn asked curiously. A moment before she had seemed both ancient and evil; now she seemed a curious, ordinary girl. Ron trusted this incarnation of her even less than the last one.

"No," he said slowly. "Last night wasn't the first time I've ever seen anything. I know I'm a Diviner. I've known it for a long time. I knew sometimes I could see things other people couldn't, or I would make guesses that came true later. I think that's why I've always beaten Harry at chess. I could see what he'd do before he did it. But, God -- I couldn't control it. I could never, ever control it and all I ever saw were terrible things. And I felt a fool for not knowing what was real and what wasn't."

"I almost told Hermione," Ron said, his voice distant. "Once. I wanted to tell her. I thought we were going to die and so it would be safe and she'd have to forgive me."

"Not telling her what I'd seen." Ron's voice was remote. In his hand he turned the chess piece over and over. "Everything I ever saw was bad, before I learned to block it all. I always thought maybe I was just dreaming. Hallucinating. But I know she would have wanted me to tell her what I saw... to tell Harry." Ron's voice had sunk to a whisper.

Ron spoke swiftly. "I saw Malfoy. He was lying on a bed, and Harry was sitting on the bed and he had his face in his hands, and Ginny was there, and Malfoy was dead. That's what it looked like, anyway."

"Yes," said Ron, in the same rapid, unhappy voice. "I know when people are dead when I ... see them like that, in the future. I can feel it -- like something missing from them."

Rhysenn's eyes rounded into startled silver circles, but before she could speak the doors at the end of the room opened, and the Dark Lord came in.

Normally Draco was only a fan of long walks if they were taken by people who annoyed him. After the conversation with Sirius, though, Harry had headed to the Potions dungeon to find Hermione. Draco, not particularly wanting to be there while Hermione and Harry talked about Ron, had remembered an errand he'd been putting off for several days and excused himself.

He was glad, now, that he had. It was pleasant outside, only a few white clouds chasing each other across a late-afternoon sky of filigree blue. The narrow path leading from the castle down to the greenhouses and bestiary was lined with evergreens and the faint and pleasant scent of sap drifted on the cold air.

Somewhere along the way Draco had picked up a bare tree branch. He dragged it along the top of the snow as he walked, carving delicate lines and zigzags into the surface. The air felt sharp and fresh and bracing against his skin, and the high clouds overhead reflected themselves in the lake's clear, iced-over surface like a fleet of scudding little ships.

He wondered if he would live to see the ice melt, and pushed the thought back. Death was unimaginable. He was seventeen years old, and his heart still beat, and the blood still ran in his veins. He lived, loved and thought. He could not imagine himself down in that gray place of shadows where the unmourned dead waited for deliverance that did not come. Surely his own death would not go unavenged, if it came to that. Harry would see to it.

Crack. The sound of a snapping branch brought him out of his reverie. Draco spun around, lifting a hand to shield his gaze from the sunlight reflecting off the snow. The icy path he had walked on stretched whitely back towards the castle, and standing in the center of the path was Seamus Finnigan.

He had his hands in the pockets of his navy wool cloak and wore a faintly abashed expression. The wind picked up loose strands of his blond hair and blew them across his face; he raised a hand to brush it out of his eyes. Draco found himself looking at Seamus' hands curiously. They were thin, artistic hands with callused fingers. Quidditch player hands, like Harry's. Like his own.

"An admirable goal," Draco commiserated. "Now all you need is someone to talk to. Don't let me hinder your quest." He turned away.

Draco cursed inwardly. He wanted to walk away and leave Seamus standing there, looking like a fool. But curiosity was stronger than antagonism -- he was more cat than snake in that way. He turned around slowly and crossed his arms. "Fine," he said. "And what missive from the Department of Oblivious Morons might you be passing along today?"

Seamus' chin set, but his voice was even. "I want to know why you don't like me," he said. "I want you to tell me."

"You know," Seamus went on, as if Draco hadn't spoken, "I keep thinking about it, and it doesn't make sense. I mean, I know I didn't like you when we were younger. But then again, nobody liked you when you were younger, Malfoy. Harry, for instance. He hated you a lot more than I did."

"Don't," said Draco, in a voice like poisoned honey, "compare yourself to Harry."

"So I can only assume this has something to do with Ginny," Seamus said steadily. "Which, you know, doesn't make any sense to me. Because if you wanted to be with her, you could. I'm not stupid. I know I'm second choice. I should be the one who hates you."

There was a moment of silence. The cold air seemed to be pressing down on them, as if they were trapped under a glass jar. Draco shuddered slightly and unfolded his arms. "So maybe you might want to tell me," he said, "why you put a Tracking Charm on that bracelet you gave her?"

Clear red color flooded up into Seamus' cheeks. For a moment, he seemed to startled to speak. "A what? A -- how did you --?"

"My mother had a bracelet like that," Draco said in a savage tone. "My father used it to keep track of her. The arrow charm is a locator spell. I know that. Because I'm rich, Finnigan, and my parents could afford trinkets like that. The Weasleys, on the other hand, have more lawn gnomes than Galleons. Which, I suppose, is their problem. But it would make it damn unlikely that Ginny would have seen a bracelet like that one before. And you must have known that."

Seamus' cheeks were still scarlet. "It's just standard with those bracelets," he said. "I mean -- I never thought about it. I knew it had a Tracking Charm, but I figured she could set it however she liked once she figured out how it worked, and like I said, all the bracelets have them. They're usually wedding gifts, after all. It's for keeping the people you love safe."

"I was worried! I heard about the Whirlwind Charm -- and when I owled Mrs. Weasley, she said that Ginny wasn't back yet -- and I thought I could find her -- bring her back safe --"

Seamus looked stung. His eyes were wide, and very blue: a darkly saturated blue, like morning sky. "I was worried," he said again. "Did you -- does she know?"

"I didn't tell her, if that's what you mean." Draco did not point out that he had not told her because she would likely resent him if he did, and because he had no desire to add to her current overburdened emotional state. And because, somewhere in the far back of his mind, he was forced to admit to himself that with things the way they were it might not be so bad to have someone around who could always find Ginny if necessary.

Draco took a swift step back, away from Seamus' hand. "Don't even think about it, Finnigan," he said pleasantly. "Touch me and I'll punch your eyes through to the back of your head so you can watch me walk away smiling."

Seamus dropped the hand. "Look. If we could just get along with each other, it would make things easier on everyone. I was wrong about the Tracking Charm. I'm sorry. If we could just be civil to each other --"

Draco stared hard at the other boy, so hard that Seamus swallowed nervously. When he spoke, it was in measured cadences. "Finnigan," he said. "I fear we are not understanding each other. Let me be clear with you. I think you are a tosser. A wanker. A weasel-faced, rubber-necked broom jockey with all the charm and charisma of a week-old head of lettuce. A control-obsessed maneuvering swine who, when not spending hours building up unsightly muscles, puts Tracking Charms on his girlfriend because he doesn't trust her not to run off with the first guy she sees who does not resemble a condom full of walnuts. Trust me. This is not one of those situations where a beautiful friendship is going to spring from the ashes of a great hatred. Because, in fact, I enjoy hating you. It gives my life color, complexity, and depth. It brings my soul joy. You're a creep, Finnigan. Live with it."

Seamus' eyes opened wide with astonishment. For a moment there was nothing: no movement, no sound, not the crackle of snow underfoot, not the brush of wind in the leafless branches. Only the look of hurt and shock deepening in Seamus' steady blue eyes.

"Fine," said Seamus flatly, and without another word, turned around, and walked back towards the castle.

Draco leaned back against the nearest tree and watched him go, the calm satisfaction of a job well done humming pleasantly in his veins.

"I cannot shake the feeling, somehow, that I am responsible for sending a child to his death."

Snape turned away from the potions table, where he had been testing the temperature of several bubbling cauldrons. "What did you say, Headmaster?"

The older man, looking out the window at the darkening sky, did not reply for a moment. Finally, he said, "It was nothing, Severus."

"Ah." Snape returned his gaze to his cauldrons. After a moment, he spoke again: "Was it about Harry?"

"No. Well, perhaps. As you have often observed yourself, everything is about Harry. In some way or another."

"Sirius has given him the news about Weasley, then? I am surprised he is still here."

"You know why he's still here. I do not, however, expect that he will stay. Once there is more definitive news..."

"I feel confident that I could not force him to stay." Dumbledore inclined his head. His tone was remote. "I think, perhaps, that at this point I have given him everything that I can give him. Perhaps I have had all the time with him that I am allowed. I wish I could have had him for longer. But I think that I have gone beyond the point where there is anything else I can tell him. The question now is whether or not he will choose to listen to what he has learned."

"Potter has never been much of a listener," said Snape, selecting a vial of rosy liquid and pouring it into the leftmost cauldron. The liquid turned black. Snape muttered and made a check mark with his quill on a nearby tablet of parchment.

"In his lessons, no. I think he absorbs things through experience." Dumbledore sighed. "If I could give him armor, I would give him armor. If I could make him invincible, I would make him invincible. But his greatest weapon remains his essential humanity. It is the one thing he has that our enemy never will. He is armored in his own human frailty, in his heart's knowledge of what he does have: his father's bravery, the sacrifice of his mother, the love of his friends, his own good sense. I can offer him no better or further protection. And yet..."

"And yet there is a cutting edge to every gift, isn't there? James was also foolhardy and Lily impetuous. And though his friends love him and he them, love is also a curse, it its own way."

"If Draco dies, Harry will be no use to anyone, not now and perhaps not ever again."

"I do not think he would be angry. I think he would break apart. And it would take a wiser hand than mine, and more time than we have, to put him back together. And yet..."

"And yet how to separate them? For they must be separated. This most recent issue has changed all of my plans."

"I am glad," said Snape, some sarcasm creeping into his tone, "to see you finally take issue with whether or not being led around by Harry is at all good for Draco."

"I do not think he is led. I think he chooses to follow, which is a different issue entirely. And in some other time -- as in the past he has been -- Harry would be the best thing that ever happened to Draco. But now. Given what we know...No. Harry must face this next step of his journey alone."

"Heartbreak teaches us about ourselves," said Dumbledore. "A broken heart spills all its secrets."

"I thought your policy was not to intervene," said Snape, waving his wand at the furthest cauldron. Its flame flickered and went out.

There was a beach, and water that ran up and up the shore of the beach, never receding. There were clouds overhead, heavy and iron gray, that struck together like blocks colliding. And the sands of the beach were deserted, and along them blew the bits of a red plastic child's bucket, torn to shreds now, tumbling in every direction... and there was more, but he could not see it, it was not his dream to see, it was not a dream at all...

A hurricane tore through Harry's mind, catapulting him swiftly and instantly out of a previously dreamless sleep. He bolted upright in bed, the covers falling around his waist in a tangled welter, and tried to catch his breath.

He had no recollection of what he had dreamed, or even if he had dreamed. What he did have was a feeling of intense but remote misery, spearing sharply through him, bewildering in its strength. And he knew, without needing to examine why, that this was Draco's pain and desolation. Draco's thoughts and feelings, even filtered through Harry's own consciousness, had an unmistakable shape and color of their own -- a psychic fingerprint unlike anyone else's.

Malfoy? Harry sent out an experimental tendril of thought, and was none too surprised at not receiving an answer. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, fumbled sleepily under the bed for his Invisibility Cloak, and threw it around his shoulders. He took care to walk quietly through the near-empty dormitory room so as not to wake Seamus, who was sleeping the sleep of the just, a pillow jammed under his cheek and a faint smile on his face. He looked unbelievably healthy -- rosy-cheeked, bright haired, faintly cherubic. A bitter flicker of resentment passed through Harry, leaving him feeling ashamed.

The nighttime corridors were silent and deserted; the infirmary door was shut tight. Harry opened it with the care born of years of silent sneaking around the grounds. Stepping into the room, he blinked his eyes against the sudden light. The infirmary walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling windows and through them, the moonlight poured with a hurtful brilliance. It turned the curtains around Draco's bed to sheets of white fire.

Harry went forward, and pulled the curtains back. They rattled on their metal rings. Draco was lying face-up on the bed. His left arm was across his chest, the scarred hand curled in; his right arm was flung across his face. His pajama top had rucked up over his torso and the moonlight was more darkly pencilled in the spaces between his ribs than Harry would have liked.

The arm across the face was withdrawn, and Draco looked up at him. Surprise flickered across his face, followed by amusement. "I woke you up," he said. "Didn't I?"

"Yeah." Draco sat up, and propped his back against the wall behind the bed. He pulled his pajama top down, and shrugged. "I'm fine. Just lying here thinking," he said, matter-of-factly. The tone of his voice said, I don't want to talk about it.

"Oh, you know. The big questions of life. Like, if toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?"

Harry looked at him. He wanted to say, "I'll stay if you need me." But Draco would never say that he needed him, even if he did. Draco, who never said he needed anything, who would have considered a verbal expression of his own wants to be declassè, an undignified fuss over nothing. Draco, who belonged to the class of people who, wounded and bleeding to death on the ground, might at the very end admit that perhaps there had been days when they felt better. Draco, who wouldn't even admit he needed an antidote for the poison that was slowly killing him. No, Draco wouldn't say anything.

Draco looked up at him with curious wide gray eyes. "Everything all right, Potter?'

Draco crossed his arms over his chest in his usual sleeping position and looked consideringly at the ceiling. "I don’t think so," he opined finally.

"I'll stay then." Harry sat down in the chair by the bed, and leaned his elbow on the nightstand. He felt tired but quite alert. Outside he could hear the faint sound of wind as it struck against the windowpane. "Why do you sleep like that anyway, Malfoy?"

"Like this." Harry crossed his arms over his chest, fingertips touching his opposite collarbones.

"Oh, I don't know. My father used to have the house-elves take my covers away sometimes in winter. He thought it would be good for me. Make me stronger. Bloody freezing winter nights, too. I still get cold a lot, but I think it's mostly in my head."

Draco uncrossed his arms and put them behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling. "You slept in a cupboard," he said. "Didn't you."

Harry nodded, propping his chin on his knee. He liked the way Draco said it, without any pity or horror, just as matter-of-fact as if some people happened to grow up sleeping on four-posters while others chose cupboards as a matter of course.

"It must have been dark all the time," Draco said. "And the bed must have been small." He was still staring up at the ceiling. "Because you always keep everything you might need in the morning right by the side of the bed, and reach for it without looking, like you're used to waking up without light. And you don't ever move or turn over while you're sleeping. You must have rolled off the bed onto the floor a few too many times."

Harry laughed. "You do not know pain until you've landed on spiders in the middle of the night."

"Mmm." A faint pang went through Harry at that, and he looked away from Draco. The curtains around the bed stirred in the faint breeze, making a soft sound, like wind in long grass. He thought of people whose missing limbs ached when cold weather came; Harry ached where he was missing people.

"Thinking about Weasley?" asked Draco. He rolled onto his side, head resting on his hand, and looked at Harry. The moonlight coming through the window turned his eyes into silver shields of elliptical light.

"How'd you guess?" Harry's voice caught on an indrawn breath. "Never mind. You probably think I'm being stupid, after what he did..."

Draco was silent for a moment. Harry let his eyes roam over the room. It recollected to him the look of an empty cathedral with its high and vaulted ceilings, the enormous windows through which were visible the distant trees of the Forest, and everywhere the softly blowing curtains like uneasy ghosts. Why, he wondered, did Draco prefer it here to his own bedroom in his own dormitory?

"I don't think you're stupid." Draco's smile was a ghost of its ordinary self; there seemed an odd wistfulness in his gaze, or perhaps it was just the lack of light. "Or, at least, no stupider than you usually are. We don't stop caring about people just because they do idiotic things. Friendship is not that fragile. Not real friendship, anyway."

"You haven't got it in you," Draco said remotely, and shrugged. "I'll say this for whoever orchestrated the whole situation: they certainly wanted you to hate him. Why, do you think?"

"So I wouldn't go after him when he disappeared," Harry said immediately, having thought about this already.

"But then why send you the broken chess piece? That was like a taunt, a 'catch me if you can'. They must know it's the sort of thing that would send you barreling after them. It doesn't make any sense."

The elliptical eyes widened. They seemed the only light things in the darkness: two shining fractures in a wall of black glass. "Why not?"

Draco's hand tightened on his pillow. "And I can't go," he said, bitterly. "I mean, I could -- I'm strong enough still --" He took a ragged breath. "But if you're going to be out there running away from the enemy -- who am I kidding, I couldn't keep up the way I am now. The best I could manage would be strolling away from the enemy. Which isn't very impressive." There was a live current of tension underneath the smoothly regulated voice. "If I came with you, I'd just slow you down."

"I would never let you anyway," said Harry. Weariness had pared away everything but the barest honesty from his voice and words. He heard himself speaking with no small surprise. "And I wouldn't go without you. Not because I'm afraid to go alone, but because I wouldn't leave you while you were dying, and they know that."

"You've never admitted I'm dying before," was all Draco said, but the fingers holding the pillow, which had been whitely bloodless, relaxed their grip.

"Because we will cure you," Harry said. "Snape said he had most of the ingredients for the antidote identified, didn't he? But until he has them all - no, I won't leave."

Harry looked down at his hands. He wondered how much of all this was revelatory to either of them, how long they had both known and understood the intractability of the forces, exterior and interior both, that kept them bound together. "Does it matter?"

Draco's voice was soft and unusually defenseless in reply. "I guess it doesn't."

Harry looked up. Draco had shut his eyes, and while he did not look relaxed, Harry felt that the strung-up nervous tension which had wound him past sleeping was receding. "Besides," Harry said, more lightly. "I don't even know where to start looking for Ron right now. I have to figure that out first."

Draco's eyes fluttered open. "Oh, right, about that," he said. "I had some ideas..."

Narcissa's voice was like ice. Sirius looked at her and swallowed nervously. "I'm saying it still isn't safe."

Her mouth tightened. She stood by the window in the small upstairs room, her arms tight at her sides, her shoulders straight and angular. Everything about her body language forbade approach, so Sirius stood where he was, unsure what to do.

The house they were in made him nervous -- it belonged to an old friend of Narcissa's and was very obviously the abode of previous Death Eaters. He could not have explained exactly how he knew this, but everything in the house teased at his old Auror-senses, whispering of a history of malignant spells and spilled blood, layered over with a skin of rich furnishings.

Narcissa put her hand to the sash of the curtains. Outside the sky had gone from a gray-white pearl to a black one and the room was full of shadows. "I want to see my child," she said. "He's ill, and even though you won't tell me how ill, I can see in your face, Sirius, that he's very ill indeed."

"He's in Dumbledore's hands," Sirius said. "Dumbledore and Snape will do everything they can for him. It's not safe for you to go to Hogwarts, you know that. The Ministry is entirely controlled by Lucius at this point --he's watching the Floo network, he'll be watching the roads to Hogwarts -- he'll be trying to keep an eye on Draco-- "

For a moment, Narcissa's face seemed to flicker, and behind it he saw another face, all iron. "You heard me. Is my son dying?"

Her hand fell from the window sash but she made no other movement. "I want you to promise me something, Sirius," she said.

"If my son is going to die, then I want to be there with him when it happens. I have never been there for him for even one important event in his life. I want to be there with him when he dies." Her expression was grave and composed. He could see Draco in her face, in the thin angles and planes of it, the barely but perfectly controlled tension under the surface. "And if you can't do that for me, Sirius..."

"What?" Her voice was remote. He might have been someone she had never met before.

"I very much doubt that," she said. Her voice was the voice of winter biting dead the leaves on the trees. "I don't think he actually believes in anyone's love for him. He's learned to live without it. In an abstract way, I admire that. But I'm his mother, and I love him, and even if he's learned to live without believing he's loved, I don't want him to die that way."

She had begun to cry, a silent, effortless, almost aphysical crying. Tears ran from her eyes like the water that ran from the mouths of the snakes in the fountains at the Manor. She did not lift her hands to wipe them away.

"Go away, Sirius," she said. Sounding, for that moment, very much like Lucius. "Just go away."

"Of course not. It was just the snoring that confused me," said Draco with some amusement. Harry sat up, glared at him, and then glared generally around the infirmary. He could not have been asleep for more than five minutes but it seemed to him that the night had greatly advanced. Light had crept by degrees into the sky outside, and the frosted-over windows cast a lacework of shadows against the sheets of Draco's bed. They patterned his skin as well, tracing a fine spider's web of lines across his face and hands.

"Well, it's not as if we were getting anywhere anyway," Harry said crossly. "I mean, I don't know what your father could possibly want with Ron. If he's got him, I don’t see why he isn't letting us know he's got him. I mean, all right, he probably sent me that chess piece, but that's a lame and pretentious gesture if there ever was one. And it still doesn't explain anything."

"You know, I made a number of useful suggestions towards that end, which you missed due to having fallen asleep."

"Well, I had a couple ideas. One was that he took Weasley as bait, and then found out about that whole...rift between you two, and being who he is, my father would assume you wouldn't have any interest in Weasley any more after that. So he might be trying to figure out what to do with him now."

"Somehow I can't help but figure that whatever plan he comes up with will probably not involve either daisies or ballroom dancing lessons."

"That my father's maybe trying to get Ron over on their side?" said Draco, with some nervousness. "I mean, you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to hurt him no matter what...and if they threatened him enough..."

Harry looked at him. "He wouldn't do it," he said. "Ron hates Voldemort as much as I do."

"I hate what you hate," Draco said. "And I want him gone because he's a threat and a danger. And I'm none too pleased about this poisoning thing, but I suspect that that was my father getting his kicks on his own. But then again, Voldemort did require my father to have me. If it wasn't for him, I might not exist. There's a paradox for you."

Draco smiled a humorless smile. "My father told me that while he was still stuck in St Mungo's Home for the Sorcerously Befuddled. A useful piece of information. Anyway, that's not my point. My point is that you hate him more than I do, just like I probably hate my father more than you do. In fact, I'm slightly surprised that you aren't just haring off after him, like you said you wanted to before. Get Voldemort, you get my father and all the other Death Eaters in one fell swoop. Save the world, save Weasley, save us all. Seems like something you would do."

"I didn't realize this was a how to save the world' planning session," said Harry dryly. "I would have brought my notes."

"It might not be the best time," Draco said in amusement. "It's three in the morning. Any plan we come up with now is bound to be ridiculous."

Draco's eyes sparkled and for a moment he resembled nothing so much as an oversized kitten, with all of a kitten's affectionately cruel playfulness. "All right, how's this for a plan. We pick the lock on the infirmary door with a cucumber, escape from school, sneak into the crowded streets of Knockturn Alley while carrying our bell collection, hide in the shadow of a nearby Death Eater, wait till he takes us to Voldemort, then -- bam! We steal his trousers."

"That is ridiculous," Harry said with a yawn. "Voldemort's trousers would never fit us."

"Isverybadplan," said Harry, collapsing once more upon the nightstand. Exhaustion was wrapping itself round him like a warm, dark blanket.

"Fine, then. Instead, we wander around the Ministry going up to different officials and asking them, 'Have you seen kidnapped Ron Weasley lately?'"

"That's good," Harry said amenably, and yawned into the darkness of his folded arms. "I go sleep now."

"Okay," Draco said. His voice, for a brief moment, was devoid of reserve or irony: it was only gentle, so much so that later Harry thought he had imagined it. "You do that."

The Dark Lord was alone, unaccompanied by Lucius or Wormtail. He wore, as always, black, and his paper-white face bore a meditative stamp as he looked at Ron.

"My Diviner," he said, coming closer. "I see you are ready for me already. Seated at the table, waiting with alacrity to play another game."

"No," said Ron. He knew that to defy the Dark Lord was to risk death and terrible injury, but at the moment, it seemed preferable to another game of chess. "I don't want to play."

Voldemort said nothing to that, only came across the room and sat down opposite Ron at the chessboard. With a hand like a bloated white spider, he gently prodded at a few of the fallen pieces. "I could force you," he said. "But that might break you, and I would prefer not to break you. I should tell you, though, that now that the doors in your head have been thrown open, you cannot close them again. This is your only hope of controlling it."

"Controlling your gift. Gift, blessing, curse. You are a Diviner and like the ancient Oracle it is imperative that you know yourself. If you do not learn to master this talent, it will master you. Did you ever wonder why every vision you see is of terror and death, little Diviner? It is because you work so hard to block every sight of the future from your mind that only those phantasms so strong in horror that they are uncontrollable can break the barriers you have created. Eventually, if you continue in this manner, it will shatter your mind."

"I should think that you," Voldemort said, his voice like a coiling snake, "of all people, should desire to strive to master a talent whose realization would allow you to see through illusion. Illusion, little one, has not treated you well."

Ron slowly set the rook down on the board. It seemed to look back at him out of incurious jewelry eyes. Behind him, in the cage, Rhysenn rustled in her gown. "I'll be green," he said at last.

It was the sharp pain in Harry's shoulder that woke him up. For a moment, he froze without moving, trying to remember where he was. He rarely fell asleep with his glasses on. Now they felt embedded in his face. He raised his head slowly, wincing at the bright light that lanced into his eyes.

It was full morning and the infirmary was flooded with sun. Draco was sitting on top of his neatly made bed, reading a book. He glanced over at Harry and grinned. "Madam Pomfrey thought you were dead," he said by way of a good morning. "She saw you all draped over the nightstand and dropped her wand. It was great."

Something tickled at the back of Harry's mind. He was supposed to be somewhere right now, wasn't he. He just couldn't quite remember where. "Did you tell her I was alive?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Draco said equably. He had somewhere along the line gotten dressed, Harry noticed. Out of the pajamas, he did look a little healthier, and there was color in his cheeks.

"Sadist," said Harry, and stretched with an enormous yawn. His muscles popped and he winced. He really needed to get some exercise; practice some Quidditch or fencing. He wondered if Draco was well enough to come with him and then felt guilty for having wondered it.

Harry, blinking sleep out of his eyes, yawned. "No." Then he paused. "Oh. Wait. It's not --"

"And there are zero shopping days left until Christmas!" announced Draco with malign glee. "I would have written you a Christmas card explaining what the last eight months of our beautiful friendship have meant to me, but I couldn't be bothered."

"Thank you, Malfoy. I am truly touched, and in recognition of the fact that it's Christmas, I will not push you off the bed. Even though I want to."

A faint smirk touched the edge of Draco's mouth. "Hey, wasn't there supposed to be some spectacular seasonal extravaganza going on this afternoon?"

"What--? Oh, you mean the Christmas thing. Well, it's not exactly a big party, Malfoy. Just a few people in the Gryffindor common room. Exchange of presents and all that."

"Oh, that's fine," Draco said, sounding offended. "I'll just sit here in the infirmary all Christmas Day, alone and dying slowly."

"That's not funny," said Harry, so fiercely that Draco quailed, which was possibly a first ever, although Harry was not in any mood to appreciate it. "Anyway," he added more gently, "I just assumed you'd be coming."

Draco sighed. "I have presents for people," he said, to Harry's surprise. "But it seems like a Gryffindor sort of event. Not necessarily for me..."

Harry was honestly perplexed. "Well, what do the Slytherins usually do for Christmas?"

"Oh, you know. Ritual bloodletting." Draco grinned at Harry's confused expression. "Come now Potter. We celebrate Christmas just like you do. My father was all about remembering the less fortunate at during the holidays."

"Yes. He said it was very important that we remember to put up wards during Christmas to keep the poor out because otherwise they might try to burgle our house while we were at church."

Draco looked alarmed. "Well, maybe devastatingly charming was a little strong. How about 'wickedly alluring'?"

"Oh, bugger," wailed Harry, dropping to his knees and scrabbling around on the floor for his Invisibility Cloak. "I was supposed to be helping Snape in the Potions dungeon and I forgot."

"Oh, damn, damn. He's going to kill me." Harry was on his feet, shoving the cloak in his pocket. "I have to go."

"Sure, you sleep over and then you bail out first thing in the morning...and you'll probably forget to call..."

"Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry, running his hands through his ridiculously untidy hair in a futile attempt to tame it. "I'll see you in the common room later, okay? Stay in bed, and if you need anything, you know, you can just look for me, and Ginny said she was going to drop in later, and remember to get rest and--"

When Harry arrived in the Potions dungeon, Snape was not there, but Hermione was, industriously crushing Ashwinder eggs with a small mortar and pestle. She dropped the pestle with a little clatter when Harry came in and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh -- Harry!"

"Well, who else?" Harry came a little ways into the room, glancing apprehensively around. Hermione noted how disheveled he looked, as if he'd slept on the floor. His hair stood up around his face, a halo of soft black thorns. The laces on his boots were untied and was that...a pajama top he was wearing under his robes? "Is Snape here?" he demanded, looking worried.

"No," Hermione said slowly. "No, he was here, but he left when you didn't come. He was really angry, Harry. I've hardly ever seen him so furious."

"I thought you might have been," Hermione said. She bit her lip. "Is he all right?"

"He's fine. I went to see him and I fell asleep on the nightstand. Damn." Harry flung himself wearily down on a stool across from Hermione's and looked entreatingly at her. "How furious exactly?"

"Very furious, Harry. It was stupid of you not to show up and you know it." Hermione made her voice as severe as she possibly could. "Was there some reason you had to spend the night in the infirmary?"

Harry looked away from her. He was playing with something he held in his right hand, nervously turning it over and over. It glinted brightly between his fingers. Finally, he said, "Look, I know it's ridiculous. But I have this feeling like nothing can happen to him if I'm there. So I feel like I should stay."

Harry looked down, his long eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones. "Well, you sure know how to make it sound stupid."

Hermione sighed. "Oh, God, I don't know," she said. "If anyone could keep him alive through sheer force of will it'd be you, Harry. He'd do anything for you and maybe that includes not dying."

Harry spun the small gold object he was holding between his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was constricted. "You make it sound like it's my fault."

"Your fault that he's ill?" Hermione's heart softened, he looked so brokenhearted. "Oh, no, I didn't mean that."

"I sometimes feel," Harry said, in an odd, distant voice, "as if that Polyjuice potion or whatever it was hammered these sharp hooks into me, into my skin. Hooks attached to a cord. And on the other end of the cord are more hooks, and they're attached to Draco. And the cord is flexible and infinitely long, and however far apart we are it connects us. Most of the time I don't think about it. It's part of me now, and who I am. But sometimes I look at him and I..."

"And I can see where the hooks go into him," Harry said in the same distant voice. "Where they cut and make him bleed. It's still an injury, Hermione. And I think...what has this done to him, to me, to both of us? Maybe we were better off when we hated each other."

"You mean so you wouldn't care he was dying?" Hermione demanded, half indignant and half bewildered. This was not like Harry; he did not think or speak figuratively. He saw things as they were; he did not have visions of invisible cords and sharp hooks that drew blood from unresisting flesh. Hermione shuddered.

For several hours Harry helped Hermione in the Potions classroom, both hoping and not hoping that Snape would return. On the one hand, he wanted to get his apology and explanation out of the way. On the other hand, he didn't like getting yelled at.

On the other other hand, as Ron had once been wont to say, Harry was enjoying the time with Hermione. Given the current state of their non-relationship it seemed something of a guilty pleasure, but there it was. He wasn't sure how helpful he was being, as in his distracted state he several times handed her the wrong ingredient -- when he passed her a jar of beetle shells instead of the mandrake leaves she had asked for, she rolled her eyes at him -- but it was pleasant to be around her nonetheless. He liked watching her work, crouched and serious over a low-burning flame, adding ingredients to a small cauldron. Liked the way she wailed Harry, this isn't burdock root! It's nettle powder! Liked the way she pushed her hair back while she worked and finally, with a scrunched face of despair, wound it in a bun atop her head and thrust a quill through it.

"Merh," said Hermione, or something very like it. "Hand me the newt's blood. Not that I think there's any newt's blood involved here, but Snape did say to try everything."

Wordlessly, Harry pushed the vial of newt blood towards her, then went back to toying with the coin he'd picked up in Lucius' office. It was heavier than an ordinary Galleon and had a comforting weight in his hand.

He looked over at her, surprised by the tone in her voice. She sounded surprised, and more than a little nervous. "What?" he said.

He followed her gaze. When he realized what she was looking at, he jumped in surprise, dropped the coin in his hand, and tried to pull his sleeve down. It did no good, however -- she'd seen the watch around his wrist, its cracked face reflecting the light of the cauldron fire.

Hermione went back to work again, her scarlet cheeks the only sign of her agitation. A few moments of tense silence passed, during which Harry's fidgeting reached near-record proportions. Finally, he spoke.

"I haven't got anything to ask you," Hermione said tightly. Her cheeks were the color of the vial of newt's blood. "You want to wear that watch, it’s your business. It's your watch."

"Fine, I'll get them myself --" she broke off, her hand partly outstretched to reach past him. "Harry, why've you got a Bulgarian galleon?"

"This." Hermione picked up the gold coin he had been playing with and looked at it closely. "This looks like one of those coins that Viktor used to...but this isn't Bulgarian around the edges..." She turned it over, looking perplexed. "Where did you get this, Harry?"

"Oh, I..." Harry thought for a moment of telling her that he'd picked it up off Lucius Malfoy's desk, then thought better of it. He'd listened to her long rant about how foolish Ginny had been to abscond with Manor property, and didn't feel like hearing it directed at him. "Erm. Malfoy's coin collection," he said finally.

"Draco has a coin collection?" Hermione looked dubious, but apparently decided to let it slide. "Well, I don't know what kind of coin this is. It looks...well, I'd say Romanian if I had to take a guess."

Harry held out his hand and she gave him the coin. He held it lightly. "Is there any kind of spell that would tell me..."

"Where it's from? No, you'd have to ask a Gringotts goblin. They can tell you everything about any coin -- where it was minted, what bank it was last held at. They have ways of tracking money that are really interesting, and I can see your eyes are glazing over with boredom, so I'll just be quiet. Can I have the Runespoor eyes, or am I going to have to get them myself?"

The brightly colored lights strung through the Gryffindor common room cast a soft and multicolored glow over everything. Ginny, demurely seated beside the largest armchair, was busy stirring a bowl of hot-spiced punch Harry had brought up from the kitchens. Harry himself was standing over by the window, watching the light snow as it flurried against the leaded panes.

Hermione, having just finished arranging the stack of wrapped gifts by the fireplace, settled back onto the couch with her stack of parchments on her lap. The copy she had made of the Liber-Damnatis was slightly unwieldy: bound with loose strips of twine, it had a tendency to slide apart. She caught Ginny casting it several resentful glances and cleared her throat unhappily. She and Ginny had never really fought before and she was not enjoying the experience.

"This book is really a wonderful resource," Hermione said, aloud and slightly nervously. Harry glanced over from the window; Ginny did not raise her bright head from the punch bowl. "I'm so glad we have it. It's like an exact guide to the Four Worthy Objects, how to locate them and how they work. Some of the translating is really difficult, but it's definitely worth it. There's a step-by-step instructional about how the final ritual has to be completed..."

"You said it required blood," said Harry, still staring out the window. Hermione didn't like how he looked: distant and remote.

"Yes. The life's blood of a dark wizard at his full power has to be drained and used in the ceremony."

"Or her full power," said Ginny, without looking up. "There are female dark wizards too, you know."

"Erm," said Hermione. "I guess that's true." She cleared her throat. "I wonder where Draco is?"

"Probably admiring himself in a mirror somewhere," said Ginny coldly. She poked at the bowl with the silver punch ladle. "Seamus, by the way, since you all seem to care so much, is going to be a little late. He was taking a letter to the owlery."

"Oh, uh..." Hermione looked beseechingly at Harry, who shrugged as if to say this was her problem. "Who's he writing to?"

Harry turned away from the window and looked at her. "I hope you aren't going to suggest that we don't care about that either," he said. His tone was mild, even gentle, but there was a look in his eyes that took Hermione aback. That's not my Harry.

Ginny didn't lower her eyes, but her voice, when she spoke again, had lost of some of its antagonistic quality. "No. I know you do. Well -- not Draco, but --"

Ginny's mouth thinned into a straight line. "Draco wouldn't care if Lucius turned my brother into a mushroom and ate him with sprouts. Well, all right. He cares because Harry cares. But that isn't caring, if you ask me."

The portrait door swung open, silencing them all. While they stood motionless, Draco came in, carrying several wrapped packages. The door swung shut behind him and for a moment he simply stood where he was, surveying them all with a faint but arrogant smirk. "Merry Christmas," he said. "Sorry I'm late."

Hermione heard Ginny draw in a sharp little breath. Had Hermione been a slightly different kind of girl, she might have done the same. Draco had apparently decided that the key to not being asked constantly all afternoon long how he was feeling was to look as gorgeous as humanly possible. He wore dark wool trousers, the lines as impeccably cut as if they'd been made with a razor, and a soft slate-colored sweater that managed to make his eyes look blue. Hermione was sure he'd probably spent hours picking out the color. Around his face his hair, freshly washed, waved in almost-white baby-fine tendrils.

He came forward then into the room, and glanced around with a considering air. Finally, he said, "The Slytherin common room looks better. Who decorated yours?"

"It looks dodgy," Draco proclaimed. "Then again, Christmas color schemes are inherently doomed. Red and green is not a good combination." He glanced around. "Is there somewhere to put these packages?"

Harry, looking as if he were trying not to laugh, relieved Draco of the wrapped gifts he was carrying and placed them under the tree. Draco immediately sprawled himself across the largest and softest sofa, accepting a glass of spiced punch from Hermione with one immaculately manicured hand. He glanced around. "On second thought, the decorations aren't so bad. At least they hide the red and orange. I don't know how you Gryffindors survive in here. Like constantly living in a giant moldering pumpkin."

"Drink your punch," said Hermione sweetly. She rolled her eyes towards Ginny. After a moment, Ginny gave her a faint smile back.

Draco's eyes were still roaming the room, seeking out something to mock. Harry, perching himself on the edge of the sofa, complied. "You could make fun of our Christmas cards," he suggested, pointing to the large board beside the fireplace where professors' and former Hogwarts pupils' holiday cards were fastened with Spellotape.

Draco settled himself into the cushions and looked dolefully at the cards, his eyes sliding from the enormous card from Hagrid to Lockhart's showy gold heart-shaped photograph of himself. "It's no fun when you tell me I can do it," he complained, took a sip of punch, and choked. "Is that a photo of Oliver Wood in a dress?"

Harry nodded cheerily. "It was some kind of bet, I think. If they lost to the Falmouth Falcons..."

"He looks terrible." Draco raised an eyebrow. "Some people should never wear pastel. Basic black and pearls, that's Oliver. Maybe a nice low heel."

"I'll be sure to pass that along," Harry grinned. Having Draco there seemed to have made him slightly less grave: his green eyes glowed with amusement. "Here -- we might as well start with the presents now."

"All right." Ginny scooted herself over to the pile of packages. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she began to sort through them. "Who wants the first one?"

"Throw over that big orange one," Harry said, stifling what looked like a mischievous grin. Ginny complied, and Harry caught the brightly wrapped package out of the air and dropped it in Draco's lap. "For you," he said.

Narrowing his eyes, Draco ripped the wrapping away to reveal an oversized bright orange sweater with dark green sleeves. Mrs. Weasley had thoughtfully stitched an enormous "D" to the chest.

"This," said Draco, "resembles a sweater in much the same way that Millicent Bulstrode resembles a goddess-like vision of beauty."

Harry gave him a look. Draco glanced from Harry, to the sweater, then back at Harry. Then he sighed, and to Hermione's great amusement, put the sweater on. It was enormous on him -- the sleeves hung to his knuckles, and the hem of the sweater would have fallen nearly to his knees had he been standing. Even Ginny could not contain her giggles.

Hermione tried to hide her smile. "Here -- this one's from me," she said, and tossed a silver package at him. As he reached to catch it she saw a flash of green at his wrist and realized to her amusement that he had turned Blaise's barrettes into a pair of cufflinks. A moment later she was distracted as Harry handed her a package in blue wrapping and Ginny tossed her a small pink box. For a few moments everything was the blissful sound of tearing paper and people exclaiming over their gifts.

Harry had given Hermione a blue glass ring on a thin silver chain -- she saw Draco look sideways at him when she unwrapped it, but neither of them said anything. "Thanks, Harry," she said, and put it on. Draco had given her a dark green shawl charmed to be warm in winter and cool in summer; Ginny had given her lip gloss charmed to sparkle, scented like ivy blossoms. Draco had given Ginny a box set of everything written by Aurora Twilight, from Pants of the Oppressors to Trousers, Arise! Hermione was sure this must have some private meaning as Ginny looked quite pleased to get it.

Amid the confusion Draco quite quietly handed something to Harry that he had not put with the other gifts. It was a book, and not wrapped. Hermione glanced up. She had to admit that she was quite curious about what Draco and Harry had planned to give each other.

Harry turned it over curiously. It was a slender book, very elegantly bound in dark green leather with a number of silver buckles holding it closed. Stamped across the front were six silver words.

"The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct," Harry read out curiously. His eyes widened. "I've heard you talk about this, but I didn't realize it was a real book."

"It is," Draco said. "And there's only one, so don't lose it or muck it up, Potter."

"Only one," Draco repeated, looking amused, but serious. "It's handed down from Malfoy to Malfoy; everyone gets it on their thirteenth birthday. You're a bit late, but then I guess you're a late addition to the family."

"Till I have any children, I suppose," Draco said, and a dark light flashed at the back of his eyes.

Harry's hand tightened on the book. "Thanks, Malfoy," he said. "I'll...I'll read it."

At that, the darkness went from Draco's expression, and he smiled. "Better you than me," he said. "It's quite boring."

Harry gave him a wobbly sort of look, then rooted around in his own pocket and drew something out. Hermione was struck by the fact that neither Harry nor Draco had bothered to wrap their presents for each other. Perhaps it was because they were boys, and therefore uninterested in presentation? Although no one could accuse Draco, with his perfectly groomed hair and elegant clothes, of being uninterested in presentation.

"Here," Harry said, and thrust something at Draco. A parchmenty something, that crackled when Draco took it.

Draco glanced up, lazy eyes sparking with curiosity. "What's the Marauder's Map?"

Sometimes Hermione forgot how short a time she and Harry had actually been friends with Draco Malfoy. She looked at Harry, who leaned down over Draco's shoulder and traced the lines on the page with his finger. "It's the castle," he said. "You can see where everyone is all the time, so if you're in the infirmary and you want to know where we are, this'll show you. It's ace for sneaking around too, of course, and when you're better --"

"This is really impressive magic," Draco interrupted, eyebrows raised. "Did you make this?"

Draco's eyes widened and he glanced up at Harry in surprise, but before he could say anything, the portrait door opened again and Seamus came in.

He had a navy wool coat on and his hands were full of packages. Ginny, seeing him, reached out her hand and he went to sit beside her, dropping a kiss on her cheek. Hermione's eyes went to Draco. He had tensed all over when Seamus had come into the room, and now lay rigid on the couch, watching Seamus out of narrowed eyes. Harry, perched on the sofa arm behind him, was tapping his fingers nervously.

"Here," Ginny said a little too brightly, and handed Seamus a gift-wrapped box. Looking pleased, Seamus handed around the gifts he'd been carrying -- one for Hermione, one for Harry, and one for Draco as well. Draco did not lean forward to take his, so Harry took it for him and dropped it in his lap. Draco looked at Harry as if to say, et tu, Brute?

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Seamus," he said loudly, holding up what looked like a card for a year's subscription to Quidditch World News. "You didn't have to."

Seamus beamed at him. "No problem, Harry. And thanks for the comic books -- they’re wicked."

Draco's eyes went flat and opaque. With a muttered curse he reached for the box in his lap and ripped it open. Something that flashed a bright silver fell out into his lap. He stared at it in silence, and everyone in the room stared at him. It was Harry, finally, who picked the gift up and held it up to the light.

It was what looked to Hermione like a small silver sculpture: carved in the shape of a narrow dragon winding around itself in several coils, it was as elegant, gorgeous, and expensive-looking as Draco himself. The eyes of the dragon were tiny green stones and its sharp teeth glittered like crystal.

Harry whistled aloud. "Nice," he said, and handed it to Draco. Draco took it in one long-fingered hand and looked at it with a blank expression. Everyone watched him -- Ginny, her wide eyes dark, Seamus looking as if he were holding his breath, and Harry with the same mixture of exasperation and fondness that Hermione felt herself. Finally, Draco said, flatly, "Does it do something?"

"Do something...?" Seamus looked uncomfortable. "No. It could be a paperweight, I guess."

"Well." Draco poked it with a finger for good measure. "It's just a little dragon ornament, then?"

"Oh, I see," Draco said as if he had just been enlightened as to something important. "A dragon. Because my name's Draco, right? And that means dragon, right? How crashingly original of you, Finnigan. I mean, nobody's ever thought of that before. Least of all me."

Draco opened his gray eyes wide. "Don't what?" he inquired. "I'm just telling Finnigan here exactly what I think of his little present. Doesn't he deserve to know?"

"No, it isn't." Ginny stood up, and yanked Seamus upright by the elbow. She glared at Draco, her lips flattened into an angry line. "Draco," she said, her voice very clear and level. "Apologize to Seamus right now."

"Seamus has never done anything to you!" Ginny almost shouted. "And I'm tired of you treating him like this. You're just jealous."

Draco raised his eyes and the expression in them was searing enough to make Hermione wince. She wanted to reach out and restrain Ginny, tell her that this wasn't the way, that Draco would despise this kind of behavior as common and childish. But she couldn't. "Jealous?" he said in a very soft voice. "Of Finnigan?"

"You know you are," Ginny said. "You don't want me, oh no, but you don't want anyone else to come anywhere near me either because -- because what? Because I'm your property? You want me to wait around for you forever? You hate Seamus because he's all the things you aren't -- kind, and gentle, and truthful --"

"At least he knows how to treat people he loves," Ginny said harshly. "All you do is hurt them and cause them pain."

"I'm not exactly sure how you'd know that," Draco said in the same soft voice, "seeing as how you aren't one of them."

Ginny whitened. For a moment everyone in the room simply stared at her -- Harry, Hermione and Seamus with anxiety, and Draco with a cool indifference. It was Seamus who reached out to her first.

But she jerked away from his touch, and fled to the portrait hole. She ducked through it and was gone. The Fat Lady could be heard calling after her in concern, "Where are you running to, love? It's Christmas!"

Seamus spun back around. His handsome face was twisted into a look of such fury that Hermione was astonished ... Seamus was always so even-tempered and levelheaded. He took a step towards Draco, who raised an eyebrow but did not otherwise respond to Seamus' advance, despite the fact that Seamus' hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Harry sprang lightly to his feet, putting himself between Seamus and the couch where Draco lay. Seamus recoiled, and stared at Harry in astonishment.

He looked levelly at Seamus, and Seamus, white-faced and murderous, glared back. Seamus and Harry had never been terribly close, but they had shared a bedroom since they were eleven years old. Seamus had been Chaser to Harry's Seeker for nearly three years. They had always been on good terms. Seamus was, in this situation, entirely in the right. And Hermione knew that if Seamus took one more step towards Draco, Harry would knock him down without thinking about it.

Seamus' eyes dropped to Draco, who had raised himself into a sitting position on the couch. His face was entirely enigmatic. He could have been reading a railway timetable for all the expression he showed.

"And look at you," said Seamus in a tone of voice Hermione had never heard him use before. He kept his eyes on Draco while he spoke. "Hiding behind Harry Potter, like you always wanted. Taking advantage of the fact that he's a good kind person and you've weaseled yourself into his good graces. He'll protect you even though you aren't worth it, because he's better than you are, Malfoy, you sniveling malicious little sadist. He's worth ten of you."

Draco's expression didn't change; only his eyes widened slightly as he looked up at Seamus. Next to Seamus' eyes, his no longer looked blue.

Seamus blinked, as if startled. Then his expression rearranged itself. His mouth curved into an expression of disgust. "So you're a coward, too. If you --"

But Seamus flinched away from him. "Leave it, Potter," he said. "If Malfoy's that important to you, then I won't --" He raised his chin, and looked levelly at them both. There was an odd kind of dignity about that look that Hermione could not help but like. "I feel sorry for you both," he said, turned around, and walked to the portrait hole. He ducked out of it, and it closed behind him with a final-sounding click.

Harry sank down on the couch next to Draco and put his head in his hands. "Bugger," he said in a muffled tone.

Hermione, getting up from her place by the fire, came over and put her hand on Harry's shoulder. "Bugger indeed," she said mournfully. "Draco, you idiot. What possessed you?"

"No idea," Draco said, cocking his head to the side and giving the silver dragon in his lap a considering glance. "But now that I've had a chance to think about it, I actually rather like this paperweight. Do I have to give it back?"

Ginny was halfway to the library when Seamus caught up with her. She heard him behind her before he called out her name and almost didn't turn around when he did, but he called her again, and she paused. She didn't turn, but she paused.

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Seamus," she said, as evenly as she could. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall at the end of the corridor ahead. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not going to apologize," Seamus said, sounding incredulous. In fact, there was a note in his voice she had never heard before; she turned around finally and stared at him in surprise.

"I am sorry," he said, and she flinched a little under the level blue of his gaze. He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were tensed. He was a little hunched over -- she had always thought of him as rather big, but he wasn't really. He was bigger than Draco, certainly, but then Draco was built like a dancer or a swimmer, fine-boned and lightly muscled. Seamus was slender too, but his frame was larger, his shoulders broader. Right now, however, he looked suddenly...small. "I am sorry," he said again, "but not for anything I've done."

Thoughtlessly, her hand went to touch the bracelet around her wrist. It had become a nervous gesture. "Seamus..."

"All I've done," he said, in the same steady voice, "is care about you, and try to be there for you. I'm here because of you. Otherwise I'd be home with my family. And I told myself that maybe you didn't show it, but you did appreciate it. I told myself that you had a lot on your mind and were wrapped up in events I couldn't possibly understand, and that if I just stayed here and was there for you, eventually you'd notice. I thought it would matter if I was patient. I thought it might matter if I was understanding. I thought I should try to be kind. But now I realize that all that matters is that I'm not Draco Malfoy and I never will be."

Ginny did not know what to say. This was not what she had expected. Surely he was exaggerating. Surely she hadn't been so unkind to him. She reached inside herself for that passion she had felt in the common room, that urge to defend and protect Seamus. But she could not find it. It had vanished along with the wreck of her secret hopes in Draco's stormy gray eyes.

"And I've wondered," Seamus went on. "If I tried to be more like him, would that make any difference? Is it that you want someone who'll treat you badly, who doesn't really love you, who wants to hurt and humiliate you? Who lies to you? Who treats you like you're a stupid little girl? Where did you learn that that was what you wanted?"

"No!" Ginny wasn't sure what she meant by this strong negative, but she knew she didn't want to hear any more. "Don't-- listen, I--"

"Leaving," he repeated. His expression was utterly serious. "I'm going home. None of you want me here. I'm just in the way. I'm tired of it, Ginny. I'd take a lot to be with you, but not -" he broke off, and for the first time, his voice wavered and she understood that this was much harder for him than he was making it seem. "Not," he finished, "if you don't want to be with me."

Ginny's lips parted but no words came out. She had no idea what to say. Some part of her heart, as she looked at this beautiful, kind, clever boy who loved her, broke a little at the sadness in his expression.

The rest of her felt nothing at all. He might as well have been talking about some other girl, some girl she didn't know. Perhaps somewhere inside her she had the energy to tell kind lies, to beg him to stay, to reassure him that he was wrong about her lack of love for him. Perhaps. But she couldn’t find it.

He looked away from her. The torchlight painted his hair in shades of ash and bronze, draw liquid-gold lines along the edges of his jaw and collarbone. "I won't speak ill of someone who's dying," he said, his accent very pronounced for a moment. "But why him? Why Malfoy?"

Ginny took a moment before replying. "I think," she said, "that he reminds me of someone else that I loved once."

He nodded slightly, and drew the back of his hand across his eyes. "I'll leave tomorrow," he said, turned, and walked away.

Ginny watched him go. Then she resumed walking down the corridor and into the library. It was utterly deserted, as she had thought that it would be. Her bookbag was where she had left it, underneath a chair. She dragged it out, opened it, and took out the small black shabby diary that had caused her so much desolation.

She placed it on the table and from her robes, drew out her wand. She felt -- cold wasn't the word, exactly. She knew she should feel anger towards Draco, guilt about Seamus. Instead she felt merely determined. So Draco had shown her that she had been right; she wasn't wanted and didn't belong. They thought she was a useless fool. Hermione had as much as said so earlier. Very well then. She would show them. And when they came to her weeping with gratitude, she would throw it back in their faces.

A bright string of numbers and words appeared for a moment across the surface of the diary. A day, a month, a date. A time.

"No Malfoy shall wear orange, except on Fridays, or during teatime.' 'A Malfoy should never let family stand in the way of opportunity.' 'Any Malfoy who puts a book down on its face and breaks the spine will be punished with horrible death' -- do Malfoys actually follow all of these rules?" Harry asked curiously. He was sprawled on his stomach in front of the fireplace, his nose buried in the Malfoy Family Code of Conduct. Draco was watching him over the back of the sofa, unable to shake a feeling of bemusement that Harry was actually reading the thing.

"All Malfoys should eat a live toad each morning for breakfast as it aids in digestion. That one, too?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Well, all right, not every single one. Although look at it this way: eat a live toad first thing every morning and nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day. Philosophically, it's a sound principle." He looked thoughtful. "Also, toads are sort of tasty."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Would it be impolite at this point in the conversation to just run away from you?"

"Poor Neville," interrupted Hermione suddenly, looking up from her armchair next to the fire. "He was so upset about Trevor."

"Oh is that who he kept complaining was missing?" Draco asked, with the air of the suddenly enlightened. "I thought it was someone he knew."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If Trevor had been a person don't you think the Students' Council would have agreed to help Neville look for him?"

"As always, your empathy is astounding." Hermione stood up. "And now, I am going to the library. I assume you two plan to stay here, drink the rest of the punch, insult each other as a way of pretending you're not really friends, and then pass out on the floor?"

"Actually I was going to pole-dance around the Christmas tree," said Draco, pointing at it, "But your plan sounds like more fun."

Hermione looked as if she were suppressing a smile. "I'll let you know if I find anything," she said, and left, her books and parchments clutched to her chest.

Harry raised his head from the book to watch her go, his eyes intently evergreen behind his glasses.

"You gave her that ring," Draco said, as soon as the portrait door had closed behind her. "I thought you said looking at it made you ill."

"I changed my mind." Harry sat up, stretched, and moved to the rug in front of the fire. He picked up the silver poker. "I got it for her because I loved her and I thought she'd like it. I still do love her and I still do think she likes it."

"But you put it on a chain." Draco stuck one finger into his punch, then sucked the punch off his knuckle. "Maintaining some distance there, Potter?"

"Maybe." Harry prodded at the fire with the poker. It was hard to tell whether the heat of the fire or slight embarrassment had turned his cheeks scarlet, but scarlet they were. "It's just... I hardly felt I could...after what happened at the Manor..."

"You mean the demon sex?" said Draco loudly, obviously taking great and sadistic pleasure in watching Harry start and nearly fall into the fireplace.

Draco chortled and put his punch glass down. Then he stood up -- and nearly overbalanced. 'Bloody Weasley sweater," he muttered, yanking the offending garment off over his head and hurling it onto the couch. The resultant static electricity turned his hair into a crown of silver spikes. He went over to the fireplace and sat down next to Harry, taking something out of his pocket as he did so. "Here, Potter," he said. "The second part of your Christmas present."

Harry looked at the object suspiciously. It greatly resembled a coil of dark gold wire. "What's that?"

"Just give me your hand," Draco said. Somewhere behind his eyes, a smirk was struggling to escape.

Harry sighed, dropped the poker, and extended a hand towards Draco. Draco took the proffered wrist and turned it over so that the scar on Harry's palm faced him. In the firelight it looked like a thin streak of silver. Against Draco's very white fingers, Harry's own skin looked nearly brown. "Hold still," Draco said, and began to wind the gold coil quickly and efficiently around his friend's wrist.

Harry stifled a yawn. "I think I drank too much punch," he said sleepily, then took his hand back as Draco finished tying the gold wire. He looked curiously at it -- it was, up close, very slender and strong. "Does it do something?"

Harry waited, and looked at the band around his wrist, and enjoyed the warmth of the fire at his back. The air smelled like evergreen and cinnamon and faintly of limes, which was probably Draco's cologne. It came in expensive bottles from some wizarding shop in Venice and Draco claimed a bottle of it cost more than a new Firebolt. Harry had no idea why anyone would pay such vast amounts for the privilege of smelling like a citrus fruit but knew better than to mention this to Draco.

The band quivered then. Harry jumped -- it tickled against his skin. He watched curiously as it spun lazily like a pinwheel around his wrist, describing three quick rotations. Then it stopped and was still. He looked curiously up at Draco.

Draco smiled at him, a smile made lazy by punch and the late hour. The light of the high-burning fire painted the right side of his face in red and gold. Gryffindor colors. "Congratulations, Potter," he said. "You're still a virgin."

"A virgin," Draco said, obviously enjoying himself immensely. He reached out and pulled the gold wire off Harry's wrist. When he tossed it into the fire, it let out a single high singing note that made Harry jump. "That was unicorn hair, you utter pillock. Tie it around your wrist and knot it; if it doesn't fall off, then I suppose the most we can lay at your doorstep is a couple of naughty dreams and that episode with Cho Chang in the girls' bathroom fifth year. Oh, yes, I heard about that. Buck up, Potter. You're a virgin. Enjoy it."

"All right, all right." Draco snorted. "You mean why did she lie? I don't know. Why does anybody lie? I'm not sure, Potter. Don't ask me why there's evil in the world and people are cruel to puppies and ickle kittycats go to bed hungry. I don't know, and furthermore, it's too late for ontological explorations of the universe. If you mean why did Rhysenn lie to you about that, probably because she took a disliking to your face."

"Actually, your mouth's crooked, did you know that? When you smile, one side's a little higher than the other. And --" Draco relented with a grin. "All right, all right. Honestly, she probably lied to you because she's a sex demon, Potter. And if she crawled into bed with you, I’d assume we can guess what she was after. But you were drunk, if you recollect. I would have been surprised if you could stand up, much less..."

"Ah, but you didn't then, and therein lies the problem." This was obviously the most fun Draco had had in weeks. Harry felt obscurely miffed. "She was probably resentful of your lack of interest."

"Well," Harry said, "she did say that something had happened to her that night that had never happened to her before."

Draco grinned hugely. "I think it was more a case of something not having happened," he announced. "And I think we've solved almost every part of this mystery except one..."

Draco smiled in a placating manner. "Just winding you up, Potter. Never let it be said by me that you are not a burnished sex god."

"Malfoy, if you don't stop reading that crap, I will cut your supply off. It's rotting your brain."

Draco twitched slightly. "I can't help it," he said worriedly. "It's strangely compelling."

"Don't tell me you're actually interested in whether or not Rhiannon escapes the clutches of evil whatsername. The busty woman with the leather fetish."

"Lady Stacia?" Draco was suddenly animated. "Oh, Rhiannon escaped from her ages ago. Tristan seduced Lady Stacia and tied her up in her own dungeon with a spare pair of trousers. Then he and Rhiannon escaped..."

"Harry!" A voice, urgent and anxious-sounding, cut across their conversation. Harry twisted around and looked up in surprise. Hermione stood in the open portrait hole. She carried a sheaf of parchment in her hands: Harry recognized the copies of the Liber- Damnatis she had made earlier that day. Her face was as white as her dress.

It was Draco who stood up first, fluidly uncurling himself from the floor like smoke rising upward. "What is it, Hermione?"

"It's about Ron," she said. She stepped into the room and the portrait swung closed behind her. Her eyes were large and dark in her pale face. They swung beseechingly towards Harry as she spoke. "I'm afraid...I mean, I've found out...Harry, I think..." She took a deep breath, and said in a steadier voice, "I think I know what Lucius would want with him."

"It's the last part of the Four Worthy Objects spell," Hermione said. "Remember how I said the last part of the spell requires a wizard's life blood?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, but I thought you said -- I mean, it said it required a dark wizard's life blood. Ron's not a dark wizard. Even if he wanted to be he isn't old enough to be one that was any good."

Hermione nodded. "The word is Conjuretor -- it means a powerful Dark wizard. But it means something else, as well."

Harry got slowly to his feet. Now he was facing Hermione, with Draco beside him. He resisted the urge to reach out and grab onto something for support. It was Draco who spoke before he did, asking the question to which Harry did not really want an answer. "What else does it mean?"

This time falling into the past was like falling into dark water; it closed over her head, and for a moment she thought she was drowning. When she came out of it, gasping and on her knees, his voice was the first thing Ginny heard.

"Oh, I don't know about that." He sounded desultory and amused, but the tones were the same -- carefully lazy, softly alert. "It is not as hard to raise the dead as you might think."

Ginny raised her head, blinking the dizziness away. She was kneeling in the narrow aisle between two tall shelves of books. The stacks must have been arranged differently fifty years in the past. And it was lucky for her, because the shelves hid him from the view of whoever else was in the room. Tom's voice had come from somewhere to her left; she cautiously leaned to the side and glanced through a gap between two books.

The library was dimly lit by candles; the torches seemed to have been blown out. A number of the longer reading tables had been pulled together in the center of the room to form a T shape, and around them sat a group of students in their school robes. Most appeared to be Slytherins, although here and there the blue of Ravenclaw was visible. There seemed to be no Hufflepuffs among them, and no Gryffindors.

"But, Tom -" protested a girl in blue Ravenclaw robes, who looked vaguely familiar to Ginny, "You know it's impossible, really."

"Very little is impossible, Priscilla," said the voice Ginny would never forget if she lived to be three hundred. A cool, unhurried, serpentine voice that wound you in its coils and refused to let you go. She shivered, hearing it, as if a snake had slithered over her grave. She stood on her tiptoes and tried to gaze over the books but she could not properly see him. Only the edge of a black cloak, a slim white hand moving as it gestured. "There are certain methods of ...sympathetic magic, by which a soul might be bound or retained and later transferred to a useful vessel. Such a preserved entity is very hard to destroy. A kind of immortality, if you like. Such spirits are easy to summon back. And then, of course, there are cruder methods of necromancy. In those cases, however, the dead rarely come back as one might remember them..."

The girl Tom had called Priscilla shuddered delicately. "Zombies are so messy," she said. "Dropping foul bits of themselves everywhere. Lucius says that --"

"He says a lot of things," said a brown-haired boy with a sharp, irritable air. "Most of them are doubtless lies."

"I'm talking about Lucius Malfoy," said the boy called Avery, sounding aggrieved. "He's only a child and he talks as if he were in on all your plans, Tom. But he's too young to be one of us. It's irritating."

"Lucius may be only thirteen," said Tom. "But his family name is a thousand years old. Malfoy Manor counts its birthdays in centuries. Their vaults in Gringotts, their castles in Romania, their wealth and connections, all outweigh the disadvantages of Lucius' youth."

"He's arrogant," said Avery, a hard note in his voice.

"We are all of us arrogant, Avery," Tom replied. There was a slight edge to his voice. "If nothing else, Lucius would be useful for his access to the perfect unplottable headquarters."

"That enchanted castle in Romania that he's always going on about, that no one can get into or out of?" Avery sounded dubious. "I think he made that up."

"I know that he did not." Tom's voice was still clear and soft, but with an undercurrent of annoyance. "In any event, I think we have all said what needs to be said this evening. If no one else has anything to add, I say we adjourn this meeting. Priscilla, if you don't mind, I'd like you to stay behind."

To Ginny's relief, no one had anything else to add. With murmured good nights, they all filed out, all but Tom and the girl Priscilla, who sat with her chin on her hand and looked at Tom while the others departed. He did not look at her, but seemed engaged in studying a speck on his shirt cuff.

"Yes, Tom," said Priscilla, in something of a breathy voice, looking a bit as if she'd just been told they'd be holding Christmas twice this year. Behind the row of books, Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Then you must have something like a hand mirror," he said, and there was the tinge of a drawl to his voice; it made him sound like Draco. "I need one for a spell."

"Oh, I -" She looked flustered. "I haven't got one with me, but I could go and get one."

She left, casting a glance back at Tom as she went. He did not appear to notice. Instead, he stood up, and waved a lazy hand at the tables: they rearranged themselves instantly, like obedient pets. Ginny could see him now more fully, the angular white face like a pale fingerprint between the black hair and black collar of his cloak. She watched, fascinated, as he Summoned various objects to himself, so swiftly that it seemed as if they were appearing out of thin air. A silver bowl, a brass-bladed letter opener, an hourglass, a stoppered vial. Watching him do magic was like watching an artist paint. His movements were beautiful in their economy and swift effect. She wondered if Harry and Draco could have done magic like this, had they ever bothered to learn to master their Magid powers.

She watched as he caught the stoppered vial out of the air and set it down carefully on the table. And then, he raised his hand a last time, and out of the air he caught a small black book.

The cover was no longer tattered. The letters across it stood out clear and gilded. Ginny felt her stomach drop out, and for a moment the solid ground beneath her feet seemed to turn to mist. She held on tightly to the shelf in front of her.

He set the book down on the table, and looked at it ruminatively. Then he drew the silver bowl towards himself, and lifted the letter opener in his left hand. He placed the blade against his palm, and slowly closed his hand around it. The expression on his face did not change, but Ginny winced for him as clear red fluid seeped between his clenched fingers and dripped into the bowl. The drops fell slowly, one by one, and Ginny imagined that the silver bowl rung like a bell as they struck it.

When enough blood had spilled, Tom drew his hand back, took a strip of linen from his pocket, and bound the cut methodically. Then he lifted the black diary from the table. He dipped the fingers of his uninjured hand into the bowl, and flicked a spatter of blood across the diary's cover. When he spoke it was in a sibilant whisper.

The diary threw upward a single flash of light; for a moment it illuminated his face and Ginny's stomach contracted in recognition. That heart-shaped face framed by its black hair, the narrow mouth and angular eyes were so familiar. So loved and so hated.

"Oh, Tom!"

Both Tom and Ginny jumped; Tom spun around, dropping the diary. Priscilla Clearwater had come quietly into the library; she stood just inside the wards, pale and hesitant. "Your hand…"

Tom set the bloody letter opener down on the table in front of him, and frowned at her fiercely. "Did you bring me the mirror?"

"I..I didn't, no. As soon as I got downstairs, Professor Coulter said he had to see you right away. He sent me off to get you."

Tom sighed. Then, wrapping his injured hand in a fold of his cloak, he followed her.

The door shut behind them. Ginny stood still for a moment, her knees gone to water. The bitterness of the memories seeing him had evoked in her was frightening, but what was more frightening was that not all the memories were bitter. In the beginning, he had been only words on a page to her. Then a voice in the night, speaking to her while she dreamed. And then a face, to match the voice. She had not been surprised that he had turned out to be beautiful. She had never thought he could be anything else. She remembered Elizabeth looking up from a romance novel and smiling dreamily, "Boys in books are just better." And Ginny had laughed.

But that was before he had taught her the truth: that love was betrayal and beauty an illusory lie. Despite herself, she heard Seamus' voice in her head: You want someone who'll treat you badly, who doesn't really love you, who wants to hurt and humiliate you. Who lies to you. Who treats you like you're a stupid little girl. Where did you learn that was what you wanted?

She stepped out from behind the bookshelf, and walked over to the table with a quick stride. She did not look back.

"But," Harry said blankly, "but Ron, I mean, he's hardly a Diviner at all, he's never Divined anything…"

"You don't know that," said Draco. He tried to keep his voice as even and emotionless as possible. It was difficult. The blank look in Harry's eyes frightened him, and the knowledge that neither of them would want to hear anything he might have to say about Ron tapped at the back of his mind. He felt suddenly shut out, even though Harry was still standing right beside him. "He might have…"

"And lied to me about it?" Harry's voice sparked with bitterness. "I suppose that's certainly possible."

"Or just not known what it was or not wanted to talk about it," Draco said. "Not everything is about you, Potter."

For a moment Harry's eyes sparked as well, their unlikely green color as suddenly bright as smashed window glass. Then he nodded. "I know. You're right. It's just…"

"Just it still seems like if he wanted a Diviner, he could have found someone other than Weasley, yes," said Draco. "I won't claim that hurting you wouldn't have been an attractive side benefit for him. He does hate you."

"But you don't think he's…bait, then?" Hermione asked from her place on the stairs.

"If he was just bait for Harry," said Draco, raising his eyes to look at her, "then why go through so much effort to make Harry hate him?"

Hermione's lips parted as she looked at him, her eyes darkening. "Because it doesn't matter," she whispered. "Harry is Harry…he'd go after Ron regardless."

He shook his head. "No. I hate what he did, but…I think you were right. I think it might not have been his fault."

Draco felt something inside himself twist slightly - he knew without needing a fuller explanation, what Harry meant. He knew Harry could not quite understand how Ron might have allowed himself to be compelled in such a way, knew that Harry felt that there must, somehow, in Ron, have been some underlying desire to betray his friend that had simply been played on by outside forces. Knew that Harry could not really understand what had happened but would forgive Ron anyway - and it was so like Harry, wasn't it, to be able to forgive without needing to understand.

Hermione expelled a long breath, and then she had dropped her books on the floor and had run at Harry, flinging her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He caught her as if this were the most natural thing in the world, and stroked her hair.

"I think I'm going to go somewhere," he said, backing towards the door slightly. Harry and Hermione broke apart and turned to look at him. Their hands were interlaced.

Harry's eyes widened. "Like where? Do you want me to walk you back to the infirmary?"

"No." Draco tried to think of a place no one would be able to accompany him. "I'm going to take a bath," he said with all the dignity he could muster.

Draco thought irritably at Harry, Look, I'm trying to leave you alone together. Why must you be so difficult all the time?

"That's right," said Hermione aloud, "just telepathize away. Don't mind me, standing here watching you two make faces at each other. HONESTLY."

Draco ignored this. This is about you and Ron and Hermione, not about me. I think you two need to talk and you don't need me around making it awkward.

You need something, Potter, Draco thought, and turned away to the portrait door. But don't ask me to tell you what it is.

Ginny had made her calculations carefully: it would take Tom at least ten minutes to get down to the Slytherin dungeons, and ten minutes to get back. Add another five minutes at least to talk to Professor Coulter (who she knew from her parents had been the Head of the Slytherin House before Snape) and she had at least twenty-five minutes. Which was fine, as she doubted she'd need more than five.

Still, it seemed to take an age for her to walk across the library and arrive at the table strewn with Tom's things. Well, perhaps strewn wasn't the word. They were carefully arranged, the blank little diary next to the vial (it had ink in it, she could see that now), the stained blade beside the bowl of blood.

She stood for a moment frozen, her hand extended over the table towards the silver bowl. This was what she had come for, of course. Tom's blood. But then again -- Tom's blood. Her heart beat a rhythmic tattoo of inquiry against her ribcage. What do you think you're doing, Virginia Weasley? This is so far beyond you. This is huge. This is Tom Riddle we're talking about here. Do you really think this is a good idea?

She pushed the voices down and reached for the bowl. Then she blinked. Okay, I can't go flinging myself through time with a bowl full of blood. I need some kind of...container. Where the hell is that vial I packed? Think, Ginny. Think.

Half swearing under her breath, she reached into her pocket and began emptying it onto the table. Both the books she carried everywhere were in there -- she set the Liber-Damnatis on the table, and put the diary on top of it. She had brought a vial, she knew she had -- she dug down deeper into her pocket --

-- and the library door slammed open. Heart splintering in terror, Ginny threw out a hand to keep herself from falling. Her right elbow jogged hard against hit the table, which shuddered; the bowl overturned itself, drenching the books she had set down next to it with blood.

Oh, no. No, no no. How could he possibly have gotten back so quickly? It's barely been a minute --

She raised her eyes. He was a shadow in the doorway, backlit by the torchlight from the corridor outside. She could see only the outline of him: cloak and hair and angled shoulders. There was a slighter shadow next to him. "Priscilla," he was saying, "if you ever send me on a wild goose chase like that again, I shall be very displeased with you --"

Ginny fumbled the tattered diary off the table with numb fingers --and stared. The blood that had splashed on it had vanished the way that ink had once vanished into its pages. It was spotless. Her astonishment loosened her grip, and she dropped the diary at her feet.

She went to her knees, scrabbling at the little black book, jamming it into her pocket. She could hear the girl's voice growing closer. "Tom, I'm so sorry, he said he'd be right there -- Tom, what is it? What's wrong? You look so strange --"

Ginny jerked her head up. And bile rose into the back of her throat. Tom Riddle was standing less than three feet away from her, a look of utter, blank astonishment on his face. He froze where he was, and stared at her.

And Ginny stared back, rigid, unable to move. She had only to reach for the Time-Turner around her neck, she knew. It promised certain and immediate escape. And yet she couldn't move.

"Tom...?" said Priscilla, uncertainly. Several steps behind Tom, it was apparent that she could not see Ginny.

He did not turn around. "Stay outside the wards, Priscilla. Don't come forward. Good. Now turn around and get out of here, if you know what's good for you."

Apparently Priscilla did know what was good for her -- she gave a startled squeak, but obeyed him. Tom did not look away from Ginny, not even when the library door opened, and then closed behind the departing Ravenclaw girl. Nor did Ginny move. She stayed where she was, on her knees, as he took another step forward. The faint candlelight picked out the angles and shadows of his face, the round youthful chin, the long mouth and longer eyes. She had seen him before, of course, but never up close like this, never alive like this. Never with a pulse that beat at the base of his throat, lips that twitched nervously, spots of burning color on his cheekbones. Never real.

"You're a ghost," Tom said, speaking less to her than to himself. "You must be."

Oh God, does he know me? Ginny thought, her heart almost crystallizing inside her chest -- but no, in his eyes there was no recognition at all. Eyes so blue they were nearly black: eyes the color of the flames that might dance along the edge of a live coal. How could she have forgotten the color of his eyes?

"How else could you get past the wards?" he said, and now there was the beginning of an edge to his voice. A clear, fine edge, the edge of a glass knife. "The spells on them are perfect. I invented them myself." His eyes narrowed. "Oh, but you're no ghost after all," he murmured, eyes dropping to her throat. "You're breathing." He paused, eyes narrowing. "For the moment."

That unlocked Ginny's frozen limbs. Her hand flew up of its own accord, scrabbling for the Time-Turner around her throat.

Tom was too quick for her. His white hand flashed out, and she felt the chain jerked from her neck, lifted over her head. The Time-Turner sailed through the air and he caught it as handily as Harry might catch the Snitch. Helpless now, she stared up at him as he opened his hand and gazed at the small gold hourglass lying on his palm.

"What magic is this?" he demanded. His voice was a low hiss. "Is this how you got past the wards? You're no student here. I've not seen you before, and I never forget a face. And you went for this the moment you saw me. But it's not a Portkey...so what is it?"

His mouth curved into a smile, curling up at the corners like burning paper. "Then I suppose I'll just have to experiment with it a bit myself," he said. "See what it does, this little talisman."

"No -- oh no." Her protest burst out of her. She could not prevent it. "Tom --"

"I don't recall saying you could call me that." His arrogant boy's voice cut across hers, silencing her. In that moment he had something of Draco about him -- something to the tilt of his chin, the angle of his smiling-yet-not-smiling mouth was like Draco's. The shape of their eyes, too...but then, in other respects, he was just like Harry. If Draco and Harry could have been somehow combined, all their worst qualities married together into one person, perhaps the end result would have looked a bit like Tom Riddle. "So you know me," he said. "You know my name. Who are you? Not a student. Some Gryffindor's sister, sent to spy --"

"Then what are you doing here? No one at this school has the power to break my wards -- perhaps that fool Dumbledore --"

Ginny flinched away from the cold fury in his voice. With the speed of a striking snake, he flung out a hand and caught at her arm, jerking her to her feet. His touch lanced through her with a terrible sort of ecstatic pain that was like the pleasure of biting on a broken tooth. He yanked her towards him by the wrist, his other arm snaking around her waist. He held her pressed against him, as close as a lover might, but his hands on her body were like ten wands of ice. A sick faintness closed over her as he whispered against her neck, "How much did you see? How long have you been inside these wards, watching? How much of your mind needs erasing, little brat, little spying Gryffindor brat --"

Pain shot through her arm as his grip tightened on her wrist until she was sure she could feel the bones inside grinding together. A little wail of agony escaped her throat.

A look of smug satisfaction flashed across his face. He bent his head to whisper in her ear, his mouth near her throat as if he meant to drink from it. "Did that hurt?" he murmured; his breath was cold against her skin. "Crucio of course has a certain...traditional elegance, but sometimes the simplest methods are the best ones. Don't you find?" he added conversationally, then, tightening his grip, slammed her hand hard into the side of the table.

Pain like a spearpoint of agony shot through her and she heard as well as felt a bone in her hand splinter.

"Tell me," he hissed at her, and she knew he meant tell me how you got past my wards but what she heard was his old voice, the soft, caressing voice of her child's dreams, tell me Ginny tell me what you're thinking hoping dreaming nobody understands you but me nobody will ever love you like I do you'll never belong to anyone else never I promise you never --- and the pain of that old betrayal was worse than the pain in her hand, and it gave her strength. Without even stopping to think what she was doing, she leaned back and spat in his face.

She could have done nothing that would have astonished him more. He jerked away, his grip on her loosening momentarily. "You --" he began, but she had torn herself free of his grasp, had spun away -- he reached for her -- and she swung her fist at him, hard, a high arcing swing that caught him square in the solar plexus and doubled him up. She heard him shout something at her but she didn't care -- she was running, running as fast as she could towards the library door. Something parted around her like invisible wet curtains drawing back and she knew she'd broken through the wards and was outside them. She heard Tom shout behind her and then she was at the library door and had thrown it open and she hurled herself through it and --

Directly into someone standing on the other side. She shrieked aloud and cringed back, terrified it was another of Tom's Slytherin minions -- then her mouth fell open as a familiar voice spoke to her out of the dimness.

"Please," said Dumbledore. "There is no need for banshee imitations. You are quite safe."

She gaped up at him. It was most certainly Dumbledore, though the hair she knew as snow-white was auburn now, and there were fewer wrinkles around the pale blue eyes. Despite his light words, there was a look of grave and stern concern on his face. He laid a hand on Ginny's shoulder and spoke again, looking past her:

"Master Riddle," he said. "There are regulations against running in the library, you know."

Tom drew in a little gasping breath, audible even at this distance. Ginny turned slowly and looked back at him. Even now it was like looking at the sun: he burned her eyes. He stood where he was, suddenly less terrifying than he had been a moment ago. He seemed an ordinary boy now, school tie askew, sweaty and disheveled. He had been correct about his wards, she saw without much surprise: behind him, the library looked empty and undisturbed. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, his voice even. "But this girl -- she's not a student --"

"Yes, I know that," Dumbledore said. "And now, Master Riddle, if you please. Give young Miss Weasley back her necklace and we will trouble you no longer."

Nothing happened. The door to the Slytherin common room remained tightly closed.

Draco seethed inwardly. Was it his fault he hadn't been paying attention lately when the new password was assigned? He had things on his mind. Saving the world type things. And Pansy made them change the password every two weeks these days, usually to something deeply inane. Cursing Pansy, Draco restrained himself from kicking the dungeon door.

"Pureblood," he muttered through his teeth. That was a popular one, and usually got hauled out of retirement every few months or so. No dice this time, of course. "Um. Muggle-bait. No. Okay. Wormwood. Basilisk. Slytherin Pride. Um. I suppose 'Die Mudblood die!' is too long. Oh, fuck. Pansy, you useless bint."

Draco turned around and looked behind him. It was Snape, looking even greasier and more haggard than usual.

"Never let it be said that the stolid Miss Parkinson does not have a sense of humor of a sort," said Snape. "What brings you down from the infirmary, Draco?"

Draco shrugged. "Hey, Professor. I wanted to get a few things from my room. I'm tired of living out of my suitcases."

Draco bit back the response that Malfoys did not run, and went on his way with dignity. A few minutes alone in his room was sufficient. When he emerged, freshly changed into a worn and comfortable t-shirt, Snape was standing in the Slytherin common room, looking spectrally thoughtful.

"Before you return to the infirmary, Draco, there was something I wanted to speak to you about."

"I want to know about the poison," Draco said. "I want to know about the symptoms, and how long I have left. I know what my father told me, but I'd rather hear it from you."

A look of surprise passed across Snape's face. He put a hand out, and rested it atop the back of the nearest couch. "I respect your wish to know," he said. "But I am not sure how it would be useful --"

"It would be useful," Draco said quietly. "Surely you know me well enough to understand that I'd rather know. And I know you won't lie."

Snape sighed. "Very well," he said. "But I will tell you one thing first. If, when I'm done explaining this to you, you want me to cast a Memory charm on you so you can forget it, I will. Is that understood?"

Snape's eyes darkened. Then he leaned back against the wall and began to speak. Telling Draco, in a flat and even voice, what would happen to him if no antidote was found. What the symptoms would be. How long it would take. What he could expect. Draco half heard him. The other half of him was remembering his father. Being taken hunting with his father when he was eight years old. Hunting the way Lucius did it: aiming the curses to maim the animals but not kill them, or to kill slowly. And then the hours of waiting, watching, observing the death. Lucius had wanted to get his son accustomed to death, for one loves what one is accustomed to, or so went his reasoning. Once Lucius had dismounted beside a dying hippogryff, thrashing its last breaths out in a bank of scarlet snow. He had steeped his gloves in the blood and, rising, put them to either side of Draco's face, leaving crimson handprints where they touched. And what do you say to me now, Draco?

The blood had gotten in his mouth. It had not tasted like blood at all, more like burned sugar.

Draco had thought his father was wonderful then. And knew he was somewhere now, watching his son's own slow death, holding his gloved hands away this time, not wanting to get them bloodied. The poison would do his death-work for him.

"Thank you," said Draco, when Snape was done explaining. He saw the Potions Master looking at him anxiously. "I appreciate you telling me the truth."

Draco shook his head. "No. I don't need it." He felt the side of his mouth twitch into what was nearly a smile, looking at the expression on Snape's face. "I can stand it," he said. "I was imagining worse."

Snape nodded somberly. "Sometimes I forget," he said. "Because you are so young. But you are Lucius Malfoy's son, after all. I imagine you have seen things that would make most children's nightmares look like peaceful daydreams."

Snape did not reply. Instead he drew a clear glass flask from his cloak and held it out to Draco. "Speaking of nightmares," he said. "This was what I wanted to talk to you about. Another side effect of the poison is sleep disturbance. You may find yourself having peculiar dreams. This is a Somnolus potion. It will give you dreamless, instant sleep."

Draco accepted the flask. "Thank you. I appreciate it." He turned and crossed the room to the door, then paused there, and turned back to Snape. "Professor -- before I go back to the infirmary, I was wondering --"

Snape's mouth twisted into a thin line. "You have other things to worry about besides Potter and his delicate sensibilities, Draco," he snapped, surprising Draco with his vehemence. "Do not waste your remaining energy on him."

"Your friend?" Snape's tone was suddenly cool and slippery as glass. "Or just someone whom you allow to lead you around?"

Draco paused with his hand on the dungeon door. "He doesn't lead me around," he said, his fingers on the bronze bolt. He felt slightly feverish and suddenly longed for a cool windowpane to lean his cheek against. "I want to go where he goes. It's not the same thing."

Snape looked almost surprised, but said nothing. Draco pushed the door open and went out into the corridor. It was dank and almost cold down here, especially when the door closed behind him. He leaned back against the nearest wall and unscrewed the top of the flask Snape had given him. When he took a sniff of the sharp-scented liquid a wave of dizziness rolled over him, as if he'd taken a mouthful of Archenland wine.

His grip tightened on the flask, and he thought about the steps up to the infirmary, his bed there, and how much he wanted to fall asleep and dream nothing, remember nothing. Just for a small while. Surely he'd earned a little piece of oblivion.

She sat on a hard chair in front of Dumbledore's desk, her eyes on her hands. Her left hand was swelling up and turning black along the side. It hurt to even try to close it. She was sure Tom had shattered a bone there but it did not seem very important at the moment.

"I wish I did not know who you were," Dumbledore said. His voice was even. His right hand rested gently atop the Time-Turner which sat on the desk before him. The light in the office was not bright: it was a small office, an office for a Transfigurations professor. The Time-Turner gleamed a dull gold under his touch. "But the truth is, I have been expecting you, Miss Weasley."

"How could you possibly have been?" Ginny felt too stunned to be bewildered, but she wondered if she had perhaps heard him wrong. "I shouldn't even be here."

"No, you should not be here. That is very true." At the tone in his voice, Ginny glanced up and then wished she hadn't. The look in his eyes was more than somber: it was wearily despairing. "But the fact remains that you did make this journey. And in doing so..."

Dumbledore looked, for a moment, amused. "That would depend on what you mean by history," he said. "If you are asking if everything you know will be altered when you return to your own present -- no, it will not. If you are asking if you have changed my future, the future of young Master Riddle -- why yes. You have indeed."

"Tom." Ginny squeezed her eyes shut tightly. "Professor Dumbledore, sir -- I have to warn you about him. He's not what you think, he's --"

"No." He spoke sternly. "I do not want to hear about the future, Miss Weasley. I know more than I should already."

"Be quiet." Dumbledore's voice, though quiet, was like a whip cracking across her face; she flinched back. "I cannot know these things, and if you insist upon telling me them I will Memory-Charm myself into forgetfulness before I can act upon my knowledge. I am deadly serious."

Dumbledore sighed. "Time plays tricks upon us all, Miss Weasley," he said. "Should you succeed in altering history, the people you love might perhaps never be born. You might never be born. The truth is that I do not know why you are here. I received a message telling me of your impending visit, and requesting me to end it and return you to your own time. Certain .. clues within the missive indicated to me that the author was a particular person I happen to know and trust. Therefore, I am carrying out these instructions -- and, indeed, you are here as he said you would be. However, that is all that I desire to or should know of the future. It is now time for me to ensure that you return safely to your own time, and I intend to do so. Come here."

Ginny stood, cradling her injured hand, and went to Dumbledore's side. She bent her head and allowed him to slip the Time-Turner over her head. It fell against her chest and she shivered at the touch of cold glass and metal. He glanced up at her, and she saw the deep concern in his light blue eyes. "And Tom..." she whispered.

"Time will put you beyond Tom Riddle," Dumbledore said. "And thank God for that. Tom never discounts an injury, and you made him look a fool. He will not soon forget it."

"No." Ginny half-shut her eyes, thinking of the look on Tom's face when Dumbledore had called her Miss Weasley. His eyes when he stared at her. He would not forget her, and no amount of time could put her beyond Tom. "No, he won't."

But her hand had gone to the Time-Turner and flipped it over. His concerned expression wavered before her and flickered out like a lamp as the spinning must caught her and flung her outward, her broken hand clutched protectively to her chest.

It took only eight chess games this time, to break through the block and allow him to see the future.

Perhaps it was because this time Ron was making a conscious effort to see ahead. He carefully threw his mind forward, visualizing the board the way it would be in five minutes. Ten minutes. After one move. After six. He moved the pieces as if it were automatic. He was winning. He didn't care.

Halfway through the first game he noticed that the green knight was missing. It had been replaced by a black piece. He did not ask why. He moved his pieces. The games went on.

Ron glanced up. "I need some water," he said, and went back to playing. A few moments later he found a glass of water at his right hand. He drank it and set the glass down and moved a piece and lost the game.

"Again," the Dark Lord said, and the eighth game began. Ron's hand was aching again as he slid his last piece forward and then the board exploded into a thousand colors like a kaleidoscope blown apart and he caught at the back of his chair but he fell anyway.

The visions came more vividly now, less like dreams. He saw again the Ministry on fire, flames that bloomed like orange flowers from the shattered windows. He saw Hermione on her knees in some unfamiliar place; she clutched a silver flask to her chest as if it were something precious. For a brief moment, he saw Draco, standing in what looked like an alleyway, splashed with blood and dirt. His expression was one of utmost rage. And then he saw Lucius Malfoy with his face in his hands as if he were weeping -- but surely he couldn't be -- and barely had he digested the strangeness of this when it dissolved away and he saw instead a girl lying on a bed of torn clothes and tangled hair. And he knew, as immediately as he had ever known anything, that although he could not see her face, only the bright hair that shawled down over her, that it was Ginny and that she was dead.

He flung himself upward out of the vision with a hoarse cry and found himself back on the cold stone floor of the Dark Lord's castle. He started to get to his knees. Something knocked him back down. There were hands holding his arms. He tried to pull free but the grip was too strong. "Let me go," he shouted, hardly aware of what he was saying, "Let me go, I have to get to my sister, my sister --"

A hand clapped down over his mouth, cutting off his breath. He bit at it savagely and heard a yelp. He tasted satisfaction, and blood, before something hard came down sharply against the back of his head and all the lights went out.

She was cold. Dumbledore's beautiful office was warm: a fire burned in the grate behind the Headmaster's claw-footed desk. On his golden perch behind the door, Fawkes sang softly. The room smelled of treacle and Christmas.

But Ginny was cold. She'd been cold since she'd arrived back in the present, dumped unceremoniously on the floor of what was now a disused classroom. Dumbledore had been there, waiting for her. Expecting her. His blue eyes cool and stern. His beard white, as she had remembered it. He had turned silently and she had followed him, her heart heavy with dread.

Ginny shivered now, and wrapped her arms around herself. Her hand ached dully; Dumbledore had healed it with a touch, but it still felt sore. The Time-Turner around her throat was cold. She could feel the icy line of the chain cutting into the back of her neck.

Dumbledore looked at her over his spectacles. He seemed remote to her, very far away. "Well, Ginny," he said. "Is there something else you'd like to tell me?"

Ginny unwrapped her arms from around her chest and gripped the sides of her chair. "I explained everything," she said dully. "Anyway, you already knew. You knew where I'd be tonight. You knew when I'd come back."

"True." Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and looked at her, his fingers templed under his chin. "After all, how could I not know? It was fifty years ago that I found Tom Riddle chasing a red-haired girl I had been warned to look out for out of an empty library. Of course now I know that it was hardly empty; he had it well warded. Tom was always clever with wards."

"I tried to tell you," Ginny said, her voice listless. "You didn't want to listen..."

"No." Dumbledore's voice was cold. "I did not. You had caused enough damage to the fragile fabric of events as it was. All I could do was try to forget what you had told me. I could not of course ever entirely erase my suspicions of Tom Riddle. He managed to surprise me in the end, anyway. He surprised us all."

"You told me," Ginny said, shivering uncontrollably now, "that time would put me beyond Tom..."

"That," said Dumbledore, "was before Tom put himself beyond time." He paused and looked at her consideringly. There was no gentleness in his expression. "He remembered and hated you for years," he said. "How long he must have waited for you, the Weasley daughter. And then, just as you were born, Harry destroyed him. A bitter disappointment for the talented Master Riddle. Still, he had Lucius Malfoy to carry out his revenge for him. Ever the loyal servant, our Lucius. Of course, Harry thwarted that, too. And now we come full circle to the cause of it all." Dumbledore held out his hand. "Give me the Time-Turner, Ginny."

Sick with misery, Ginny reached up and unclasped the chain. It slid into her hand like water, and she closed her hand around the cool hourglass. Her Time-Turner. The only thing that had ever made her special or powerful. "You knew," she whispered, feeling the cold glass against her fingers. "You knew I stole it...you've known all this time."

"Surely you realized we allowed you to steal it," Dumbledore said calmly. "You cannot imagine theft from the Stonehenge Museum would be so easily overlooked. When the alarm was set off...we knew. We let you take the Time-Turner. After all, I knew you would need to use it to make the journey you made today. Now, however, I would like it back. If you please..." And he held out his hand.

Weighted with despair, Ginny handed the Time-Turner over to him. He sat back, still holding it, the gold just visible through his fingers.

"You have not," he said, "yet told me why you felt today's journey was necessary. My assumption would be that you planned to do some harm to young Tom Riddle and thus prevent him from ever becoming Voldemort. Am I correct?"

Ginny shook her head. "I'm not that stupid," she said. Her voice sounded flat to her own ears. "I know you can't change the past like that." She turned her face and looked at the window that gave out onto the Quidditch pitch. Outside the sun was beginning to set, turning the pitch and the sky behind it the green-gold of tarnished copper. "I went back to when he made the diary he used on me because I knew he'd need to use a piece of himself to make it. Blood...a bit of his hair...whatever it was, I thought I could get it and make an Epicyclical Charm out of it. Like the one Harry has, that's got a chip from Draco's baby tooth in it. I've made one before. I could do it again. You can find someone with their Charm. We could have used it to find Voldemort with. Or if we destroyed it -- he might even die..."

Ginny let her voice trail off, and sat in silence, not looking at Dumbledore. Having said the plan aloud for the first time, she realized how utterly ridiculous it sounded and could barely stand to listen to her own voice.

When Dumbledore spoke, his voice was dry. "An interesting plan, lacking in exactly one particular. Do you know what that particular is?"

"You cannot make an Epicyclical Charm for the Dark Lord." Dumbledore's voice was terrible in its truthfulness. "Because the Epicyclical Charm holds a piece of the soul of its object. What Harry wears around his neck is a bit of young Master Malfoy's soul; the spiritual energy that makes Draco who he is. But the Dark Lord has no soul. He bartered it away years ago for power. Should you attempt to make an Epicyclical Charm for him, it would melt and slip through your fingers like water."

Ginny raised her head. She looked at Dumbledore. She was sure her stricken realization must be written all across her face. But he did not look as if he pitied her. His face was full of the most terrible severity.

"I cannot guess at your motive for what you have done," Dumbledore said. "Perhaps, like your older brother, you desired glory and the adulation of your friends. Perhaps your hate for Tom Riddle is actually simply so great that it deprived you, if momentarily, of your reason. Perhaps you truly wished to aid in the fight against Voldemort. But I doubt that, for if that had been the case, there would have been no need for the secrecy which you employed. You put us all in danger with your thoughtless actions."

A long silence followed this. Ginny found she could think of no rebuttal at all, nor did she even wish to. She found herself thinking of Tom again, the real Tom this time, the blue-eyed demon who had thought nothing of breaking the bones in her hand to get her to tell him her secrets. Years later he would break down the walls of her heart and mind for the same purpose, and those, unlike her hand, would never be repaired. I'm broken, she thought, broken and useless, everything I do turns out wrong...

"I think, perhaps," Dumbledore said, more quietly, "that it might be time for you to return to your dormitory. For the rest of the holiday period, please consider yourself confined to the castle."

Ginny rose to her feet. There was a harsh pressure behind her eyes. "I'm sorry, Professor," she said.

"So am I," said Dumbledore. "You might think that because I allowed you to take the Time-Turner, it means that I tacitly approved of your actions. I did not. Time is a complicated entity, full of paradox and contradiction. But that does not mean you are not responsible for your actions. You very much are."

"I know," Ginny said. She felt suddenly exhausted. She reached for the doorknob, then paused, and turned back to the Headmaster.

"When you saw me in the library...when I was with Tom...you called me Miss Weasley."

"That's how he knew who I was, later, isn't it? I mean -- was it an accident? Why did you say my name in front of Tom?"

Dumbledore was silent. In the leaping light of the flames, his eyes were shadowed and his face seemed scored with a thousand lines. He looked old, tired and old. "Everything happens for a reason, Ginny," he said at last. "Everything."

Fragmented. That was how she felt. As if she had to walk very carefully as she made her way up the tower stairs because otherwise a yawning gap might open up in the floor beneath her feet, and she would tumble into it without warning.

She kept her hand against the wall, guiding her upwards. The portraits stared at her as she went by.

At the top of the stairs it took Ginny a moment to remember the Gryffindor password. The Fat Lady looked at her oddly when she finally recollected it.

Ginny stepped through, and into the common room. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking at. She saw Harry first, sitting on the edge of the sofa, and then she saw that he had his arms around Hermione. Hermione's face was against Harry's shoulder. She sprang away from him when the portrait door closed behind Ginny, and their two white faces turned towards her at once like the white pages of a book fluttering open.

Ginny stood still and stared at them. They seemed to her to be actors in a play, rehearsing some dramatic moment in which she had little interest. She was aware that Hermione had stood up and come over to her and that Harry had followed.

He looked pale and strangely shellshocked. He said to Hermione, "I'd better go and talk to Snape about the Memory Charm..."

Hermione nodded at him and he was gone without looking at Ginny. It was Hermione who turned back to her and began to speak, haltingly at first. Ginny felt as if she were drowning in the words that flooded from Hermione's mouth. Chess pieces, Memory Charms, the necessity of a Diviner's blood for Voldemort's spell. Somewhere inside her Ginny knew she was crying out but the cries seemed muffled in cotton wool. It was not until Hermione said her own name that the shaft of her words pierced the numbness surrounding Ginny.

"Ginny, I'm so sorry I was angry with you before about taking that book from the Manor," she was saying, her hand on Ginny's shoulder. "Without the copy I made of it, we'd never have found out any of these things. I'd never know how the ritual of the Four Worthy Objects works or that it needs the blood of a Diviner. I doubt there's another book in the world with all that information in it...and I was so nasty to you about it. I'm really sorry, Ginny. And I'm sorry I got after you about returning it to the Manor, too -- did you send it back already?"

Ginny's hand went automatically to the pocket of her robe. She slipped her hand in and felt around for the Liber-Damnatis.

Very slowly she removed her hand. When she spoke, her voice was calm. "I sent it off this afternoon," she said.

She remembered taking the things she had brought with her out of her pocket. Setting the Liber-Damnatis down on the library table, the diary on top of it.

She remembered picking the diary up, dropping it. Kneeling down to get it. And then Tom, coming into the wards, driving all other thoughts from her head.

She remembered running out of the library, not stopping to look back to see Tom. Or to see the book she had left there on the table, next to the overturned bowl that had held his blood. The book she had forgotten.

"Thank you." Hermione's voice was soft. "And about Ron -- obviously we don't have any proof of anything; Harry thought we should talk to you first, and of course we'll..."

But Ginny had stopped listening. Only a supreme effort allowed her to remain outwardly composed. Waves of horror were breaking over her -- small waves still, lapping at her feet, but soon they would be enormous breakers, crashing over her head, blinding and deafening. She wanted to get away before that. She had to.

It didn't matter. She had turned away from Hermione and was running up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. She was aware that Hermione would be wondering where the hell she was going, but she didn't really care. Let her wonder. It didn't matter. Ginny fled down the hall to the door at the end of it -- her brother's old room. Unlike the dormitory rooms, the Head Boy's room had a door that locked. She tore it open and flung herself inside, slamming the door closed behind her.

The room was dim in the fading sunlight and dust motes danced in the air. The bed was stripped bare, the mirror over the bed denuded of the photos which had once crowded the frame. The trunk at the bed's foot stood open and empty.

Leaning back against the door, Ginny could see herself reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall. Red hair, white face, the hem of her cloak splashed with rust-colored stains where some of Tom's blood had spilled.

Her heartbeat quickened to an almost unbearable pitch. It was hard to breathe. She pictured the Liber-Damnatis, remembered slipping it out of the bag and into her pocket that afternoon. And now it was gone, and she had left it in exactly the place where it should never have been left. Alone now she let her mind race ahead of her, realization blossoming into abject horror.

I left it there, right on the table with the rest of his things, he'll see it the first thing he does, as soon as he walks back to the table, he'll see it right there. He'll know I left it. He'll pick it up...

She sank down slowly against the wall, gathering the hem of her cloak in her hands, her head buried against her knees.

No wonder that was the book I picked up in the Manor, no wonder my hand went right to it, none of this would have happened if it hadn't been for me -- Tom would never have heard of the Four Worthy Objects if it hadn't been for me, and Ron--

She took a ragged breath, and lifted her head up off her knees. Without quite stopping to think about what she was doing, her hand slipped into the top pocket of her robe and drew out the diary. She looked at it for a long moment. It had been splashed with blood earlier that day; now it looked bare and clean. She remembered how it had once drunk up the ink she used to write in its pages, vampirizing her thoughts, draining out her dreams. She'd written in it so trustingly. Tom, where are you Tom? I waited for you, looked for you all day.

She remembered the boy in the library. His pale face, heart-shaped under its cloud of dark hair, the blue eyes the color of blindness. The hands that burned with cold heat where they touched her.

I heard you call me, Tom, this afternoon in the corridor. I ran so fast I thought I'd die, but you weren't there. You're never there. Where are you?

Her hands tightened on the book. Somewhere in the past, Tom Marvolo Riddle was sitting down to examine the book she'd left there for him so conveniently. Somewhere he was reading all about the Four Worthy Objects and the power they conferred. Somewhere his twisted clever brain was pondering the feasibility of obtaining these objects. Somewhere he was wondering how to get hold of a Diviner. How to drain out their blood. Somewhere he was thinking that someday, when he had enough power, he would do this.

You don't talk to me any more, Tom. Did I do something? Are you tired of me? Talk to me, Tom. Talk to me, please.

With a sharp exhalation of breath that was like a sob, Ginny tightened her hands on the book and ripped at it -- the binding was strong, and it took two tries before the first handful of pages tore themselves out. She hurled them away from her, and went back to work on the diary, clawing at it with a terrible dry fierceness that hurt like tears. In fact, she was also crying, although she did not realize that until later -- her tears spilling down onto the diary as she shredded it apart, and the sound of her own weeping drowned out the sound of tearing pages and another sound too, a sound that rose from the crumpling pages, a soft sound that was very much like mocking laughter...

Harry almost didn't stop by Snape's office to ask him about Memory Charm removal potions. Later, he would be glad that he had. Much later than that, he would be less glad.

It was immediately evident to him when he walked into the office that Snape was furious. With him, he suspected, and tried to apologize for having missed their appointment that morning. Snape, however, was having none of it. "Speak your piece, Potter," he snarled, his pale face gone even paler with rage. "What do you want?"

Harry explained, whilst Snape looked at him with loathing, as if he were a particularly repellent fungus.

"There are no potions that remove Memory Charms, as you would know had you ever paid attention in my classes," said Snape, when Harry had finished. "Not without damaging the brain of the subject. Not, I suppose, that one could tell the difference with you, Potter."

Harry bit back his annoyance. "I know that," he said. "But Hermione thought there might be a potion that would at least let us know definitely if I'm under an Obliviate spell or not. She said it would ease her mind," he added, knowing that Snape actually had a grudging respect for Hermione and might do this for her sake, even if he wouldn't have for Harry's.

Snape gave him a long, inscrutable look. Then he turned away and crossed the room to the cabinet behind his desk. From it he took a slender blue bottle. He closed the cabinet door and came across the room to Harry. Harry jerked away in shock as Snape slammed the flask down on the table in front of him with such enormous force that a single long crack appeared in the glass, bisecting it from top to bottom.

"Take it, Potter," he said, through his teeth. "And in the meantime, is there anything else I can help you with? A Somnolus Potion so you can sleep at night?"

Harry, startled by the sound of cracking glass and even more by Snape's comment, blinked and stared. "What?"

"You heard me." Snape loomed above Harry like an enormous black bat, his thin lips curled in disgust. "I was beginning to think you might not be exactly like your father. I realize now that that was a vain expectation."

Harry's fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "My father," he said slowly. "My father was brave and kind and honorable. I wish I was just like him."

"Your father." Snape's voice was a dagger. "Your father was a complacent, selfish, unfeeling idiot. He assumed that because everyone loved him, he must therefore deserve that love. And look at everyone who loved him; where are they now? Your mother -- dead. Sirius Black -- twelve years in Azkaban. Remus Lupin -- dragging through life as an unemployable failure. Peter Pettigrew --"

"Pettigrew never loved my parents!" Harry flung back, incensed. "And none of those things were my father's fault! He didn't ask for any of that to happen!"

"Of course he didn't," Snape sneered. "And you --look at you. He damaged you along with all the rest, left you orphaned, an outcast among Muggles. And yet instead of blaming him you aim to follow in his footsteps and leave behind you your own trail of dead."

"My own what?" Harry couldn't believe his ears. Snape had said horrible things to him before, dozens of times, but never anything quite like this.

"You know what I mean," said Snape, his voice sharpening to a needlepoint. "Don't pretend that you don't know that what you've done to Draco is unconscionable."

Harry had been ready, with protestations and objections, to defend himself and his father, but this punched the breath out of him. He stared at Snape, trying to form a response, but the Potions professor silenced him with a fierce glare.

"Do you want to hear the symptoms of the poison?" Snape hissed. "The poison you seem to think it will be so easy to find an antidote for -- so easy that I don't even need your assistance, so why bother showing up to help me? Do you want to know what will happen to Draco if an antidote is not found?"

Harry couldn't quite get enough air into his lungs to answer this. Something was compressing his ribcage.

"The symptoms," said Snape, now in his driest classroom voice, "are as follows: lassitude and weakness first. Then loss of balance and coordination. As the toxins break down his muscles and organs he will begin to feel some pain. His magical ability will suffer. His ability to heal will desert him and at that point even a minor cut might prove fatal. He is already experiencing some dimming of his vision. Soon enough that will become blindness --"

"Blindness?" Harry gagged as a wave of nausea so intense it was nearly pain rose up and over him. The tabletop he was staring at seemed to explode in a thousand dizzying flecks of color, all flying apart. "I don't--"

"Blindness," said Snape again, his voice flat with a lethal finality. "After the loss of sight, things will progress rapidly. He'll have greater trouble staying alert until eventually he collapses into a coma. From that point on death will arrive inevitably within a matter of days. Perhaps you'll be around to hold his hand at that point -- knowing you, I doubt it -- but it won't matter. He won't know you're there. And then he'll die. Now," and Snape's voice dropped an octave, "does that mean anything to you, Potter, or do you accept it simply as the inevitable consequence of your own stupidity?"

Harry was still holding on to the tabletop but he could no longer see it properly. "You don't understand," he said unevenly. "I'd do anything --"

"You've done enough." Snape's voice cut through his like a knife snapping a slender cord. "Perhaps you could not have helped the initial enchantment which bound you to Draco but certainly you could have resisted taking advantage of his attachment to you. Just because someone would follow you into hell does not mean you have to send them there."

Harry blinked at Snape. Something tugged at him, something like a half-recalled memory or a dream. He swallowed. "I've never tried to hurt him," he said, hearing the weakness in his own voice. "Never. I've always --"

"You mean you've never thought about it," Snape said harshly. "How long did it take you to notice he was ill? He begged me not to tell you, not to spoil the wedding, and I refrained because I was not sure. But I myself could see it in his face, although we spoke only briefly. I could see the shadow of approaching death. Where have you been looking, Potter, that you didn't see it? Not at Draco, for all you call him your brother, your friend. And now I suppose you're planning to drag him after you on some insane wild goose chase after Voldemort --"

"No." Harry was shaking now. "No, I told him I wouldn't go without him and I wouldn't go with him until he was better --"

"He packed his bags. Did you know that? I found them at the foot of his bed this morning. If you stay, he'll kill himself with guilt that he's the one thing keeping you here. And if you go without him, he will kill himself trying to follow you. He isn't strong enough--"

"I would never leave him while he was dying!" Harry shouted fiercely, his chin jerking up. "Never. But you're not giving me any choices -- any bloody choices at all -- stay or go, it doesn't matter, does it -- what do you expect me to do?"

Snape stood still a moment, looking at Harry. His black eyes were narrowed, but Harry could see, somehow, in Snape's expression, that underneath the sneering disdain some rusty part of him really did care about Draco. Really did want what was best for him. And that part of Snape Harry could not push away or deny or declare to be wrong, for in his heart he felt the same way. "I plan to find the antidote," Snape said at last. His voice was cool and for the first time, not ungentle. "And when I find it, I will come and tell you that I've found it. And you, Potter -- you will go away. Without Draco. This final battle, whatever it is, is your battle. If your other friends are stupid enough to wish to come with you, that is their lookout. But it will be a long time until Draco is entirely well again and he needs rest. He needs to be left alone. Since he was born, he has been someone else's puppet, a contrivance to be played with and put to use. His father's. Slytherin's. Ours. And now yours. Whether you use him in love or in hate, it hardly matters in the end. It is still use. Cut your ties with him and let him decide what use he wants to put himself to. Do that, and I might perhaps begin to believe that you are not in fact like your father. Do it, and I might begin to believe that you actually are his friend -- that he is not simply yours."

Shock has a way of crystallizing a moment. Harry looked at Snape, and seemed to see right through him, somehow, a blind imperfect seeing, through to the truth of what the Potions master was saying. It made sense, in the way that one's greatest and worst fears always make sense, in the way that when they come true there is a recognition and realization that strikes at the heart -- as if one were greeting an old friend. Oh, there you are. I knew you were coming. I've been expecting you.

"All right," Harry said, and was startled by the clarity and steadiness of his own voice. "All right. I can do that."

Snape looked taken aback, so much so that in another world or time, Harry would have been pleased. "Do you think so? It will hardly be easy."

"Find the antidote," Harry said. He was barely aware of what he was saying. "I can't do that -- nobody else can -- you have to. And I don't care about easy. I just --" He broke off, and steadied himself against the table. He could feel the beat of his own heart, hard and painful, against the inside of his ribs. "You didn't like my father," he said. "And you thought he was selfish. But you didn't say he was a liar. He kept his word. And I keep my promises. I promise you, I'll do it. Just find the antidote and I'll-"

"This is not an exchange," Snape cut in, his tone severe. "I plan to find this antidote whether you keep your promises or not, Mister Potter. As for whether or not you are a liar, that remains to be seen."

"I don't care what you think of me," Harry said. He drew back from the table, straightening up. "I don't think much of you. And I hate it that I think you're right. And maybe you aren’t. But I can't take that chance. I'll do it. But not for you." He raised his chin, looked steadily at Snape one last time. And for the first time in their long unpleasant acquaintance, Snape looked away first. "You know why," Harry said, almost in a whisper, and turned away.

He half expected Snape to call out to him as he went across the room to the dungeon door, and opened it, and went through. But Snape was silent. Harry shut the door behind him. He had made it almost halfway down the corridor before he had to run to the nearest window. He pushed it open and was violently and desolately sick into the cold winter air outside.

Slowly the darkness ebbed away and the room began to come back into focus for Ginny. The scattering pages of the diary, having already imbibed the spilled blood of Tom Riddle that day, proceeded to drink up the tears that spilled from Ginny's eyes and clung to her damp hands as she tore at them. She did not notice.

A soft noise, like the inhalation or exhalation of a breath, rose from the pages as they fluttered down around her, but Ginny, in the extremity of her hysteria, did not notice. "Tom," she sobbed aloud, ripping at the book's binding now, "I hate you Tom, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you --"

The binding came apart in her hands, rending itself in half with a sound like tearing flesh. A sticky dampness oozed from it -- half-coagulated ink. With a guttural noise, Ginny flung the ripped remains of the book away from her and buried her face in her stained hands, swaying back and forth. She did not see the light that rose from the broken binding, a pale echoing ghost of the light that had burst from the book when Tom Riddle had bound a piece of his soul into it fifty years before.

Ginny rocked herself. The metallic taste of ink and old parchment in her mouth was like the taste of blood. "Tom," she said again, whispering now into the darkness behind her hands. "Where are you, Tom...?"

All around her, the pages of the diary fluttered and rustled softly in the still air, like the wings of restless birds in the moments before a storm breaks.

The light of sunset came creeping slowly into the infirmary like blood spilling slowly into water, tinting the air scarlet. The west wall of windows gave out onto a rose-gray sky chased with the last threads of clouds, streaked gold and black. A sky full of spangles and tinder. One of the loveliest sunsets Harry had ever seen and he barely looked at it.

He had stopped in the center of the room upon coming in and now stood where he was, letting the bloody light coalesce around him. All the beds in the room were stripped bare except the one Draco lay on, several feet away, a huddled shadow in the dimming light.

The infirmary air was cool but not cold and the faint wind whispered to Harry of his own shortcomings, failures and blindness. He wanted Hermione -- wanted her with him, badly. But how could he tell her what Snape had just told him? She might hate him and either way it would break her heart. He wanted Ron. But Ron was gone and that was his fault, too. He wanted Sirius. But Sirius would try to prevent him from doing what he had to do. He wanted his parents. But they were dead.

And he wanted Draco. Wanted with a fierce drawing pull something he could not define but which Draco's mere conscious presence could give him and which nothing else precisely could. It was a wanting bad enough that he forced himself to stand in the middle of the room without moving until he was entirely sure that he could cross the room and stand next to Draco's bed and not shake him awake to demand comfort and consolation or even simply to be told in that deadly drawling voice that things were not really that bad.

The light was darkening like old blood drying. Harry found he had crossed the room and was standing over Draco's infirmary bed and looking down at it and at the boy who lay on it, asleep. Draco's chest rose and fell lightly, stirring the blankets, but otherwise he was motionless, his cheek pillowed on his curled arm, his eyes shut fast.

Harry had often woken up to find Hermione propped on her elbow, looking down at him. Having never, to his recollection, had parents who stood over his bed looking down fondly at him while he slept, it had always seemed odd to him. Did people look all that different while they were asleep? But now, he began to see it -- sleep had not added anything to Draco's face, but had rather taken away. Taken away the guardedness and the irony and the constant lively animation that was a distraction more than anything else. With all that gone, he could see the curious vulnerability that expressed itself in waking moments through anger and silence and even a peculiar sort of shyness. Could see through the translucent skin the blue tracery of veins at Draco's temples, laced across his eyelids. Could see the bruising under his eyes.

Harry knelt down slowly next to the bed and put his elbows on the mattress. He could hear Draco's soft deep breaths and could feel how completely the other boy was asleep. Could feel how deeply his exhaustion had wound him in its dark coils, and Harry was glad for it, because he wanted to be with Draco but he also wanted to be alone. Somehow Harry felt that this moment was his own, that it was terribly important, that some great decision was about to be made or unmade inside him.

Your father told me to imagine what it would be like for me if you died, Harry thought. His thoughts arranged themselves as if Draco could hear him, although Harry knew that he could not. He almost thought he could hear the beat of Draco's heart through the coverlet both their hands lay on. Its accelerated tempo seemed twice his own. He told me to imagine it, and I tried, but I couldn't. And I thought perhaps that it was simply because I didn't want to, but I realize now it was more than that. The truth of it is that you are more myself than I am, now. If I lost you, there wouldn't be any more me. I'd be someone else. And I hope I never have to be that person. I never want to have to be that person. I've changed, since before I knew you. I'm better now. Stronger. And that's because of you. And this is how I've paid you back...

Draco stirred slightly, and Harry shrank back, but Draco was only settling himself more deeply into the cushions. Harry sat where he was for a moment, then leaned forward again, and put his head on his arms. He closed his eyes.

He had not been brought up by Petunia and Vernon Dursley to know anything about prayer. On the rare occasions that they went to church they did not bring him with them. Hoping or pleading for divine intervention was, in its way, a foreign concept to him. But inside everyone there is some power that is entreated in times of despair, and Harry was no exception. He had always begged help from fate or chance or some dim recollection of his parents, and so he did now, bargaining as fiercely as his exhausted spirit would allow.

Let Snape find the antidote, he prayed, and I won't ever ask for anything else. I'll keep the promise I made. I will sever myself from Draco so that nothing I do can ever hurt him again. Let Snape find the antidote and I will go after Voldemort myself. I'll destroy him. I was born to destroy him and I've been too cowardly up until now to do it. I know maybe that's what you want from me, and maybe this is punishment for my failure. But please. Give me one more chance. Or if you must punish me, punish me some other way. Because if you do this to me now then I will never be any good to myself or anyone else ever again.

A sudden light flared behind Harry's eyelids, bright as sunlight. He jerked his head up in surprise -- and saw that it was the infirmary torches, having all lit themselves at once in preparation for the evening. The room was suddenly brought with a warm ocher glow. Harry blinked against it, half-blinded, and heard the creak of the bed as Draco shifted and turned over, grabbing at his pillow to block the light. Harry froze, feeling suddenly extremely awkward, as the pillow slid off the other boy's head and a single gray eye, blinking curiously and half-hidden by tangled white-blond hair, appeared over the crook of Draco's arm.

"Potter? That you?" Draco's muffled voice was thick with sleep, lacking its usual drawling crystalline delicacy.

"Erm....yes," said Harry, not seeing how a denial in this case would get him anywhere.

Harry took a deep breath and lied. "Just came by to see if you wanted me to bring you up any supper."

Draco gave a slight shake of his head. "No. Too tired," he said, and behind his soft muffled tones Harry heard Snape's voice hissing at him, weakness lassitude exhaustion.

"Mmmmph," Draco said again, and fell instantly back to sleep, rolling over onto his back with the pillow clutched in his arms. Harry looked at him for a moment and then spun around with a quick violence, revolted by his own lies and trapped by the need for them. He sank down onto the floor with his back to the bed, his arms looped around his knees.

He did not know long he sat there. Long enough for his legs to begin to cramp from the cold stone floor. Long enough for the darkness outside the windows to become complete, and for the torches to begin to dim as the night gathered itself around the castle. He sat there, half-listening to the sound of Draco's breathing and half to the soft noises inside his own head, so lost in thought that it took him a moment to come back to reality when the infirmary door opened, and Dumbledore and Snape walked in.

Seamus stood and looked at the shut door of the sixth-year girls' dormitory. He'd been knocking and calling for at least five minutes, with no appreciable results. He was beginning to feel rather stupid. Actually, he thought, he'd gone well past beginning to feel stupid several minutes ago and had now most definitely arrived at feeling very stupid indeed. All the portraits up and down the corridor were staring at him. It was extremely awkward.

"Ginny..." He sighed, and dropped his hand. "Okay, then. I guess you aren't there. Either that, or you're there but you don't want to talk to me. Which is fine. I just came by to say that..."

Seamus paused. What had he come by to say? That he was sorry for being an enormous git? He wasn't though, actually, he was quite sure he'd been right. And he was also sure that if he had to spend one more night sleeping under the same roof as Draco Malfoy, murder would be committed. It was hardly worth it when Ginny barely seemed to notice whether he was there or not.

"...That I'm leaving," he went on. "I was hoping we could say goodbye, you know, in a civil sort of way. I'm not angry, and..."

Just to the left of the door was a small portrait of a young witch in pale green robes. She wore a mop of fair hair and a mischevous expression.

"You know, there's nobody in there," she said, jerking her chin towards the door. "Although it's lovely to hear that you're not angry. Is there anyone in particular that you're not angry at, or are you just making the point that you're a generally mild-mannered sort of fellow?"

Seamus ignored this. "Have you seen Ginny Weasley? Red-headed girl, sixth year?"

"I know who she is." The portrait girl's smile widened. "Out of curiosity, are you Draco Malfoy?"

"Thankfully, I am not," replied Seamus sharply. "Why? Has he been coming around here?"

"Alas, no," she sighed, casting her eyes upward. "I just hear a lot about him. That's all the sixth year girls talk about. I thought you might be him -- you know, fair-haired, good-looking, all that. But if you're not, it can't be helped."

Seamus counted silently to ten. It was not sufficient. "Probably wanking off to photos of himself in the third floor bathroom," he said tightly.

"Oooh, really! Thanks!" The girl in the portrait beamed, and vanished, racing out of the frame.

Seamus rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He was even more glad he was leaving. The urge to throw the portrait on the ground and step on it had been nearly overwhelming. This was unusual for Seamus, who had never had much of a temper. He wanted to leave now, more than ever.

With some hesitation, he reached into his pocket and drew out a small glittering object. It was a tiny gold arrow on the end of a chain. The other half of the Tracking Charm on Ginny's bracelet. He had meant to give it to her before leaving, and explain to her what it was. He supposed he owed her that.

Briefly, he heard Draco's voice in his head. So maybe you might want to tell me why you put a Tracking Charm on that bracelet you gave her?

He stood still for a moment, staring at the arrow in his palm. Surely it wouldn't hurt to use it, just this one last time. After all, she couldn't be very far away. She'd never know.

He raised his hand, the arrow dangling from the chain between his fingers. "Point me," he said, and the arrow began to spin.

Instinctively, Harry grabbed for his Invisibility Cloak, hurling it around his shoulders as the door closed behind Dumbledore and Snape. He scrambled to duck behind the nearby chair and knelt there, breathless, as footsteps approached Draco's bed.

Had it simply been Dumbledore, Harry would not have felt the need to hide himself. But he didn't think he could stand talking to Snape again just now. He didn't think he could stand to have Snape even look at him. He was afraid he'd be sick again, or worse.

He remained utterly motionless as Dumbledore came to stand at the foot of the bed, looking somberly down at Draco. After a moment, Snape joined him. There was a strangely unreadable look on his narrow, angular face.

"Did you want to wake him, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, drawing his eyebrows together thoughtfully. All the twinkle had gone from the pale blue eyes behind the familiar spectacles; Dumbledore looked weary, tired and old.

"I had hoped he might perhaps not yet have taken the Somnolus potion I gave him," Snape said. "But then again, if I were him, I would have taken it myself."

"It might perhaps," Dumbledore said, "be worth waking him, to tell him of your success."

The words went through Harry like a blazing arrow. All his muscles tensed and he thought instantly and with a dazed sort of shock of his own frantic whispering in the dark:

Snape said nothing for a moment. He took a step towards the bed, and then leaned forward. The furling edge of his dark cloak almost brushed against Harry's arm as he bent over Draco and, to Harry's immense surprise, briefly and lightly touched the sleeping boy's hair with the tips of his Potions-scarred fingers. It was the first and only gentle thing Harry had ever seen him do.

"I think," said Snape, and straightened up, "that I would prefer not to wake him, regardless. I suspect, in any event, that the sleeping potion will have made him too groggy to properly comprehend the news."

"Then we should go and tell the others," Dumbledore said. "His friends. They should know you have had this breakthrough with the antidote, Severus. Hermione, and of course, Harry as well, especially Harry...I am sure they have been terrified that he might die at any moment. It would only be a kindness to do what we can to relieve their fears."

Crouched behind the chair, Harry dug his fingernails tightly into the palms of his hands. For some reason, he recollected the moment four years ago when he had heard McGonagall say that Ginny Weasley had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and at his side, Ron had collapsed silently, sliding wordless to the floor. He felt like doing that himself now, although in relief rather than in horror. His heart beat a hard tattoo against the inside of his ribcage. Antidote, it said with every beat. The antidote.

"Yes," said Dumbledore dryly. "I received another letter from him this morning, in fact. I used it to prop up a wobbly corner of my desk." He reached out then, and lightly clasped Snape's shoulder. "Thank you, Severus," he said. "For what you've done, in such a short space of time and having so little material to work with. No one else could have done even this much..."

A spasm of something passed across Snape's face, and perhaps if Harry had paused to wonder what it meant a great deal of pain and grief could have been avoided. But he didn't. He was already struggling to his feet, trying to balance the desperate need for silence against the sudden almost-hysteria that seemed to be gripping his chest in a vise. Drawing his cloak even tighter about himself, he crept around the bed and past Dumbledore and Snape. He managed to make it out the open door and into the corridor before he began to run.

Dumbledore glanced up at Snape, who had half-turned to look towards the infirmary door. The room was quite still, save for the drift of the loose bed curtains and the lengthening shadows along the floor. "No," he said. "I did not. Severus..."

Dumbledore followed the Potions professor's gaze and looked at the boy on the bed. Though he was deeply asleep, his sprawled posture made him look as if he had been flung there from a great height. The hands clasped around the pillow made him seem younger than he was, and the moonlight coming through the window threw spidery silver lines along his bare thin wrists. They made Dumbledore think of the veins running so closely below the skin there, freighted with their weight of lethal toxins. "I recollect your policy of shared guilt, Severus," Dumbledore said without taking his eyes from the dying boy on the bed. "But none of this is your fault."

"I would prefer that you not call it that," Snape said, raising his eyes to look at Dumbledore.

"Severus -- it is an antidote. Even if it is not the antidote you were looking for. It buys us time, and that in itself is an immeasurable help."

"I said it would double his remaining lifespan. From one month to two. I have not saved his life, merely prolonged it and to me that is not --"

"You have given us enough time to discover a final antidote," said Dumbledore firmly. "And you will discover it. You have identified every ingredient --"

"Every ingredient but one," Snape said. The hollows under his eyes were darkly shadowed. "And what if I never find that one? That it should elude me even this long alarms me, Professor. Two months is not such a long time as all that. Eight weeks. Not a long time to live, when you are seventeen years old. Not a long time at all."

"I know that, Severus," Dumbledore said, with a weariness that was like pain. He paused a moment, watching the shadows as they moved across the bed, passing like the light touch of hands over Draco's sleeping upturned face. "I know that."

The arrow on the end of the chain led Seamus down the stairs, through the common room, and, to his surprise, up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. He quickened his step, wondering if Ginny had been looking for him here -- there was no one else but Harry still in the boys' dorms over the holidays, and Harry was usually in the infirmary with Draco.

However, the arrow led him past his own door and down the hall to the small staircase at the end that led to the old Head Boy's room. Seamus blinked in surprise, but the arrow stayed steady, pointing towards the door. With a shrug, he mounted the few steps and pushed the door open.

The first thing he became aware of when he entered the room was that it was empty. Ginny might have been here recently, but she was gone now. This was not entirely surprising; the tracking charm had a certain delay on it, and if she had just left or was still nearby, it might take a short while to adjust to the fact.

The second thing he noticed was the smell in the room. It was like the metallic tang in the air just before an electrical storm. It was the smell of lightning. It sent a nervous tingle through Seamus' veins.

The third thing he noticed was the faint silvery sheen cast over the air in the center of the room. It rippled for a moment and was gone, like a face half-seen in the contours of a cloud that disappears when the viewer moves.

Suddenly nervous, Seamus shivered. He meant to take a step back and walk out of the room. But as he moved to retreat, a flicker of moonlight came through the window and he caught sight of the scattered and torn bits of paper lying on the floor. He blinked, his curiosity sparked. Wondering if this had anything to do with Ginny's visit here, he went forward, kneeling down to examine the wreckage -- it looked as if someone had gone at an old book with a pair of garden shears. Pages ripped in half, binding ruptured, lining lacerated as if it had been torn at with sharp nails.

Kneeling as close to the remains of the book as he was, he found that the coppery metallic tang was stronger than it had been. He tasted copper in his mouth and his skin stung as if he were being bitten by ants. There was a faint dizziness in his ears.

He would never be able to explain what led him to do what he did next. It would not matter. It would be a long time before Seamus Finnegan was in a position to explain anything to anyone again.

He reached into the breast pocket of his cloak and drew out his wand. He raised it slowly and pointed it at the book, trying to recollect the spell that returned things to their original state.

Then, slowly, like leaves lifted by an autumn wind, the pages of the book began to rise and swirl about him. Stiffening in alarm, he stood up. The pages rose with him, swirling more quickly now. They whispered softly as they brushed against each other, the whisper-crackle of old paper. It was like being surrounded by fluttering birds. And the sound of it was like rain. Or perhaps that was the ink that ran from the pages and dripped upon the floor like blood running from a cut wrist. And it was red like blood. And the metallic scent in the air was stronger than ever. And Seamus began to realize that he had made a very serious mistake.

He tried to take a step backward, but the whirl of paper had formed a solid wall against his back. The silver shimmer that had vanished before when he looked at it had returned, barely visible beyond the white blur of fluttering pages. But it was neither formless now, nor half-seen, nor did it vanish when he took another step back. It had the shape and form of a human being -- a man, tall and slender. And where there should have been eyes were twin blue flames.

Seamus' wand struck the stone floor with a clatter as his grip on it loosened. A scream was building up in his chest, but before it could leave his throat the shape seemed to melt and flow towards him through the air like water. Something struck him with the force of a tidal wave, and blackness erased his vision.

It was taking Harry longer than he had thought it would take him to pack, and his nerves were beginning to jangle with the tension of worrying that someone would come in and find him hurling everything he owned into his old knapsack. Explanations, in that case, might be difficult.

He paused, breathless, and surveyed the wreck of his trunk. What exactly ought one to pack for a vengeance quest from which one was not entirely expecting to return? He'd thrown in his clothes. His sword, properly minimized via a Shrinking Charm. The mysterious coin which he had taken from Lucius' desk was carefully secured in a side pocket. Tomorrow he would present it to the goblins at Gringott's and ask about its origins. His wand. Sirius' penknife. His Invisibility Cloak. He had no food; he would have to buy some at the station. On top of everything he put the book Draco had given him that afternoon. The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct. He doubted it would be that great a read, but for some reason he couldn't bear to leave it behind.

He zipped the bag tightly and stood up. His hands were shaking slightly. He crossed the room to the mirror that hung on the opposite wall, and looked hard at his own reflection.

White face, green eyes, black hair. There was color in his cheeks -- fever-bright splotches of red. His mouth was a bloodless white line. And across his forehead, the scar stood out as jaggedly as if it had been drawn there with ink.

He raised his right hand and touched the scar lightly. Then he took a deep breath. "Oblitescus," he whispered, and winced as a bright flash of pain sparked behind his skull. Then it was gone. When he took his hand away, so was the scar.

He stared at himself in the mirror for another long moment. He knew that concealing the scar was necessary -- it made him far too recognizable -- but without it, he seemed some other person completely. Some other Harry.

Harry exhaled a deep breath. It did not matter, perhaps. The scar was with him always whether it was visible or not, seared across his own internal landscape. The mark of his life's single defining moment. More than what he could do or who he loved or who he was loved by, it made him who he was. The boy who didn't die. The boy who'd been spared for a reason.

Let me find the antidote and I will go after Voldemort myself. I'll destroy him. I was born to destroy him and I've been too cowardly up until now to do it.

And suddenly Harry was remembering. Remembering Christmas Day when he had been thirteen years old, Hermione looking at him with enormous eyes, Harry doesn't want to kill anyone, do you, Harry?

And his own voice, answering back, Malfoy knows. Remember what he said to me...? 'If it was me, I'd hunt him down myself. I'd want revenge.'

Oh, yes Draco would understand his desire for revenge as Hermione and Ron had not and never would. He'd always known Draco comprehended that dark part of himself because he shared it. He'd understand revenge, all right. But he wouldn't understand being left.

There was really no way around that no matter how Harry tried to look at it. Draco wouldn't understand why Harry had to go away or why he had to go away alone. He'd be horribly hurt. He'd feel betrayed and abandoned. He would hate Harry. And that was the worst thought of all somehow: that Draco would hate him. Hermione wouldn't hate him for this. She'd known him too long and been through this too many times. She'd always known that at some point he would face the ultimate last danger alone because however much she tried, she'd never been able to go to the end with him. At the end of everything, he'd always been alone.

But Draco. Draco would have thought they would go to the end together. He would not have been able to comprehend separation and that Harry would be the artist of that separation would not be something he would have imagined or could understand. Harry knew this. With a terrible compassionate clarity, he knew it. He'd promised not to leave Draco while he was dying and no, he wasn't doing that. That he couldn't have done if he'd wanted to. Some things were beyond any act of will. And yes, he was glad about the antidote. So glad that every so often while packing he'd had to stop and sit down on the bed and let the violent shudders of relief run their course. So he was grateful to Snape. But he also hated him for what he had said. And more because it was true.

I promised to go, he thought, still staring at himself in the mirror. I promised to leave and not to let myself be found. But I didn't promise not to say goodbye.

He turned away from the mirror and went over to his trunk. From it he drew his quill and some parchment. Wearily settling himself on the edge of the bed, he began to write.

He'd never been very good at writing letters. In fact, he'd always been terrible at it. But this time it seemed easier, maybe because he wanted so very badly to say what he was saying now. Maybe some of what was inside him now, some of what was Draco, lent him Draco's casual eloquence. Or maybe it was just that he was too tired to dissemble or to try to sound as if he cared less than he did. Eventually he was done, and he set down the quill and looked tiredly at the two short letters he'd written. One for Draco. One for Hermione. He folded each in half and laid them carefully on his pillow.

There was one last thing to do now, one last thing before he could leave. Shutting his eyes, he reached up and undid the clasp at the back of his neck that fastened the slender gold chain around his throat. It had become slightly tangled in his hair. He pulled it free and the chain and the charm it supported slid into his cupped hand. He held the Epicyclical Charm for a moment, gently. Then he laid it down on top of the letters. When they came to look for him in the morning, they would find it here.

He stood up then, and slung the knapsack over his shoulder. He walked out the door.

Hermione, sitting beside Draco in the infirmary, wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Heading to the infirmary to say goodnight, she had discovered Snape and Dumbledore leaving, and they had, with some reluctance on Snape's part, explained to her that Snape had identified every ingredient in the poison but one, and had constructed from that blueprint an imperfect antidote. An antidote that would slow the effects of the poison without counteracting it. "A treatment, then," she had said to Snape, "but not a cure."

Muggle terms, she realized. He had blinked at her, nodded sourly. Dumbledore had rested a hand on her shoulder, asked her if she would prefer explaining this to Harry, or should he?

She'd said she would do it. And, not knowing where Harry was, she had come into the infirmary to wait for him. She was sure he'd be here eventually. Which was good, because she ached to see him. She wondered how he'd react -- she wondered if he'd be glad at the extension of life offered to Draco, or simply enraged that it wasn't a proper cure, that all their troubles weren't behind them. Harry was an absolutist and was not one for understanding gradations.

She turned her gaze back to Draco, then, wondering how they were going to explain it to him. Thank God she would have Harry with her for that. Draco had managed to wriggle his way out of the blankets again and lay on his back with his arms over his face, his sleeves pulled up, showing the dark bruises along his wrist where they had taken his blood for the antidote tests. Without warning his eyes flew open, and Hermione jumped back, frightened, as he sat up suddenly as if propelled by some invisible force, knocking the pillow off the bed and onto the floor.

He turned to look at her. His eyes were dizzy, full of dreams and confusion. "Hermione -- what happened?"

"Nothing happened." She put her hand on his shoulder. He was warm from sleep; she could feel the bones of his shoulder through the material of his shirt. "You had a nightmare?"

"I don't know." His voice was exhausted, almost fretful in its weariness. "Maybe it was a dream. I felt like -- I had lost something, but I don't know what." His eyelids fluttered closed, the potion pulling him back down into sleep. "Something important."

"It's the sleeping potion." Hermione pushed gently on his shoulder, indicating he should lie back down. "It gives you strange dreams."

"He's coming," she said. She waited for him to ask something else, but he did not; he was already asleep again. She sat with him, her hand on his, waiting for Harry to come back. It turned out to be a longer wait than she had expected.

The fire in the common room fireplace was as high as spells and liberal applications of the poker could make it, but still Ginny could not get warm.

She opened her hands in her lap and stared at them. They were red and blue with her own bruises where her nails had dug in. They were black in other places where ink from the torn diary had stained them. She did not remember dropping the shreds of the diary or stumbling out of Ron's old room. She remembered, what seemed like aeons later, being in the girl's bathroom, scrubbing at the ink on her hands with harsh soap and cleansing spells. Nothing had worked. The ink would not be removed.

Eventually she took a shower, scrubbing her whole body. It didn't budge the ink but she felt slightly better, less shaken and unstable. She put on her nightgown, wrapped a robe around herself, and went down to the common room to wait for Hermione. She was determined to tell her everything that had happened. Hermione would know what to do. And even if she didn't, Ginny didn't think she could go one more second without telling someone.

It had been a long time now, though, and Hermione had not come back to Gryffindor Tower. Ginny herself was beginning to wonder if she should go along to the infirmary, although she dreaded seeing Draco, for reasons she could not quite define. And she was so cold, and so tired. She shivered again, and wrapped her arms around herself.

She heard his soft voice in the whisper of the wind against the windowpane, the crackle of the fire. Destroying the book had not destroyed the Tom in her mind; he would never leave her.

The faint creaking noise of feet on the tower stairs made her lift her head. She straightened up, eyes widening, hopeful - but it was not Hermione. Ginny sank back against the couch, biting her lip. Of all the people she had not wanted to see right now...

He said nothing, just at the foot of the boys' dormitory stairs, looking at her. He had his hands in his pockets again. His navy coat was gone, though, and there was a rip in the shoulder of his shirt. She wondered if he'd had a punch-up with Draco.

He did not reply. But now he smiled. She had never seen him smile like that. It was a sharp, bright smile like the edge of a knife. It went oddly with the fair hair, the angel face.

Unnerved without being able to explain why, she drew her robe closer about her shoulders, and shivered. "Seamus," she said. "You're scaring me. Is something wrong?"

He appeared not to hear her. He took the last step down from the stairs, still smiling. In the faint firelight his expression was hard to read; his eyes looked blue-black, the color of pansies, so dark the irises seemed to meld with the pupil, giving him a look of almost blindness.

"Ginny," he said at last, and she shivered again at the sound of his voice: so familiar, so caressing with its soft Irish lilt, and yet suddenly not familiar at all. "Ginny, it's good to see you again…"

The first time he had seen the room he had not noticed the beauty of it: The description of the room in which Ron and the Dark Lord play chess is taken from TS Eliot's poem A Game of Chess, part of The Waste Land.

Never again shall you return to tell this story: A passage from Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Canto 27, lines 61-66.)

"Love knows best how to make all things suffer that she kisses with her sickness": I've no idea. I scribbled this across a notebook in some t00by fit of pretentiousness. Did I write it or hear it somewhere? No clue. Anyone who sources it gets a popsicle.

"We attack Voldemort with cheese" -- Buffy.

Chapter Eleven: The Hostility of Dreams

Young men late in the night
Toss on their beds,
Their pillows do not comfort
Their uneasy heads,
The lot that decides their fate
Is cast to-morrow,
One must depart and face
Danger and sorrow.

Look in your heart and see
There lies the answer,
Though the heart like a clever
Conjuror or dancer,
Deceive you with many
A curious sleight,
And motives like stowaways
Are found too late.

He shall again his peace
Feel his heart harden,
Envy the heavy birds
At home in the garden,
For walk he must the empty
Selfish journey,
Between the needless risk
And the endless safety.

Clouds and lions stand
Before him dangerous,
And the hostility of dreams.
Then let him honor us,
Lets he should be ashamed
In the hour of crisis:
In the valley of corrosion
Tarnish his brightness.

Oh, it was strange to be alive again, and in possession of all those accoutrements of physical existence -- eyes and mouth and limbs that moved, a heart that beat and veins that coursed with blood. When he first tried to stand up, amid the torn bits of paper, the smell of electrical energy as strong in the room as smoke after a fire, his legs buckled under him. The second time, however, they worked fine. He stood up, and went over to the mirror.

Tom saw himself, and was pleased. He had not expected the opportunity to take this body, but when it had presented itself his decision had been immediate. He did not regret it now. It was a fine body, in excellent shape, well made and elegantly put together. It would do for as long as he needed it.

He glanced around the room curiously. The diary was ruined. This did not bother him. Having been released from it, he had no more use for it. Blood and tears had brought him out of its ruined pages. Blood and tears and something else. He faintly remembered a voice, whispering to him, I hate you Tom, I hate you, I hate you.

Tom did not mind being hated. Hatred was a useful emotion, as strong as love in its way, and as powerful a force.

Tom looked more closely at himself in the mirror. A slender, strong body, not unlike the body he'd had himself at seventeen. Arms lightly downed with gold, wheat-flax hair, a choirboy face, blue eyes like bits torn out of a midsummer sky. Something glittered around his throat -- Seamus' skin was pale from winter, but in the summer it would tan, a shade only slightly paler gold than his hair, although if he was not careful it would burn.

Tom knew this, and his mouth curled: he could not have said how he knew it, but he did. It was not his own memory, not organic to himself. It was Seamus'. He knew it the way he knew that Seamus Finnigan was seventeen years old, that he came from a small Irish town called Glyn Caryn, that he loved his parents, that he was a Gryffindor seventh year student with a sweet open nature and an uncomplicated mind. Tom loathed him immediately. Riffling through his thoughts was like wading through syrup. Boring syrup. Seamus liked Quidditch. He was fond of Herbology class. He kept a stack of comic books on the table next to his bed. He didn't like lending them out, unless it was to Harry, who always took good care of things...

Tom saw his own eyes flash in the mirror. Now this was interesting. He tapped harder at Seamus' memories, trying to pull up what he knew of Harry Potter. Tom's own memories were incomplete, confusing. He remembered a small boy with tangled black hair facing him over Ginny Weasley's crumpled body. He remembered his basilisk's hiss and the same boy covered in blood, crumpled and dying at the foot of the Chamber wall. And Tom knew that the boy had not died after all, and that he hated him, but not precisely why.

Tom turned away from the mirror, still concentrating. Seamus' thoughts were like a stack of randomly arranged photographs that fluttered by quickly -- images would appear and disappear, with no apparent importance attached to their order or progress.

Tom left the room, and stood for a moment in the hallway outside, looking it up and down. It was not unfamiliar. He knew Gryffindor Tower well, it seemed. One of the paintings on the wall was chittering at him. He ignored it, following the curve of the hall around to the dormitories. Each had a brass number on the door, but even had they not been marked, he would have known which one was Seamus'. He pushed the door open and went in.

He stood for a moment, blinking at the light that streamed in across the vermilion rugs thrown over the floor, and there were the four-poster beds with their scarlet hangings like bloated red flowers. Typical of Gryffindors to be so attached to their colors of blood and fire. How Tom loathed red.

Unsurprisingly, a swift search yielded nothing interesting, as Seamus owned nothing interesting. The trunk was packed, as if Seamus were preparing to leave. Tom dropped a folded jumper back on the bed and turned, and the glint of light reflecting off something gold caught his eye.

He paused and stared; the source of the flash of light was the bed opposite him. According to Seamus, it was Harry Potter's bed.

Tom went quickly across the room. His hands were shaking with some suppressed excitement: suppressed because he did not quite understand its source yet. He knew there was some strong emotion attached to the name Harry Potter. He knew he disliked this person intensely (although Seamus, apparently, was perfectly friendly with him). He was not, however, sure exactly why. His hands pushed the coverlet down, the pillows back, and there on the bed were two folded pieces of paper under what looked like a gold charm on a slender chain.

He looked briefly at the necklace and pushed it aside, uninterested in what looked like ordinary jewelry, and cheap-looking jewelry at that. His gaze went next to the letters. He picked them up, sharply curious -- why was Harry Potter leaving letters addressed to friends on his own bed? He combed through Seamus' murky memories, but could find nothing that lent any comprehension to the situation.

The first letter was addressed to Hermione. This name meant nothing whatsoever to Tom. It meant something to Seamus, but nothing terribly interesting. The name across the top of the second letter, however, was Draco Malfoy, the full name, written out, and that meant something to Tom.

A burst of searing hate exploded through Tom's chest. Not his hatred, but Seamus'. A metallic emotion, in equal parts resentment, loathing, and fear. There was something else there, too, threaded in with the other emotions. Tom could not identify it, although someone who was not Tom would have been able to recognize it as pity.

With a swift nail, Tom slit open the first letter, the one to Hermione, and read it through. His heart began to pound. There was his own name -- not his birth name, but the name he had given himself -- woven through the letter -- there was a history here, a history between himself and Harry Potter -- In fact, if Potter could be believed...but no, that wasn't possible, was it? Surely there was some mistake. He reached for Seamus' memories, but so great was his agitation that they slipped away from him like murky water.

With a bitter oath, Tom crumpled the parchment in his fist and flung it into the fire. It caught and went up at once, bursting into ashes.

He took a moment, then, to breathe. To force calm on himself. Very slowly, he opened the second letter, and read it over. This time he took note of the handwriting, the looping, childish script that seemed to spill over itself as if the writer could barely contain everything he had to say.

Draco -- It feels weird to be writing you a letter, I've never written a letter to you before. You always know what I'm thinking so there never seemed to be any point. But you're asleep now and I think I should do this before you wake up. I know Snape has found an antidote for you -- I heard him say so to Dumbledore -- and I know what I promised -- I meant it, too. There are other things I thought you should know, things I've never told you, not properly anyway--

There was an ink blotch there, as if the writer of the letter had pressed down so hard with his quill that it had snapped. Tom's eyes narrowed as he scanned the rest of the letter quickly. What was this about? Here, again, Seamus was no help. Through his rage and confusion, Tom could dimly access thoughts of a friendship between the two boys -- Lucius' son and one of my enemies? -- and some wild intensity of emotion, but he could not separate out the threads of Seamus' hatred of Lucius' son from his thoughts about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy grouped together. Tom's hand closed on the letter, meaning to crush it --

His fury urged him to destroy this letter, in which Harry Potter mocked him, mocked Voldemort, swore vengeance against him, and seemed to think that he himself, a mere child, a foolish boy --

Tom took a shuddering breath. He wanted to rip the letter in half. But was it the wisest course? The letters had obviously been written with passion and care, and they were alive with a certain vivid pain that Tom could appreciate, being something of an artist in the area of inflicting pain himself. He had no part of emotion, wanted no part of it, but his very distance from it made him a useful student of human behavior. Destroying this letter would hurt the sender, that was true, but there were better ways to assure that Harry Potter's friends did not receive this last message. That they would not follow him where he had gone, on his quest of vengeance. This would cause chaos and confusion, and chaos and confusion were useful allies.

He read the letter again. It would, he decided, not be difficult at all to mimic Harry Potter's voice: the vividness of the letter came from its simplicity and the blunt sincerity of the statements. Tom could see that it was quite a moving letter, really, or would certainly be considered so by the recipient if the tone of the letter was any indication. This was good: an emotional letter was so much easier to twist and alter.

He passed a hand over the surface of the letter. A surge of magical energy rocketed up his arm and through his hand, almost painful in its intensity. It had been so long...

He whispered a word, and the paper trembled in his grasp. Slowly the ink on the page began to writhe as if the letters were tiny slithering snakes. They curled and uncurled, wound around each other and formed new words. New sentences. Draco, it feels weird to be writing you a letter, but I thought if I didn't there'd be more of a chance that you would follow me, and I don't want you to follow me. I know you'll want to and you always think you can help me, but you can't help me now. I know I said that I would wait but I think that it's better if I don't wait -- I know what I promised, but there are things you don't know...things you won't understand...

The letter went on for several paragraphs. Tom gave it a last scan, and felt proud of himself. It was a cruel letter, without being overtly so at all. The cruelty lay mainly in its subtlety, and in what it did not say, Tom having removed much of the original text. He greatly regretting having destroyed the first letter, the one to Potter's girlfriend. He could have created quite a work of art out of that one. Ah, well. No use grieving over lost opportunities. He placed the letter, folded, back on Harry's bed, with the gold charm necklace on top of it. Then he straightened up.

He was still angry. Long ago Tom had taught himself to focus his rage, to channel it. To wait for a time and place in which he could spend it. And now, lost and bewildered and furious, he stood and tried to make sense of the chaotic whirl of thoughts and memories that vied for attention inside his overcrowded brain. Names and faces came and went behind his eyes -- Black-haired Harry Potter, whom he hated. Draco Malfoy, who looked like a more perfect version of his father in childhood, a miniature done in ivory and silver gilt. And Ginny Weasley, her rosy sunflower face crowned by all that brash, bright hair -- oh, Ginny he remembered. Ginny he knew. Ginny who he recollected by the crack of her bones beneath his gripping hand, her body squirming under his as she tried to get away from him, the scent of salty tears and her own terror.

Even more interestingly, Seamus loved her, it seemed. Tom felt the sickly adoration as a pain beneath his ribs and grinned at it, a wolf grin that split his angel face in half. Oh, yes, Seamus loved her. Loved her oh so very much that he had given her a charm bracelet so that he would never lose her. So that he could find her wherever she was and race instantly to her side. How he must have loved her, to have done something like that.

Still grinning, Tom reached down into his shirt, and drew out the small gold arrow charm on its chain. He knew by the tingle of it beneath his fingertips that she was nearby; she was not far away. Still grinning, he closed his hand around the charm.

Draco had always told her that if she had been born a boy she would have been just like him and if he had been a girl he would have been exactly like her.

Blaise suspected that this, like most things Draco had said to her, seemed true because she wanted it to be true.

Still. If Draco had been at Pansy's Christmas party -- which she had gone to because she'd hoped he'd be there, but he had not come -- he would, just as she had, have spent three hours getting ready despite not really wanting to go. Hours spent knotting small silver flowers into her apricot hair, charming the circles out from under her eyes. Selecting just the right dress. Green, with pale embroidery along the hem. Now, perched on the sink in Pansy's bathroom, she made several minute and delicate adjustments to her cosmetic charms, and looked at herself in the mirror. Like everything else in the Parkinson home, the sink was immensely tacky, with bronze spigots in the shape of spitting dolphins.

Draco had once scornfully called the Parkinsons the kind of family that bought their own furniture.

This had struck Blaise as both amusing and accurate, although it said more about Draco than it did about Pansy.

She wished, again, with a dull sort of anxiety, that he had come. He had been invited, of course. Most of the Slytherins were here, even some of those who had graduated -- and, in the case of Goyle and Crabbe, even those deemed not bright enough to graduate. It was the party of the season, especially since Pansy's parents were at a days-long Ministry summit and essentially they could do whatever they wanted. And Draco had always loved parties.

But then, that had been the old Draco. The one Blaise had grown up with. Not this new version of Draco, whom she felt she did not know.

She remembered the night in August when he had come to her house. It had been a humid summer night, the kind of night where even blinking made you sweat. When the charms had rung she'd come reluctantly to get the door, trailed by a score of tiny levitating fans, all spinning madly in a vain attempt to cool the air. Opening the door to find Draco Malfoy on her doorstep had left her speechless.

How many Hogwarts girls had dreamed of this exact circumstance? There was Draco Malfoy on her front steps, in jeans and a white cotton t-shirt that clung to his slenderly muscled torso, the moonlight striking sparks from his pale silver eyes. On top of that, he was holding a bunch of flowers tied with ribbon. Roses, with pale yellow petals, the color of new Galleons.

Blaise pushed her damp hair back behind her ears, and stared. A number of potential witticisms spun through her head. She picked one at random. "If you were looking for Goyle's house, it's farther down the road. Second after the turn."

He smiled at her. That smile that was like a punch to the stomach, half angelic wickedness and half carnal mischief. A smile that promised unspeakable things involving silk scarves and toffee and long sweaty nights.

He held out the flowers, and she took them. Instantly the petals dropped from them, a shower of gold -- and it was gold. When they hit the floor, they turned into Galleons, which rolled around her feet.

Blaise held the denuded flower stems delicately between her fingers. "What's this about, Draco?"

She stood aside to let him pass into the foyer. He brushed by her as he went, unnecessarily. One inside, he made an amused face and looked down at his shirt, gone half-transparent with sweat. Blaise blessed the hot evening but said nothing. "It's a little warm in here," he observed.

"Well," said Draco, his mouth curled into a cat's smile. "That shouldn't be a problem for you from now on."

He had seemed very much himself that night, provoking her and enjoying it. They had gossiped wickedly about the other Slytherins, mocked the Gryffindors, sealed their bargain with a handshake. Later he had kissed her in the front garden, among the dead rose bushes. She had stored it away as an important memory. Kisses from Draco Malfoy did not come along every day.

In fact, in no part of their agreement was it stipulated that he had to kiss her at all. He did, sometimes, anyway. Once the school term started, they spent long hours in his room together to make things look "convincing." Mostly he did schoolwork and she watched him. He was an apt, absorbed, careful student, filling sheets of parchment with exquisitely lovely handwriting, doing extra research he didn't need to do simply because it interested him. Generally he didn't seem to notice she was there, but when he did notice, he was coolly agreeable towards her, if never very affectionate. She would stretch out along his bed and watch him as he wrote or looked out the window or ordered clothes from shops in Diagon Alley. Sometimes he would try on the clothes and she would tell him what looked good and what didn't. Very little didn't look good on him, and the small task filled her with satisfaction; it seemed intimate in a way and surely he wouldn't take her advice if her opinion didn't matter to him.

It was a little while before she realized that he never actually did take her advice. He kept what he liked and sent back what he didn't and he smiled at her suggestions but did not in fact listen to them.

Sometimes they did do other things. Long hours in his room, just the two of them, something was bound to happen, and sometimes things did. He was cooperative, if not overly enthusiastic. She grew to know the lines and curves of his body, memorized the pale skin flawed in such a few places by its scars -- one under his eye, like a crescent moon, the jagged bolt along his left palm, the slightly silvery sheen along his forearm as if something had been burned there. She knew the graceful planes of his collarbones, his temples where the feathery hair drifted, the vulnerable spots on the insides of his wrists. She knew how the pulse in his throat beat when he kissed her, and that when his eyelashes fluttered shut over closing eyes it meant he liked whatever she was doing to him. Sometimes while she was doing it he would put his hand over his face, fingers splayed to cover his eyes, and then she would stop, and say, Look at me, Draco, and he would take his hand away and sit up and that would be the end of that, usually.

He never pushed her for any kind of physical favors and when she stopped giving them he did not seem to notice that either. She had a feeling that he was slightly relieved that she had never really offered herself to him entirely as it would have been awkward for him to turn her down and Draco hated awkwardness. And it bewildered her, because it was not as if he didn't like girls -- his body seemed to like her just fine, reacted instantly when she put her hands on him, like any seventeen-year-old boy; it was his mind that was, always, elsewhere.

And that was it. He was elsewhere. Always elsewhere. It was around this time that she began to really notice the difference in him, that it was constant and ongoing. The other Slytherins had noticed it as well, but she, with more time to study him, noticed it more sharply. He had changed. He was still arrogant, as he always had been, still charming and quick-witted and beautifully malicious, but that malice had lost some of its bite and edge, his wit was less brittle. He was less a glass dagger, and more a silver knife.

It was another few weeks before she was able to tie this change in him to its cause.

In October, Draco had been given detention. By Flitwick, if she recollected correctly, for casting an illicit Vestatum Transparens charm on Neville Longbottom during class. Everyone had seen a great deal more of Longbottom than was necessary. Draco had been given a week's detention and assigned to cleaning the blackboards in the classroom during dinner hour.

She had thought that it would be a good idea for her to sneak him some food. It would be the act of a concerned girlfriend. It would assist their deception. Or so she told herself, as she wrapped some sandwiches in a napkin and headed upstairs to the second floor classroom where Charms was held.

She never knew what made her pause and glance through the grilled window set in the door before she went in. Perhaps simply her knowledge that Draco did not appreciate surprises in general, and surprises from her in particular. But it was Blaise who was surprised.

Draco was in the classroom, and he was indeed cleaning one of the blackboards -- in a bored, lazy, methodical manner, standing well away as if he did not want to get chalk dust on his expensive green shirt. But he was not alone. Harry Potter was sitting on one of the desks behind him. He was talking, gesticulating, his face animated and lively, and as he gestured he was smiling. It was bizarre. Blaise barely had to think in confusion that she didn't remember Flitwick giving Potter detention as well, when he leaped off the desk, went around Draco, and poked him in the chest with his index finger.

It was not a hostile gesture. It was, very plainly, a teasing gesture that said, You're not paying attention to me.

Draco brushed the hand away, but with a shrug and a smile that nearly buckled Blaise's knees. It was a smile without any edge of malice or cruelty or secret amusement. She would not have thought Draco Malfoy had a smile like that in him. Then he'd lifted the rag he'd been using to clean the boards, and threw it at Harry's head.

Blaise tore herself away after a few more minutes of silent staring, and crept, shattered, back to the Slytherin dorms. She was the daughter of Death Eaters. In her sixteen years of life, she had seen many disturbing things. But nothing had disturbed her as much as the fact that she had just watched Harry Potter write Kiss Me, I'm Rich on the back of Draco Malfoy's brand new green shirt with a piece of chalk and that Draco, when he had noticed, had not shoved his wand through Potter's throat, but instead had laughed as if he thought this behavior was genuinely funny.

As far as Blaise was concerned, this could mean only one thing. They had to be having sex with each other.

Blaise was a worldly girl. She had read books. She Knew Things. This would certainly explain why Draco, the most-wanted boy in school, would pay a girl to pretend to date him. She supposed it would also explain why Harry Potter was seeing a girl everyone had long supposed to be Just His Friend. It was all a ruse to cover up their passionate affair.

After lying stunned on her bed for several hours, Blaise decided that out of all possible outcomes, this was hardly the worst. After all, this was an amazing piece of scurrilous gossip. Nobody had heard gossip like this since Headmaster Dippet had been removed from his position by the Ministry after rumors flew that he was carrying on an illicit affair with the giant squid in the lake. The squid had been allowed to keep its job; nobody wanted to fire a fifty-foot squid.

But this was even better. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy! And, she supposed, it made some sort of sense: Potter was an idiot, a revolting Gryffindor Mudblood-lover, but he wasn't exactly ugly. He had all that tousled dark hair and that wiry-slim body and those lynx-colored eyes that could shoot cold green glances or blaze up like leaves burning when he was angry. The corduroy trousers he'd worn to play Quidditch in for the past two years were worn to parchment thinness and had holes in all sorts of interesting places. They did a great deal to keep the interest of the female population of the school riveted during especially dull games.

Of course, she had always thought Harry Potter looked like someone who'd never had sex in his life, but then appearances were deceiving.

After that, Blaise borrowed Pansy's Invisibility Cloak and began following Draco around in earnest. A terrible perverse curiosity had seized her. Draco would kill her if he knew she was following him, of course, but in her feverish state that hardly mattered; she had to know, to be sure. She crept after him when he went down to Quidditch practice, when he studied in the library at night, when he climbed to the top of the Astronomy Tower --

For that was the most peculiar part. Her spying was not entirely fruitless -- there was definitely something going on between Draco and Potter. They met up with each other whenever they seemed to have any spare moments. They studied together. They practiced fencing. When Draco got a hundred and ten percent on his Potions exam, he showed the results to Harry, looking superior. Harry said something snarky. Draco kicked him in the shin. When Harry got his broom upgraded, he went and showed it to Draco. Draco said something snarky. Harry took a handful of the packaging paper that had come with the broom and shoved it into Draco's shirt pocket. Whereupon Draco had taken the broom and thrown it out the window. It had fallen several stories and landed on Mrs. Norris, who had set up a plaintive yowl. Draco had burst out laughing and Harry had dragged him away from the window.

It was at this point that Blaise learned that Harry Potter was also in possession of an Invisibility Cloak.

But they never touched each other. At least, not in any significant way. They were easy around each other, comfortable in a way Blaise had noted boys rarely were. When Harry fell asleep in the library one night while studying, Draco had taken his quill and, with a look of fiendish glee, had scribbled small obscene messages up and down Harry's forearm. When Harry wanted Draco to be quiet, he'd clap a hand over his mouth. So yes, they touched each other. They pushed each other, tugged on the back of each other's shirts, stole each other's notes, ate off the same plate. But as for behavior that could contribute to some kind of scurrilous gossip, there was none.

This was upsetting to Blaise. If she could not categorize their relationship, she could not understand it. If she could not understand it, then she could not understand Draco. If he had been sleeping with Harry Potter, that would have been one thing. Weird, perhaps, but understandable: Harry was gorgeous, and boys were stupid and largely driven by their hormones. But since that did not appear to be what was going on, then there was more to it. And if there was more to it, it stopped looking like some foolish mistake on Draco's part and a great deal more like a calculated decision.

In her obsession, now, to understand what was going on, Blaise began watching both boys even in public. Their social faces were almost unshakable: they were single-minded in their brutality towards each other. It seemed odd to her, this public hostility, a travesty of some kind, like watching someone scribble ugly graffiti on a beautiful painting. She wondered how they could stand to keep it up.

One afternoon she had glanced at Draco in Potions class and had seen him suddenly smile down at his desk, as if he had thought of something amusing. Driven by habit now, she looked immediately at Harry, seated all the way across the room. And she had seen him smile, too, at the same instant, the exact same way. Neither Draco nor Harry was looking at each other and there was no obvious cause for their mirth. Over the next few days she caught this happening more and more. They would react, simultaneously, to some invisible stimulus, and if she had not known it was impossible she would have thought that somehow they could read each other's minds.

She began to wonder if she was losing her own mind. It was hard to be the solitary custodian of such an enormous secret. Perhaps she ought to tell Draco she knew. Of course, he might well break her neck for her troubles. Nevertheless, she had nearly made up her mind to tell him when she realized in fact that she was not the only one who knew, after all.

Charms class had just begun, and everyone was filing into the classroom and taking their seats. In the confusion, Colin Creevey had slipped into the room, and had announced in a loud whisper to Professor Flitwick that Harry Potter would not be coming to class that day because he had been injured during Quidditch practice and was in the infirmary.

Two things immediately happened. First, Blaise's gaze flew to Draco. Sprawled behind his desk, he hardly moved, only she saw him whiten, and he brought his hand down hard on the point of his quill, so that it dug into his palm. Secondly, she saw that someone else had turned to look where she did -- Ron Weasley had whipped around in his seat to stare at Draco. Draco shot him a furious glare, and shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Ron turned back to face the front of the room, biting his lip.

Blaise barely had time to wonder what that meant when the classroom door opened and Hermione Granger came in. She said something a low voice to Professor Binns, and then moved to take her seat next to Ron. As she went, she passed Draco. Her bookbag struck against the side of his desk and knocked his Charms book to the floor.

Hermione glared at him. "Inbred moron," she said, retrieved the book, and hurled it on his desk with a loud thump. She walked away, tossing her hair. Only someone who had been observing this interaction very closely would have noticed, as Blaise did, that when Hermione dropped the book back on Draco's desk there was a folded bit of parchment stuck between the pages that had not been there before.

Later she would go into Draco's bookbag and find the note. It said, Harry's all right, he just broke his wrist doing silly stunts. Don't go by the infirmary, there are too many people there. And you were wrong about page eleven in the DaDA textbook, it was page fourteen. You owe me a butterbeer. --Love, Hermione

It was at this point that Blaise's confusion turned into a seething bitterness. Watching Draco and Hermione now, she saw how they looked at each other, and even how he looked at that repellent Weasley boy's little sister, and she realized that this was much more than she had imagined, it was an awful, gigantic Gryffindor conspiracy. As if it wasn't enough that they had to win the House Cup six years running, they had somehow conspired to steal Draco Malfoy away from his house. Draco, the best of all of them, the brightest and the most beautiful, who gave Slytherin something to be proud of even though they were always losing the bloody Quidditch Cup to Gryffindor. It was hateful, it was beyond bearing. And, curled on her bed alone at night, she realized it was more than the disgrace to the House, more than her terror of what would happen to Draco when the other Slytherins found out. More than outraged Death Eater loyalty.

It was the gentleness that had come to Draco in these past months, that would not have been gentleness in anyone else but that was a dulling of his cutting edge truly startling to anyone who really knew him. It was the faint dreaming distance behind his eyes and the cruelty that had gone from his smile and the blade that had gone from his voice. It was that he loved them. Draco Malfoy, who had never loved anything, person or place or object, and now he did, and it was not her. It had been one thing when she had been able to tell herself that he was incapable of love. But now she knew he was not. They had flawed him with their own humanity, her beautiful ice prince, and now he was just like them and just like everyone else. And still he did not want her and it didn't matter because she had lost her faith in him and in her House and in everything that had ever been important.

The foundations of her beliefs crumbled around her and blew away like dust, and in her mind the dust was pale green, the color of Potter's eyes.

Blaise half-closed her own eyes, remembering, but her reverie did not last. Someone was banging on the bathroom door and yelling. She stood up straight, tucked her hair behind her ears, and yanked the door open.

Millicent Bulstrode, clad in a hula skirt and a coconut bra and clutching an empty bottle of Archenland wine, collapsed through the door. "Blaise," she moaned, rolling over on the cold marble floor. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Blaise thinned her glossed lips into a cool sneer. "Go ahead, Millicent," she said. "It could only improve the décor in this ghastly bathroom."

And with that, she stepped over the other girl and went out to the party to rejoin the other Slytherins.

"Ginny," Seamus said at last, and she shivered again at the sound of his voice: so familiar, so caressing with its soft Irish lilt, and yet suddenly not familiar at all. "Ginny, it's good to see you again..."

Instinctively, Ginny drew back, her hand rising to nervously touch the charm bracelet at her other wrist. "Seamus, you saw me this afternoon."

"Did I?" The edged smile widened with a deadly sort of amusement. "It feels like fifty years."

He began to walk across the room towards her. Ginny stared at him, her mind awhirl. Was he angry at her? Was he drunk? She couldn't imagine Seamus drunk. "I thought you said you were going to go home tonight...won't you have missed your train?"

"Anxious to get rid of me?" He was standing directly in front of her now; she craned her head to look up at him, but with an alarming suddenness, he had dropped to his knees and was kneeling opposite her, their eyes on a level. "Not that it matters much now."

"Seamus...?" She heard the uncertainty in her own voice. The fine hairs along her arms and the back of her neck were prickling sharply.

"It's all right," he said. There was an odd tenderness in his voice -- it was like tenderness, but then again not quite. There was a familiarity about that tone that she couldn't place. He reached out and lightly touched the edge of her hair, just at her temple.

At the light touch, her skin exploded into goosebumps. She felt her eyes fly wide with astonishment -- she never reacted like this when Seamus touched her. Never.

"It's all right," he said again, in the same odd tone. And at the same time that he touched her, she saw the corner of his mouth curl in a disdainful smirk. "I just wanted to say goodbye. You wouldn't grudge me a goodbye, would you, Ginny?"

His hand was cool against the side of her face. "Why," she said, "do you keep saying my name?"

He dropped his hand from her face, skated his fingers along the edge of her shoulder. "Perhaps, Ginny darling," he said gently, "perhaps you haven't been as sensible as you should have been." His fingers encircled her arm. "Come here," he said, and pulled her sharply towards him.

The suddenness of the movement caught her off guard and she half-fell against him. He seemed to expect this, taking her weight easily, his arms sliding around her. They were wrapped together now like passionate lovers, but there was no passion in his voice when he spoke, only a cold and deadly certainty. "You came looking for me," he said against her ear. "All those years I remembered you. You got away from me. You were the only one who ever did." He jerked her hard against him and nipped at the corner of her mouth -- not a kiss but a bite, and it hurt. Ginny tasted a metallic tang in her mouth. But she didn't pull away. "I swore to myself I'd spill your blood and know what it tasted like," he hissed into her ear, licking her blood off his own mouth. "Your pure, wizarding blood."

Ginny still didn't move. There was a humming in her ears like static electricity and part of her wanted to faint. Part of her was terrified. But that part seemed closed away behind a glass wall and there was only this here, this moment, and his hard grip on her shoulders and his heartbeat against her. "Tom," she said. "You're Tom."

"And who else would I be?" he said, and it almost made sense, never mind the insanity of the situation.

"Are you going to kill me," she said. There wasn't enough emotion in her voice for it to be a question.

For a moment he did not move. He felt like Seamus against her, the same lightly muscled shoulders and arms, the same cornsilk hair that smelled like soap and boy. But the voice, under the accent and the softness, was Tom's voice, and his eyes were Tom's eyes. Eyes that opened onto a mind like a cauldron of writhing snakes. "Yes," he said. "You wouldn't deny me that, would you, not when I've waited so long?"

She felt him smile against her cheek. "Good," he said, and, gripping her wrist, bent her back until she was lying on the floor and he was crouching over her and the floor was hard under her slim body cushioned only by the material of her thin nightgown. He had her left wrist gripped in his hand, the charms on her bracelet cutting painfully into her skin. He was left-handed. Seamus had not been. And, looking up at him, it was as if she could see through Seamus' face to Tom's: eyes like blue ink, narrow mouth like a razor cut. And the mind behind those ink-blue eyes was Tom's mind, that clever brain fermenting into poison, a consciousness as slippery as a wall of black glass, and that one chink in it, that one weakness, which was his arrogance. His willingness to believe that she would lie down and die for him because he asked her to, because he was Tom, and everyone always did whatever he wanted.

"You won't mind it for very long," he said, and smiled with Seamus' mouth. The gold hair fell into his eyes as he leaned over her. He brushed the knuckles of his right hand along her collarbone, along the edge of the neck of her gown. The way he might admiringly stroke a glass figurine he was about to smash. "You're quite cooperative," he said. "I might kill you a little quicker, for that."

"You brought me back," he murmured, hands stroking her possessively. "Your tears, my blood. Sympathetic magic, you remember? You heard me talk about it when you spied on me all those years ago. You must have missed me badly, Ginny. You must have wanted me back," and as he spoke his hand slid down into the bodice of her nightgown and Ginny fought down the violent urge to jerk herself away, fought it down so hard that she bit her lip savagely. "Didn't you?" he hissed.

"You used to tell me you'd never kissed a boy," he said, a lazy smile coursing across his face. "Is that still true?"

But he was leaning forward, his mouth brushing over her cheek, her jaw, her lips. Like the brush of a burning butterfly's wing, his touch was light, and scorched her. When his mouth touched hers she tasted her own blood on his lips. She arched up against him, her shoulders dropping back, her throat bared, and he seemed to recognize this as a gesture of submission, because his eyes went heavy and dark with amusement.

He drew back, releasing her wrist, moving his hand to her shoulder to pull her into a better position, and as he did, she threw out her arm, thrusting her hand into the center of the blazing fire, and the pain coursed up her arm like a shriek but it didn't matter because what mattered was that the charm bracelet around her wrist had caught on fire and every charm on it was activating all at once.

It was like an explosion. Like several explosions. The force of so many powerful spells activating simultaneously knocked them both sideways, knocked Tom off of her, and Ginny rolled to the side and curled herself into a ball. Brightly hued lights burst out of the fire, lighting the room in carnival colors. Jangling, discordant music poured into the room, half-deafening her, and then the air was full of flying objects -- birds and silver arrows and dinner plates and furniture and through the teeming air Ginny saw Tom trying to struggle to his feet, and she tried to scramble away but the pain in her hand was too bad and then something dark came hurtling at her out of the fireplace and there was a bright pain behind her eyes and then there was blackness.

"It smells like mud," said Draco, looking glumly down at the glass of murky fluid Madam Pomfrey had set on his bedside table. The morning sunlight poured through the half-open window like a benediction and laid a sheer gilded varnish over his bright hair and light eyes and even made the glass on the table sparkle, although anything would have looked good to Hermione on this particular morning.

She yawned and scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. "That's too bad. Drink it."

Draco took the glass and sighed. "I suppose it would be a bit much to hope for an antidote that tastes like a 1982 Chateau Haute Brion."

"You are so spoiled," said Hermione succinctly, "that it is either a thing of wonder or a thing of horror. I am not entirely sure which."

"You know," said Draco, raising his eyes from the glass, "I think Madam Pomfrey has designs on me."

"Yes, indeed. She keeps offering to bandage me up in places that don't need bandaging. The poor woman is mad with lust. Not that one could blame her..."

"But it tastes bad," he said in a small, pitiful voice, hunching his shoulders inside his pajamas.

Hermione got to her feet. "Draco Malfoy," she said, in a dangerously quiet voice. "I have been up since three o'clock this morning with Professor Snape, talking about your antidote. I know exactly how often you have to take it, and exactly what will happen to you if you don't. I am also extremely tired and irritable. And if you do not take your antidote right now, I will SNEAK UP BEHIND YOU WITH A RAZOR BLADE AND SHAVE OFF ALL OF YOUR HAIR. AND I MEAN IT!"

To her great annoyance, Draco was laughing at her. "You're cute when you're hacked off."

"Flirt with me, Malfoy, and I'll pour a bottle of Skele-Gro on your head. Let's see how cute you think you are when your head's swelled up to the size of a beach ball."

"There are many who would say my head is swollen already," Draco pointed out, lifting the glass to his mouth.

Hermione felt a smile building behind her eyes. She quashed it. "Be quiet," she said. "And drink your antidote - now, please."

To her surprise, he drank it, then dropped the glass with a shudder and pressed his hands to his stomach. "Ugh," he groaned.

Hermione leaned forward to retrieve the glass, and gave his hair a sympathetic gentle tug as she did so. It was so fine and silky, it clung to her fingers. She drew her hand back and picked up the glass. "Was it awful?"

He straightened up, wincing. His mouth was drawn as in pain, but his voice was light when he replied. "Tasted a bit like cinnamon and sugar. If you took cinnamon and sugar and sprinkled them on an old shoe, then dumped a vat of Bubotuber pus on it. How often do I have to take this stuff?"

Draco moaned, and sprawled tragically backward onto the pillows. Hermione decidedly did not notice that when he leaned back, his shirt rode up, showing the smooth pale skin of his torso, the elegant curve of his ribs. He had lost weight, and his pajama bottoms were loose around his narrow hipbones. She hoped that the antidote, temporary though it might be, would keep him from losing any more weight after this, at least until a more permanent antidote was found.

"It burns," he said, fretfully, and looked at her, wide-eyed. "I have a very low pain threshold, really. Hardly a threshold at all. More like a small but tastefully decorated foyer."

Hermione, knowing this to be patently untrue, made a face at him. "If it makes you feel better to writhe about and complain, then writhe about and complain. But if I catch you not taking your antidote, I'll kill you."

Draco rolled over onto his stomach and grinned up at her disarmingly. "That reasoning represents a logical fallacy," he said.

"I can live with that," she said. "And stop batting your eyelashes at me. That pitiful-puppy business might work on Harry, but it will not work on me. Snape says you should get up, and get up you shall. On your feet, Malfoy."

"I thought you were here to lend a bit of delicate feminine presence to the proceedings," Draco complained woefully. "Soothing my fevered brow, patting me with damp washcloths..."

"Snape said the antidote will work faster if you move about a bit and get the blood going through your veins," Hermione pointed out. "So either get up, Draco, or my delicate feminine boot will make contact with your --"

"Squabbling as usual, I see," said Snape, appearing suddenly and almost noiselessly at the foot of the bed. "Miss Granger, has he taken his antidote?"

"Yes," said Hermione, wondering momentarily at the bizarreness of a situation which found her allied with Snape. "He complained a lot, but he took it."

Looking mildly surprised, Draco sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Hermione looked closely at him -- did he look any better? She was forced to admit to herself that she could see no real difference, except perhaps a bit more color in his cheeks, but that could be a number of things.

Snape peered down at Draco as if he were staring at something growing in a petrie dish. Then he folded his arms, apparently satisfied. "There will be side effects," he announced.

"I don't suppose these are side effects along the lines of 'fortuitous ability to conduct a light opera in French'?" Draco asked, somewhat wistfully.

"No," said Snape flatly. Hermione wondered why Draco bothered. Snape had less of a sense of humor than Voldemort, who at least, according to reports, was prone to cackling evilly. "You must be cautious, Draco. While I encourage you to take part in physical activity, you must be very careful with your psychic strength. Please keep your performance of magic to a minimum. This antidote will interfere with your abilities, especially your Magid gifts. I would prefer if you avoided wandless magic entirely; your telepathy --"

At that, Draco's head snapped up. "I couldn't reach Harry last night," he said. "I was trying..."

"Well, stop trying," said Snape, but something flickered behind his eyes, and Hermione, for no reason she could explain, felt a sudden twinge of cold panic. "I see no reason for you to waste your energy attempting to contact Potter, who is doubtless still asleep in his dormitory. You should concentrate on conserving your energy."

Both Hermione and Draco stared at him. Hermione had never heard Snape use the word "pleasant" before. She wondered if something was going on with him. He seemed to be trying to distract Draco, although from what, she couldn't imagine.

"Hmph," said Snape, interrupting her pondering, and left in a swirl of dark robes.

Draco was on his feet. "Pull the curtains shut, will you?" he requested, shrugging off his pajama top.

"Oh!" said Hermione, and stepped outside the curtains, hastily tugging them shut behind her, although not before the image of Draco, shirtless, unknotting the tie at the waistband of his pajama bottoms, branded itself against the back of her eyes. He was ill, she reminded herself sharply. Doubtless this was just her concern and the urge to take care of him mixing itself up in her brain and sending her all the wrong sorts of signals.

Draco emerged from behind the curtains, tugging a long-sleeved white cotton jumper down over charcoal trousers. "I need my hairbrush," he muttered. "I can't find it."

Hermione stuck out her tongue. "I think your hair looks nice," she said. It did look nice, she thought, it was too fine to tangle properly and so simply looked slightly ruffled. She was sure its disarray was driving Draco to distraction. "Do you want to tell Harry, or should I? He'll be so happy."

"About the antidote, idiot!" Hermione squeezed her hands together. "Or did you, you know..." She tapped the side of her head. "Tell him already?"

"No." Draco shook his head, faint concern wavering behind his eyes. "I haven't been able to find him since I woke up...I guess maybe he's asleep. I thought I remembered him being here last night. Did you see him?"

"Maybe I dreamed it." Draco shrugged. "Anyway. Yeah. I guess he'd want to know, so we should tell him." He smiled then, almost as if he couldn't not smile, a real, genuine smile that flickered fast across his face and was gone as soon as he could hide it. "He'll be happy, right?"

Later, Hermione would remember that smile, and wonder if she would ever see him smile like that again.

Outside the train window, the scenery slid by peacefully. Mountains had given way to hills, hills to flat country dotted with trees and small towns. The snow had melted away, though ice still sparkled in nets against the windows of passing houses and between the branches of trees.

Harry sat and looked out the window of the express train from Hogsmeade and tried not to think.

He was surprised he had managed to stay awake so long. He had lain down on the stiffly padded seats, his bag under his head, and tried to sleep, but had found himself, after a time, drawn to staring out the window instead. Perhaps it was that it was so cold in the compartment, and the scar on his hand was bothering him. It was raw with pain as if it had been newly made. He almost expected, when he glanced down, to see blood on his palm, but his bare hand was pink and clean and looked as it always had. The silvery scar bisecting the familiar whorls and scrolls ... too bad he had never paid attention to Palmistry during Divination class...

The door to his compartment slid open. Harry looked up, expecting the conductor or the snack cart witch, but it was Ron.

Ron slid the door shut and came to sit across from Harry. He sat down and they looked at each other, as boys do, somewhat guardedly. He was as Harry had remembered him. A little thinner, perhaps. His blue eyes had blue shadows under them. He wore a gray cableknit crewneck jumper and corduroy trousers. He said, "I was just thinking that you've never taken a train without me before. Have you?"

Harry looked back out the window. The sky outside was darkening and the window gave him back his own reflection. Pale skin, green eyes, hair like tangled black thread. No scar. No glasses -- he'd spelled his eyes back at the train station in Hogsmeade. "It's lonely," he said.

"It's funny," Ron said, conversationally. "I never thought about you as being lonely. You always seemed to have everything so well in hand. Everyone always wanting to be with you. Everyone always watching you. I didn't see how you could be lonely, with all that attention. I mean, heroes don't get lonely. Or if they do, you never hear about it."

"I think it doesn't make for good stories," said Harry. "But I do get lonely. That time you stopped speaking to me fourth year, half the time I was so lonely I wished I could die. The rest of the time I wished I could kill you. But nobody wants to hear about that. Reporters don't ask about that. They want to know about my dead parents and who I'm dating and where I get my clothes and how I plan on offing Voldemort --"

Ron leaned back against the seat. His hands were open on his knees. In reality, perhaps, they would have been full of Chocolate Frogs, Exploding Snap cards, half a bag of sherbet lemons, and the other half spilled out over Harry's lap. Now they were empty. "It's because of Malfoy," he said. "Ironic that he turned out to be the one to teach you what you really are."

Harry remembered Draco up on the tower, saying This is a hero's choice. Your friends, or everything else. And he had not argued or denied it. "Ron," he said. "Why are you here? Not that I'm not glad to see you. I mean, I miss you. But if I'm dreaming you up there must be some reason beyond that. Especially since we're not really friends right now."

"Maybe your mind thought you'd be likely to listen to me," Ron said. "I don't know why. You never listen to anyone. You don't think you need anyone, Harry, that's your trouble, because you don't trust anyone, not really. Remember the Second Task? You thought you had to save everyone under that lake because you couldn't even trust that Dumbledore wouldn't let a load of students drown during a school event. I said you were thick, but it's more than that. You're not thick. You just don't trust anyone."

"You never trusted me. And you never trusted Hermione, either, not really. Look how you shut her out. I thought you trusted Malfoy, but I guess you don't. Not that I much care. It'll half-kill him, what you've done, and I say just as well. Hermione's strong. She can take it. But not Malfoy."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "So now you're my guilty conscience," he said. "I didn't know my conscience was so...Victorian-sounding. Look, I know I did the right thing. That doesn't mean I don't have doubts. Everyone questions the things they've done...but they'll both be fine without me."

Ron shook his head. "Haven't you ever wondered how you've managed to make yourself so necessary to so many people?"

Harry rubbed the back of his hand wearily across his eyes. "No," he said. "No, I haven't wondered that."

Ron smiled. It was a bright and cheeky smile, so familiar and so very much like Ron. He leaned forward and tugged on a lock of Harry's hair -- an oddly gentle gesture. "Just remember," he said. "You were mine first."

"I'm doing this for you," Harry said in a half-whisper, but Ron had already begun to fade, the seat back becoming visible through his face and hair, and then it all began to dissolve -- the compartment, the darkening sky, the window, Ron himself -- like parchment burning up in a fire. There was a loud shrieking noise in Harry's ears and as he blinked himself awake, struggling into a sitting position, he realized that it was the Sounding Charms announcing the train's arrival at King's Cross Station.

Nothing could have prepared Hermione for the sight that greeted her and Draco when they stepped through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor common room that morning.

It was in shambles. The furniture was knocked over. The floor was covered with a bizarre array of objects, from decorative ornaments to shattered dinner plates to pulverized glass. The floor was covered in black ash. And the east window was smashed open. The air in the room was freezing cold.

And by the fireplace, sprawled in a crumpled heap, was Ginny. She lay on a bed of her own torn clothes, her arms flung wide, her bright hair over her face.

But Draco had already gone across the room and was kneeling down next to Ginny. With a surprising sudden gentleness he brushed the hair out of her face, touched his fingers to her throat. "She's breathing," he said, still looking down at her. "We'd better get her to the infirmary. Come help me lift her, Hermione --"

But Ginny's eyelids were fluttering. She coughed and her eyes flew wide. "No," she whispered. "No infirmary..."

Hermione took a few steps closer. She could see that Ginny's hair was matted with blood at her temple. "She's injured," she said. "Ginny -- what happened?"

Draco glanced up at the broken window, his expression frankly puzzled. "Did someone get in here? How?"

Ginny reached out a hand and caught at his sleeve. "Not Seamus," she said. "Tom."

Draco's eyes met Hermione's over Ginny's head. He looked as puzzled as she felt. "What?"

"Tom," said Ginny, and coughed again. "My hand hurts," she said almost inaudibly. "I burned it --"

"She's delirious," Hermione said to Draco, quickly. "Probably concussed. Let's get her to Madam Pomfrey as fast as we can."

Draco nodded. "I'm going to carry you," he said to Ginny. "Can you hold on to me?"

"I can hold on to you," she said, and closed her eyes. She put her arms around his neck and let him lift her up, only crying out a little in pain from her burned hand. "But Tom," she whispered, "what about Tom --"

"Ginny," Draco said, with a rather astonishing amount of patience (it astonished Hermione, anyway) "there's no one else in here."

"Oh," Ginny said, and there was a world of despair in that one word. She shut her eyes, and did not say another word until the three of them reached the infirmary.

It was well into the morning and Pansy's party was showing no signs of stopping. Blaise wandered listlessly through the cavernous solarium, looking for Pansy. Most of the students were gathered around the gigantic silver vats of Dementor's Kiss, the most powerful cocktail in wizarding creation. It was a turquoise-orange color, and smoked. Blaise thought it smelled like mountain troll and tasted worse.

Malcolm Baddock detached himself from the rest of the crowd and began to make his way towards her, shooting seductive glances from beneath lowered eyelashes. Blaise fought down an exasperated sigh. Any interest she'd ever had in Malcolm had evaporated when she realized that her liason with him was not annoying Draco the way she had hoped it would. "Blaise, darling," he said, and handed her a glass of smoking turquoisish fluid. "Pansy was looking for you."

"Was she?" Blaise took the glass, but did not attempt to drink the contents. "Did she say what she wanted?"

Malcolm shrugged. "No. I think she got distracted when Crabbe and Goyle started pole-dancing round the pillars."

Blaise had already noticed this. It was not an attractive sight. "Well, where is she now?" she asked, and surreptitiously poured her Dementor's Kiss into the pot of a nearby fern. It promptly curled up and died.

"No idea," said Malcolm. "Say, Blaise, I was thinking that maybe you and I could go somewhere and have some sex."

Blaise frowned. "What is this, laziness?" she demanded. "Whatever happened to the clever double entendre? That wasn't even a single entendre. It was a half entendre. You might as well stand in the middle of the room and shout 'Shag me, I'm desperate' at the top of your lungs."

Malcolm did not answer because at that moment Terence Higgs shot through the room at amazing speed, flailing his arms and shrieking at the top of his lungs, "Somebody stop me! For the love of God and all things holy, somebody stop me!"

He vanished through the French doors at the end of the hall as swiftly as he had come, pursued by a house-elf.

Across the room, Adrian Pucey had turned into a badger. The other students shoved him into a pink silk pillowcase.

Inside the pillowcase, Adrian had reverted to his normal shape. The pillowcase bulged and ripped. Bits of pink silk flew everywhere. Adrian staggered to his feet and was sick into a punch bowl.

"You're just upset that Malfoy didn't show," said Malcolm, a sudden razor edge to his voice. He lowered his dark eyes and glanced meditatively at his drink as he sipped it. "As if he would. He's got better things to do than hang around with us, apparently."

"That was before I knew he was a smarmy Gryffindor-lover." Malcolm's nostrils flared. "Apparently he's as cowardly as he is arrogant. I'm not surprised he didn't come tonight -- he knows he'll be up against the wall with the other traitors soon enough."

"Malcolm, I find your fascist tendencies deeply erotic," said Blaise. "I hope you know that."

Malcolm looked as if he had no idea how to respond to this. "Well, he isn't anything special," he insisted.

"I mean, just because someone has wavy white-blond hair and sculpted cheekbones this really cute way of sucking on a quill when they're bored, doesn't mean that they're entitled to special treatment," Malcolm sulked.

Blaise raised her right eyebrow a fraction. "You know, this casts your desire to see Draco up against a wall into an entirely new light."

"Don't finish that sentence, Malcolm, you'll regret it. Look-- I'm off to find Pansy. Have a nice evening. Oh, and if you're really lonely you can go knock Millicent's coconuts together in the bathroom."

Draco was tight-lipped, leaning back against the corridor wall outside the infirmary from Madam Pomfrey had banished them both. Hermione looked at him wearily. There was blood on his white shirt where Ginny's head had rested against his shoulder.

Draco looked at her in utter disbelief, as if she'd announced that she couldn't see why everyone was so bothered about Voldemort as he seemed a nice enough fellow to her. "Because of his world-famous recipe for raspberry trifle," he said. "What do you think we need him for? Look, there's obviously something going on here. I don't believe what Ginny said to Pomfrey at all."

Hermione sighed. Once in the infirmary, Ginny had revived enough to tell Madam Pomfrey that she'd dropped her charm bracelet into the fireplace and had burned herself trying to retrieve it. The destruction of the room, she'd claimed, was due to the charms on the bracelet all activating at once. She had not repeated her claims against Seamus, and she had not, thankfully, mentioned Tom.

"I don't believe her, either," she said. "I just don't know what you expect Harry to do about it."

"Maybe he can...I don't know, talk to her. I don't think she'll talk to me, especially not after yesterday."

"That's your interpretation," shrugged Draco. "I assure you that I am never pointlessly cruel."

"Are you scoffing at me?" Draco was grinning at her, that crooked, disarming grin that made her forget what it was she had wanted to say. "I'm impressed. It's hard to work up a good scoff these days."

Draco raised an eyebrow, splashed his cool ice-water gaze over her, and then shrugged. "This is all very unfair," he remarked. "We hardly need another crisis. I feel that my crisis schedule is already full."

"I'm not sure that Ginny would talk to Harry, anyway," Hermione said. "Yesterday she called him an oblivious moron pig."

Draco burst out laughing. "Did she? Oh, that's rich. I'm sorry I missed it. I would have liked to have seen his face." He glanced down then at his watch. Hermione tried not to notice that the band was slightly loose around his wrist. "Look, he has to be up by now. Is there some reason you don't want me to go and get him?"

"No. Well. Maybe. I don't know..." Hermione drew upon her mastery of the English language and found herself at a loss for words. There was no way to explain the sourceless foreboding that had gripped her earlier when Snape had been in the infirmary. Not that she felt as if something had happened to Harry -- she didn't. It was something else entirely. Something that had to do with Draco. Somehow, she felt that if she let him go away from her now, she would never see him again. Probably it was just panic over his health. Intellectually, she knew that. Not that it helped.

He looked at her, silver eyes lit to a curious opacity. Harry's eyes were always the same color, but Draco's eyes were a changeable gray, like ice and sleet and frost and all cold and mutable things. They could be as bright as the glancing blow of sunlight striking against an icicle, as dark as clouds weighted with snow. Right now they gave away little, but she knew enough to read his posture -- it was politely hesitant. He was waiting for her to tell him to go to Harry, but if she did not give the word, he would go anyway.

"I'll be right back." He touched her shoulder, lightly, and turned to go. She watched him walk away. As he receded into the distance, she felt the sudden urge to call after him -- that feeling that if she let him go now, she'd never get him back again had returned, stronger than ever.

As it turned out later, the feeling was not entirely unjustified. But Hermione did not know that. She did, however, look away so that she would not see him round the corner at the end of the corridor. When she turned back at last, he was gone.

Ron had slept, on the floor, surrounded by smashed chess pieces, and now it was another day, and the Dark Lord did not want to play chess. He wanted to play with dice. Ron did not want to play dice. It was a stalemate.

"No," said Ron, sitting with his back against the empty fireplace under the carved angels with their hidden eyes. There was a stained glass window above him, and the sunlight came down through it. The red panes of the window bled on him, and the blue panes wept, and the green panes bathed everything in a poisonous light. "No. I won't play."

"Then I will break all your fingers," said Voldemort. "I will flay the skin from your hands and your feet and you will crawl to me on your knees."

"That is irrelevant," said the Dark Lord. He held a pair of amethyst dice in his bone-white hand. The dots upon it were small black rayed suns. "I wish to see what numbers you throw."

"I want to go outside," said Ron. "It's been days, I haven't seen the sun. Let me go out."

Rhysenn, in her gold cage, chuckled and hit the bars with the flat of her hand. She was naked again. Ron tried not to look at her. "The boy wants to go out," she giggled. "He actually wants to go out."

Voldemort, in a thoughtful manner, licked one of the dice with a narrow blackish tongue.

The double doors at the end of the room opened. Lucius came in. Ron was not surprised to see him. Whenever anyone came in, it was either Lucius or Wormtail. Lucius was wearing a long dark green travelling cloak fastened with what looked like a long pin made of bone. "Master," he said, and bowed to Voldemort. He turned his pewter gaze on Ron next, and smiled a thin smile. "And you, boy," he said. "How are you finding your accommodations?"

"Despite all the gambling and the widespread nudity," said Ron, "I'm fairly bored. Thanks for asking."

"Lucius," said Voldemort. He had looked up from the dice in his hand. "What is this I hear you have been doing behind my back?"

Lucius blushed -- his version of a blush, a bloodless rush of further pallor. "My Lord. What do you mean?"

"Your son." Voldemort set the die down on the table and stood. He was a head taller than Lucius, who was not a small man. "You poisoned him, I hear. I don't recollect telling you to do that."

Ron pricked up his ears. He had not known anything about this. Draco, poisoned? Harry would be beside himself, so would the rest of them. He was not sure how he felt about it himself.

"Yes," said Voldemort. "That. Must I remind you, Lucius, that boy is mine and not yours. I did not make him to be spoiled with toxins."

"It was a regrettable accident, my Lord," said Lucius. "He smashed the vial of antidote I provided. A most unforeseen outcome."

"I would have foreseen it," replied Voldemort coldly. "He hates you and wants nothing of yours. You must come at people through what they love and not what they hate. I have told you that many times, Lucius."

"Harry Potter has left Hogwarts," said Lucius, apropos of nothing, or so it seemed to Ron.

"Can you?" Voldemort's voice was lazy, curious. "Such a powerful poison you used, so rare and ancient. I am the assassin against whom no lock can hold." He chuckled dryly. "You must be very afraid of your son."

Lucius ignored this. "The antidote is simple. Save for one ingredient, which presents something of a conundrum."

For a bare fraction of a second, Lucius hesitated. "Because it doesn't exist," he said, at last.

Voldemort's scarlet eyes narrowed. He turned, and looked at Ron over his shoulder. "I do not think I want the boy listening to this," he said. He looked at Rhysenn, in her cage. "Take the boy upstairs," he said to her. "Take him to the roof."

Voldemort smiled at him, a lipless smile that chilled Ron to the core. "You wanted to see the outside of this place," he said. "Now you will see it. And may you enjoy the sight."

It had probably been only a little more than thirty minutes, but it felt to Hermione that she had been waiting in the corridor outside the infirmary for hours before the door finally opened, and Madam Pomfrey came out.

"She needs to be left alone," said Madam Pomfrey firmly. She stood like a bulwark in front of the infirmary door, her arm stretched across it, keeping Hermione out. "She was badly burned. The skin on her hand needs to be regrown, and the process is painful. It is best if she remains unconscious through it." She narrowed her eyes at Hermione. "She also has bruises on her shoulders and a cut across her scalp. Do you know anything else about what happened to her -- is there anything you can tell me?"

"That charm bracelet must have been important to her," observed Madam Pomfrey, rather dryly.

Madam Pomfrey gave her a long look. "Ah, yes. Mister Finnigan. And where is he?"

Silently, she prayed that this was true. What Ginny had said while reviving had been troubling. But then, people with head injuries often said things that made no sense. And Seamus has told Hermione yesterday that he was packing to leave. And Ginny had been babbling about Tom, and there was only one Tom that Hermione could think of that she might have meant...and that made no sense at all.

She glanced anxiously down the corridor. Where was Draco? If Harry had been in his dormitory room, they should both have been back already. And if he hadn't been there, Draco ought to have come back to tell her that. Maybe Harry had faffed off to the Owlery to send a letter to Sirius or something. Either way, Draco ought to have returned by now.

"Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said. "The charm bracelet made a mess of the Gryffindor common room. I really ought to go and clean it up. If you could come and tell me when Ginny wakes up...I think she'd be a lot happier if one of us could come and be with her..."

Madam Pomfrey nodded, tight-lipped, as Hermione made her excuses. Hermione knew perfectly well that the older witch suspected that there was more to what was going on, but had decided not to make an issue of it. For which Hermione was profoundly grateful. She told herself she would thank Madam Pomfrey at a later date, and set off, half at a run, for Gryffindor Tower.

The common room was still a disaster. It looked as if Draco had cleared something of a path through the smashed plates and scattered flowers on his way upstairs, but had not exactly stopped to tidy up. Hermione paused at the foot of the boys' staircase, pricking her ears up, wondering if Harry and Draco were up there talking.

Her uneasiness was growing inside her chest. The sense that something terrible had happened, was about to happen, seemed suddenly stifling, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Hermione half-closed her eyes. Harry, she thought. Harry...please let nothing have happened to him, please.

But surely she would know if something had. It was what she had dreaded every moment of every day, somewhere in the back of her mind, since she was eleven years old and he had sent her away, back through the fire, sent her back to safety and gone forward on his own. And she had known that it would always be like that, for as long as she loved him, this would be her life: a long series of corridors taking her away from him while he went forward towards a danger she could neither see nor protect him from.

There was no reason, now, for her to fear that something had happened to him. They were safe inside Hogwarts. He was safe. He had Draco and as long as Draco was alive, surely Harry would be alive too, because Draco would die to protect him. There was no reason for her to be afraid, but it didn't matter: sudden irrational terror gave her feet wings as she bolted upstairs, down the empty corridor, and flung open the door to the seventh year boys' dormitory.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness inside the room. The first thing she saw when the darkness cleared was Draco sitting on Harry's bed. He had something white in his hand. It took her a moment to realize that it was a piece of parchment.

She stepped forward slowly, her heartbeat slowing to normal. If something had happened to Harry, there was no way Draco would be here like this, calmly reading a bit of parchment. Still, something about his posture -- the tenseness in his shoulders, the arms rigid at his sides -- forbade approach. "Draco...?" she whispered. "What's happened? What was that you were reading?"

He raised his head and looked at her. She had always liked torchlight better than Muggle electricity; it seemed to add color to things rather than bleach colors away. Under the torches, Draco looked blond rather than silver-haired and his eyes were the pale gold of coins rubbed to a tarnished sheen. He held the parchment out to her and said in a steady voice, "It's a letter from Harry." His voice was very calm. "Only I don't think he wrote it."

"Because he wouldn't write this. He couldn't possibly have. Here -- read it," he said, and there was something odd in his voice, a slightly childish demanding tone that she'd rarely heard him use before, and then jokingly. She wasn't sure he was joking now. "You'll see what I mean."

She took the parchment from him and sat down on the bed to read it closer to the light. The handwriting leaped out at her first, it was absolutely Harry's, from the crooked t's to the inexpertly dotted i's. The handwriting of a boy who'd grown up writing in the dark, late at night, funny little journal entries he had never let her read, and as she scanned rapidly down the page she felt her mouth dry up and her heart quicken. She read it over again, just to be sure, but the words on the page still said the same thing: Draco, it feels weird to be writing you a letter, but I thought if I didn't there'd be more of a chance that you would follow me, and I don't want you to follow me--

It went on. She finished the letter, feeling stunned, almost breathless with shock. She read it again, then tore her eyes from the page and stared at Draco. He was looking at her, wide-eyed, and there was an unguarded defenselessness in his expression that took her entirely by surprise. "You see what I mean?" he said. "He couldn't have written that. He wouldn't say those things. I think--"

Something flickered behind his eyes. "No," he said, finally. "There was this..." and he took up something that had been lying beside him on the coverlet and held it out to her. The gold chain glittered like liquid fire under the torchlight and she could see the faint marks in the band of the Charm where Lucius had once scored it with his nails. "It was with the letter."

"Oh, God." Hermione heard the breathlessness in her own voice. "Oh, Harry." She reached out and took the Charm from Draco; he let her have it as if it was some casual trinket that didn't matter. "I can't believe he'd leave this behind...but then he said he didn't want to be followed..."

"Leave it behind?" Draco blinked at her. "You don't really think he wrote that letter and left this here on purpose, do you? I mean --"

"If he didn't write this, then who did?" Hermione bit her lip. "There are things in this letter that nobody could possibly know but Harry. This is his handwriting -- the way he crosses things out, even -- his way of wording things --" She broke off. "These are things nobody else could know but you two. I mean, Draco...are they true? Because I never knew that you went to visit his parents' graves. Did you?"

"Yes, we did, but -- but then someone forced him to write it!" Draco stood up suddenly, and paced away from the bed. She could see how thin his wrists were now, underneath the too-large cuffs of his jumper. "And took the Charm --"

Draco whirled and shot her a look of accusatory fury. "Don't even joke about that."

"I'm not joking." Her voice was even. "But I know Harry. And to get that Charm away from him you'd have to kill him. Unless he was willing to take it off voluntarily, it wouldn't come off. It's charmed that way, you know that, Draco."

His hands were clenching and unclenching into fists at his side as if he didn't know quite what to do with them. "You don't understand. Yesterday -- when we were talking -- he promised --"

"I know what he promised. It says it in the letter. Draco --" She yearned to reach out and touch him but held herself back. "People break promises. Even Harry breaks promises. If he thought it was for your good somehow --"

"I know." She looked at the piece of parchment in her lap. For a moment she wondered whether to point out the fact that Harry, apparently, hadn't left her any kind of message at all. But she doubted Draco would be very much moved by that -- better no letter than one like this. Some part of her own mind rebelled against the idea that Harry could have written something so carelessly cruel. "It's a horrible letter. I don't want to think Harry wrote it, either. But the alternatives are worse. Either he wrote this and went off voluntarily or he didn't write this and something awful has happened to him -- I'd rather think he did this than that he's dead --"

"Can you..." She made her voice as soft as possible. "Can you reach him at all?"

Draco shook his head. His mouth was a thin tense line. "No. He's blocking me. But I can feel him. I know he's alive."

"Well, then..." Hermione looked down at the parchment in her lap. For a moment there was only the crackling of the fire. She could feel Draco standing near her, vibrating with tension like a strung wire. She reached into her pocket and drew her wand out and touched the end to the letter, half-whispering the words of the spell, which she'd used before less than a fortnight ago....

The parchment trembled. Then the words on the page rearranged themselves to form a single name: HARRY JAMES POTTER.

Hermione jerked her head up and looked at Draco. She was standing close enough to him that she saw his color go, like flame blown out in a lamp. But other than that, he was expressionless. "Draco..."

"All right, then," he said. His voice was expressionless, too, and careful. "If that's the way it is."

"It's better than if something had happened to him," she said, in a half-whisper.

"I know." He spoke stiffly. "I guess I hadn't thought about it that way. You're right, of course." He pushed a lock of bright hair out of his eyes. Eyes that were wide open but looked shut, the blank eyes of someone who had just died. "You're always right."

Hermione put the letter down. She stood up, reaching her hand out to him. He had turned his face away from her; she could not read his expression. She could see the rapid pulse beating at the base of his throat, where his shirt fell away from the fragile collarbone. There were words she wanted to say. Words she would have said to Harry if it had been some similar situation, love-words and endearments. But they dried up in her throat. She couldn't imagine them as applied to Draco Malfoy, who didn't lie, didn't dance, didn't faint, didn't cry, and didn't, ever, show that he felt anything at all. Not even now.

"I think maybe he wanted you to be angry at him," she said. "So you wouldn't miss him when he was gone..."

"No." Draco's voice was flat. He reached out and took the Charm out of her outstretched hand, and she saw the gold flecks of the firelight reflected in his iron-colored eyes. He closed his fingers around the Charm and said, "He doesn't think like that or tell those kind of lies. He knows me well enough to know that it wouldn't be some kind of favor to me to let me die hating him --"

"You're not going to die!" Hermione exploded. "Don't say that! And you could never hate Harry! It isn't in you --"

"Oh, God," said Draco and there was a terrible almost-mirthful humorlessness in his voice. "Save me from you bloody Gryffindors! You're just like him! I wonder if that's why --" He broke off, shaking his head, and his hair flew around him like colorless starlight. "Don't tell me what I'm capable of," he said, his voice calmer now. "Or what bloody good reason Potter might have had for what he's done. Tell yourself whatever pretty stories you want, but leave me out of it. Understand?"

Hermione felt a prickle of despair at her heart. It had been a long time since Draco had called Harry by his surname when speaking about him. And she did understand, despite herself. Draco came from a line of highborn wizards who would rather throw themselves on the point of the sword than wait for the slow transfixion, and as much as he had defied his father he was still a Malfoy through and through. He did not lie to others unless he had to and telling himself lies would be the worst sin of all.

But he was backing away from her now; he almost knocked into the small table by Seamus' bed and they both stiffened with the surprise -- she could not remember ever having seen Draco walk into anything before. "I should go," he said. "I should..."

"Where are you going?" she interrupted, trying to keep the frantic note out of her voice. "Don't leave me right now -- I need you."

He paused, his back against the door, feeling behind himself for the knob. "No," he said. "You don't," and he pushed the door open and went out, closing it behind him. Hermione sank back onto the bed, hearing his footsteps receding down the corridor outside.

The sky had never burned in Diagon Alley, of course. In Diagon Alley it had been dark all day and dark all night because of the Cloaking Charms the Ministry used to protect themselves against Grindelwald's aerial attacks, but the sky had not burned. Under the canopy of the charms, the still air had been hot and stifling, lit by torchlight; it smelled of smoke and burning things. Shops were shuttered, the windows empty. There was little to sell, with importing curtailed: no dragon's blood from Germany, no phoenix feathers from the East. Potions were trading at three times their cost on the black market, and wands were strictly rationed.

He remembered the smoke, the darkness and the burning. And at the Muggle orphanage it had been no better. He had stood on the roof with the other children and in the distance had seen the cities burn. They had cried around him, saying it was the end of the world. Tom had smiled to himself, pitying them: they knew only one world. He knew more.

Once he had brushed up against a soldier home on leave, in a crowded Muggle street; he had murmured Visificus under his breath and the images of war and death had poured into his mind like water from a broken dam. He saw men dying. They died on the beaches and in holes in the ground and they fell from the air like burst flowers of fire. They died calling for their mothers and more often they died calling for water. They crawled in their own blood and tore at their own skin. And he had known then, with a cold uncompassionate clarity, that this would never happen to him: he would make sure of it. He would never die. Death was interesting to him, in a distant sort of way: the artistry of it, the mechanics, the complex engines of life running down and stopping all in a single instant. But he wanted no part of it. It was too commonplace, too ordinary. Too human.

He looked around him now, at the few people hurrying back and forth along the alley under the bright winter sun. This was a weak generation, he thought. A generation unused to trial or hardship or horror, a generation which idealized as a hero a wisp of a boy whose greatest achievement had apparently been failing to die. They would be easy pickings. A small smile twisted the corner of Tom's mouth.

He turned and went back into the Leaky Cauldron. He paused inside the entryway and looked at himself in the mirror over the door. He wondered how long it would be before that reflected face no longer gave him a moment of startled pause. And what a face it was: tow-blond hair and all, an angel face if ever there was one. He fought down a ripple of mirth.

Inside the Leaky Cauldron, he ordered a mug of hot-spiced butterbeer, asked for and received a quill and parchment, and took a seat by the fireplace, in a shadowed corner, where he would not be seen. He sat with his hood up, looking at the parchment and thinking. As he sat and thought, he wound what looked like a thin thread of copper wire slowly around his forefinger, over and over. He had found it stuck to the blood on his hands, later. Her hair.

He ceased the nervous gesture and began to think in earnest. It was imperative first of all, now that he was inhabiting the body of Seamus Finnegan, that the disguise hold as long as possible. That meant no one should come looking for Seamus. The brats at Hogwarts wouldn't dare, they'd be too keen on saving their own skins, and who would believe them anyway? But there was Seamus' family to contend with. Tom knew from his access to Seamus' memories, which was growing stronger by the moment, that Seamus did indeed have two parents, who loved him. They would be tedious and come looking for him if something wasn't done to forestall them.

He licked the nib of the quill -- he'd always liked the taste of ink, and this was good ink, not the cheap, rationed stuff -- and started writing.

Your son Seamus here. I know I said I'd be home for New Year's, but I'm afraid that just isn't going to happen. I've been in London the last few days, generally living the high life and catching up on my Oscar Wilde short stories (after all, he is one of the greatest authors of our little country, isn't he?) and in short, I've reached a decision. It's time to tell you that I fancy other men. Yes, it's the truth. I can no longer hide my true nature. I expect you will never want to see me again and have resigned myself to that fate. If you decide to disinherit me I'll understand.

Tom surveyed the letter with a critical eye. It sounded idiotic, which seemed appropriate, as in his considered opinion, Seamus was an idiot. If that didn't stymie the senior Finnigans, nothing would. He addressed the letter with a flourish, and went looking for an owl.

The heavy iron door of the Potions dungeon slammed closed behind Hermione. She strode into the center of the room. Snape, at work over his cauldrons, turned and looked at her with an expression of grim inquiry.

He turned away from his worktable and glanced at her. His eyes, under the overgrown black brows, were sharply hooded. He seemed expressionless as his gaze raked her; then he turned entirely towards her, looping his thin hands into the sleeves of his dark robes. "I do not require your assistance," he said.

Snape slowly removed his thin white hands from the sleeves of his robe. "Potter is gone, then," he said. "He's left?"

Snape stood very still for a moment. Hermione looked at him and thought about how much she had hated this man once, the cruel things he had said to her, his viciousness towards Harry. That Dumbledore allowed this behavior had always made her question the Headmaster's judgement, although Harry had maintained that Dumbledore did it to prove the point that evil existed in the universe, however mysteriously permitted, and that one day they would all have to learn to cope with it.

She was not sure she had ever learned to cope with it, but somewhere along the line she had stopped hating Snape. For the past few days she had not even minded working alongside him -- of course she would have thrown in her lot with Satan himself if it would have gotten an antidote for Draco. But she would have minded. Working with Snape had been surprisingly painless. He was, if nothing else, brilliant at his craft, and Hermione respected that.

"I did not know," Snape said finally. "I had hoped that in the end Potter would do the correct and advisable thing -- I suggested it to him -- but I did not know."

Snape blinked his hooded eyes once, slowly. His expression was unreadable. Hermione wondered if he could see the image that her words conjured up so clearly in her mind: Draco on the bed, reading the letter, probably having read it a dozen times, several dozen times, as if somehow closer examination would transform the words on the page or make them mean something other than they did.

"That letter," Hermione said. "Did you also suggest to Harry that he ought to write those things?"

"Certainly not." Snape's tone was brisk. "As if I would interest myself in Potter's sentimental drivel."

Snape shrugged once, briefly. "That is as it may be," he said. "What is significant is that he is gone."

"He has greater worries than Potter's whereabouts. He has his antidote to take and his health should be of primary concern --"

"I've looked all over the castle for him. I can't even find him. I've been looking for him for hours." Her voice trembled. "What good is a bloody antidote when I can't find him to make sure he takes it?"

"His distress will be temporary," said Snape, still in the same brisk tone. "That bond he has with Potter will atrophy. Distance will erode it, just as proximity intensifies it. It is the nature of such an affinity. Its occult origins give it strength, but also they provide the key to breaking it."

"I don´t want it broken," Hermione said, so fiercely that her chest hurt. "And I don´t see why you do, either, or why you care, or why you'd want to meddle, either. I know you hate Harry --"

"This has very little to do with Potter," said Snape icily. "And you might wish to know that when I spoke of side effects to the antidote affecting Draco's Magid powers, I did not tell you all of them. Do keep in mind that as long as that bond between the two is open, as long as their thoughts and feelings and emotions flow unblocked between them, your precious Potter may well be physically vulnerable to both the antidote's side effects, and the corruption of the poison."

Hermione was stunned. It had never occurred to her that the mental bond between the two boys could have a physical effect on either of them. God damn Snape for bringing up Harry's health, the one issue that panicked her more than any other. "You can't be certain," she opined at last, but a great deal of the fervor had gone from her voice.

"No. But are you willing to take the risk? I would imagine that you would agree that Potter will need all his powers intact for what he will soon have to face."

"They can block each other," Hermione said. "They can control it. Draco could be useful to Harry even if they can't read each other's minds --"

"They cannot control it," Snape said. "And you're a fool if you think they can. They have learned to depend upon each other. Unconsciously, each will continue to reach out for the other, unless they are put in a position where neither is willing or able to do that. Imagine I told you that you could no longer use your right hand. You would refrain from using it for as long as you consciously recollected the prohibition. The moment you were distracted, instinct would triumph over instruction. Unless, of course, that hand was broken - impossible to use."

"I hate this," said Hermione intently. "I hate all of it. And you - and Dumbledore --" She swept Snape with a scornful gaze. "I always wondered if you were behind more of this than you've ever admitted to -- that Polyjuice potion --"

"Is this," Snape interrupted, in a low, serpentine voice, "what you meant by needing something to do, Miss Granger? I had thought perhaps that you wished to learn how Draco's antidote is made. But perhaps you would prefer to simply fling voluble, if unfounded, accusations at me. Which is less than interesting. You may continue, but do not expect me to pay attention. I have work that requires doing."

Hermione blinked at him. She had registered little beyond his offer regarding Draco's antidote. "You'd teach me how to make it?"

"There might come a time," he said, "when you might need to make it, and I might not be there. I cannot teach Draco to make it himself. Eventually he will be too ill for that. It would not be a fair expectation."

"No -- of course -- I mean, I want to know how to make it. I very much want to know."

"Are you sure?" The black eyes under the hooded lids held a latent somberness that was disconcerting. "The side effects are not pleasant. Nor is the taking of the potion itself. It can be painful, and will grow more so the more he takes it. It is constructed to burn the poison out of his blood. As the poison grown stronger and its concentration in his blood increases, the process will be more painful. The more he has of that antidote, the more it will hurt him."

"Even then," Hermione said. She hardly recognized her own voice, the flat determination in it. "He needs it."

Hermione raised her chin and looked at him. He was pale, severe-looking, eyes like black hollows in his gauntly tired face. But she knew that tiredness came from all the nights he had spent working to create this antidote, which, imperfect as it was, was all that they had. And she also knew that Snape himself probably expected that she and Draco would go after Harry eventually. That he knew they could not be kept back. And that he was giving her this knowledge, this antidote, so that if they did go, Draco would be as safe as he could be. So he did care about Draco, even if only a little. And they had that in common. She had never had anything in common with Snape before.

Snape nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he walked around the table and picked up a vial of blackish fluid. "Extract of nightshade," he began, "must first be added to the powdered belladonna, in that order, for the combination to be effective. The subsequent addition of the asphodel is a delicate procedure..."

Blaise found herself taking something of a leisurely tour of the Parkinson estate before she finally discovered Pansy, who was dancing partly dressed on top of a long oak table in the solarium.

Blaise stood next to the table and cleared her throat loudly. Pansy, however, appeared not to notice. She had her hands up over her head and was dancing slowly and drunkenly. Her red silk blouse had slipped down over her shoulders and Blaise could see that her girlish over-the-knee stockings had begun to roll down from the tops. She felt what she always felt around Pansy these days -- pity, mixed with exasperation and suspicion.

She heard a chuckle at her elbow. It was Terence Higgs, having apparently rid himself of his roller skates. "Need a hand up on the table there, Blaise?"

She looked at him narrowly. Attracted to his sandy hair and big dark eyes, she had dated Terence briefly in fifth year before she had come to the weary realization that he was like most Quidditch players: far more interested in Bludgers, Quaffles, and squashing the Gryffindor team than he was in anything else.

"Not sure you'll have any luck talking to Pansy," he added conversationally. "She's had five Dementor's Kisses already. If I were you, I'd get her out of here before she passes out and Marcus or Gregory get their hands on her."

Blaise looked where he was indicating and saw Marcus Flint and Gregory Goyle in the doorway, watching Pansy with knowing smiles. "Ugh," she said. "Terence, help me up."

Terence helped himself to a generous feel of her thigh as he assisted her up onto the table. Blaise let him. A favor was a favor, after all. She got her footing, stepped away, and winked down at him.

"Go distract Greg and Marcus, there's a dear," she said to him, in that tone of voice she had learned, in fact, from Draco -- a tone that promised without promising. As she smiled down at Terence, it was Draco she saw suddenly in her mind's eye. The beginning of term, standing in the sunshine outside the Quidditch changing rooms before their first game, waiting for her to come out, and when she did he'd held out his arms to her, his leather wristguards hanging loose and open. "Buckle me," he'd said, and she'd done it, staring into his eyes the entire time. He'd looked back at her, letting her watch him as if this was some gift he was giving her, and she'd stared at him despite her resentment of his arrogance because he was so beautiful: all that pale hair fired with sunlight, gray eyes bright as shards of glass against the lightly tanned skin. He had done no more than smile at her when she was done, drawing his hands back: "Thanks." And she'd wanted to do something to him, she wasn't sure what, kissing him didn't seem like enough, she'd almost wanted to bite the hand she was still holding by its fingers, hurt and startle him and make him jump, at least he'd be reacting to her then. He was so removed, behind that glass wall she could not penetrate, and she suspected that was why she wanted him so much. Because he was un-haveable.

Thinking about him now made her skin prickle. She turned away from Terence and walked across the table to Pansy, her high heels clicking on the polished wood surface. Reaching the other girl, she tapped her on the shoulder. "Pansy, I need to talk to --"

Pansy swung around drunkenly, saw Blaise, and nearly collapsed against her. Blaise struggled to stay upright with Pansy clinging to her like a limpet.

"Blaise....darling...dance with me," Pansy slurred, her little fox paw hands seizing onto Blaise's waist and pulling her close. She smelled of fever and alcohol, like an overheated dish of brandy. "Everyone will watch us...it'll be fun."

"Pansy, you're drunk. And even if you weren't, I've no inclination to put on a show for Goyle and Flint."

Pansy just giggled and continued to cling on. Flint and Goyle watched hopefully from the sidelines.

Blaise rolled her eyes. "You know, down at the Sleazy Weasel, they pay for performances like this."

"Because I don't want to engage in a table-dancing act for a bunch of gaping plebes? Just because you demean yourself, Pansy, doesn't mean I want to." She jerked on Pansy's arm. "Come on. I want to talk to you. Preferably before you ask Goyle to drink tonic water out of your bra and I have to beat him off with a stick."

"I would never ask Goyle to drink tonic water out of my bra." Pansy hiccuped. "Flint is much more fanciable."

"They're both revolting and if you could tell them apart in your state I'd be shocked. Come along, Pansy. Don't make me drag you."

It once again required the assistance of Terence to manhandle Pansy down off the table and set her on her feet. Blaise hopped down after her, not in the mood for more of Terence's pawings. Ignoring his leer, she pushed Pansy ahead of her, past Flint and Goyle, down the hall, and into a small side bedroom.

Closing the door behind them, Blaise took out her wand and pointed it at Pansy. "Sobrietus!"

Pansy collapsed backward onto the bed as if Blaise had pushed her, and covered her face with her hands.

Blaise slid her wand back into the top of her stocking and crossed her arms. "Sit up, Pansy."

Pansy sat up slowly. She was rumpled, her lipstick smeared, her hair in unsightly snarls. She was also, obviously, stone cold sober. "You cow," she said. "You didn't have to do that."

"Oh, but I think I did. I needed to talk to you, and that wasn't going to happen while you were determined to show your knickers to the entire Slytherin seventh year class."

"I don't know, you were getting a bit too hands-on with me there for a while. Not that I blame you. You must be rather lonely, what with your little boyfriend having vanished off the face the earth."

"And there you're so right," Blaise agreed pleasantly. "Considering he wouldn't have laid a finger on you if he'd known who you really were."

Pansy sneered. "As opposed to all the fingers Draco laid on you? Like we didn't all know he was only going out with you so nobody would notice he was trying to get into that horrid Gryffindor's pants --"

Pansy shrugged. "I wouldn't have thought it of Draco, either. He was always so proper. So right about Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers, but I guess that's what some purebloods want, they want to roll around in the mud, they like whatever's dirty and sickening..."

Blaise leaned back against the door. "And what about Ron Weasley? Did he make you sick, was that what that was?"

Pansy raised her chin. "He's a pureblood," she said. "His blood's as blue as Draco's is. The Weasleys are just poor, is all. Which you ought to know about, Blaise."

"Oh, yes. You are." Blaise detached herself from the door and crossed the room to stand by Pansy. She was looking down at the top of the other girl's head now, where her tangled brown hair had escaped its glittering pins. "What did you give him, Pansy?" she asked softly. "There weren't enough protection spells for all of us, and you wouldn't have let him go on unarmed like that, not if you were in love with him. What did you do to protect him?"

"Oh, but it does. I remember you asking me for one of my extra barrettes, and how hacked off you were when I wouldn't give it to you. But you know the strictures against giving out our protections to those outside the circle. I'm guessing you made your own. Does Weasley even know what it was you gave him?"

Pansy's lips twitched. She looked as if she were about to break into one of those vindictive sobbing fits she was so prone to. But Blaise took almost no notice: her mind was ticking back, bits and pieces of half-forgotten events clicking into place like bits of a puzzle being fitted together. She remembered Ginny Weasley tumbling precipitately off her broom after flying near her brother during that last Quidditch match, remembered Neville Longbottom trying to enlist the help of the school prefects to find his missing toad. Remembered sitting by Malcolm's bed in the hospital wing as he tried to recollect the last thing he had seen before he'd been knocked out, remembered him telling her he'd been on his way to the prefects' meeting room....

"Bloody hell, Pansy," she said. "That was risky. And at school, too. Did you kill it yourself? How'd you get rid of it?"

Pansy's head jerked up, her lips curling back over her small, pointed teeth. "Shut up, Blaise," she hissed. "You don't know anything --"

"And so do I!" Pansy was on her feet, her small hands gripped into fists at her side. "I notice you're not wearing your barrettes, Blaise darling," she hissed. "I wonder where they are? If I had to guess, I'd say you gave them to Draco, your darling Draco, that traitorous Mudblood-loving rat. You know perfectly well why he wasn't meant to have any. He's not one of us anymore. You talk about me being in love -- I've seen you looking at him when you think he doesn't see you. Maybe he paid you off, but it was real for you, wasn't it, Blaise? Mock me all you want -- at least I got to have Ron -- at least he wanted to be with me --"

"At least what I gave him will protect him!" Pansy raged, her pale little face distended with fury. "You can't protect Draco -- he's not to be let live -- I heard my father say so -- he'll die and there's nothing you can do about it -- and I'm glad! You always got every boy you ever wanted, Blaise, every boy you ever looked at. All you had to do was smile at them and they'd fall over themselves and you never wanted any of them. But you wanted him. And you couldn't have him -- he never wanted you back -- you saw him looking over at the Gryffindor table, just like I did -- and now he'll die, and you'll never have him, and I hope it hurts you, I hope it breaks your heart, if you even have one --"

Gasping, Pansy cut herself off. Tears were pouring down her flushed cheeks. Her hands were still fisted at her sides.

Blaise looked at her. "What do you mean?" she said, in a deadly quiet tone. "About Draco. Is something going to happen to him?"

Pansy raised her damp face. Her small mouth was set in a hard little line. "Don't you get it?" she said. "It's already happened."

"You can't help him," Pansy said. "You can't even help yourself," and with that, she pushed past Blaise, flounced to the door, and stalked out, slamming it hard behind her.

In the ancient days of the wizarding world, and even now sometimes among the upper classes and the more traditional families, one could often tell the content of a letter by the color of the bird chosen to deliver it. A white bird meant a message of peace or friendship, red was for love, black for vengeance, brown for a peace offering, blue meant victory and gray meant death or defeat.

The bird that swooped in the window of the castle that afternoon was a brown barn owl, its throat ringed with a collar of metal. It was pleased to find the inside of the castle warm, and rode the gentle currents of air with slight motions of its wings, sailing down corridors and up staircases until it found the small room with the boy it was looking for inside it.

The boy sat against the wall with his legs drawn up, his pale-blond head on his knees and his slender arms wrapped around himself, and silvery light pooled around him on the floor, or perhaps it was not light at all.

Very slowly, Draco raised his head from his arms and looked at the bird. He had been sitting in this one position for so long that even raising his head sent a shock of pain down through his cramped muscles.

He wondered vaguely at the fact that the bird had managed to find him. He would not have expected anyone to be able to find him where he had gone, but then this was one of his father's owls, bred to his own blood, and besides, they were the best owls money could buy.

What he had been holding in his hand dropped to the ground with a metallic clang as he reached to take the letter strapped to the bird's leg. His hand hurt badly, and it took several tries before he was able to unfasten the letter and open it. Only later did it occur to him that perhaps he should have used his other hand for the task.

The light coming through the narrow window above him had begun to dim. Late afternoon, then. Draco stretched his legs out along the stone floor, ignoring the shrieks of protest from his cramped joints, and read the letter he had spread out on his lap.

He has left you then, as I expected he would. I told you once you were wasting your time to barter your destiny for the friendship of a boy who would never like you; you have gone one better than that, and thrown away your life. You never did know when enough was enough.

That aside, I am not writing to merely to upbraid you. Severus will not find the antidote he seeks for you. I can tell you that with utter honesty. Your only hope for survival, indeed, for salvation, rests with me. I am your father. I gave you life once, and am prepared to do it again. The Dark Lord has vowed to me that he will see it done, and indeed, with the aid of the Worthy Objects, it can be done.

In exchange for my aid to you, I expect a token of your subsequent unswerving loyalty to me. Should you see reason at any point in the future, and I expect that you will, send back to me the seal ring I gave you, the mark of our family. By that token I will know that you have come to your senses, regained your familial pride, and are prepared to once again stand on our side.

Consider quickly, Draco. The time you have for this decision is not much. It should be an easy choice. When last we spoke, it appeared to me that you thought you had discovered something worth dying for. Can you still say the same?

Draco looked down at the letter for several long moments. He scrubbed the back of his bruised and dirty hand across his eyes, and read the letter again. Then he turned it over, Summoned a quill to himself, and wrote across the blank back of the parchment three short sentences in what looked like silvery ink. It was not ink.

The physical act of writing hurt too much for him to want to write anything lengthier. Besides, Draco felt he had little more to say on the subject. He would hear back from his father on this topic, he was quite sure. This letter had been the opening salvo in what promised to be a most unpleasant exchange. Not that Draco cared. In comparison to the other letter he had received that day, the missive from his father seemed as gentle as a pat on the head.

He strapped the letter to the owl's leg, and watched it fly out the open window and into the late afternoon sky beyond.

Once inside King's Cross, Harry debated briefly what to do with his baggage -- he wasn't keen on hefting an enormous bag that held half of his worldly possessions in it through Diagon Alley all day. Especially once he realized that the words GRYFFINDOR SEEKER were still embroidered across the side of the bag in yellow thread. He'd have to do something about that.

Harry remembered Draco telling him, You suck at incognito, Potter, and shrugged wryly to himself.

He wound up storing his bag in a locker, which took the last of his Muggle money. He'd have to walk to the Leaky Cauldron, but he didn't mind much, the exercise would hopefully wake him up. He pulled the wrapper off a Scrumdiddlyumptious bar and nibbled it thoughtfully on his way to the station exit (having conscientiously shoved the wrapper into his pocket, as it wouldn't do to have the Muggle porters encountering the moving pictures on the enchanted plastic.)

The exit escalator took Harry past a bank of mirrors. It took him a moment to recognize himself, and then he stared. The boy looking back at him from the mirror's flat surface, with his Muggle clothes -- jeans and trainers, zip-up blue rain jacket, worn white t-shirt -- his tangled black hair, his face looking strangely naked without his glasses, seemed for a moment a stranger. And the clothes, which he had dug out of the back of his closet, looked so aggressively Muggle. They made him think of his past self, the Harry who lived with the Dursleys, the Harry who ached to belong somewhere, anywhere other than where he was.

Harry, who had found the place where he belonged, and then left it in order to save it.

And that was another thing. More than anything else, he thought to himself, he looked young and defenseless. Without his robes, without a wand in his hand, without his scar or the badge of his House, he looked like any teenage boy. Half gawky adolescent and half defenseless child. A little boy with a chocolate bar in his hand. And he was supposed to save the world.

He wished abruptly that Draco was there, because Draco would tell him that he was being stupid. It wasn't as if he'd wandered arbitrarily into the business of world saving, he'd been born to it, bred to it, was uniquely marked for it. Blood, inheritance and choices had made him what he was. Every choice he had ever made bringing him to this place and to the points beyond it. It didn't matter that he looked like a boy. He was more than that, and he'd have to learn to accept it.

You're being stupid, Potter, he said to himself, as he reached the top of the escalator and tossed the rest of his half-eaten chocolate bar into the nearest bin. All those years poncing around like you're the Chosen One and now you're trying to get out of it? Would it help if I got you a Harry Potter, World Savior nametag you could wear around the house so you don't forget?

The voice in his head had a slight drawling quality to it. Although Harry knew his inner monologue was not nearly as funny as Draco would have been under the same circumstances, he grinned faintly to himself anyway as he walked out of the station. It helped a little, if not by much.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon and Hermione had just finished cleaning up the mess in the common room. Hours had passed since she had finished with Snape in the Potions dungeon. He'd forced her to make the antidote mixture no less than five times until her methodology was perfect. Hermione had almost enjoyed the experience. She had always liked being able to lose herself in the solution to a problem. It was not until she left the dungeon, a box filled with the ingredients needed to make a fortnight's worth of antidote in her arms, that she'd again faced the fact that Draco was still missing.

A second thorough search of the castle had turned up nothing. The Slytherin dungeons were empty and there was no reply when she banged on Draco's door. She'd horribly annoyed Madam Pomfrey by showing up twice at the infirmary door tearfully inquiring if Draco had come by and had scandalized Filch by appearing in his office to beg for his assistance. He'd sent her away smartly. She'd wanted to see Dumbledore, but Filch had grumblingly told her that Dumbledore had been called away to the Ministry.

In despair, she'd set herself to the task of cleaning up the common room. She didn't want to think about what Draco might be doing, and she didn't want to think about Harry. Therefore, she needed something to do. Otherwise, it was too overwhelming.

Cleaning up took less time than she had expected. Having cast the last Reparo charm on a smashed lamp, Hermione rose to her feet --

And almost dropped her wand as the portrait door swung wide open, and Draco stepped into the room.

Hermione stood frozen for a moment, completely unsure what to do. She stared at him. And he looked back at her, hands in his pockets, shoulders canted slightly, an inquiring look on his face. She wasn't sure what she had expected, exactly. Some sign of terrific inner turmoil, whatever that might happen to be. If it had been Harry, whatever he was feeling would have been written all over his face. But it was Draco and his face was unreadable.

He looked...the same. Bright silver-gilt hair perfectly in place, perfectly elegant clothes perfectly clean and perfectly worn. The only odd thing was that there were gloves on his hands. It was warm in the room and she could not imagine why he was wearing gloves indoors. Perhaps he had just come from outside. Perhaps he had taken a walk around the lake to clear his head. Perhaps he hadn't, after all, been down in the cellars setting fire to things and jumping up on and down on anything that reminded him of Harry.

"Thinking," he said. He flung himself into the armchair opposite the fire and stretched his long legs out until his feet rested on the ottoman near the fire. "And I talked to Snape a bit."

Hermione came and sat down opposite him, still staring. "Did you take your antidote?" she demanded, trying to keep the worst of the panicked inquiry from her voice.

He raised one silver eyebrow. "Of course I did. Why wouldn't I?" He stretched his hands out towards the fire, saw her looking at his gloves, and retracted them. "I think we ought to discuss our game plan," he said.

She nodded, unable to speak. She had been prepared for incoherently upset or hysterical Draco. She was not prepared for calm, rational, faintly bored-looking Draco. As if his best friend in the world ran off on him towards certain death every day, leaving behind a letter telling him that every single awful thing he might ever have thought about himself was essentially true. She had seen Draco get more upset than this over a hangnail. In fact, the temper tantrum he had thrown over a bad haircut in sixth year was still a legend. People pointed at the scorch marks on the dungeon wall and spoke of the incident in hushed tones.

"I mean, he doesn't want to be followed. I understand that. And normally I'd say we should just let him go. After all, he seems to have a decent handle on the situation, wouldn't you say? And heroic rescues are awfully embarrassing if you're rescuing someone who isn't actually in danger."

"I mean, you say, 'Here we are to save you,' and they say, 'But I just ran off to have a quiet think and a pint,' and then there's embarrassment and apologies and you've wasted a whole afternoon and I think I feel a bit sick. Ugh." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. "The antidote," he said. "It makes me a little nauseated. Sorry. Where was I?"

"Rescuing people who aren't in danger," she replied, quietly. "Draco. What are you doing?"

Something flashed behind his eyes briefly, a dark light that sent a chill through Hermione's nerves. "I don't know what you mean. We were talking about everyone's favorite subject. The Boy Who Ran Away. Leaving you to pick up the pieces as usual, I might add. Being a selfish fuckwit must just be built into that whole 'How To Be A Hero' business."

"Because villains are noted for their kindness and generosity?" Hermione said. A faint inkling of what was going on with Draco had begun to seep into her consciousness. "Look, I know you're angry at Harry --"

"This isn't angry," Draco said. A bright spark of fire flashed beneath the lowered lids of his eyes. "And I'd rather not have a sentimental conversation about Potter, if you don't mind. As my father used to say, sentiment breeds weakness. A prescient man, my father."

"True," Draco admitted. "But as a strategic move, you must admit it was effective."

Hermione stared at him. Finally, she said faintly, "I think you'd better tell me about your game plan."

"All right." Draco leaned forward. The firelight danced along the curve of his mouth as he talked, the line of the full lower lip marked as if he had bitten it. "He might not be letting me into his mind these days, but I can still think like he does. He left his Firebolt behind, so he didn't go anywhere by broomstick. He could have Flooed, but I know he hates that, and besides, Floo networks can be tampered with. I would imagine he took the train. Either from Hogsmeade or from one of the Muggle villages along the train route to London. Probably the midnight train. We've taken that one ourselves, if you recall."

"I recall," said Hermione. "And I'd pretty much come to that conclusion too. So I'm glad we agree. The question, of course, is where did he get off the train?"

"London," said Draco promptly. "He'd go to London. He's familiar enough with it that it won't panic him, it's big enough that he can lose himself, Diagon Alley has whatever he might need, and if he needs money he'll have to go to Gringotts. And he will need money. He never brings enough to school and he always has to owl for extra if he wants to buy anything."

"He wouldn't walk into Gringotts as Harry Potter," Hermione pointed out. "He's not that dense. And he wouldn't stay at the Leaky Cauldron. He'd find somewhere where they wouldn't recognize him on sight. I wish I had a map of wizarding London --" Her mind was busy now, ticking over possibilities. "Have you got one?"

Draco looked thoughtful. "I have a map of wizarding strip clubs but I doubt that would be all that useful to you."

"Fantastic Breasts and Where to Find Them. You can borrow it if you think it will help."

"Who knows?" Draco's voice was careless. "That boy is apparently just full of surprises."

He folded his arms across his chest, interlacing the gloved fingers. "Hermione?" he replied, mimicking her serious tone.

"What are we going to do with him? Bring him back here, I guess. Did you think we should go somewhere else?"

"No. I didn't mean that. I mean...what are you going to do?" She took a deep breath. "I can tell what you're doing. And I know why you're doing it. And if that's what you have to do, then fine. But it won't hold when you see Harry and you know it won't --"

Bang! Draco had kicked over the ottoman. It hit the floor with a crash that made Hermione jump. "Are you asking me if I'm going to hurt him?" he said, and there was suddenly a terrible light in his eyes and his voice cut like the edge of a whip. "Are you asking me that?"

"Then what did you mean?" His eyes narrowed and Hermione shivered. For a moment she remembered all those past years, the semi-feral cruelty of which this delicately pretty boy was capable when pushed.

"Actually, I didn't." He lowered his eyelids. His lashes were a shade darker than his hair, a tarnished color. "And for your information, I want to find him for the same reasons you do. Well, perhaps not precisely the same reasons," and his lip curled slightly, less a smile than wry shrug. "To make sure he's all right, to bring him back safe, you know the story. So he won't die. Because I promised I'd look after him, didn't I? And I will."

"I don´t understand why you're doing this," she said, despairingly. "It's me -- I love Harry -- I miss Harry -- I want to talk about it --"

"Back at the Manor," Draco interrupted, still staring at the fire, his voice very flat, "back at the Manor, when I was growing up, my father used to have this chair he'd bring out every time he had a dinner party and he'd put it next to him and I'd have to sit in it. Those parties used to go on for hours and hours. You wouldn't know what something like that would be like, but they're like ceremonies. Very formal affairs. Everyone plays a part. Everyone. My father was like that. He planned everything. That chair was a special trick of his. It was enchanted. It had what looked like a row of raised decorations across the back. But they weren't just decorations. They were filed to points like knives. They ran along the arms of the chair, too. And I'd have to sit very straight all through dinner and speak normally and behave normally, and if I moved to make myself more comfortable, or shifted away from the knives, then they'd get longer, and sharper, and it would be worse. And I couldn't get up or get away from them. I had to pretend that I was having a good time. And I got good at it, too. It took years. But everyone always told my father what wonderful manners I had."

"Not a riddle," he clarified. "A parable. They're two entirely different things."

"A short tale from which a moral conclusion may be drawn. Better living through allegory. Surely you know what a parable is."

"I know what a parable is," Hermione said. "But I don't have quite the gothic turn of mind that you have. I'm practical. You know that. If thinking about Harry is like knives sticking into you then I don't see why you would even agree to come with me and look for him in the first place --"

"I haven't got a choice," said Draco. "You ought to know that. It's your doing, anyway."

"'Stay with him'," Draco said. "Don't you remember? '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. Promise me, Draco. Promise me.'"

Hermione blinked at him. "I didn't think this would happen," she said. "When I made you promise that. I thought I might not be there to protect him, and that you would. You don't have to..."

"But I do have to," he said. "I'm a Malfoy. And I gave you my word. I don't get out of that."

"No," he said. "You can't. And you wouldn't, if you could. You said you needed me. You said I shouldn't leave you. Do you want me to leave you?"

He was still staring at the fire. Hermione wound her fingers nervously together. "No," she said. And then, "Can I ask you just one more thing?"

"I still think we should start with Gringotts," he said, cutting her off. "It's worth owling them. At least we can alert them to look for Harry. The Leaky Cauldron, too. He's Harry. He forgets...sometimes...how famous he is. He'd cover his scar, I think...maybe take his glasses off. But I don't think he realizes how recognizable his face is. Even his eyes. Not a lot of people have eyes that color. I don't think it would occur to him to change them..."

Hermione slid off the chair. She was kneeling on the floor now, not at his feet, but opposite him, looking up at his face. He was still staring into the fire and his hands were a black tangle in his lap.

"Draco," she said, again. Her voice caught -- she wanted to say gentle things, but knew her words would break like hummingbird wings against the glass walls of the resistance he had thrown up to keep everyone out and himself in. "Did you..."

Before he could speak the portrait door swung open and Madam Pomfrey stepped into the room. She looked slightly flustered and there was a packet of bandages still in her hand, as if she'd forgotten she was holding it.

"Ginny is awake," she said. "She's asking for you both. She says she has to speak to you immediately."

The goblin behind the bank teller window squinted its eyes at him suspiciously. "And you're quite sure you're Sirius Black?"

"Yes," said Harry, firmly. "I hold the rights to Vault Six Hundred and Eighty Seven along with my godson, Harry Potter. Here's my key, right here, and my paperwork -- you can see it's all in order."

The goblin raised on arched eyebrow, but indeed, everything was in order -- Harry had the large gold key to the vault, and the paperwork he'd taken from Sirius' desk at the Manor. Harry was, briefly, thankful that the wizarding world did not rely on things like photographic identification, and even more thankful that goblins both had poor eyesight, and took little interest in the affairs of wizards. "Indeed, and may I say, Mister Black," said the goblin, lifting the key in its long, clever fingers, "that you're looking fantastic for your age, really fantastic. One would hardly recognize you from your Wanted posters."

"Well," said Harry weakly. "I moisturize daily. It does wonders for the complexion."

The goblin shrugged, losing interest. "Very well. I'll have someone take you down to your vault. Unless there's something else I can do for you?"

"Wait," said Harry hastily. "There is one thing --" Turning his pocket inside out, he produced the gold coin he'd taken from Lucius' belongings, and pushed it across the counter towards the goblin, who squinted at it in much the same manner it had squinted at Harry. "Could you tell me anything about this coin?"

"It's a Carpathian Gallien," said the goblin, after a moment's contemplation. "Not much seen around these parts, Mister Black. Romanian, probably, in origin. I can certainly check it for you while you're down in the vaults, and give you a precise location when you return."

Two smaller goblins in red and gold suits were summoned to lead Harry down to the vaults, and Harry allowed himself to be led. The goblin behind the counter watched bemusedly as the thin boy with the bright green eyes and the untidy black hair disappeared through the double doors at the end of the hall. Harry Potter breaking into his own vault, he thought to himself with a mixture of disapprobation and amusement. Wizards certainly are a peculiar breed, very peculiar indeed.

Hermione sat and listened to Ginny's recitation of events with the bizarre sense that she was dreaming. It all seemed so very unreal. That such enormous occurrences had been going on behind the scenes and she had had not a single clue about them astonished her. Although, she supposed, after Harry's departure nothing should come as a shock.

Draco stood by the window while Ginny spoke. No flicker of interest crossed his expressionless face. He stared out at the darkening sky. There was frost on the windowpane and it threw oddly shaped shadows against his pale skin, like feathery scars.

"To paraphrase Hamlet, Oedipus, Lear, and all those other guys," was all he said, when she had finished speaking, "It would have been nice if we'd known all this before things got quite so out of hand."

Ginny, pale but composed, looked at him, and then at Hermione. Her eyes were dark, unhappy. There were bruise-blue shadows under them although other than that Madam Pomfrey's healing magic had taken care of every mark on her. "I know what you're thinking," she said. "I was incredibly foolish. And, Draco -- I stole from you. From your house. I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

"That would be an accurate assessment of the situation, yes," said Draco, still staring out the window. His gloved thumbs were hooked into the belt at his waist. "At least Dumbledore took that Time-Turner away from you. About time."

Ginny said nothing, but the tense lines around her mouth deepened. Hermione fought down the urge to scream. It was at this point that Harry would have stepped in and said something to Draco, and Draco would have made a smart remark back, but he would have quelled himself, because Harry had requested it. But there was no Harry here to curb or curtail him and there had never been anyone else he would listen to. "Draco," she said, knowing it would make very little difference. "Don't. She knows."

An almost imperceptible shift in his position, and now he was looking at her out of the corner of one gray eye. She could sense the rage in him. It was like a thin silver wire winding through all of his movements. He was holding it down. She could see that, too. But eventually it would filter into everything he did like poison spreading slowly into water.

"I am not entirely sure," he said, "that we can assume she knows anything, given her recent actions. Although I suppose there is a logic to it. Apparently we didn't have enough murderous psychopaths running around with my father, the Dark Lord, and that nymphomaniacal postal worker of his constantly stalking us. Apparently Ginny here decided four psychopaths makes a matched set. I think we should just all take a moment to admire the symmetry."

"I know," Ginny said again. She was still calm and her voice betrayed no hurt. Only her fingers, plucking nervously at the white counterpane stretched over her thin knees, indicated her tension. "I'll take care of it, as much as I can. I'll tell Dumbledore --"

The effect of this statement on Draco was immediate, galvanic, and astonishing. He went white as a sheet and spun away from the window, hissing, "No. No! You can't go to Dumbledore. I forbid it."

Ginny stared at him. So did Hermione. "You forbid it?" Ginny demanded. "What on earth ...?"

Draco laughed -- not a mirthful noise at all, but a peremptory bark of derision. "You really don't know?" His lips curled back as he looked at them; he was the only person Hermione could think of who could make a sneer look elegant. "Don't you understand what she's done? Intentionally or not, Ginny, you raised the dead. Lord Voldemort -- Tom Riddle -- he was dead, and you brought him back. That's necromancy. That's the worst kind of magic there is. It's the Dementor's Kiss. You go straight to Azkaban, no appeals, no second chances. Do you understand? They'll kill you for this."

Hermione sucked in a little gasp of air. "No, surely not. She's an underaged witch, and she didn't do it on purpose --"

"You tell that to my father," Draco spat, his voice edged with venom. "He tried to kill her when she was eleven, you think he wouldn't now? And maybe Dumbledore would try to protect her but I'd like to see him and this fucking deserted school stand up against the Ministry, the Dark Lord, and all my father's Death Eaters. They'll lay siege to this place and they'll drag her out of her and throw her to the Dementors in the middle of Hogsmeade and they'll be making an example -- my father loves to make examples --" He turned his blazing silver gaze on Ginny. "And may I point out," he added, more quietly, "that, since Finnigan obviously isn't Finnigan anymore, and we don't know where he is, there might well be a murder charge in there somewhere, too."

At that, Ginny did lose her composure. Tears flooded into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Hermione held herself back. She wanted to go to Ginny and comfort her. But more than she wanted to do that, she wanted to see what Draco would do. He stood where he was without moving for a long moment, looking down at Ginny, who was obviously trying to get a hold of herself. She cried the way someone who desperately does not want to be crying would cry -- breathy, tearful gasps, as if she could not get enough air. She brushed the back of her hand furtively across her eyes, scattering tears onto the counterpane. "I'm sorry --" she said. "Crying. It's stupid, I know."

Draco's eyes narrowed. Then he reached out his hand and gently touched his gloved fingers to her cheek. "It's a war," he said. "There are casualties in a war."

"He might be all right," Hermione said, quietly. "In most cases of possession, once the possessing demon or spirit is destroyed, the victim reverts to normal with no recollection of what occurred."

Draco took his hand from Ginny's cheek, but sat down at the foot of her bed. This was better behavior than Hermione had expected. "And in the other cases?" he asked.

Trust Draco to ask questions Hermione did not want to answer. "Sometimes they remember," she said.

Ginny's weeping had quieted, but she flinched at this. "If it'll help Seamus," she said, "we should go to Dumbledore anyway. I don't care what happens to me."

"But we don't know that it will help Seamus," said Hermione. "And Dumbledore isn't here, either -- there's a note on his door that says he's gone to London. We don't know how dangerous Tom is or even how much he remembers. I mean, Ginny...you said he attacked you last night, and you were knocked out."

"But we found you this morning," Hermione said. "And he hadn't -- hurt you any more. You said all the bruises you have and the bump on your head, that was all from last night. Then you were unconscious. If he'd wanted to hurt you or kill you, he could have. And he didn't. He ran away instead. Maybe it was just a temporary possession, and then Seamus reasserted himself, and was completely horrified and ran away." She shrugged. "I know it sounds stupid, but the point is, we don't know."

"There is one thing we do know," said Draco. He had taken a parchment out of his pocket and was holding it up to the light. After a brief moment, Hermione recognized it as the Marauder's Map. "Neither Seamus Finnigan nor Tom Riddle is currently in the castle."

"I know." Ginny's voice was small. "I can sort of...feel Tom when he's around. He's not around. He's gone."

Hermione sighed. "Our first order of business is to find Harry," she said. "Then we'll tell him about the Tom Riddle business, and see what he thinks we should do. Meantime, I'll owl Seamus -- it's worth a try -- and owl a few people in Diagon Alley, tell them to keep a look out for him." She blinked at Ginny's expression. "Ginny, what?"

Draco, in the middle of stowing the Marauder's Map in a pocket, looked up, his expression for a moment unguarded. Then his eyes went opaque.

"No." Ginny sat up very straight, tossing her hair back. "Tell me. I told you everything, please don't hide things from me."

"Indeed," said a voice behind them. A voice that made Hermione jump and spin around in surprise. A voice she had not been expecting here, just as she had not been expecting to see its owner.

"That's pretty much what I was about to say myself," Charlie Weasley went on, striding quickly towards them, his fiery hair tousled and damp from the cold air outside. "Now what's all this with the miserable expressions and the talk about hiding things? Would somebody like to tell me what's going on?"

When, halfway up what seemed like the sixth round of spiral stairs, a three-headed snake lunged out at him from behind an alcove, Ron was perturbed.

Gasping out a very rude word, he stumbled backward, almost knocking Rhysenn down the rest of the stairs. She shrieked and staggered to the side as he seized a torch out of a nearby bracket and spun to face the serpent.

Ron swore again, under his breath. He hated snakes. Not as much as he hated spiders, but he was still not a fan. The fact that Harry could speak to them had never endeared the cold-blooded, slithering creatures to him much. They remained, in his mind, creepy and vaguely slimy.

He moved slowly up the stairs, the torch outthrust stiffly before him. He could see the shadow of the snake thrown in sharp relief against the wall up ahead of him, and he swallowed hard, his throat as dry as dust. He tried to imagine what Harry or Draco would do in this situation. That was easy in Harry's case; Harry would talk to the snake, whisper soothingly to it in Parseltongue, and soon enough the snake would adoringly obey his every command. Draco would whip out one of his annoyingly sharp and expensive-looking swords, and within five minutes would be juggling two of the snake's heads while playing football with the third one and mentally composing a scathing one-liner to fit the occasion.

Ron, knowing himself capable of none of those actions, tightened his grip on the torch and took another, hesitant step upward.

"Oh, for goodness sake," said an irritable voice behind him; he turned his head and saw that Rhysenn had regained her feet and was regarding him with a vexed expression. "There's no need to get so wound up about Kevin."

"Oh, really." Ron's voice dripped sarcasm. "It didn't occur to you that maybe we should take one of the other exits to the roof, then? Like, the north exit or the east exit even the west exit?"

"If you're so afraid," said Rhysenn with a sniff, "I'll go first," and with that, she stomped by him, the skirt of her corseted black dress held high. Ron followed her, feeling foolish.

The snake watched Rhysenn go by with only a flicker of it's lazy adder's tongues. But when Ron made as if to pass it, it reared up, and fixed him with the cold gaze of its six golden eyes.

Ron stared back at it. Its eyes were hypnotic, gold fissures in the dark scales around it. When it spoke to him, he was only somewhat surprised: he heard its voice inside his mind, much in the same way that he imagined Harry heard Draco's.

You are bitter, for one so blessed. Such a gift as yours is rare. The dreams you dream are true dreams and will come to pass.

Ron thought of his vision of Ginny dead and it struck him again, like a second blow against his heart. Is there nothing I can do? Is the future I see set in stone? Can it be changed?

No. What you see cannot be altered or undone. All things end, Diviner, and to you is given the gift of seeing those ends. If you tried, you could see the end of the world.

Ron lifted the torch; the light of it blazed up between them and turned the gold eyes he stared at into six individual flames. What do you mean? What else can I do?

But the snake, startled by the fire, shied away, hissing. It slithered away from him, and vanished through a hole in the alcove.

But Rhysenn had caught at his sleeve. Her gray eyes were dark with some distress he could not define. "Do not trouble the castle's inhabitants," she said softly. "It would be unwise."

Ron said nothing, but allowed her to tug him up the stairs. When he drew level with her, she moved to take his arm, and in his distracted state, he let her.

He had been looking down at his hands where they lay open on his knees, now he looked up at his sister. "What is it, Ginny?"

She could still hardly believe he was here. He had arrived so unexpectedly, had shooed Hermione and Draco out of the infirmary, closed the curtains around her bed, and sat down on the low chair next to her. She had waited for him to say something, but he had been silent, allowing Ginny her own silence, giving her the space to gather herself.

His blue eyes were on her now, steady, reassuring. She thought of her brothers. Bill, so much older than she was, she had always looked up to. He was dashing and glamorous. Percy was reliable, sometimes irritating, dependable in an emergency. George and Fred had made her life a torment when she was younger, but they also made her laugh. Ron, she loved the most out of all of them, he was the closest to her in age, the most like a friend. But Charlie was the kindest.

"He owled me. He said you'd been hurt, I should come right away." Charlie shrugged. "So I came right away. I should thank him for owling me and not Mum or Dad -- I don´t think they could have taken it right now."

"He must have done it while I was unconscious," Ginny said. She looked down at her hands against the white bedspread, several shades darker than the white sheets but still very pale. She felt bruised all over, although she knew Madam Pomfrey had healed most of her injuries. She could still feel where Tom had touched her. Like rings of fire where his hands had braceleted her wrists, her arms. Her mouth felt bruised where he had bitten it. "Charlie," she said, slowly. "I've ... done bad things. Really bad things."

He put his hand over hers on the bedspread. His fingers were warm and strong. "You don't have to tell me," he said.

"I can't tell you," she said. "But I want to. I want to ask you what I should do."

She shook her head. "I wish I could," she said. "I really do. But it seems like... running away."

"Running away from what, exactly?" Charlie asked. "You want to be with your friends when they need you. I understand that. You want to be with Hermione and with Draco and Harry--"

"Harry's gone," Ginny said. "They don't want to tell me what's happened. But I can see it in their faces. He's gone off somewhere."

Charlie looked at her as if he couldn't quite believe what she was saying. "Harry's gone? Gone where?"

"Oh," said Charlie. He looked stunned. Ginny, for a moment, was almost amused. "You sound pretty calm about it."

"I always thought he would," Ginny said. "They never saw it. They didn't want to. It was just a matter of time. If they hadn't loved him so much he would have left a long time ago. He was never really entirely here. There was always that part of him he had sort of bound up, locked away. Waiting. There was always that part of Harry you couldn't get to or touch."

"No," she said. "No, I don't. That's why I could see it, and they couldn't." She lifted her chin, looked at her brother. "Charlie..."

Charlie leaned forward and put his arms around her, and Ginny let her head fall down on his shoulder and for a moment just allowed herself to lose herself in being held by her brother, in forgetting. Charlie smelled like the kitchen at the Burrow, like smoke and soap and scrubbed wood. He smelled like home.

But when she closed her eyes, other images came to dance against the backs of her eyelids. Other blue eyes lit the darkness in her mind's eye. She heard a drawling voice in her ear and felt the bones in her hand snap like twigs. But he didn't hurt me. He could have done anything to me. I was unconscious. But he just left me there. Why didn't he murder me when he had the chance?

Charlie pulled away from her, looking startled, and she realized she had spoken aloud. "What on earth are you talking about? Who could have killed you?"

Charlie expelled a breath. "I can't make you come home, Ginny," he said. "All I can tell you is that I think it would be the right thing for you to do. We're all exhausted...working around the clock...we could use you. Use your help. And...we miss you."

Ginny looked tiredly at her brother. It was not that she wanted to stay. She wanted to go home. She could not help Harry; he was gone. Hermione had never needed her help and did not need it now. And Draco. She would have wanted to help him, but she couldn't; she could see through the coldness in his eyes to what lay beneath: shock, panic-stricken loneliness, abandonment beyond any abandonment she could imagine. And she knew who would need to help him with that, who would be, perhaps, the only person who could, and it was not her.

And there was something else, as well. Something harder to define. She looked down at her hand. The burn was healed, but it had left a latticework of pale white lines along her skin, from fingertips to wrist. Like a veiling of openwork white lace. She was glad it was there; it served as a reminder. Tom was out there, somewhere, in the world; he was there because she had brought him here. And this time there was no Harry to send him back where he had come from. This time she would have to do it herself.

The last of the sunlight had narrowed to a coppery spindle and the rest of the sky was full of ominous black clouds. A cool wind blew from the Forbidden Forest across the lake, up over the grounds, and broke like a wave against the front steps of the school where three small figures stood in a huddled group. A taller figure, scarlet-haired and wrapped in a dark green cloak, waited at the foot of the stairs.

Hermione said her farewells to Ginny first, embracing the younger girl tightly, and Ginny hugged her back. Then Hermione stepped away and back up the steps, leaving Ginny and Draco to say good-bye to each other with a modicum of privacy.

Draco stood one step above Ginny, looking down at her. Her hair was the same coppery color as the last sunset light. He reached out slowly -- everything seemed to be coming slowly now, as if he moved through thickened water -- and tugged on a lock of her bright hair and said, "I suppose I haven't treated you very well, have I?"

Incredibly, the corner of her mouth curved into the ghost of a smile. "You make it hard to be complacent, you know," she said. "I know why you said what you said to me, yesterday. But you don't make it very easy, do you? On anyone. Yourself least of all."

There was a part of Draco's mind that simply shut down whenever anyone said anything about Harry, and he shut it down now. It was like an portcullis falling; he could hear the ringing sound as the iron spikes drove home, sealing that part of himself safely away. "Yeah. He's gone. Did Hermione tell you that?"

"No," she said. "I could see it in your face." She reached up, then, and brushed the hair out of his eyes; he withstood the brush of her slim cold fingers against his skin with a twinge of guilt, feeling somehow that touching him might damage her in some way he couldn't quite explain. "Now I'm worried," she said.

"Ginny!" It was Charlie calling, from the foot of the stairs. "Ginny -- we'd better go before it gets dark."

Ginny, turning, began to lower her hand. Draco caught it lightly and turned it over, palm up. She looked at him, startled, as he reached into his pocket with his free hand; finding what he wanted, he laid it gently on her open palm.

He had picked it up from the Gryffindor common room floor that afternoon. It was all that was left of the destroyed bracelet Seamus had given to Ginny: the remains of the glass heart-shaped charm, cracked in half. He had looked, but had not been able to find the other half anywhere.

"I know," she said. She closed her fingers around it. He kept his hand on her wrist. He could feel the faint pulse of her blood even through the thin layer of the gloves he wore. Her heartbeat was steady and rapid. She was so very alive; even at the heart of all the mistakes she had made and the disaster collapsing around them all he could not blame her entirely. Some part of him envied her. At least she had done something. He had done nothing, and it had lost him everything. "Draco?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. There had been some ugly arguments on topics related to Hermione, months ago. He did not want to have them again. "So?" he said.

"Harry's gone," she snapped, her voice suddenly flint-hard. "And if I know him, he won't make it easy for you to find him. Maybe he wants to be found. Maybe he doesn't. I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that with him gone you won't know who you are anymore. So when you find that out, maybe you'll finally know what it is you want, Draco, because you certainly don't know now. And if Hermione can help you figure it out, then fine. Do what you have to do and don't worry about the rest of us. I think we'd all be happier if you just knew what you wanted. If there even is anything you want. God, I hope someday you can at least tell me that."

It was the most she had said to him in a long time, and several responses suggested themselves immediately to Draco. Some were flippant, a few were denials, one at least was cruel. But a sudden memory had also come to him, of himself standing on these same front steps with Hermione, looking down at their interlaced fingers, gloved in white and black, and then he had looked down the stairs and seen Harry, his gaze on both of them. In some way Harry and Hermione had always been inseparable in his mind. Hermione was a part of Harry, as much as his green eyes, his vulnerable honesty, his willful stubborn pride.

He remembered his father's chair again, the row of knives that ran along the back. He remembered after the parties were over, getting undressed in his room, peeling off his clothes and turning around to see the blood that ran down his back in vertical threads like the marks of a whip. Later the house-elves would be sent with Healfast potions and by the next day all the marks would be gone. It had not occurred to Draco then that there was such a thing as an injury which magic could not help.

He looked down at Ginny. The rising wind took her hair and her cloak and blew them out behind her like banners of fire: gold and red. There was an intent look on her small pale face. You could not set someone free when you had never had them, but he could tell that was what she was doing anyway, cutting the ties that bound her to him, such as they were. He had wanted her to do this and now that she was he recognized the irony of it; it would almost have been amusing, had everything not been so bleak.

He reached out to touch the edge of her red hair. He had not lied when he said he had a weakness for it. He had a weakness for all beautiful things, sunsets and expensive clothes and beautiful places. In the faded light her hair was nearly the exact color of blood, edged with fainter gold where the light outlined it.

She pulled away. "Don't," she said. "You think it's kind, but it's not kindness."

She stepped away from him, backwards down the stairs. "Then what are you?" she said. "Do you even know?"

He did not reply, just put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her. She raised her eyes to his, briefly. Then she turned and was running away back down the steps towards the carriage and her brother waiting next to it.

Harry ducked and swore under his breath as a copy of Who's Who In the Wizarding World tumbled down from an upper bookshelf, almost making a dent in his head. He grabbed at the ladder he was standing on to steady himself and leaned back, looking up at the innumerable shelves disappearing into the air above him -- he'd never been in this section of Flourish and Blotts, and in fact the clerk behind the front counter had looked at him quite oddly when he'd come into the shop and asked for the Travel section -- although perhaps he was just trying to place the slight, nervous-looking boy with tangled black hair and no glasses, who ducked away from the light as if he were shy of it.

"You look a bit like Harry Potter," the clerk said, directing Harry towards the back of the store.

"People always say that," Harry had replied nervously, pulling his cloak closer around himself. "I don't see it, myself."

Harry bit his lip now, gaze skidding over the travel book titles -- Let's Floo Europe 1997, The Lonely Broomstick Guide to Eastern Europe, A Wizard's Guide to Muggle Europe, Culture Shock: The Carpathians, The Wizarding Rough Guides. Harry reached out a hand and pulled a few of the more helpful-looking volumes off the shelf. Jumping down from the ladder, he made a beeline for an overstuffed chair in one of the more hidden corners of the shop. He sank down into it, expelling a small sigh of relief -- it had been hours since he'd sat down, and his sleep on the train had not been exactly restful.

The books turned out to be something of a disappointment. They failed to contain any information on how to get from one place to another -- which was what Harry really wanted to know -- and instead were full of what wizards no doubt considered helpful tips on how to get along in the Muggle world. Harry read the tips with increasing disbelief and a sense of incredulous amusement.

Muggle trains, unlike their wizarding equivalent, are unequipped with Sounding Charms which alert the passenger when the train draws near a station. Therefore the traveler must remain vigilant. You may wish to stick your head out the window and keep an eye on the surrounding countryside to ensure that you do not miss your stop. The farther you stick your head out, the better your view will be.

Harry choked on a muffled laugh, and looked up and around, the book sliding onto his lap. He couldn't remember the last time he'd read something so ridiculous and he could only imagine what snide comment Draco would have to make about it --

Harry sobered quickly, subsiding back into his chair. He'd forgotten for a moment that Draco wasn't there. They'd been anchored to each other's sides so constantly for the past eight months, in near-constant mental contact when they were not actually physically proximate, that having him suddenly not there was like opening his eyes on darkness and realizing he could see nothing because he was blind.

He tried to return to reading, but the words washed together on the page. The sudden recollection of Draco's absence had been a physical sort of shock, as if someone had walked up and, without warning, slid a very cold, very thin dagger sharply home between two of his ribs. He could only imagine how much worse it was going to get as the days and weeks wore on and on. He remembered being told about amputees who still felt pain in the limbs they'd lost long ago, the mind's map recalling as whole those places which had been burned or cut away.

He thought about reaching out to Draco just once, unblocking his own mind and looking for his friend's. He knew he could do it at this distance. It would be difficult but possible; that past summer Harry had managed to find Draco over the distance between the Burrow and the Manor. Lying on his back in the sunshine one afternoon, in the grass out by the quarry, an arm over his face, he had thought of an amusing observation, and wished Draco were there to share it with him. Having suddenly missed him, he as quickly sought him through the space between them, reaching out as if he searched for a light in the darkness. There you are, he'd thought, smiling as he found him. Is the sun shining at the Manor, too?

And the reply, drawling, sarcastic, almost instant. No, Potter, the sun only shines on you.

I'm flying. Draco's inner voice had sounded like summer: lazy as a slow river under the hot sun. See?

And he had unlocked his mind to Harry, as if he had thrown a window wide open. Harry, his gasp hitching on a laugh, had caught with one hand at the grass underneath him as in his mind he left the ground and soared up into the hot blue air, the earth dropping rapidly away below. He had seen the fountains and gardens of the Manor spread out beneath him, a riot of blue water and apricot roses, had seen the dark rise of the forest in the distance, Malfoy Park held cupped in the curve of the trees, a shimmering ribbon of river -- before Ron's voice calling to him from the house had snapped the cord that held him and he'd tumbled down and back into himself and sat up gasping, his heart pounding and his eyes wide. Magic was something he'd grown used to, it was a part of his daily life, but for a moment, sprawled on his back in the grass as if he'd actually fallen from a great height, he felt like someone who'd never heard of electricity before and had just now switched on his first lamp.

That was gone now, though, and he'd better get used to it. And unblocking his mind to Draco's was not a good idea -- Harry knew, without false modesty, that his will was strong enough to withstand almost any enchantment brought to bear against it, but he also knew that Draco was cleverer that he was, that he was brilliantly manipulative, and that while he couldn't lie to Harry, he could certainly artfully present the facts. Draco would break his resolve down in two seconds flat. No, it was better to do what he had been doing, and keep the contact closed, much as it hurt him, much as he was already desperate for news of his friends. In the end, this decision would keep them alive and that was what mattered.

Harry got to his feet, slowly, looking at the pile of books on the armchair. Finally he selected The Lonely Broomstick Guide to the Continent almost at random and dragged himself over to the front counter to pay. Exhaustion hung over him like a second cloak. He was so tired he stepped on a round-faced witch's outstretched foot and nearly knocked over a hooded wizard carrying an enormous pile of history books.

Flustered from apologizing, Harry was halfway through paying the clerk behind the counter when a thought occurred to him. "Excuse me," he began, a bit nervously, "But I was wondering if there's a way out of Diagon Alley that won't take me back through the Leaky Cauldron?"

The clerk looked up at him sharply, and once again Harry had the feeling that the man was trying to place him. "What's wrong with the Leaky Cauldron, lad?"

"I..." said Harry, swallowing hard. "I'm trying to avoid an old girlfriend. You know how these things are."

"Ah. Yes." The clerk wrinkled his narrow face in thought. "I don't know as there's a better way..."

"There is another way," said the hooded wizard with the history books, who had been silently standing behind Harry in the line. "There's a back way out through the Shrieking Teacup. It's a pub. Two streets down from Margin Alley you take a left and keep walking. You can't miss it."

"Ah," said Harry. He would have thanked the stranger, but there was something in his aspect -- in the cloak drawn close about his face, and the withdrawn posture -- that advised against it. "Well," Harry said. "I'll be going along then."

He took his purchase and escaped out into the street, now almost completely dark. The firefly lamps were lighting themselves, one by one, pale beacons of light in the greater darkness. Harry set off towards Margin Alley with a determined stride.

Back in the bookshop, the wizard who had directed Harry to the Shrieking Teacup pushed his stack of books across the counter towards the clerk, his hood slipping back slightly as he did so, revealing his bright hair.

The clerk ducked his head. "Young Mister Finnigan," he observed, with a pleased smile, and glanced down at the stack of books with a chuckle. "Doing a bit of brushing up on your history, then?" he asked, running a finger along the embossed spines. The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord, The Downfall of Darkness: A History of You-Know-Who, I Was Voldemort's Minion: The Autobiography of An Ex-Death Eater, The Trial of Igor Karkaroff, Inside the Ministry Trials, Death Eaters Who Recanted. "You know," he added, brushing his wand across the book covers and adding up the prices that appeared, glowing, in midair, "I don't think your parents would be any too pleased that you were hanging about in a place like the Shrieking Teacup."

"Oh, I wouldn't go there," said Seamus Finnigan, and his blue eyes lit with amusement. "I was just having a bit of fun with the tourist."

"Good lad," chuckled the clerk. "I suppose I should have guessed. You Gryffindors are such pranksters, although I always say there's no harm in you, really."

"Isn't that the truth," agreed Seamus, sliding his Galleons across the counter. "I mean," he said, raising his fair, blue-eyed face to the light, "do I look like someone who was likely to cause any trouble?"

And he smiled, a bright boyish smile that made the clerk think of pleasant spring afternoons and Quidditch and cats with tangled balls of yarn and cheerful childish laughter. He chuckled. "Not at all."

As the boy scooped his purchases off the counter, the clerk asked him to pass along his regards to the elder Finnigans.

Hermione looked sideways at Draco as he watched Charlie's carriage pull away from the foot of the steps. Clouds had begun to roll in over the horizon now and the light had turned the color of pewter. The shadows of the clouds overhead moved up the steps and Hermione shivered, but Draco didn't seem to notice. His face was hidden behind the uneven locks of white-blond hair that tumbled forward to cover his eyes. She remembered what he said about needing it cut; it curled the way ivy vines curled when they grew too long -- in looping tendrils. He tipped his head back then, and looked up, and his hair fell away from his face. In the tarnished light he seemed a photo negative of himself: ice-white skin and white hair and white eyes, and all that monochromatic pallor ought to have looked washed out, but it didn't. People ought not to be that beautiful, Hermione thought. There ought to be limits on these things, or what would be the point of imagination?

"I think," he said, and the normalcy of his tone startled her, "that it's going to rain. We should go inside."

It was an odd, fleeting thought, and vanished as soon as it had crossed her mind.

They went inside, side by side, and the door to the Great Hall closed behind them just as the first drops of rain struck the paving outside. Already the inside of the castle, all damp stone that it was, smelled of rain, and Hermione remembered another rainy night, and Harry soaking wet, Crookshanks in his arms, and he'd looked up at her and past her at Draco on the stairs next to her and she had seen what passed between them even then, that peculiarly empathic antagonism that wasn't hate and wasn't love either, that was, even then, an indefinable connection. You hate what you need. The more he has of this antidote the more it will hurt him. You may have to hold him down.

"Draco," she said, softly, but he was looking out one of the near windows, distantly curious, at the gray-black night, crystallizing now to shattered silver, alive with frozen falling rain. "Draco," she said again, and this time he turned and looked at her.

There was something moving behind his eyes: it was a cool, resolved look, the look of something icy that was not icy at all, a refracted sort of frozen flame. She remembered him in Potions class, cracking firecrabs for a powder. The other students had used their small jeweled pins on the crabs first, a swift and merciful killing, but Draco had crushed them alive. They had burned his fingers as they died but he had not minded, or at least, it had not removed the look of intently fascinated cruelty from his face. He wore a similar look now. It was an inward look, giving her no clue what he was thinking. But it sent a shiver up her spine.

I will have to watch him, she thought. Not just for his own good, but for everyone's safety. Even my own.

"I'm going to the Owlery," she told him calmly, "to send a letter to Gringotts. You can come if you like."

He shrugged but fell into step beside her as she headed up the stairs. "I checked the Marauder's Map over again," he said. "Riddle's definitely nowhere on the grounds, and neither is Finnigan. Of course, the map doesn't show the Chamber of Secrets..."

"True, but after what Dumbledore did to the entrance to the Chamber after second year, I doubt anyone could get in there. Anyway, there's nothing in there Riddle would want now. Harry killed the basilisk and Dumbledore had the whole place flooded with lake water."

Draco looked at her sideways. "At some point, you're going to have to tell me a bit more about Tom Riddle and that diary business. I'm thinking my education might not have included some of the more salient particulars. Like why he's got it in for Ginny, for a start."

"My father didn't tell me much." The windows, as they passed them, were opaquely silver with rain. "I know he is -- was -- the Dark Lord," said Draco. "I know Tom Riddle was a friend of my father's before he became Voldemort."

Draco sounded almost amused. "Everything in our lives is weird. What's one more undead evil maniac out to terrorize the populace? And may I point out that I always said Seamus Finnigan was up to no good."

"Perhaps not but you can bet the Dark Lord recognized a kindred spirit in him. 'Here's the kind of guy who could do with a good possessing!' he thought to himself the moment he clapped eyes on Captain Cardboard. 'He's got no personality himself, so plenty of room for mine.'"

"One of these days," said Hermione darkly, pushing the door to the Owlery open, "you can explain to me exactly what your problem with Seamus is --"

"Was," said Draco, blandly, ducking past her and into the long, dimly lit room beyond. Up here at the top of the school, the smell of rain was even stronger, along with the smell of dismal, wet owl. Hermione could never understand why people were always coming up to the Owlery to snog. She could not imagine engaging in passionate romantic activity with a bunch of goggle-eyed birds staring down at her.

He crossed the room to the large picture window that looked down over the grounds. Hermione scribbled several notes, including an inquiry note to Gringotts, addressed them, and sent them off with a brown barn owl. Then she joined Draco at the window.

Beyond the glass, rain tautened like silver strings, barring her view of the Forest and the grounds outside. She could see the slightly blurred reflection of Draco's face in the rained-over glass. His eyes looked black, veiled with lighter lashes, his gaze distant. She knew what he was thinking. She was thinking the same thing. Where was Harry, was he all right, did he have somewhere to go, somewhere out of the rain? Was he alone, did he think of them, had he dismissed them from his life, was he safe now, would he die soon, would Draco know if he did, would Harry know when Draco was gone? Would he sit up in bed, as Draco had, blind-eyed with a sudden shattering sense of something missing, and whisper into the empty dark that he had lost something but he didn't know what?

He placed his gloved fingertips against the glass. "You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that," he said tonelessly.

"It's not just anyone we're talking about, here. It's Harry. If you hate him --"

Draco looked sideways at her. She could see the dull gleam of his Epicyclical Charm where it lay in the pale hollow of his throat. "I was expecting a bit more of an argument on that one."

"Look, it doesn't matter if you hate him. You used to hate him. It doesn't matter if you love him or hate him or despise him or want to kill him or think he's the only real friend you've ever had --"

"If you keep trying to talk to me about Harry," said Draco, forgetting, for a moment, to use his surname, "I will walk away from you, Hermione, I promise you that."

"--It doesn't matter because it doesn't change anything, not really. This connection you two have, it's not dependent on love or hate or even liking each other at all. It's beyond that. You're beyond that. You're too angry to see it or to want to see it, but if you wanted to find him, you could."

"I think you didn't try," she said. "You can walk in and out of his dreams. You think you can't find him? He's Apparated himself to you, before, when you needed him --"

"I could get you to him," said Hermione, a little desperately. "I could send you --"

"I'm not so sure, Hermione," said Draco, "that that's something that you would want to do."

"And I want a solid gold bonnet. We don't always get what we want in this life."

"Don´t you dare be flippant at me!" Hermione shouted, losing control suddenly and shockingly. "If you won't even try --"

He moved quickly, so quickly she hardly saw him move towards her or catch at her arms and spin her to face him. Her back was against the cold glass of the window. When he leaned to her ear she smelled on him the antidote she had made herself, scents of blood and bitter aloe.

"You want," he whispered, his voice alive with soft mockery. His grip was tight on her upper arms; she could feel the pressure of his fingers through the skin, against her bones. "And you think I don't? You think I don't know about wanting what you can't have? You lot of fucking Gryffindors live everything you are on the surface -- every pinprick, every disappointment, you've never learned to swallow it down, even when it's poison and it chokes you. And because I have learned it, because I don't bawl my eyes out over every bloody paper cut, you think I don't care. You think you can push me and push me and push me and I won't break --"

He cut himself off. Hermione did not know what to do. He had drawn back and was looking at her as if he loathed her and in that moment she knew she represented every Gryffindor he had ever hated or been frustrated by to him: she was Harry to him, she was Ginny, she was herself.

He drawled, "You sound like you haven't decided whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."

The sound of the rain on the window behind them was louder now. It sounded like gunfire. The glass rattled against her back.

His voice was cold. "I thought I already told you not to tell me what I do and don't mean."

It didn't work. Any shifting just brought her in closer contact with his body. She could feel the buckle on his belt where it dug into the space just under her ribs. His clothes were damp and smelled like rain.

Hermione stopped trying to pull away. A sudden arrow of remorse shot through her. There was no point in trying to hurt Draco, no point in fighting. They were on the same side, and anyway, he had already been hurt beyond the point of being able to be hurt again. "If you're determined to lose your mind over this," she said, as gently as she could, "lose it some other way."

He raised his eyebrows, in that way he had that lifted the veiling silvery lashes slowly up over his smoke-colored eyes. The pale scar at the corner of his eye looked like a line drawn in metallic ink. "What other way," he said, "would you suggest?"

She looked up at him. She had the sudden urge to tell him things. He had said he would not talk about Harry to her, but he had not forbidden her to do the same. She wanted to tell him how she had always thought that being as smart as she was would get her out of anything. That the idea that there was a problem she could not figure or study her way out of made her want to put her hand through a window. That Harry not leaving her a letter had broken her heart, that doing what she was doing, keeping busy, solving problems one by one, was the only way she could avoid thinking about it. That if Draco kept holding onto her arms like that and looking at her like that she was going to do something that would make them both very sorry. That she knew why he was doing it, too, and that it bothered her less than it probably should have.

She opened her mouth -- she never knew what it was she would have said had she spoken, for at that moment something as white as a falling star in the dimness hurtled between them. A snowy owl, wings outstretched, making a distressed, soft-pitched whooping noise -- Hedwig.

Draco let go of Hermione's arms and stepped back, half-raising his arm in surprise.

Hedwig banked, swooped towards him, and landed on the crook of his elbow. She folded her wings, bent her head, and thrust her beak into his hair.

The spell was broken. "That's Harry's owl," said Hermione briskly, folding her arms over her chest. "Hedwig."

"I know perfectly well it's Potter's owl. What's it want with me? Oi there! You silly bird. Get off."

"I'm not him, though," said Draco flatly, and looked at Hedwig as if she had personally insulted him.

Hedwig nipped at Draco's ear. An odd look crossed his face -- Hermione looked away. She heard Draco say something, under his breath, to Hedwig. Then he crossed the room and firmly deposited the woeful owl back on her perch, despite her insistent wibbling.

"Daft bloody bird," he said when he returned. He was gnawing his lower lip. "Look, Hermione --"

He stuck his gloved hands in his pockets. "At least let me do that," he said. "You hadn't done anything wrong."

"I don't want an apology," she said. "I want you to try to find Harry. Just try once."

An odd look came into his eyes. It was a look she had so rarely seen on Draco's face, and certainly not for years, that it took her a moment to place it in this context.

Before she could think better of it, she leaned towards him and kissed him in the cheek. He tasted like rainwater and salt. "Thank you," she said.

"I'll do it." He didn't take his hands out of his pockets. "But I won't answer for any consequences."

"I know," Hermione said. She tried to push down the faint worry that his resigned tone produced in her. What consequences, after all, could there be?

Later, Harry would remember that first sight of the interior of the Shrieking Teacup and marvel bitterly at what a fool he had been. But when he first stepped through the doors, all freezing bare hands and chattering teeth, he was conscious only that it was warm inside and that the blood in his veins felt half-frozen.

The interior of the pub -- if that was what it was -- bore some resemblance to the Leaky Cauldron, but not much. It also was dark inside, illuminated mainly by the glow of a banked fire in an enormous stone grate along the far wall. But where the Leaky Cauldron was shabby, this place was all polished brass railings, deep armchairs, plush dark green sofas, and a gleaming bar. It was full of wizards, although he saw no witches. Sunk into the heavy armchairs, puffing on pipes, most were heavily robed and cowled against the chill air that soaked through the leaded glass windows.

The bar itself was staffed by a dour-looking man in tailored dark robes. Harry ordered a hot spiced butterbeer and went to stand by the fire. He had wanted to ask about the back way out, but some part of him rebelled passionately against the idea of heading back out into that rain. Instead, he set his drink on the mantel and leaned shivering to the fire. He didn't dare push the hood of his robe back; since the clerk in the bookshop had called out to him, he'd felt strangely naked and identifiable.

The fire, throwing its flaring shadows along the stone floor, made him think of the fire in the Gryffindor common room. And that, in turn, made him think of sitting on the sofa beside it, strands of long brown hair tickling his face as he did his schoolwork, Ron's quick voice in his ear. He reached out his hands closer to the fire -- they were wet and pale, almost blue at the tips, the scar along his palm an angry dark red. He had been stupid to have left his gloves in his bag at the station.

The heat of the fire was drawing his eyelids down. Pale gold sparks flew from it as a log settled, illuminating the bright sequins of brass affixed to the brick fireplace façade at regular intervals. Harry leaned a bit closer, tracing them with his fingertips. They were individual bronze plaques, and each one bore a name.

Evan Rosier. Antonin Dolohov. Augustin Mulciber. Bela Travers. Augustus Rookwood. Sebastian and Mary Lestrange. Peter Pettigrew. And, below that, Bartholomew Crouch, Jr.

Harry stared for a moment in blank incomprehension. Then his heart gave an almighty lurch and slammed against his ribcage with the force of a rogue Bludger.

Swiftly, he straightened up and looked around him. Nobody seemed to be looking at him, thankfully. Yet everything in the room had taken on a sinister cast. The men in their dark robes by the chess table, the sour-faced bartender, the shadows pooling in the corners of the room. The brass rods that held the heavy black curtains in place over the windows were carved in the shape of curling serpents.

The names carved into the plaques on the fireplace were the names of those who had fallen or been lost in the service of Voldemort.

This was a Death Eater meeting place. He had not been looking at the street names as he had been walking. Perhaps he had turned onto Knockturn Alley without meaning to. It hardly mattered now. What mattered was that he was here. And that he had to get out.

Harry set his cup down on the mantel. The faint clank as it settled sent a shiver up his spine. He pulled his damp cloak about himself and stepped away from the fire. Staring down at his feet, he began to walk across the room. It wasn't far to the door -- no more than thirty paces --

"Harry!" a voice called out to him cheerfully. "Harry Potter! What on earth are you doing here?"

Seamus Finnigan stood directly in front of him. He wore a heavy cloak, and the hood was thrown back, showing his bright hair, starred all over with drops of rain as if it had been sprinkled with seed pearls. His face was open, guileless. He stepped forward, holding out a hand towards Harry.

"Seamus!" Harry was at the other boy's side in an instant, gripping his arm. "Shut up. What are you doing here?"

There was something wrong with this assertion. Harry recognized it even through the turmoil in his mind. "How did you see me? I had my hood up --"

"Your watch." Seamus pointed at Harry's wrist. "That gold watch that Hermione gave you -- wasn't it your father's?" He blinked once, slowly, at Harry, like a lizard blinking in the sun. "Is there something wrong, Harry?"

"But why not?" Seamus' voice was lazy, curious. He reached up then without warning and batted at the hood of Harry's cloak. It fell back, and Harry was bareheaded in the glare of the firelight. "It is you...isn't it?"

But it was too late for protestations. All around him Harry could hear rustling. The Death Eaters were standing up, setting down the glasses they had been holding, getting to their feet. Coming towards him. Harry's stomach twisted in panic.

Harry let go of Seamus' arm and stumbled back. The Death Eaters were advancing on them now, slow, unhurried. They moved as smoothly as Dementors. There were perhaps twelve of them. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly. Harry reached to jerk his right sleeve up: the runic band on his belt was freezing cold against his bare wrist. So cold it burned.

It felt for a moment as if all Harry's pent-up anguish and fury was pouring down through his veins, into his hand, and through his fingers. Light flared, and a bank of fire sprang up just behind Seamus, blocking the Death Eaters from view.

But the other boy shook his head, his eyes gone suddenly dark. In fact, they were altogether a darker blue than Harry remembered them. But there was barely time to notice that detail; the Death Eaters had begun pushing their way through the wall of flame, which was already beginning to die down.

Seamus, bizarrely, grinned. "I don't think so, Harry." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Let's see if you can run as fast as you can fly."

Harry gaped. But there was no time. With a last, shocked look at the intransigent Seamus, Harry spun around and fled through the door and into the rain-soaked alley beyond.

The evening sky was violet, the color of venous blood. Ron sat at the edge of the castle's roof and looked down and understood why Voldemort had laughed at him when he'd said he wanted to go outside.

The castle stood perched on the top of a cliff, and the cliff fell away below it on all sides, steep and sheer as the side of a razor blade. Far below the cliff vanished into clouds; below the clouds, the slender line of a river was visible, rocketing along between the walls of a chasm. Mountains were all that was discernible in the distance. Ron felt as if he stood at the edge of the world.

Rhysenn spoke from the shadow of the tower through which they had come up to the roof. Her eyes were shut, her narrow little face as white as salt. Her dress blew around her like wings in the cold mountain air. She had been clinging to the shadows at the base of the tower since they had come outside.

Ron turned back and looked at the last gleam of the sun as it vanished over the horizon, drowning itself in the shadow of the blue mountains. "It's gone."

"Any night is better than any day," said Rhysenn, her tone positive, but she came to join him at the edge of the roof. "Careful," she said. "Fall, and I cannot catch you. I cannot fly."

"Yes," she agreed. "Or I would not bother to warn you." She sat down then, about a foot from the roof's edge, her black skirts spreading around her like dark water. "I am here to watch you," she said. "But I will talk to you also, if you desire."

"You're being awfully agreeable," Ron said bitterly. "I suppose you've been told to keep me happy. What's next? Turn yourself into Hermione and offer to shag me?"

"How does that work, anyway?" Ron asked, desperate to get off the subject of Hermione. "How can you be only half a demon?"

Rhysenn looked, briefly, amused. "It's a long story. I can tell it to you if you like."

Ron shoved his hands in his pockets. He was cold. "It isn't like I have anything better to do."

Rhysenn took a deep breath. Ron decided not to notice that this made her bosom inflate impressively over the bodice of her corset. "Six hundred years ago," she said, "A wizard, an ancestor of the Malfoys you know now, raised a demon with a spell..."

He had left the Shrieking Teacup far behind him. But he had seen the Death Eaters pour out of the doors after him, a swift army of black-clad ants, and knew they were hot on his heels. They had Tracking Charms; they knew the area much better than he did. They would find him, and they would back him into a corner.

He hoped that when they did, he'd be able to kill at least a few of them before they took him.

He shook the thought out of his mind. He should not be defeatist. If he could find his way back to Diagon Alley he'd have a chance --

But the narrow alleys had turned into an unrecognizable warren of twisting, labyrinthine tunnels between blind stone buildings. The streets were slick with frozen rain and the mist covered everything like a blinding cloud. There seemed no doors in any of the buildings, and no windows.

So Harry ran. His booted feet found a skidding purchase on the icy ground. For almost the first time, he blessed his scrawniness, his wiry lightness and delicate build. It was what made him such a good Seeker, and now it allowed him to race over the ground as swiftly as an arrow flying through the air.

His heart pounded in his ears and the blood sang in his veins and he felt a savage sort of satisfaction as he reached a low metal fence and scrambled up and over it, dropping lightly to the other side. He winced as his cloak caught on a barb -- he twisted and slithered out of it -- it marked him out too clearly, anyway, was too recognizable. He began running again, only his worn t-shirt covering his arms now, but he had been running too hard to really feel the cold.

The rain sizzled against his flushed cheeks as he ran, caught in the tangles of his soaking hair, dripped down the round collar of his shirt. His feet, inside the dragonhide boots, were dry, but his trousers were almost wet through.

He thought he could hear the Death Eaters behind him, the pound of feet on the pavement, but perhaps that was just his imagination.

He put on a burst of speed as he reached the end of a long alleyway, and spun around the corner. Two narrower alleys branched off in opposite directions here -- Harry blinked, then flung himself blindly to the left.

He fled down the alley. He was beginning to tire now. His breath rasped in his chest. He heard Draco's voice in his head suddenly, laughing and incredulous: only a few months ago, they had been talking about their methods of Quidditch training. And you mean you don't make your team run laps around the field?

The alley turned a sharp corner. Harry spun around it at top speed -- only to find that it dead-ended at the side of a building. He skidded to a stop and looking around himself despairingly. Wet black walls covered in ancient posters advertising now-defunct charms and potions rose all around him -- there was a bolted door in the side of the wall furthest from him -- he wiped rain out of his eyes and jogged forward quickly.

It was a moment before he realized there was someone there, leaning against the wall by the door. At first just a dark silhouette, and then there was a spark of light -- it flared to a greater glow-- and the faint illumination wove a thousand silver strands out of the still-falling frozen rain. He saw a slender figure in a long dark cloak, a bent fair head, a face hidden by a raised hand, a peeling poster behind the figure advertising Finian's Finishing Potion -- Now in Brand New Cherry Flavor!

Harry felt a tightening around his heart, the sharp pressure of shock behind his eyes, even before the figure lowered its hand, and raised its head, and looked at him, and smiled.

The kitchen at the Burrow was full of light and warmth. Ginny submitted rather numbly to being kissed and hugged by her mother, whooped over by Fred and George, and ignored by Percy, who was sitting at the kitchen table behind a massive stack of parchments. There was ink in his hair and a deal of chalk dust on his nose. It suited him.

Mr. Weasley was apparently out; Mrs. Weasley only looked shifty when she was asked where "out" was, although wherever it was he had apparently gone there with Mad-Eye Moody. Sirius Black, meanwhile, was in the living room with Professor Lupin. Like Percy, they were surrounded by parchments, file folders, and boxes of papers. Lupin was using his wand to draw bright sets of words on the air between the two of them; Sirius, sprawled and exhausted-looking on the couch, was nodding and adding check marks to some of them, x's to others. To Ginny, at this distance, it looked like a list of names.

"You're sure you're all right, Ginny darling?" her mother fussed anxiously. "You look so pale -- would you like some tea? Hot cocoa? Butterbeer?"

"Boyfriend problems," said George sagely, pointing at her with the end of the quill he'd been chewing on. "I suspect little Ginny's been having boyfriend problems."

"Ah, but which boy?" wondered Fred portentously. "The dashing yet otherwise occupied Harry Potter? The stalwart yet tedious Seamus Finnigan? The redeemed-yet-still-sarcastic Draco Malfoy?"

"Oh, for goodness sake," Ginny wailed. "And Fred, I don't even know why you'd mention Harry, you know perfectly well I've been over him for ages."

"I suppose that leaves Malfoy," said George regretfully. "Which is too bad. You'll spend the rest of your life competing with his hair products for attention and fighting over which one of you is the prettiest."

"It is not," Ginny said, shooting them both glares of loathing, "a boy problem."

Fred raised his eyebrows at her. Ginny knew perfectly well what they were doing; George and Fred had always used humor as a way to deflect the pain of bad situations. Without being able to help herself, her eyes went to the ivy plants in the window, each charmed to reflect the health of a Weasley child. Ron's was still blooming and healthy -- but for how long?

Ginny's mother saw where her daughter was looking and bit her lip, her eyes suddenly bright. "Oh, Ginny -- I'm glad you're home," she said in a soft voice, and Ginny let herself be gathered into another hug. It was Charlie who finally broke into the embrace, tapping Mrs. Weasley on the shoulder.

"Ginny's had a long, exhausting day," he said gently. "We should let her get some rest."

Nodding, Mrs. Weasley let her daughter go. With a grateful smile at Charlie, Ginny headed up the stairs to her bedroom, pausing to wave down at Lupin and Sirius as she went. It was nice to have a house full of people, especially people she liked so much. If only she were in a fitter state to appreciate it.

Her bedroom door creaked as she opened it. It was full of shadows and, unlived in for so many months, smelled faintly of soap and dust. Ginny drew her wand out and waved it once, murmuring, "Luminesce." A soft glow suffused the room and Ginny stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

It was only after she had locked the door and turned around that she realized that her bedroom was not, in fact, empty. There was someone sitting on the edge of her bed, and to say that that someone was the last person she would ever have expected to see now would not have been far from the truth.

"Good lord," she exclaimed, utterly surprised. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"Malfoy?" Harry's jaw dropped open and stayed open. The bitter rain went into his mouth and he nearly choked on it. "H-how -- how did you -- how did you know -- how did you find me?"

"Are you really that surprised?" Draco took a step away from the wall, and began walking towards him. Slowly, as if there were no hurry in the world. Harry stared at that face he hadn't really expected to ever see again. Sharp features, familiar gray eyes, the hood of the long cloak down around his shoulders. His hair was as wet as Harry's, plastered across his cheeks and forehead in long colorless streaks. "I can always find you."

"No." Harry's voice was a half-whisper. "I did everything to prevent this --"

"You're not glad to see me?" The narrow mouth curled up at the corner, like paper curling as it burned. "How astonishing."

"Of course I'm not glad to see you. I mean, I'm glad. But Malfoy -- there are Death Eaters chasing me --"

Draco, unexpectedly, threw back his head and laughed, a bright sharp bark of laughter so unlike him that Harry stared. "Death Eaters chasing you? Oh, you are funny. I love it. What's next? Going to start up with that whole and-I'm-a-pitiful-orphan-take-care-of-me-because-I-have-to-save-the-world thing? God, but you're boring sometimes."

"No, of course you never." Draco was still smiling the same half-smile and there was something about it Harry really didn't like. "Of course you don't." He raised his hand, there was something glowing in it, like a spark of witchlight or marshfire. "You're Harry Potter, after all."

Harry began to back away, driven by instinct. He wondered if Draco was going to hit him and if he could bring himself to hit back. He didn't think he could. He deserved this, after all. That didn't make it any more unsettling. "I'm serious, Malfoy. There are Death Eaters chasing me. Your father will probably --"

Draco shook the wet hair out of his eyes. "Oh, right. My father. How could I forget my father. Such a bastard." His voice was toneless, cool, amused. The rain ran down his bare face in rivulets, parting the thick silver blades of his eyelashes, sliding down into the open collar of his shirt. "You know, don't you get bored with the same old whining every once in a while? Don't you want to do something a little different?"

"Different? What? Malfoy, I -- " Harry broke off as his back hit the damp wall. He could back up no farther. He shivered. "Okay, I know you're angry. I'm sorry I left you --"

"Left me?" Draco laughed. He lowered his hand, and the light in it winked out. "That's a new one. You make it sound so dramatic. You don't really think that's the sort of thing I'd care about, do you?"

Harry stared at him. He reached out then, tentatively, with his mind, but it was like hitting his hand against a concrete wall -- the other boy wasn´t letting him in at all. Draco was close enough to him now that Harry could see the damp hair curling at the ends, the rain beading on his lashes, the familiar silver scar under his eye. Harry himself had made that scar, indirectly, just as he had made the scar on Draco's hand, just as he had marked him in dozens of ways that were less visible. "Well, I thought that you would --"

"Really, Potter." Draco's voice was the same cool drawl Harry remembered from years gone by. He took a last step forward, closing the slight gap between them, and pushed Harry, hard, against the wall. Harry felt cold wet stone through the thin material of his shirt. Grit scraped his bare elbows. Draco held him pinned there, his hand against Harry´s chest, and with his other hand he reached into Harry´s shirt pocket, and drew out his glasses. "I was wondering where these were." He flicked the glasses open, and slid them onto Harry´s face. "Better," he said.

Wordless, Harry looked at him. It could have been a gentle gesture, this restoration of his glasses, but somehow, it wasn´t. The glasses were wet with rain anyway and slid halfway down his nose, which actually was a good thing, or he wouldn´t have been able to see at all. "I left you a letter," he began, stumbling over his words. "Didn't you read what I --"

"Shut up," interrupted Draco pleasantly, his grip tightening on Harry´s shirt, and for a dizzy moment Harry was positive Draco was going to hit him, just grab him and bang his head into the wall, and his muscles tensed up hard. Draco grinned. "Scared, Potter?"

"Hit me," Harry said. "If you want to hit me, hit me. If it'll make you feel better --"

"I feel fine," Draco said. He looked down at his hand, where it rested against Harry's chest. "You always have to make such a big deal out of everything," he said, and then he did exactly the last thing Harry would ever have expected, and leaned across the small space that separated them, and kissed Harry on the mouth.

The letters: Yes, I have both versions of the letters, Harry's original letters to Hermione and Draco, and the altered version that Draco actually received. We'll see the full texts of all of them eventually.

Ginny: I remember at the end of DS6 when I sent Ginny and Ron back to the Burrow and everyone had mad hysterics that this meant that they were out of the story for good. Then, of course, in the next chapter, everyone else went to the Burrow so it was irrelevant. Ginny's return to the Burrow here does not mean she is out of the action. She is still around. She has much to do. She has mysterious visitors in her room. She will see Draco again. They will discuss their relationship. Keep your pants on.

"The kind of family that bought their own furniture" --Draco's family, of course, would never buy a piece of furniture, having inherited the stuff down through the generations. MP Alan Clark once famously said about fellow politician Michael Heseltine that he was a man so unaristocratic that he had "bought his own furniture"-- the first time I came across a reference to this expression was in Textual Sphinx's lovely fic "To Sever the Lining From A Cloud," and it has stuck in my head since.

"You were mine first." -- This conversation between Ron and Harry was inspired by clokeofdarkness' "Best Friend", which is Ron POV, and briefly made me like Ron. But, then the feeling passed.

" I told you once you were wasting your time to barter your destiny for the friendship of a boy who would never like you." From DS6, Lucius talking to Draco: " You think I didn't see your face, back at the Mansion, when you looked at him, and at her, and her face when she looked at you both? Do you want to barter your destiny for the friendship of a boy who will never like you, and the favours of a girl who doesn't return your love? To ally yourself with people who will never regard you with anything more than suspicion and mistrust? They are not our kind of people, and they never will be. You will never belong with them." Yay for back-story continuity.

"To paraphrase Hamlet, Oedipus, Lear, and all those other guys" -- Roger Zelazny, The Sign of the Unicorn.

Next chapter: In which 1) Harry gets several shocks in a row 2) Rhysenn tells her life story 3) Draco spills some blood that isn't his own 4) Lucius gets a surprise visit from an old friend 5) Tom decides to get rid of Seamus' feelings for Ginny once and for all 6) Hermione gets in a fight 7) a hotel room suite decorated with heart-shaped red cushions features prominently.

Chapter Ten: The Descent Beckons

Chapter Eleven: The Hostility of Dreams