Chapter Fourteen ~~~~ Part One: the Path of Stones  

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke~ 

*** 

It was raining again when Ginny landed her broomstick on the path that led up to Pansy Parkinson's front door. The snow was melting into slush that soaked her boots as she raced up the path, flinging her broomstick aside when she reached the porch steps. Rain was dripping from her hair into her eyes; she shoved the wet strands impatiently out of her face and saw that the front door was open - not wide open but slightly ajar, as if her arrival had been expected. 

She shivered all over once, hard. Then she drew her wand and pushed the door open, stepping cautiously over the threshold. 

The foyer was full of light, a sort of pale, harsh gold light that hurt the backs of her eyes. Several candles burned in silver sconces against the walls but that was not the source of the light. It seemed to come from the air all around, and carried with it a bitter scent, as of something burning. 

Ginny half-closed her eyes - he was all around her, in the air, in the sharp coppery taste inside her mouth. Her heart began to pound in earnest. He was somewhere in this house, somewhere beyond one of the corridors that led off the foyer, waiting for her there in the darkness, blue eyes burning like gas flames turned low. 

She knew she ought to be terrified, and some small part of her was. And yet what knotted her stomach, dried her mouth, set her nerves to pounding, was not fear - it was anticipation. Her brain told her that death waited there in the shadows; her heartbeat said Tom, where are you, Tom? She bit her lip hard, but even the pain didn't help; what had happened to her willpower? Willpower. Her heart jumped again, and Ginny plunged her hand into her pocket, terrified for a moment she had left it - but no, her fingers closed on the small, blooming branch, and when she drew it out of her pocket she saw that it was remarkably undamaged, the small yellow flowers still fresh and unbruised. She pulled one off and placed it on her tongue. It tasted faintly of butter. She put the rest of the plant back in her pocket, tightened her grip on her wand, and set off down the leftmost corridor, where the sense of Tom's presence was strongest. 

The corridor led to a grander entryway, this one with a marble floor. A set of wide stone stairs with a gilded balustrade led up into shadow. At the foot of the steps was a heaped pile of pale fabric. Coming closer, Ginny saw that it was her yellow cloak. The hood of it was half torn away. 

Blaise.  

Ginny caught her breath. A moment later she was racing up the stairs, her wet shoes slipping on the smooth steps, her blood pounding harshly in her ears. She stumbled onto the first landing, hurling herself forward, tripping and almost falling over something sprawled at the foot of the second set of stairs. She caught at the balustrade to steady herself, staring. 

It was a body. 

*** 

When at last Hermione regained consciousness, the first thing she did was open her eyes. This turned out to be a mistake. She was two hundred feet above the ground, racing along at incredible speed with no visible means of support. She promptly fainted again. 

The second time she opened her eyes, she was above mountains. This time, though her stomach lurched with nausea and her mind reeled with terror, she remained conscious. Her first thought was that she was on an invisible flying carpet, but then she felt nothing under her, supporting her. Instead she was dangling, like a kitten by the scruff of its neck. 

Slowly she craned around and looked up; it was difficult, with her hair whipping in her face, but she had been right: there was someone holding her, a man with long dark hair and a thin cruel face. His eyes burned. He bent his lips to her ear, "So you are awake at last, little witch," he hissed. 

"Let me go!" Hermione screamed, writhing. 

He grinned. "With pleasure," he laughed, and released his grip on her shirt. Screaming in terror, she plummeted down, hands sawing helplessly at empty air - 

And landed, hard, atop the roof of a tower that had appeared out of nowhere. Impact knocked the wind out of her, cutting off her scream. She rolled over onto her stomach, blinking back tears of pain, and saw the black-haired man alight, still grinning and light as a cat, a few feet away. 

"I'm so sorry," he said. His voice was accented, the vowels thick and liquid. He was very pale, with thin lips drawn back over long - too -long - teeth in a snarl of amusement. His fingers, bare and white, seemed also too long, and there was something unpleasant about the way he moved, too quick and light for an ordinary person. "That was terribly rude of me. You did seem to be sleeping so pleasantly through most of our journey, it's quite a shame. I do admire those who can sleep through air travel." He smiled, engagingly. 

Breath had finally come back to her lungs, and with it, a cold pain and panic. "Who are you? What do you want from me?" 

"I am Gabriel," he said, and swept her a small, mocking bow. "I serve He Who Rules the Shadows." 

"He who what?" 

"Rules the shadows," said Gabriel with a touch of impatience. "Look, it's a ceremonial title, I didn't make it up. He Who Rules the Shadows, the Bringer of Night, the Death-Dealer, the Dark Lord -" 

"You mean," Hermione said, sitting up straight, "Voldemort." 

Gabriel waved a thin white hand. "Such an unaesthetic choice for a name," he murmured. 'I much prefer the titles myself." 

Hermione shivered - it was freezing up on the roof, and she was wearing only Harry's old Puddlemere United shirt and a pair of jeans. "So Voldemort's your master? What does he want with me?" 

Gabriel shrugged. "I don't much know - or care," he admitted candidly. "All I know, little witch, is what is written, and it is written that the dark lord will perform the Rite of the Tetragrammaton and it will bring him life eternal -" 

Hermione wrapped her arms around herself and glared. "Your prophecy is wrong. I know what's really going to happen. Harry is going to destroy your precious Dark Lord; he's going to banish him down to Hell like he did to Salazar Slytherin, and when he does, you'd better pray he shows you and all Voldemort's other filthy minions the mercy you don't deserve." 

For a moment, she thought she saw Gabriel's lips tighten, but then he merely smiled, his long canines showing stark white against his too-red lips. 

"Nonsense," he murmured, his tone caressing, "do you think my only order was to fetch you, little witch, do you think you are the only one who matters? I left several Death Eaters there, my best men, trained killers. If your Harry is not quite dead already, he will be very soon." 

*** 

As always in times of great stress or agitation, everything seemed to snap sharply into focus for Harry at once - although, of course, he could not see, so that focus took the shape of a swift and intense awareness of the hard floor under his back, the hilt of the sword digging into his spine, the rough coarseness of the ropes binding his wrists behind him - he didn't even remember the men binding his wrists, they must have done it with a spell - the sharp tip of the knife pricking just under his chin. There was pain, somewhere, localized beyond the pain at his throat, as if his skin were torn - 

Draco , he thought, hard and feverishly, Draco, where are you, are you all right? 

There was a pause, just long enough to be agonizing, during which Harry tried to ignore the voices of the men kneeling over him, speaking roughly to each other in some foreign language he didn't recognize. Then: 

I'm here. Over by the wall. Draco's interior voice, cool and careful and familiar. Can you see anything? 

No . Harry swallowed hard, and the knifepoint scraped his throat. Are you hurt? 

No - they tied my feet and my hands, though. I don't think they think I'm much of a threat, anyway. It's you they seem to be interested in. 

Lucky me, Harry thought dryly. What are they doing now? How many are there? 

Talking …Draco's tone was hesitant. I don't know the language. There are two of them, Harry; one kneeling over you, and one standing behind him, nearer me. The one has a knife at your throat. The other one is holding a wand, he's got a sword through his belt, too. 

There must be something I can do, Harry thought. They don't know we can talk to each other - 

Yes, and a lot of good it does us, Draco thought with customary bitterness. A moment later, however, he spoke again, thoughtfully: Your sword is pinned under you. If you lean back, could you use it to cut your wrists free? 

Harry did not reply, but only let his weight settle farther back, pushing his wrists down towards his heels. His shoulders ached but he ignored them, fumbling with numb fingers for the sharp edge along the blade's side - If only I could see, he thought, desperately, and for a moment did not realize that his mind was still connected to Draco's and of course the other boy would hear him; Harry had been alone in his mind for too long. 

Harry - Draco's thought cut itself off, and Harry felt the other boy's mind brush his, as if fingers scraped lightly over his skin, seeking something. It did not hurt but was startling; Harry jumped, and felt a twofold pain: the knife under his chin, and the slice of the blade under his hands. He pressed down with his hands, the sting at his wrists sharp even as the ropes, fraying, began to loosen - 

Light burst behind his eyes. For a moment, gasping, he froze, as the world swung crazily around him. Although the rough cloth still pressed against his shut eyes, he could see, could see the room he sat in, the two heavyset men in their dark robes, leaning over him, could see himself, on the floor, a cloth bag over his head, the neck of his shirt open and the knife pressed to the pulse that beat there. What he could not see, was Draco; and Harry realized, after the first frozen moment, that this was because he was seeing as Draco, that he looked through the other boy's eyes as if through a kaleidescope or a double pane of glass. 

He expelled a whistling breath of shock, and at that moment, the rope that pulled between his wrists, frayed beyond endurance, sprang apart. 

The sword - Draco said aloud, and the man kneeling over Harry started and turned to the side, the knife in his hand lowering, not much but it was enough - Harry, his hands freed, was already seizing the hilt, swinging the blade up and over, driving it down. He saw light glint from the blade as it flashed its descent, heard a choked howl in his ear as it drove through flesh and muscle, scraping bone. 

Something wetly hot poured down over Harry, as if he'd upended a hot water bottle on himself. Eyes screwed shut, Harry couldn't tell what it was, just that there was a great deal of it. He swung the sword again, and again, and again, and heard yells and a dull thudding and then the one voice he could still have listened to was shouting at him to stop and drop his hands. He let go the hilt, and darkness banded his vision; fingers found the cloth covering his eyes, and tore it away, and he stared up at wide, ice-water eyes in a face gone gray as a winter sky. 

"What's happened?" Harry said, wildly. There was a terrible pain in his wrists and he was soaked, drenched in something, his hair hanging in sopping tendrils. "What's all over me -" 

Draco took him by the shoulders, hard, and held him there. His voice was steady. "You've killed him, Harry, he's dead. You've killed him, and you're covered in blood." 

*** 

"What do you mean, he needs my blood?" Ron demanded, a cold chill prickling the skin on the back of his neck. 

Rhysenn's delicately arched eyebrows raised. "Ooops," she said. "I think I spoiled the surprise." 

Ron stood up, his expression grim. "Explain what you meant." 

Rhysenn pursed her lips in a smile. A moment before she had sounded bitter, now she seemed as prettily unconcerned as a little girl in a swing. "I just meant," she said, "that the blood of a Diviner at full power is an item much sought after in, let us say, certain circles." 

"What kind of circles?" 

"Knitting circles," Rhysenn said drily. "Think, dearest. Dark magic circles, of course. Only dark magic requires human blood." 

"Then all these games, the chess, the dice, the tests -" 

"All to bring you to full power, so that your blood could be harvested." 

Ron's heart pounded. "I thought it was the visions he wanted me for -" 

Rhysenn threw her head back and laughed. "Visions. What use are visions? Blood, now there is something that can be used. Not that -" 

But she broke off as the door opened. Ron stayed on his feet, tensed for the Dark Lord's arrival - but it was the vampire Rhysenn had called Gabriel. With his long black hair and white skin, Gabriel could have been Rhysenn's twin. When he strode across the room and leaned to kiss her through the gold bars, the unpleasantly incestuous sight sent a shiver up Ron's spine. "Oi there," he said. "Get a room." 

Gabriel broke away and grinned at Ron with wet red lips. "I've got your girl," he said, without preamble. "What do you say to that?" 

Ron blinked, and looked from Gabriel to Rhysenn, who had shaken her long dark hair back and was staring at him. To his relief, she was not naked, but was suddenly wearing a dark red dress with an elaborately laced bodice. High gold combs dressed her hair. Ron shook his head to clear it. "I wouldn't exactly say Rhysenn was my girl," he hedged, "I mean, every once in a while she tries to seduce me, but I figured that was just professional courtesy, what with her being a sex demon and all. But no, I don't feel I have any claims on her. I guess what I'm trying to say here," and he clapped Gabriel on the arm in a comradely manner, "is, go right ahead. Although maybe you could drape something over the cage for privacy -" 

"You," said Gabriel, "are a driveling idiot." 

Ron took his hand back. "Well, I suppose I could just face the other way -" 

"I did not mean Rhysenn," Gabriel said. "She is emphatically not your girl, or anyone's. I meant the little brown-haired witch. Your Hermione." 

Ron went cold all over, down to the pit of his stomach. His voice, when he spoke, also sounded frozen. "She's not my girl either." 

"Be that as it may," Gabriel said, his voice like raw silk, "I have left her on the rooftop, without a cloak or a wand. If you do not go up to retrieve her, she may well freeze to death." 

*** 

Draco looked at Harry worriedly. He was covered in blood: it was all over his hands, in his hair, streaked down the front of his shirt like uneven swipes of red paint. The room even smelled like blood, a dark electric smell like the air before a storm. Draco kept his eyes on Harry, not wanting to look at the dead man on the floor, how small he looked in death, how waxy and vulnerable. 

"What did I do?" Harry said, after a short, shocked pause. His voice was flat, dazed, affectless. The neck of his shirt was still gaping open, and where Draco touched his bare wrists he could feel how cold Harry was - wasn't that a sign of shock, being cold? 

Harry was covered in blood, too, as if he'd been dipped in it like a wick dipped in wax. It streaked his face and drenched his shirt and stiffened the dark curls of his hair. The blood didn't bother Draco, he only wondered if any of it was Harry's own, and if so, how much, and if he was all right. 

The pulse that beat in the cold wrist he held was a steady one. Draco said, "Can you stand up?" 

"Yes," Harry said. "Yes, I'm all right." He stood up, and Draco stood up with him. The bloody sword drooped from his half-open hand, and the cloth that had bound his eyes dangled, loose and bloodstained, around his throat. He stared down at the dead body at his feet without any expression at all. "I thought," he said, "that there were two of them." 

"There were," Draco said. "Once the other one saw what you did to his friend here, he did a bunk. Ran right out the door." 

Harry's eyes flicked up; in his pale face, they were the transparent green of stained glass. "I thought maybe you'd done something to him." 

"No," Draco said, with bitter lightness, "the way you were waving that sword about, I didn't much fancy wading in and getting my head cut off by mistake." 

"Ah," Harry said, as if this made perfect sense, and Draco forbore to add that by the time he'd been able to stand up on legs that didn't want to hold him - he'd twice crumpled back to the ground - one of the men was gone, and the other dead. "It doesn't matter anyway, I suppose. I wonder who sent them? Voldemort, probably. I mean, I'd assume so. Or your father. It's quite something having enough enemies that you can pick and choose among them, Malfoy. Although I imagine you already know that." Harry's speech had taken on a disquieting rapidity. "I wonder how long it's going to take him to change back." 

Draco wasn't sure what he'd been expecting Harry to say, but this threw him. "Change back into what?" 

"Those shapeshifters we killed before," Harry said, "they changed back into whatever they were when they died. And vampires turn into dust. I don't know what these were, but -" 

"They were just people, Harry," Draco said, without thinking, "he's not going to change into anything. He's just dead." 

"Oh," Harry said, and his head went up and he looked at Draco. "Are you - do you know that, or are you just -" 

His voice trailed off, but mentally Draco finished the sentence for him, Are you just saying that because you want to hurt me? - and he felt it, like a sharp and sudden pain, a pain he'd thought he was beyond. That Harry would think that of him, that he would mean it. That it might be true. Only it wasn't.  

"I'm not," he said, "trying to hurt you." 

Draco was someone who felt irony. He lived it and breathed it and his aesthetic soul, that saw the beauty in malice and admired the tightly controlled structure of tragedy even when it was his own, appreciated the irony here: he'd spent hours tonight trying to hurt Harry as much as he possibly could, and now fate had handed him the chance to watch Harry shatter into a thousand pieces, and he didn't want it any more. 

"I'm sorry," he said. "But it doesn't matter -" 

Harry didn't interrupt him, but instead turned around and walked out of the room. There was a precise, determined look on his face, as if he knew where he was going and what he meant to do when he got there. 

After a moment of startled hesitation, Draco followed him. 

He found Harry in the kitchen. He was standing in front of the sink, his slender shoulders hunched over, his bare, bloody hands plunged under a stream of water. Pinkish steam rose in a cloud and enveloped him, misting over his glasses, shrouding his face. It took a moment for Draco to realize how hot water would have to be to create that much steam in an already warm kitchen. He was across the room so fast he didn't remember later whether he'd walked or run. He pulled Harry back by his shoulders and spun him around and let him go. 

Harry looked at him blankly. The steam had condensed into water droplets that clung to his hair and sheened the tops of his cheekbones and glittered on his lashes like tears. But he hadn't cried. Blood and water pasted his cotton shirt to his body. His hands were a bright and ugly red, already beginning to blister along the curve of his thumb and forefinger. "What are you trying to do?" Draco said. He had to raise his voice to hear himself over the sound of running water. "Ruin your hands?" 

"Why not?" Harry said. "You ruined yours." 

His voice didn't sound like his voice at all, and his green eyes were flat and vacant. Draco felt something inside his stomach lurch and tighten. "You had to kill them," he said. "You didn't have a choice." 

"We always have choices," Harry said. "You said so yourself." 

"He would have killed you," Draco said. Harry didn't seem to hear him. "He would have killed me," he added. 

Harry looked up at that. He reached up and rubbed the clouded surface of his glasses. "I know," he said. "I know that. It's the way I did it - I didn't think about it. I just did it." 

"It's what you had to do," Draco said. "You do what you have to do. You always have." 

Harry began to shiver. The color hadn't come back into his face yet, despite the heat in the kitchen. He was still papery white, a color like old eggshells. Against the whiteness of his skin, the blood stood out as glaringly as burning cinders. "Hold me up," he said. 

Caught off guard, Draco blinked at him. "What?" 

"Malfoy," Harry said, and the use of Draco's last name was oddly not so much distancing as merely pleading somehow, pleading and childish, as if Harry were eleven years old again and Malfoy was the only name he knew Draco by. "Hold me up - I think I'm going to fall over." He reached out with his hand, blindly, groping for the back of a nearby chair. Draco didn't move. "I'm sorry," Harry said, very softly, and Draco had no idea who he was apologizing to. It didn't matter. The scalding bitter rage that had been the constant companion of Draco's every waking moment since he had sat on Harry's bed and read the letter Harry had written receded with the soft sound of Harry's voice, and he took a step towards Harry and then reached out his hands and put his arms around Harry very awkwardly, and held him up. 

Harry let go of the chair instantly, and seized hold of Draco, his hands fisted in the front of Draco's shirt, so tightly that it was painful. He smelled of blood and metal and sweat and salt, and his grip pulled the shirt down and the collar cut into the back of Draco's neck but Draco didn't mind. He stood where he was and tried not to breathe too quickly because he was afraid that if he did, Harry would let go. As if they had been closed suddenly in a glass box, an utter and profound stillness seemed to have fallen over the small space that held them. The world, the sounds and colors of it, seemed muted and distant and far away. All that was real was the hammering beat of Harry's pulse in the wrist Draco held, and all he could hear was the rough sound of Harry's breathing and the water splashing into the sink. 

Harry had begun to shiver. Draco was acutely conscious of how fragile the other boy was, how thin his shoulders were, how light his bones, how close the pulse ran to the surface of his skin - he could feel Harry's heartbeat through the hands against his chest. He could feel Harry again, as though some unprecedented alchemy of love and grief had worked a change in his blood: he could feel his desolation and his horror and his appalling guilt. He felt these emotions but they did not hurt him the way that he would have expected them to, because they were Harry's, and he had not realized how much he had missed knowing what Harry was feeling until he felt it again. 

"I'm getting blood on your shirt," Harry said. Draco couldn't see his face, but his voice sounded like his own voice again. "I'm sorry." 

"I don't mind," Draco said. 

"I killed that man," Harry said. His voice was affectless, stripped raw by shock. "And I'll have to do it again." 

"Probably," Draco said. 

"I can't stand it," Harry said. 

"You can stand it," Draco said. "You have to." 

Harry didn't relax but his hands loosened their death grip on Draco's shirt. "I'm a murderer now," he said. "Everything's different." 

Draco remembered Sirius holding him next to his father's grave, and stroking his hair and his back, and saying soothing things. He still couldn't think of a soothing thing to say but he put his other arm around Harry and lightly touched the back of his blood-and-water soaked shirt. 

"Not everything," he said. 

Harry's voice was quiet. "Thank you." 

"For what?" 

"For not saying, No, you're not a murderer." 

Draco didn't reply. You're welcome seemed inappropriate, almost flip, but what else was there to say? He had never been taught that consoling words were anything more than lies, and he wouldn't lie to Harry. Harry trusted him not to. He couldn't say everything would be all right, because in some sense it wouldn't - the Harry he was holding was changing, even as he held him; he would never really be the same Harry again. If he could hold Harry together with his hands, keep him from breaking apart, from losing what he must inevitably lose - Draco would have given Harry any part of himself if he could, but what Harry was losing was something Draco had never had. He was not sorry himself that that man was dead. He was sorry Harry had been the one who killed him. He wished he had killed the man himself, not because the idea gave him any pleasure, but because it didn't horrify him either, and it clearly horrified Harry. It was something he himself could have borne so easily, and for the first time, Draco began not just to know but to understand that there were things he could give Harry that Harry didn't already have and couldn't give himself. 

He thought of what Dumbledore had told him, weeks ago, about Harry. 

He is strong, and can endure much, and for what he cannot endure, he has you. 

He remembered a few hours before, how determined he had been to cut the tie that bound him to Harry and walk away and never look back. He had not thought about what would happen after that: a sort of blank, clenched pain was all he had been able to imagine, going on and on with every beat of his heart until all heartbeats stopped. He had known that what he was saying was hurting Harry: he could see the desolation in those clear eyes, and he had liked it because it meant that Harry cared enough to be hurt. The idea of a Harry who felt nothing at all was more terrifying to him than a Harry who hated him. If he could make Harry hate him again at least that would have been something. 

But Harry didn't hate him. He knew that now. You didn't cling like this to someone that you hated. You didn't trust them to carry you through nightmarish pain, to hold you up and not to let you fall. Maybe Harry didn't love him enough, or in the right sort of way, but he trusted Draco and he needed him and the line between that and love was so thin that Draco couldn't have drawn it himself. He could feel, through the tangle of desolation and horror that wound Harry like a net of wires, how much Harry needed him. He hurt, and he wanted, and what he wanted was Draco, because Draco would never lie to him and never tell him things were all right when they weren't. 

"I could make you forget," Draco said, "easily enough, if that was what you wanted - is it what you want?" 

Harry straightened up. "No. No, I don't want that." He paused. "Unless you think -" 

"Don't," Draco said, "ask me to decide. If you want to know what I think, I think that I wish it had been me who killed him, because I wouldn't have minded and I hate that you mind. But I also think that you're right, you'll have to do this again. And I can't keep making you forget every single time. I'm not saying it'll get easier, either, Harry, because maybe it won't. But you've never chosen to do anything because it was easier, you've never expected things to be easy, you don't even like it when things are easy - I've told you that before. You're strong enough for this - strong enough even to do things you know are evil - you just don't want to be, is all." 

Harry was silent for a moment. "I thought you were done being my friend," he said finally. 

"That doesn't matter," Draco said, "that doesn't have anything do to with this." 

Harry laughed shakily. "Sometimes I wish you'd lie to me," he said, "just a little." 

"No, you don't." 

"You're right. I don't." Harry let go of Draco's shirt entirely, but didn't move away from him. "Malfoy...?" 

"Yes?" 

"What's the difference between being strong enough to do things you know are evil, and actually being evil, then?" 

"I don't know." Draco paused for a moment, thought about the difference between defeat and acceptance, and the blood on Harry's hands that had transferred itself to his own clothes and skin, and the fact that he didn't mind. "I don't know, Potter. I really don't know." 

*** 

In the half-light all Ginny could see was a tangle of black fabric and a sprawl of slim, pale limbs; an arm flung out at an angle, legs bent towards the chest, a white throat splashed with black blood. No pulse in the throat. Fingers bent into claws. The wand clattered out of Ginny's nerveless fingers as she flung herself down by the corpse, put her hand on the shoulder, pulled - 

It rolled towards her and Ginny jerked her hand back, a sharp cry escaping her throat. Bulging eyes stared at her out of a face so distorted with horror that it was barely recognizable, but Ginny would have known her anyway by the gaudy barrettes, the tangle of dark brown hair, the bitter little mouth: Pansy Parkinson. 

There was no wound on her that Ginny could see, but the white front of her shirt was stained with red, and there was blood in her brown hair. For a moment Ginny thought of unbuttoning her shirt to see what Tom had done to her, but she quailed; what did it matter, anyway? What mattered was that she was dead. 

Gently, she reached out and, with the tips of her fingers, closed Pansy's staring eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered, very softly, but her voice seemed to echo anyway in the empty stairwell, and the echoes that bounced back to her whispered the same two words over and over: your fault, your fault, your fault. 

'No," Ginny hissed under her breath, and reached out to the wall behind her, hitching herself to her feet, "no -" 

"There's no need for you to cry, Ginny," His voice came light and soft, and the torches along the walls seemed to flicker, or perhaps it was her own dimming vision. "Don't pretend you care that she's dead; she always hated you. She told me that, among other things, before I killed her." 

It took every bit of Ginny's amplified willpower for her to raise her head and look at him. He was standing at the top of the stairs, just where the shadows were darkest. The faint torchlight knitted itself around his pale hands and face, his barleycorn hair. His mouth was curved into a lucid and passionless grin and his eyes, as they fixed themselves on her, were full of hunger. 

"I knew you'd come," he whispered. "I knew it." His gaze was satisfied. "You belong to me." 

Rage exploded behind Ginny's eyes, almost blinding her. Wandless, she flung herself up the stairs, running - hurled herself at him, her fingers curled into claws - and struck the ground, hard, bruising her hands and knees. 

There was no one there. 

She struggled to her feet, casting around wildly, but he was gone - she was alone at the top of the twisting staircase. Below her Pansy lay dead in her own blood on the landing. Above her - Ginny looked up, but there was nothing, only the immense chandelier hanging still and lifeless, its pendant drops of dark red cut glass glimmering with a dull fire. 

I could leave, she thought. I could run down the stairs and out of the house and he wouldn't follow me. 

He wouldn't have to. Tom knew she would come back. She would always come back to him. Hate wedded her to him, stronger than love, more enduring. Hatred's an emotion you can trust, Draco had said to her. You always know where you stand with it. 

Straightening her shoulders, Ginny turned from the stairs to the corridor, and began to walk forward. 

*** 

Ron was only halfway up the narrow stone staircase when his breath began to puff out of his mouth in small white clouds. God, it was freezing, he thought. Fear for Hermione made his blood pound in his ears. The sides of the tower were so steep; it was so cold - 

He reached the top of the stairs, pushed the wooden door open, and found himself atop the North Tower. The flat stone floor stretched away to the battlements, and the sky above was a pebbly gray. A knifelike wind blew fine particles of snow against his bare face. He raised an arm to shield his eyes and called out. "Hermione!" 

A long moment passed before he heard her reply and even then, he almost mistook it for more wind. Spinning around, he saw a dark shape huddled against the wall of the inner tower. 

He raced over and knelt down beside her. She was huddled in against herself, her thin bare arms wrapped around her denim-clad legs. When she raised her face to his, he saw that her lips were tinged with blue. "Ron," she said, shakily. "What - w-what are you -" 

But her teeth were chattering too hard for her to get the words out. Quickly, Ron shrugged off his blue cloak and slung it around her shoulders. She clutched at it, and then at him as he helped her to her feet. "We've got to get you inside," he muttered, and pulled her to her feet. 

She held tightly to his arm as they crossed the roof through the snow. Her fingers felt like wands of ice pressed against his bare skin. When they were finally inside the tower, he pushed the door shut against the wind and turned to face her, his eyes searching her face anxiously. "Hermione…are you all right?" 

She had let go of him, and was standing huddled underneath the heavy blue cloak he had draped around her. Under the cloak, her right hand was pressed to her side; for a moment he thought she was in pain, then realized she was holding something against her side. He caught a flash of silver - a knife, perhaps? Her lips and eyelids were tinged faintly with blue, and her hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead in limp brown tendrils. "Ron," she said, her voice hoarse. "What are you doing here?" 

'I was captured by the Dark Lord," Ron said, "and brought here…just like you. I don't even know how long I've been here, Hermione, how many days…" 

'You don't look like a prisoner." She gestured at his clothes. "You look like you're ready for a fancy dress party." 

"Hermione -" Ron reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrank away from him. Her eyes were filled with suspicion. Ron felt as if he had swallowed a block of ice - to have endured so much, and still to be distrusted - "Fine," he said, shortly, and turned to head back down the staircase. After a moment, she followed him. 

*** 

The first three rooms Ginny glanced into were empty. The third was not. It was a bedroom, probably a spare room, furnished in dark yellow velvet. On a brocade chair in the middle of the room sat Blaise. Ropes circled her waist, securing her to the chair's mahogany back, and thin cords tightly bound her wrists. A pale green kerchief was stuffed in her mouth. Her eyes, a much darker green, widened when she saw Ginny, then began darting wildly around the room. 

Ginny raised a finger to her lips, then stepped forward and drew the kerchief from Blaise's mouth. The other girl gasped and licked her dry lips. Up close Ginny could see that her eyes were full of tears, although knowing Blaise, they were probably tears of rage or pain rather than fear. 

Ginny crouched down beside the chair. "Blaise," she whispered. "Are you all right?" 

Blaise snorted. "Do I look all right?" She raised her arms slightly and Ginny saw that the thin cords binding her wrists together were tied so tightly that they were cutting into her skin. Blood stained the rope and her hands looked oddly white. Blaise's voice was strained. "You'd better get out of here, Ginny. There's no telling when he'll come back, and if he finds out you're here -" 

'He knows I'm here," Ginny said grimly. "Let me untie you -" 

"No!" Blaise's eyes were darting around the room again. "He killed Pansy, you know." 

"I know," Ginny said, standing up. "I thought he'd killed you, too." 

'No," Blaise said slowly. She raised her head to look at Ginny. "It's you he's really after," she said. There were weals on her white neck, dark red, they looked like bite marks. "He's said I looked like you -" 

A horrid thought occurred to Ginny. "You do know he's not Seamus, don't you? I mean, not really." 

"I know," Blaise said. For a moment, her lower lip trembled, and she looked like what she was - an ordinary teenage girl, badly frightened, struggling to retain the scraps of her self-possession. "What is he, Ginny? I looked in his eyes and I saw - not a person at all but a thing - blacker than a shadow, and twisted, and when he touched me his hands cut me like knives - what is he?" 

Ginny blinked - black and twisted? But he was not that - he was beautiful, and the more horrible for being beautiful. Her Tom - she opened her mouth, to explain, to condemn herself, when from behind her a soft voice spoke in a tone that was like a sharp nail running down her spine. "Yes, Ginny," it whispered - he whispered. "Tell her what I am." 

*** 

They were halfway down the stairs when the snake lunged out at them; Hermione shrieked and threw herself backward. Ron stood where he was, the torch in his hand held stiffly out in front of him. Its flame was the same gold color as the snake's eyes. 

"It's all right, Hermione," Ron said. "It's just Kevin." 

Just ? the serpent inquired, its tone lazy, scraping like scales against the inside of Ron's head. You hold me in low regard, True Dreamer? 

Not at all, Ron thought quickly. He could hear Hermione behind him, her breathing sharp and harsh. Without her wand, he thought, she must really be terrified. I just want to pass by. 

It's just a snake, you just want to pass by - your desires are so little for one of your power, your speech so careful. Why is that, Diviner? 

Ron's mouth twisted bitterly. What power? A head full of useless visions, a future I can't do anything to change - 

The snake let out a hiss, which sounded impatient. I tell you, boy, it said, the answers you need are not locked only in the future. Some are in the past. 

What do you mean by that? Ron began, but he heard a low moan behind him, and turned to see that Hermione had slid, shivering, to the floor. She was alarmingly blue. 

Kevin chuckled, if a snake could be said properly to chuckle (although a snake named Kevin might perhaps be capable of more than your ordinary snake, Ron thought.) See to your girl, he hissed, and slithered backward, disappearing into the alcove he had emerged from with a disdainful flick of his tail. 

*** 

It was only much later, when he had seen Hermione again and had known that she was, for the time being at least, safe, that Harry was able to remember that next terrible half an hour, during which he and Draco had wandered Viktor's flat, silent as ghosts. They had not even called out her name. She was so clearly gone: Harry felt the lack of her, like its own presence, in every room. 

They wound up back in the kitchen. Draco paused by the stove and looked down at it. For the first time Harry noticed that there was still a pot on it, the flame underneath turned low. Whatever had been in the pot was now a blackened and unrecognizable mass. Draco waved a hand at the stove and the flame vanished. Then he looked at Harry. "Do we want to talk about what we're going to do now?" 

Some part of Harry, a distant part, was comforted by that use of the word "we." Whatever happened, he would not be alone..."They took her," he said. "Voldemort's men." 

"Yes. Probably the same ones that came after you last night. They said they were looking for her." 

"I heard something," Harry said. "When I woke up- when they woke me this morning. The sound of a body falling -" 

"You think she's dead?" Draco said. He touched the side of the pot, jumped, drew his hand back. Closed his fingers in against his palm. He was very white. 

"She's not dead," Harry said. "I'd know." 

"Yes," Draco said. "I think you would." 

"I guess we don't need to talk about what we're going to do." Harry's voice was bitter. "I guess I was going after the Dark Lord anyway. Now I'll just go - a little faster." 

"Faster?" Draco said. He was still staring down at the pot, at whatever it had once contained, burned now to ash. "We haste by night, and press by day -" He stopped, overtaken by a fit of coughing. "Sorry," he said. "Ash in my throat." 

"All my friends," Harry said. "One by one - " He touched Draco's sleeve. "You'll be careful?" 

Draco looked away from him. "The Dark Lord wouldn't want me. He doesn't like damaged things." 

"Your hand will heal," Harry said. 

Draco seemed not to hear him. "I almost wish I could talk to my father," he said. "He'd know where Voldemort is." 

"I know where he is, sort of," Harry said. "He's in Romania." 

"Ah," Draco said, realization in his voice. "Yes, those creatures last night, they were speaking Romanian - and there's a place - my father always spoke of it - a fortress on a hill..." 

"We just have to figure out the fastest way to get there." 

"As for that," Draco said with the ghost of a smile, "I may have a cunning plan...give me a few minutes, Potter. And why don't you go wash the blood off you. Looking at you is making me sick." 

*** 

Blaise gave a little moan and tensed all over. Ginny touched her shoulder lightly, then turned, and looked at Tom. 

He was lounging in the doorway, his head to the side, a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth. In the light now, she could see that he wore a white shirt, stained all over with blood, some of it dried to rusty stains, some of it fresh and new. His skin - Seamus' wind-tanned skin - was a few shades darker than the shirt, his cheekbones flushed, his lips a pale shell pink, his coppery-gold hair catching the candlelight. He looked like an angel, she thought dazedly, an angel of the old days when there were wars in heaven and angels could kill. 

His faint smile widened to a smirk. "Nothing to say, Virginia? Cat got your tongue?" He unhitched himself from the doorway and walked into the room, stopping before Blaise. Hands behind his back, he looked down at her, his gaze considering. "Miss Zabini," he said. "I remember your grandfather, with his stammer and his funny unpronouncable name. Plenty of money, your family always had, but in the end - foreign trash was all they were and they knew it. Yes, I know you," he added, his voice like poisoned honey, "but you won't know me, oh no." He knelt down then, before her chair, took her bloody hands in his, and brushed his lips across the top of her knuckles. "Ginny could tell you who I was, if she liked," he confided, his eyes fixed on Ginny. They were full of a disturbing amusement. "After all, she made me." 

Breath escaped Ginny's lips in a hiss. "Don't," she whispered. "Tom -" 

"You hear the way she says my name," Tom murmured, his lips almost touching Blaise's skin. "She doesn't know whether to love me or hate me, for I am herself. I am her love, I am her hatred. I am her joy and I am her loathing and her abhorrence. I am her unrequited passions. I am her guilt and her remembrance. I am her beautiful despair. I am the futility of all her wishes. Out of blood and tears and ink, she made me. And I will never leave her." 

Blaise was staring at him open-mouthed. "You're a complete lunatic, is what you are." 

But he seemed hardly to hear her. He was staring at Ginny, and his eyes were burning - and in their lighted depths, Ginny saw a heat that could char her to kindling, melt her down and make her anew. "This isn't about her, Tom," she said. "This is about us. You and me." 

He nodded, and rose to his feet, light and graceful in his bloodstained shirt. "Then what is it that you want, Virginia?" 

Ginny looked at him levelly. "To finish this," she said, and walked out of the room. 

*** 

Harry let the shower water run as hot as he could stand, then stood under it for a long time, letting it sluice the blood and dirt off his skin. He felt bruised all over, outside as well as in. He swallowed water and soap, spat, closed his eyes and raised his face to let the water run over his mouth and eyelids. 

Alone now without Draco, he was acutely conscious of the beat of his own heart, the sting of his bruised skin where the hot water ran over it. He only dimly remembered whatever it was Draco had said to him in the kitchen but being held onto like that had been like having an arrow pulled out of his chest: the agony was gone now, though the wound remained. 

When the water had run clear for several minutes, Harry shut the shower off, put his trousers on, and padded barefoot back into the bedroom, toweling off his hair as he went. Draco was already in there, sorting through Viktor's pile of weapons. He looked up when Harry came in. 

"You changed," Harry said. "Are those your clothes?" 

Draco glanced down at himself. He was wearing all black: black boots, black trousers, a rusty black pullover that was a little too big, a black cloak on over it. He seemed disinclined to look directly at Harry. "These are Viktor's," he said. "I took them out of his closet."He shrugged. "My bags haven't gotten here yet and I didn't want to borrow anything of yours." 

"You could have if you wanted," Harry said. "You look sort of depressing. I mean, you don't look bad," he added hastily as Draco's expression darkened. "Black suits you." 

"Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of Our Enemies Since 1500," Draco said. "It's a Malfoy family motto." He quirked a half-smile at Harry. "What about you? You know what they say, 'No Shoes, No Shirt, No Epic Defeat of the Dark Forces." 

Harry tossed the towel he was carrying onto the bed and looked around for his bags. "I was planning on putting a shirt on." 

"Well, before you do," Draco said, straightening up, "come here." 

Harry went over to him, stepping carefully around the piles of knives and spiked maces. Draco was standing up now, and holding something in his left hand; he said, "Hold your hands out," and Harry did, palms down, very curious now. Draco still wasn't looking directly at him, but down at his hands, his expression thoughtful. "Don't fidget," he said, and reached for Harry's right hand. Harry realized that what Draco was holding in his hand was some sort of set of cuffs or bracelets, made of very soft leather. Draco buckled one around Harry's right wrist and the second around his left, then stepped back and surveyed his work critically. "Do they hurt?" he asked. 

"No," said Harry, flexing his wrists. "Is there a point to these, or are you just being kinky?" 

"There's a point to them. Here." Draco took Harry's right hand, turned it over, and pushed his fingers down. Harry felt the cuff around his wrist tighten; there was a swish-thuk noise, and suddenly there was a knife embedded in the floor at Harry's feet, its hilt quivering slightly. "It's enchanted," Draco said, his tone satisfied, as if he'd enchanted it himself. "To throw knives. You'll never run out, either." 

"This," Harry said, "will come in extremely handy at picnics." 

He couldn't tell if Draco smiled at that or not; Draco was still carefully avoiding looking at him. "Just don't make any really sudden moves," Draco said, "you might impale your foot." 

'I won't," Harry toyed with the cuff on his left wrist. "Are you all right? You won't look at me." 

Draco sighed and raised his eyes to Harry's. "I thought you might mind being given weapons," he said. "So soon - but you'll need them, and I'd rather you were properly armed, and we haven't got much time-" 

"It's all right," Harry said. "Where is the ... the body?" 

"I'll show you," Draco said. "As soon as you're ready to go." He paused. "You really don't mind them, then?" 

Harry held his arms out. "The buckles are too loose," he said. "Can you tighten them?" 

Draco hesitated a moment before starting on the left cuff. His touch was fast and gentle. Harry looked at him curiously, unable to see his face, just the bent fair head, the dangling locks of white-blond hair and the flushed tips of his ears. "You're not going to leave now," Harry said. It wasn't really a question. "What you said before, about going back to England -" 

"Of course not," Draco said. "I want to find her as much as you do." 

"Maybe not quite as much," Harry said. 

Draco shrugged and started on the other cuff. 'I said I'd go with you. I'll go." 

"What you said before, in the kitchen, about me being honest," Harry said. 

Draco tensed; Harry could feel the tightening grip on his wrist. "Yes?" 

“I wanted to thank you," Harry said. "I thought, the way you were talking last night, that you hated me - that you'd always hate me." 

Draco's tone was guarded. "I don't hate you." 

"But then in the kitchen," Harry said, "it sounded like maybe you didn't. Like maybe you still have faith in me. And I need that - I need you to have faith in me, because if you don't…" He let his voice trail off. 

'And you think I do? Have faith in you, that is?" 

'Do you?" 

Draco gave the buckle a final tug. 'You're the only thing I ever have had faith in." 

Harry said nothing to that. There seemed nothing to say. Draco released his grip on Harry's wrist, and raised his face to Harry. There were faint lines of tiredness under his clear eyes. "There," he said. 

"Do you - does that mean we're friends again?" Harry asked. 

"No," Draco said. He took a step backward, picked up the sword belt from the bed, and slung it around his waist. His fingers, where they touched the buckled fastenings, were shaking slightly. "You ask too many questions, Potter. Come on. Let's get ready to go." 

He went through the door, and Harry could hear the sound of his boots, fading away down the narrow hallway. Harry looked after him and for a moment, heard a dull roaring in his ears that was like the sound of the sea. Love is faith, he thought, and bent down to pick up his sword. 

*** 

She heard his footsteps behind her as she walked down the corridor, but she did not stop and turn until she had reached the landing on top of the stairs. When she did, she found he was just behind her, still faintly smiling, and looking at her expectantly. In the red light of the chandelier the blood on his shirt looked hyper-real, like spilled red wine. 

"Don't hurt her," Ginny said, without preamble. 

Tom lowered his eyelashes demurely. "Don't hurt who?" 

"You know perfectly well who I mean," Ginny said wearily. "You've already killed Pansy - you can't hurt her any more." 

His eyes gleamed. "I would not be too sure of that. I know spells that can bring a man back from the dead that he might be tortured again and again without recourse to escape." 

Ginny shuddered, but held firm. "I meant Blaise," she said. "I want you to let her go." 

"I did not know," said Tom, "that she was so dear to you." 

"She is not dear to me," Ginny said, falling inadvertently into the rhythmic cadences of his speech. "But I cannot bear the guilt of another death laid at my door." 

Tom shrugged. "You make much out of nothing." 

Ginny shook her head. "You don't understand guilt," she said. "I wouldn't expect you to. But it is its own form of torture." 

Tom's blue eyes narrowed. "You cannot honestly imagine," he said, "that I would spare her at your request. Not when I am unwilling to spare you." 

Ginny hesitated. Tom stood still, looking at her, his hands at his sides. In the silence between them, she was agonizingly aware of the loud tick of the clock downstairs, the drift of dust in the diffused beams of torchlight, he faint tinkle of the chandelier. Tom's eyes were feline and watchful. They held a clear and malicious amusement. No, he would never spare her. He had waited too long for that. 

But I don't need you to spare me, Tom, she thought. She raised her head. Almost without her own volition, her hands went to the clasp that held her still-soaking jacket together in front, and undid it. The jacket slid to her feet. Tom was watching her, his eyes beginning to narrow. Her fingers found the buttons on the front of her blouse and undid them. The wet cloth peeled away slowly, like a second skin. She let the blouse fall and shook her hair out; it fell down around her shoulders and tickled the bare skin there. 

Tom was staring at her. His expression hadn't changed, only his fingers had begun to curl in towards his palms. "Virginia," he said, "what are you doing?" 

Her hands went to her belt, undid it, began to slide it through the loops. They were shaking, determined. "I'll trade you," Ginny said. 'You wanted her because she looks like me - now you have me. I'll do anything you want, anything you say. Just let her go." 

*** 

They were up on the roof of Viktor's flat, and there was a rent in the eastern sky where the sun was beginning to come up, as if someone had taken a bloody knife to the lower banks of clouds. The stars were still out overhead, dim and irregular sequins that cast just enough light for Harry to clearly see Draco as he walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the side, as if he were considering jumping the distance to the next house. 

Harry leaned back against a brick chimney and watched Draco as he hopped up onto the low wall that ran around the edge of the roof. His black clothes blended in with the darkness but his pale hair and face were marked out very clearly against the dark sky. Whatever it was that he was doing, he was a pleasanter sight than the corpse sprawled where Draco had left it in the middle of the balcony, its open dead eyes gaping blankly at the sky. 

Draco was still standing at the roof's edge, hands in his pockets, silvery head tilted back. Harry wished he wouldn't rock back and forth like that while standing so close to a sheer drop. It wasn't good for Harry's nerves. They tensed again as Draco abruptly turned around, ran along the wall, stared into the distance, then leaped back down onto the roof and strode over to the dead man. Drawing aside his cloak, he hooked a hand into his belt and stared down at him thoughtfully. 

Harry could stand it no longer. "Amazing," he said dryly. "He's still dead." 

Draco shot him a look. "Toss me one of your knives," he said. 

Harry drew a knife slowly from his wrist sheath, and threw it to Draco. Draco caught it neatly out of the air, crouched down by the dead man, and cut through the tie at the throat of his robes. They fell away, showing a black shirt underneath and, when Draco sliced through that, a quantity of unpleasantly pale and mottled skin. Black gashes snaked across the dead man's chest, crusted with dried blood. 

Harry arched his eyebrow. "What are you doing?" 

Draco did not reply, but turned the knife in his hand, and laid the edge against the corpse's neck. After a moment's hesitation, he sliced down, hard, neatly slitting the throat. 

Harry's breath hissed through his teeth; a little dark blood seeped out around the cut, and Draco sat back on his heels. "Damn," Draco said. "We waited too long." 

"Too long for what?" 

"Blood," Draco said. 'His heart's stopped beating. You can't get blood out of a dead body for long after the heart's stopped pumping." 

Harry arched an eyebrow at him. 

"Mystery novels," Draco said, by way of explanation. 

"That's not what I meant," Harry said. "I meant, there are plenty of Medical Magic spells to restart hearts that have stopped beating." 

'Living hearts," Draco said. 

Harry shrugged. 'There's nothing to say it couldn't work," he said, and raised his hand. He held it out towards the dead man. 'Cardiatus," he said. 

The corpse jerked as if electrocuted, midsection curving upward, forming a bow shape with the head and heels still touching the ground. The dead fingers scrabbled at the roof as a black tide of blood poured from the gashed throat, spilling across the overlapping roof tiles. A high bubbling scream came from the corpse's mouth: it sounded like a pot boiling over. 

Draco stepped back hastily to avoid getting blood on his boots. He looked horrified and slightly sick; he raised his hand and gestured quickly, "Finite incantatum." 

The body collapsed, limp, at his feet. Its already livid skin had taken on a greenish, waxy sheen. Draco stared at it, then at Harry, his lips very white. 

I'm sorry, Harry thought quickly at him, I wasn't expecting that to happen. 

Draco shrugged. It worked, he thought, and then scowled. And stay out of my head. 

'Sorry," Harry said again, although this time he wasn't. The sky was lighter now and he could very clearly see the bright spots of sickly color on Draco's cheekbones and the angry set of his mouth; he remembered Draco's hand awkwardly patting his back in the kitchen and thought about what a very confusing person he was. "Look, are you all right? You look -" 

He broke off as a high cry split the night. Draco's head jerked up and Harry followed his gaze. The dawn sky was heavy with a clear brassy light, and Harry saw a wheeling shape, dark and winged, growing larger and larger against the fading moon, angling down towards their roof… 

Draco's mouth curled into a satisfied smile. "Thestrals," he said. 

*** 

Incense had been left burning in the clawfooted gold brazier next to the bed in Ron's quarters, and the room was full of a a heavily scented black smoke. Ron went to put the incense out while Hermione glanced around the room frowning, her eyes narrowed. "They've certainly put you up in style," she said. 

"Yes," Ron said shortly. It was hot in the room, and he felt himself sweating through his lace-trimmed shirt and velvet waistcoat. "Maybe you should sit down. Rest." 

"I'm all right," Hermione said. She was obviously lying. She was still very pale, her lips a dark purplish-blue, and she shivered under the cloak despite the heat in the room. "That man who brought me here -" 

Lifting a slim gold poker, Ron prodded at the coals in the brazier, not looking at her. "Gabriel. He's a vampire." 

"I know that, Ron," she said, with a flash of her old, superior crossness. Her tone was acid. "Is he a friend of yours?" 

Ron whirled on her, poker in hand. "Whatever you're implying, I wish you'd quit implying it and just bloody say it." 

Hermione raised her chin. "Fine," she said. "Are you cooperating with the Dark Lord? Are you - working with him?" 

Ron flung the poker to the ground with a clatter, and spoke between his teeth. "No," he said. "And I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you I'd never do that, because you won't believe me. So let me tell you instead that he's never asked for my cooperation, because it's the truth. He's drugged me up, and made me play chess for hours, and forced me to see visions, visions so bad I thought my head would split apart -" 

"Visions?" Hermione said, and then, "oh, chess," and to his surprise, she nodded, as if this made perfect sense. Her frozen hair was beginning to unthaw, and drops of water ran down her cheeks like tears. 

"What do you mean, 'oh, chess'?" 

"There's a theory," Hermione said, "that people who are talented at chess have some sort of latent precognitive ability." Seeing his blank expression, she made an impatient noise. "That they can see the future. Just a little, just enough to visualize the board a few moves ahead. My guess is that the Dark Lord was trying to force you to use your Divining skill, over and over, until you got so exhausted that your mental barriers broke down and you couldn't hold the visions back." She was looking at him now, dark eyes wide, lips pressed together. "What did you see?" 

"The Dark Mark," Ron said. "I saw dead bodies. The Dark Mark over the school. I saw the Ministry on fire -" 

"Ah," Hermione whispered. "Draco. He burned his father's office." 

"Harry leaving us, the runic band broken. Seamus standing under green light -" 

Hermione half-closed her eyes. "Tom." 

"And," Ron's voice thickened. "Ginny. She'd been strangled." 

Hermione shook her head slowly. "Ron, oh, Ron, how awful for you -" 

"And," Ron said flatly, "I saw Draco lying on a bed in a stone room, and Harry sitting next to him and crying. He was dead." 

Hermione recoiled as if he had struck her, then bit her lip. "Yes," she said, "Draco is dying." Her dark eyes were bright with tears. "But," she whispered. "If Harry was sitting beside him, if Harry will be with him when he dies -" 

"Then what -?" 

"Then Harry will live through today," Hermione said, and hugged herself through the thick, damp cloak. 

Ron expelled a breath. "God, Hermione," he said. "Do you ever think about anything else than whether Harry will live through the day?" 

But she was shivering again. When she pulled the cloak closer around her, he saw that her fingertips, also, were blue. "I'm so cold," she said. 

Ron rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "You need to warm up," he said. "Look, through that door - there's a bathroom there, a tub, the water's always hot. Go soak in the hot water and I'll go get you some dry clothes." 

Hermione nodded. "Thank you, Ron." She slipped the cloak from her shoulders and laid it across his bed. He waited for her to undo the strap that held the flask at her waist, but she left it where it was and walked across the room to the bathroom door. She paused there, and looked back at him. "Your visions - they're true," she said. "But Ginny - that wasn't your sister that you saw. That wasn't Ginny." She smiled at him a little, the first time she'd smiled since he'd found her on the roof. "Your sister is fine," she said, and went into the room and shut the door behind her. 

*** 

Because her eyes were closed, she felt him before she saw him move, felt the brush of his shirt against her bare arms, and the warmth of his body as he came and stood in front of her. He did not touch her at first, only stood close, so close she could feel his breath against her closed eyelids and the tickle of his hair against her cheek. She tensed all over, waiting for him to put his hands on her, wondering if she had chosen precisely the wrong tool to use against him, offered bait he would neither want nor understand… 

She heard his breath escape between his teeth in a low hiss. Then he reached out, and placed his hands on her hips, just above the loosened waistband of her jeans. His fingers were cold against her skin. She opened her eyes. 

He was looking down at her, his eyes very blue. Strands of light hair fell across his forehead and his expression was absorbed, almost anxious, not at all fierce; the look of someone leaving a half-desired isolation for unknown country. "Seamus?" she said, wonderingly, and he kissed her. 

*** 

"Oh, Tristan!" Rhiannon flew across the room to her beloved. Her frail taffeta gown was shredded where the Dark Wizard Morgan had torn it. Beneath its inadequate covering, her bosom heaved and trembled like two dishes of aspic being served for dinner during a storm at sea. "I thought I would surely never see you again!" 

"Yes, yes," Tristan said, holding her at arm's length. "Don't fuss yourself, darling - and do be careful of my hair, there's a poppet." 

Rhiannon turned to her beloved's companion, the frightfully handsome Lord Sebastian d'Oursine. "How can I ever thank you for keeping my Tristan's spirits up during his dark time of captivity?" she gushed, heaving in his general direction. 

Sebastian scratched at his neck, where there were a number of dark red marks. Signs of the torment he had endured? "Well," he said in a measured tone, "there were some touch and go moments…" 

"More touching than going, really," said Tristan, and they both sniggered. 

Lord Sebastian looked at Tristan adoringly. "God, you're clever," he said. "Get over here, you clever, sexy bastard." 

It was only as Tristan detached himself from her grasp that he might sidle over to Lord Sebastian and begin kissing him in a decidedly unbrotherly fashion that Rhiannon began to twig that something fairly unusual was going on…. 

"You know, Sirius, the only thing worse than reading rubbish is reading rubbish aloud. Are you trying to punish me? Have I done something to offend you?" 

Sirius, lying stretched out along the couch with the garishly bound book held above his face, looked sideways at Remus and grinned. "I remember Lily used to read these, but I don't remember them being quite so racy back then." 

Remus rolled his eyes. "What's it called?" 

"Trousers Undone," Sirius read, "The Erotic Journey." 

"And that's Ginny's book?" 

"She seems to have quite a collection of them." Sirius tossed the book aside and it landed on the coffee table, the illustration of a shirtless blond man in tight breeches face-up. "What are you up to, Remus?" 

Remus, who had been going through the contents of a large cardboard box, shrugged. "I told the Ministry owls to get all our old records from my house and bring them here. I meant official Order membership records, but they took me literally." He held up a vinyl disc. "Look - the Bay City Rollers." 

Sirius wrinkled his nose. "That one must be Snape's." 

Remus heaved another one out of the box. "Hey, remember when we used to listen to Chocolate Frog?" 

"Yeah, before they sold their umlauts to Doxy Früvous and went mainstream," said Sirius. "Peter had such a crush on that lead singer, what was his name, Nigel Heslop?" 

"Yeah, he used to dress like him. Remember those stacked-heel lucite boots with the goldfish inside that were enchanted to swim around?" 

"In retrospect," Sirius said, "perhaps we should have known he was going to sell out to the Dark Lord." 

Remus was about to reply when the door to the study swung open. It was Charlie Weasley, a bemused look on his face. "Speaking of drugs," he said, "Aiden Lynch is in the fireplace. He's got a mad hangover and says he has to speak to one of you right away. Something about Harry being in Prague…?" 

*** 

As it turned out, it was only one thestral. 

It landed on the roof between Harry and Draco with a soft sussurating beat of leathery wings, and was still. Its fleshless black hide clung to its protruding skeleton, and the eyes that regarded Harry and Draco were as white as smoke. 

"Ugly bugger," Draco remarked offhandedly, "isn't it?" 

The thestral gazed at Draco steadily. It had a look on its face Harry did not particularly like. 

"Don't insult it," Harry said. "What if it bites you?" 

"It won't," Draco said, and held a hand out to the beast. It continued to stare at him for a moment, then lowered its head and brushed the back of his hand with its muzzle. 'Thestrals like me." 

"Thestrals don't like anyone." 

"They like me," Draco said, and indeed, the thestral's desultory nuzzling of his hand was the closest thing to any kind of affectionate gesture Harry could imagine one of the deathly horses making. "At least, they always used to." 

"I didn't know you could see thestrals before this, Malfoy," Harry said. "Fifth year, you couldn't." 

Draco shot him a sideways look. "Is that your tactless way of asking me whether I've seen someone shuffle off this mortal coil before today, Potter?" 

Harry shrugged. "I didn't know you'd seen death, is all." 

"I've done better," Draco said. "I've been dead - remember?" He dropped his hand, but the thestral continued to nuzzle his shoulder. "After that, I started seeing them. Around the Manor, on the school grounds. They tended to follow me. I think they just like anything related to death." 

A shiver ran down Harry's bones. "I've ridden one before … have you?" 

To his surprise, Draco paled slightly. "No," he said, displaying a sudden and surprising hesitation. "I don't like - riding horses." 

Harry blinked at him. "You don't?" 

"No," Draco said sharply. "I don't." 

"Why n-?" 

"I just don't, that's all," Draco said, stepping back from the thestral and from Harry, his face shut like a locked box. 'I told you not to ask me questions." 

"I didn't know you were banning all inquiries across the board," Harry snapped. "I thought it was just the important stuff you didn't want to talk about -" 

"And I suppose I need you," Draco said, his tone glacial, "to tell me what is and isn't important?" 

Bloody hell, Harry thought, right back where we were before, and impulsively, he reached out and caught the flaring edge of Draco's cloak, and held it tightly, preventing the other boy from walking away. "Never mind then," he said. "Forget I asked." 

Draco, who had half turned away, looked back over his shoulder at Harry. Harry could sense in him a coiling tension, and underneath the tension, he could feel the shape of Draco's thoughts brushing against his own. It was a strange blind sensation, as if he held his hand to the side of a jar and felt through the glass the beat of trapped wings inside. He wondered if Draco knew, or felt it too. 

He didn't appear to have noticed. "Listen," he said, abruptly. "Potter…" He paused a moment and then went on, dropping each word into the silence between them with a deliberate and passionless clarity, "I meant what I said before," he said. "That I'll go with you, that I won't leave you. And you know if I said it, I'll do it. You have that as an advantage over me, that I made that promise to you. And if you choose, you can press that advantage. You can ask me whatever you want, and I can't walk away. It's your choice then, if you want me here because I want to be with you, or if you want me here only because of a promise." 

"I just don't understand why you won't talk to me," Harry said, despair in his tone. 

"No," Draco said flatly, "you don't understand, and that's why I won't talk to you." 

You talked to me in the kitchen, Harry thought, but he sensed without a doubt that saying it would only make Draco angry. There had always been vulnerabilities that the other boy was unwilling to discuss; all that had changed, Harry thought, was that now even the unwillingness itself was also apparently a forbidden topic. For someone he was so close to, Harry thought, he knew very little about how Draco felt about anything. 

"If you don't like riding horses," Harry said, "how are we supposed to get off this roof?" 

Draco gave him a poisonous look, but it didn't bother Harry; it was only one of Draco's garden-variety poisonous looks, and much less alarming than the clear, dead voice he had just been speaking in. "I said I didn't like it; I didn't say I wouldn't do it." 

"Fine," Harry said, and reaching up, he fisted one hand in the thestral's tangled mane and pulled himself up onto its back. It danced forward a few steps, then relaxed. He looked down at Draco, who had taken several involuntary paces back and was now scowling up at him from a slight distance. 

Harry held out a hand. "Come on," he said. 

Draco's scowl deepened. "Who says you get to be in front?" 

Harry leaned forward and theatrically banged his head against the ridged top of the horse's neck. "Just get on the fucking pony, Malfoy." 

Ignoring the other boy's proffered hand, Draco swung himself up behind Harry, gripping the horse's back tightly with his legs to keep from sliding off. The thestral made a sound low in its throat; leathery wings rustled. Draco swore rapidly under his breath. Without turning around, Harry could feel the tension in the other boy's body; he radiated a sharp and panicked electricity. "You'd better grab on to my shirt or something, Malfoy." 

Draco stopped cursing just long enough to tell Harry what he could do with his shirt. It sounded like a complicated process involving knots. Harry shrugged, and leaned forward to whisper into the thestral's ear. "Take us," he began, "to the Dark Lord -" 

The thestral's legs bunched beneath it, and it launched itself skyward before Harry had even finished speaking. Draco yelled out loud and grabbed onto Harry's belt; only Harry's grip on the thestral's mane prevented them both from sliding off. Together they sped up into the blood-red sunrise. 

*** 

"'Lo, Sirius." Aidan fixed bleary eyes on Sirius. He waggled a manicured hand at him in greeting, then winced. "God, my head. Bloody magic, bloody wizards; we can turn a man inside out but we can't cure a bloody hangover. I tell you, I wish someone would turn me inside out…" 

Sirius sighed inwardly. It was never easy getting information out of Aidan at the best of times. He'd worked with him briefly in the Resistance. Aidan had been the best-dressed bloke there, but his habit of rolling up every day at noon, incoherently hungover to the teeth, had not endeared him to his superiors, of which Sirius had been one. 

"So listen, Aidan…" 

"Right, right." Aidan tugged at the collar of his black velvet frock coat. "So enough about me, then," he said. "What's up with you, Sirius?" 

Sirius sighed. "I don't know, Aidan," he said. "Charlie indicated that there was something you wanted to say to me. Have you any idea what that might have been?" 

Aidan gazed blankly around the kitchen, then brightened. "Oh, right," he said. "About Harry." 

Sirius tensed all over. "What about Harry?" 

"Well, it's not about Harry specifically. It's really about Viktor, and sort of peripherally about Harry -" Aiden blinked again, then beamed. "Hey, that's a good word, peripherally. I didn't know I knew that word. I must not be as hung over as I thought." 

"AIDAN." Sirius's voice was like thunder. "May I remind you that there is a fully grown adult werewolf in the other room who is entirely capable of eating your head if you don't tell me whatever it is you know about Harry?" (This, Sirius thought, was mostly true - Remus was indeed a fully grown adult werewolf who was entirely capable of eating Aidan's head although not, perhaps, in his present form.) 

Aidan looked hurt. "All right, all right, there's no need to resort to threats." He flicked a speck of dust from his collar, and said, "So Viktor Krum, right, he's got this flat he lets me stay in sometimes, in Prague. Lovely place, right in the center of town, all the modern conveniences -" 

"AIDAN." 

"Anyway," Aidan went on huffily, "yesterday, I got an owl from him demanding I leave the flat immediately because he needed to put up another friend there. Needless to say I was rather put out at being dismissed in such a manner - and besides, I had something of a hangover that day due to having been out at a party in Budapest the night before; anyway, the upshot is, I didn't actually get around to leaving the flat until well after Viktor had asked me to, and I was still in the bedroom when he arrived with his friend. Luckily I had the old Invisibility Cloak that I had borrowed from the Order -" 

"Stolen from the Order, more like," Sirius corrected. 

Aidan glared. "Do you want me to tell you this story, or not?" 

"Depends if you think 'partially eaten' would be a good look for you." 

Aidan opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and closed it again. "I put the cloak on, and snuck out into the corridor and out of the flat, but not before I passed Viktor on the stairs and saw who he had with him. It was Harry Potter." 

Sirius leaned forward so quickly he almost overbalanced. "My Harry? You're sure?" 

"Of course I'm sure." 

Sirius' heart was pounding. A lead on Harry, their first lead on Harry - "I suppose I should thank you, Aidan, you've certainly -" 

The kitchen door opened at that moment, and Remus stepped in, a thoughtful expression on his face. He was about to speak when Aidan let out a terrified scream and vanished from the fireplace in a shower of blue sparks. 

Remus looked startled. "What got into him?" 

Sirius shifted guiltily. "Ah, nothing, he's, ah, terribly shy." 

Remus looked mystified. 

"Anyway, Remus, you won't believe it - Lynch actually had something to say after all," Sirius said, eager both to change the subject and to impart this new information to his friend. "He's seen Harry. With Viktor Krum, of all people." 

Remus looked surprised. "I wouldn't have said they were close." 

"No, but then he'd know we'd find him if he went to any close friends. Of course, Aidan barged off before he could tell me anything beyond that, so I suppose we'd better pay Viktor a visit." Sirius rose to his feet. "Anyway, what'd you come in here to tell me?" 

Remus looked somber. "It's Ginny," he said. "She still hasn't returned and Charlie's terribly worried. He thinks we should go after her." 

*** 

He was not Seamus, of course, and being kissed by Tom was nothing like being kissed by Seamus. Which had been a pleasant thing, sweet and gentle, and this was nothing like that. Nor was it even like being kissed by Draco, which had been fierce in its way, but Ginny had always known that Draco would never hurt her, and now she had no such assurance. 

She sucked in her breath as Tom pushed her back against the banister railing, and his hands found their way into her hair and tangled there, pulling the curls tight, making her wince. His lips were hard and dry and hot on hers, his tongue pushed them open and scraped the roof of her mouth insistently, and she shivered, although not as hard as he was shivering. She could feel the reverberations of shudders tearing through him. His hands shook as they slid up the curve of her waist to her breasts. 

He seemed not to notice what his body was doing, that it was trying to shake itself apart. She could almost have mistaken his tremors for the tremors of extreme emotion, if she did not know better. Her hands had been braced against the railing; she moved them now, and placed them on his shoulders. He caught her wrists, pulled them down to her sides, held them there. "You don't," he said, against her neck, "touch me." 

"Your hands," she said. "They're shaking." 

He snarled at her, but released his grip. "There's nothing wrong with my hands." 

Her tone was placating. "Of course there isn't." 

He leaned his full weight on her, and the banister railing cut so hard into Ginny's back that she winced. She uttered a sharp cry and saw him look briefly gratified. She twisted her head away from him, letting her head fall back. When he leaned to her, mouth at her throat, she reached to touch his hair. 

He stiffened, and jerked away from her. "I told you not to touch me." 

Ginny lowered her eyelashes, hiding the hatred in her eyes. "What are you so afraid of, Tom?" 

'Be quiet," he hissed, pushing harder against her, cutting off her breath. "Or I'll make you quiet." 

Her head swam with the nearness of him, the heat of his body, his smell of ink and blood. Her open hand fluttered against his back, tracing the bumps of his spine through his damp shirt; she could feel the scar below his shoulder blade where Seamus had injured himself flying too near a tree when he was nine - 

"You wouldn't hurt me," she whispered. 

He paused. "Oh," he said, "wouldn't I?" 

It was what she had hoped for. "You couldn't," she said. 

It was all she had to say; his hands went to her throat, and circled it, his thumbs pressed into the notch above her collarbone. His expression softened as, his eyes gazing directly into hers, he began to tighten his grip. 

Stars exploded behind Ginny's eyes as she fought for breath. Her hands flew to his; she clawed at his wrists with her nails, gouging the skin, and he gasped with laughter as she thrashed under him, kicking out at him uselessly with weakening legs, and just as her knees began to buckle under her, her vision dimming to gray, his grip suddenly loosened. With a choked cry he staggered away from her, his legs buckling, and sank to his knees at her feet. 

Clinging to the banister to keep herself upright, Ginny could think of nothing but breathing for several moments, gulping lungfuls of air through her bruised throat. When her dizziness finally ebbed, she raised her head to find Tom had risen to his feet, and was standing an arm's length away from her, staring at her through slitted eyes. One of his hands was at his throat, and under the spread of his fingers she could plainly see the bruises there against his pale skin. 

"I told you," she said, and though it hurt to speak she felt a burst of dark triumph, "I told you you couldn't hurt me." 

*** 

It was only a short while before Ron realized the stupidity of his assertion that he could easily find Hermione some extra clothes. The fortress, while impressive, was anything but homey. Ron wandered through great halls and enormous ballrooms, through empty conservatories and dusty libraries, their walls lined with books whose spines were plated in gold. Nowhere could he even find another bedroom, much less a random pile of girls' clothes lying in a convenient heap. (He briefly wondered where Rhysenn Summoned her endless wardrobe changes from. Perhaps she could actually fashion garter belts from thin air - an unusual, if restricted, talent.) 

He was just leaving the larger of two libraries when he heard voices. One of them was the familiar harsh voice of Voldemort; Ron ducked into an alcove and froze as the Dark Lord passed into the room, followed by Wormtail. The small man was obviously agitated; his round face was red and sweaty, and his left hand plucked nervously at the front of his robes. "Master, I would not lie to you. Lucius has been meddling in matters that surely you can not approve of, matters dangerous to you -" 

"Yes, yes, I heard you, Wormtail." The Dark Lord seemed distracted and annoyed. "Your obsession with Lucius grows steadily more unhealthy, I do hope you realize that." 

"I am only looking out for your best interests, Master," Wormtail protested, sounding wounded. Ron remembered Voldemort's exasperated tone - A spy in the house of Lucius, eh, Wormtail? and pressed himself further back into the alcove. 

"By inventing insane tales?" Voldemort demanded. "Your claims that Lucius has been summoning spirits and demons seem largely unfounded. Besides, it is little to me what Lucius chooses to do with his recreational time." 

"Not just demons and spirits, Master," Wormtail protested. "Some kind of murdering spirit - it has been killing your Death Eaters -" 

"Well, yes," Voldemort admitted. "But only those, I note, who at one time renounced me. Perhaps Lucius is simply clearing corruption out of the ranks." 

"If so, I do think he ought to have checked with you first," Wormtail said humbly, and Ron had to reluctantly admit that he had a point. 

Voldemort seemed to think so too. "If he has betrayed me, his punishment will be immediate and severe," he said, running the tip of a pale finger across his chin. "But - the burden of proof rests on you, Wormtail." He snapped his fingers. "Until you have proof, I wish to hear no more of your stories." 

Wormtail hung his head. "Yes, Master." 

Voldemort gazed at his servant, and made a face. "Really, Wormtail," he said, "I do wish you were a bit more attractive," with which bizarre comment, he turned on his heel, and strode from the room. Wormtail stared after him in a woebegone manner. 

Tired of hiding, Ron stepped out from behind the alcove. Wormtail jumped, then snarled. "Spying on us, were you?" 

Ron pulled a face. "You should talk," he replied, made a rude gesture, and left the library. 

On the way back to his rooms, he pulled down a set of dark blue velvet hangings, assuming that Hermione, in her infinite wisdom, could somehow enchant the fabric into something resembling garments. When he arrived back at the bedroom, he thought for a moment that Hermione had not yet returned from her bath. The room was still and quiet, and from the other room he could hear the sound of running water. 

Then he heard her voice, low and steady. "Shut the door, Ron." 

Ron pulled the door shut behind him. When it closed, the torches flared up in their holders, and he saw Hermione, sitting on the foot of the bed, wrapped in a wide white towel. Her wet hair stuck to her cheeks and neck in smooth dark tendrils. For a moment she just stared at him; then she smiled, and was Hermione again. "Sorry," she said, gesturing sheepishly at the towel. "My clothes were wet …" 

"It's all right," Ron said awkwardly. He took a few steps forward, laid the bundle of velvet he'd found down on the bedspread, and backed away hastily. "Sorry it took me so long - I had to hide from the Dark Lord and Wormtail. They must know you're here, but -" 

She looked panicked. "Did they say anything about me?" 

Ron shook his head. "No. They were too busy talking about how they don't trust Lucius Malfoy." 

"They don't? I thought -" 

"It doesn't matter." Ron took a step forward. "What matters is if you feel better." 

She nodded. She certainly looked better - her lips were back to their normal pink, and there was color in her cheeks. "Yes. I'm sorry about before, too. I was being a real bitch." 

"Oh," said Ron. "Oh. No - you weren't." 

"I was, though." She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, clutching the towel around her. Her legs, beneath the towel hem, were slim and bare. There was a graze over her right ankle that touched him oddly - there was something so childish about it. "I've no right to slag off on you for doing what you had to do to survive," she said. "I was just so concerned about Harry, I wasn't thinking." 

"Is he in danger?" Ron checked himself and smiled wryly. "I mean, more than usual?" 

"Yes," Hermione said. "We were staying in Prague, all of us, Harry and Draco and I, and Gabriel sent his men to get me, and left some of them behind to kill Draco and Harry. So I don't -" 

'No," Ron said. "Voldemort would never allow that. They're needed for something, both of them. The Dark Lord wouldn't have them killed outright. Lucius is always here, and he -" 

'Lucius?" Hermione stepped towards Ron and caught at his arm with the hand that was not holding up the towel. Ron looked away. "You've heard him talk about Draco?" 

"Only a little," Ron said. "I know that the Dark Lord sent his creatures after Harry but they couldn't hurt him, and I know Draco was with him and protecting him, only when they were talking, they made it sound like actually he'd meant them to go after you - but why? What do they want with you?" 

Hermione had gone tense all over; her thin fingers gripped his arm like cabled steel. "Surely you must know," she said in a whispered tone. 

'The Cup," Ron said. 'The Fourth Worthy Object -" 

Hermione's eyes were wide and bright. "Yes…" 

'But I didn't realize you had it with you still. I would have thought you'd have left it at Hogwarts." 

Hermione's tone was sharp. "It's much too powerful an object to be simply left behind, Ron." 

Ron felt obscurely scolded. 'Well, right, but I figured you'd have hidden it, at least. Did you?" 

Hermione was still looking up at him; suddenly she smiled, an odd sort of smile. "Can't you guess?" 

Ron shook his head. "No." 

Hermione's smile wavered for a moment; then she laughed, and dropped his hands. "You always were," she said, "the least devious of all of us." 

"So you're not going to tell me, then?" Ron asked, slightly put out. 

Hermione shook her head, sober again. "It's safer for you if you don't know." Lightly, she put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. "I've spent too much time thinking I'd lost you," she said, "to risk losing you again." 

"Oh," Ron said, feeling his lack of eloquence. He was aware suddenly and sharply of the nearness of her, the light gliding along The soft curve of her cheekbone, pulling gold threads out of her hair. The thin towel was stark white against the softer white of her skin. 'Hermione, you probably shouldn't…" 

Words were failing him; he felt a precarious and strangely intoxicating dizziness. Aftereffects of Pansy's spells? He wasn't sure; all he knew was that her hair was drifting across his face and that it smelled of clover honey. Am I still in love with her? Ron wondered. She had been his first love, his childish love, the sort of awkward ineffectual charming love most people looked back on years later with affectionate nostalgia. But not Ron. That love had been taken away from him, twisted and thrown back in his face, robbed of its charm, its sweetness replaced with pain. She was a symbol now, of every mistake he had ever made, and everything he had ever wanted that he could not have. If only there were some way to make that right... 

'What?" Hermione blinked up at him, wide-eyed, then tightened her arms around his neck. 'Are you worried about those love spells Pansy used on you?" 

"Er," Ron said. "Well, I mean, I am a bit. You know. Just a bit and all. I know you would never…" 

'Oh, Ron," Hermione whispered. "You're so noble and so forgiving…after the way we treated you…I'd never want to hurt Harry, but sometimes I wish…you just make everything seem so simple…" 

Ron blinked. "I do?" It seemed to him nothing about his life, especially recently, as particularly simple. 

Hermione turned her face up to his. Tears glittered on the ends of her lashes; she was breathing hard, as if she had been running. "It's just us now," she whispered, "and it can be our secret, just between us two..." 

The words were distantly familiar, as if he had heard them before in a dream. No, he thought, no, I've been through this before, it was wrong, all wrong, this is a dream or a nightmare - but it was Hermione, still Hermione, who was his friend, and when she put her mouth to his, he could not summon the anger he would have needed to push her away. He froze, letting her lips cover his; he had never felt a kiss like this before, so heated, so close and draining - could not breathe enough air; pain mounted behind his eyes and burned down through his veins as if his blood had turned to firewhiskey, and he knew. "Rhysenn," he hissed, pulling his mouth away from hers, and heard her laugh, low in her throat. 

Furious, he tried to push her away, but she would not release him. He bit down, hard, on her lip, and heard her gasp out loud in pain; she shoved him, hard, and his feet went out from under him. He slid to the hard marble floor, limp as a deboned fish. 

She knelt over him, slim and straight in her virginal white dress, and her ink-black hair spilled down over her shoulders and tickled his skin. She put her hand to her red mouth and when she drew it away there was blood on her fingers. 

"You mortals are so ruthless with your love," Rhysenn said. "Is it because you have such a short time to live?" 

Gazing up at her through his haze of pain, Ron heard Hermione's voice in his ears once again - If Harry lives to see him die, than Harry will live through today. "Don't," he said. "Don't expect me to feel sorry for you." Her eyes widened, but he was already slipping away into blackness; if she spoke again, he did not hear her. 

*** 

The world spun away beneath them, a glowing carpet of lights that gradually faded to an indistinct blur. 

"Potter?" 

"Mm, yes?" 

"Are there stars?" 

Harry was silent for a moment before replying. "What do you mean? Of course there are stars." He twisted sideways to look at Draco, and Draco tightened his grip on Harry's belt. "What kind of question is that?" 

"Nothing. No kind of question. Forget about it, Potter." 

Harry blinked at him, then turned back around. Draco looked back up at the sky: instead of individual stars, he saw only a flat field of darkness, hazed with brighter spots, the pinpricks of which hurt his eyes. He remembered Snape's voice, saying blindness, and thought with a faint despair of the antidote only Hermione could make, now seeping molecule by molecule out of his bloodstream. Soon there would be nothing standing between himself and the poison but his own failing strength. 

He hoped it would be enough. 

*** 

Tom lowered his hand from his throat, slowly. His eyes glittered at her, flat with malevolence, but he did not move towards her. "What," he said, and his voice was as raspy as if it had been his throat that was crushed, "have you done to me?" 

Ginny felt a wild urge to grin, to laugh, to shake him - "I haven't done anything," she said. "I guessed it when you didn't kill me before. You knocked me out, left me lying there - you could have killed me, but you didn't. You couldn't hurt me. I bet you didn't know why, but you couldn't. You probably put it down to being in Seamus' body, the weakness of being mortal again -" 

"Not mortality," Tom said. He coughed, swallowed, looked at her with hate. "Love. That he loved you." 

"I know," Ginny said. "I know he did." She felt a wave of sadness swamp her, looking at Tom and remembering Seamus. She had not expected him to love her. It had been an unexpected grace note, softening her sadness, dulling the edge of her sense of loss. But she had never really appreciated it, never loved him back, never let herself. She had been waiting, always waiting for Draco. "But that's not why you couldn't hurt me." She pushed her hair back behind her ears. Even her fingers hurt. "It's the spell that brought you here. Sympathetic magic, you called it. My blood, my tears. I brought you back. It's because of me that you're here at all. I'm the chain you used to pull yourself into this world, and I am the anchor that keeps you here, and only I," she finished, her voice tightening, "only I can send you back." 

She took a step backward, then another. He was staring at her, breathing hard and furiously; she would almost have enjoyed the look in his eyes, trapped and snarling, if not for what she was about to do. Another step back, and the banister was against her back. She turned her head, looked down at the staircase beneath her, winding down into the darkness, then looked back at Tom and took a deep breath. His eyes narrowed - realizing, a second too late, he hurled himself towards her with a furious yell - and in one smooth motion she turned, seized hold of the banister, and flung herself over it. 

*** 

When Hermione came back into the bedroom, her cold and dirty clothes sticking to her damp, clean skin, the sight that greeted her was a strange one. There was Rhysenn, sitting on the floor in a long white dress stained with blood, her black hair pouring down over her shoulders like smooth ink. Lying in her lap was Ron. She looked up as Hermione walked into the room, and smiled her predatory smile. "Shh," she said. 'You'll wake him up." 

And she tossed back the thick curtain of her black hair, and Hermione saw that Ron was asleep, or seemingly asleep, his dark red hair tousled, his arm thrown carelessly across his face. His chest rose and fell softly with his sleeping breath. 

"Ron!" Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. She took a running step forward, paused, hands outstretched. "Is he all right? What have you done to him?" 

Rhysenn was still smiling. "I was merely trying to obtain a bit of information," she said, idly toying with a lock of Ron's hair. 

Hermione felt her hand tighten into a fist. How she longed to launch at Rhysenn and punch her in the face, blacken one of those grey eyes, wipe the smile off her red lips. "You mean you tortured him?" 

"Tortured him?" Rhysenn's laugh was like windchimes. "No, I did not torture him - it is strictly forbidden to harm the Diviner, and that includes torture. His mind is too precious, its balance too delicate. No," she repeated, "all I did was give him a little ... kiss." She looked down at Ron, and her smile turned possessive. Her long fingers glided down his cheek to his throat, and stroked across the bare skin revealed by the open neck of his shirt. "My kisses tend to have that effect on men. They certainly had that effect on your Harry." 

Hermione sucked in a breath so quickly that she heard the air whistle between her teeth. "You -" Hermione struggled to find a word bad enough to call Rhysenn. "You lying bitch," she finished, lamely. 

Rhysenn chuckled. "I wouldn't call names. You don't know what I truly am." 

"You're a succubus," Hermione said shortly. "You suck out men's souls while they're sleeping and leave them mindless shells," she added, remembering her Dark Creatures textbooks. 

"Not while they're sleeping. Where would the fun be in that?" Rhysenn's fingers stroked the pulse at the base of Ron's throat; he murmured, and turned his face into her gown. His bright hair was like another splash of blood against the white. "Where were we? Oh, yes, your Harry. So charming. The way he closes his eyes when you kiss him - only halfway, with the lashes fluttering down - " 

"Stop," Hermione said, savagely. "I know you're just trying to hurt me, make me jealous -" 

"As if you've a right to be jealous," Rhysenn said, her eyes darting swiftly up to Hermione's, "when you can't choose between them." 

Hermione was so startled for a moment that she could only stare, at the ancient girl rising from the spread pool of her white skirts, the unconscious boy in her lap and her hair cascading down over both of them. Her pale, unpretty face was shut like a fan. 

"I don't know what you mean," Hermione said. "Choose between who?" 

"Your Harry," Rhysenn said, speaking very slowly, as if to a stupid child, "and Draco, who is not yours, because you didn't want him - only you do want him. You never stopped wanting him, you simply told yourself you didn't anymore. And you stood between him and anyone else he might have or want, always telling him that you were still there -" 

"I never said anything to him like that! Never!" 

"I remember a night," said the demon girl, "a winter's night, when the sky was black and silver and the steps of your school were sugared in snow. I remember a boy standing on those steps and a girl running up them to catch his hands, leaving her cloak open, even though the night was cold, so that he could see her pretty new dress, and that she wore the gifts he had given her -" 

"I couldn't bear how alone he looked." Hermione's eyes were filling; she swiped at them with the back of her hand. "That was all it was…" 

"Alone," Rhysenn sneered. "You mean, alone without you…" 

"No," Hermione whispered. 

"There's a girl who would have been happy to stay with him," said Rhysenn, "if you would have let her." 

"He doesn't love her." Hermione lashed out sharply with her voice, beyond caring or pretending she didn't understand. "He doesn't love Ginny. He told me so -" 

"He said that? He said in so many words, I do not love her?" 

"It was what he meant." Hermione heard Draco's voice in her head, the lucid, emotionless tone, Is there any way to respond to I love you with anything but I love you, too? 

"He loves you because he thinks you are unselfish," said Rhysenn. "If only he knew how selfish you really are." 

"I can't help it," Hermione said. "I can't help who I love. I don't want to love him, but I do - it's like he's part of me, a part I don't even like sometimes, but I need him and he needs me -" 

"Because you have arranged it that way," Rhysenn went on, her voice cold and inexorable. "It is by your design that you are the only one who can make the antidote he needs to live - you could control his access to Harry, if you -" 

"I could never do that. I would never do that." 

"But you've thought about it." 

Hermione stared blankly at Rhysenn. "You're cruel." 

"Love is cruel," said the demon girl, "and so is desire and that, after all, is what I am. And you may look at me however you like, but at least I know my own nature. You mock my servitude, my captivity, but at least I do not keep others captive, especially those I profess to love. And I am truthful in my desires. Can you say the same?" 

"I…" The front of Hermione's shirt was wet. She looked down at herself, realized she had been crying, long enough that tears had soaked her clothes. When she looked up again, the door to the bedroom was open, and two men were standing in the doorway. One was short and fat, with a hand that gleamed like a new silver moon; one was tall and pale as bone. Wormtail, and the Dark Lord. 

The Dark Lord glided soundlessly into the room, and his servant followed. His eyes, under their heavy albino brow ridges, were the color of old blood. He glanced at Hermione coldly, then turned to Rhysenn. "The Mudblood seems out of sorts," he said. "Have you been using her without our permission?" 

"I have not laid a hand on her," said Rhysenn, bowing her head, "my Lord." 

"I would imagine she weeps out of fear," said Wormtail, "not pain, Master." 

"Ah." The Dark Lord's eyes swept Hermione; the lipless mouth smiled. "The anticipation of pain is indeed a terrible thing," he said. "Let it be over." He stretched out his hand to her and hissed through his teeth: 

"Crucio." 

*** 

They were flying over a wide valley checkerboarded with winter-brown fields and dotted with small farmhouses when Draco reached around and tugged on Harry's shirt. 

Harry half-turned, his vision obscured by his own whipping hair. "What is it, Malfoy?" 

"I'm hungry," Draco said. 

Even blinded by hair and with the wind stinging his eyes to tears, Harry could see Draco's woebegone expression. "You're hungry?" 

Draco's tone was stubborn. "I'm hungry." 

"Well, then," Harry said crossly. "Let me just whip up a few sandwiches for you. Never mind that we're two hundred feet up in the air and miles from anywhere." 

"There is no need for sarcasm at this altitude." 

"Well, what do you want me to do? Just tap the thestral and say, 'Hey there mate, could you drop us off somewhere where we could get some food?' or perhaps -" 

Harry broke off abruptly as the thestral suddenly wheeled and banked, angling itself into a steep dive towards the ground. Draco shrieked like a girl and grabbed for the back of Harry's shirt. They both slid forward onto the horse's neck, seizing at handfuls of tangled mane. The ground came up with alarming swiftness, and they landed with such jarring force that Harry pitched sideways off the horse's back, landing awkwardly in a pile of hay. Draco landed next to him, with more grace if no less force. The thestral paused for a moment, regarding them beadily. Then it took off into the sky with a powerful beating of its scaly wings. 

Cursing the thestral, Harry sat up and looked around. They were in a field, liberally dotted with pyramids of dried straw. A group of scruffy-looking chickens flapped noisily around a puddle of dirty water and there was a dilapidated farmhouse nearby. Draco was sitting next to him, picking straw out of his hair. "And you say thestrals don't listen to you," he said, glancing around curiously. 

"It's not like there's anything to eat around here," Harry pointed out. 

"Well, not in this haystack, but possibly in that village over there," Draco said, waving his arm towards a cluster of small low-roofed buildings in the middle distance. "To which end," he added, leaping to his feet in a shower of straw, "I shall return shortly." 

Harry sat up. "Don't you want me to go with you?" 

Draco shook his head. "It's a small place. One foreign visitor will be alarming enough. Two foreign boys and a nasty-looking horse will rouse the whole village." 

"They won't be able to see the horse," Harry pointed out. 

Draco looked at him darkly. "This village lies in the shadow of a stronghold of the Dark Lord," he said. "You want to bet on that?" 

Harry got to his feet in a shower of straw. "Well, how come you get to go?" 

"You know," Draco said, arcing a pale eyebrow, "I was the bilingual one of us, last time I checked," and with that, he turned and walked towards the village, kicking dried grass in front of him. Harry watched him go, a slim dark figure crowned with hair that was the only bright thing visible against the gray-brown fields and the grayer sky. 

He returned, neat and composed, a half an hour later. He was carrying what looked like a loaf of bread, some cheese and dried fruit, and a corked bottle filled with clear liquid. He tossed the food to Harry, who was sitting on a tree stump near the farmhouse, and began to struggle with the cork. 

Harry bit off a piece of bread. "Don't drink all the water," he said. "I'm thirsty too." 

Draco looked up, tossing bright hair out of his eyes. "Oh, this isn't water, my friend," he said. He hefted the bottle. "Palinka." 

Harry blinked. "What did you call me?" 

"Palinka," Draco repeated, rolling his eyes, "it's a sort of fruit brandy, and from what I gathered, could take the paint off a house at twenty paces." He waved a hand at Harry. "Give me a knife." 

"I haven't got a knife." 

Draco rolled his eyes, leaned forward, and tapped one of Harry's leather-cuffed wrists. "You've got a knife." 

"Oh," Harry said, and bent his hand backward, the way Draco had showed him. A knife shot from the cuff, just above his wrist, and embedded itself in the hay bale next to Draco. 

"Do be careful, won't you?" Draco said in a patronizing tone, took hold of the knife, and dug the cork out of the bottle. "You could have hit the bottle, you know." Dropping the knife, he took a swig, made a face, and rubbed his face on his sleeve, a funny, childish gesture Harry couldn't remember him making before. "Well, well. As an extra bonus, it's flavored like paint remover." 

"That's your lunch?" Harry demanded, biting into the cheese. It had a sharp, sweet bite that was very pleasant. "Brandy?" 

"Brandy with fruit." Draco waved the bottle expansively. "Loads of nutritional value." 

Harry expelled an amused breath. "Whatever you say, Malfoy," he said. "So, do you think there's any chance that thestral is coming back, or are we going to have to Summon broomsticks or what?" 

"Neither," Draco said, sitting back against a hay bale. "We're going to have to walk." 

Harry cocked an eyebrow. "Walk?" 

"Yes, walk," Draco said. "I asked around a bit. We're not that far." He pointed somewhere behind Harry, but when Harry turned all he could see was a line of mountains, very black against the sky, fading to a pale-blue smokiness at the tops. They seemed to cast a shadow over the valley below, like a looming wall. "It was also strongly suggested to me that we do as little magic as possible on the road, as 'the Dark Lord's spies are everywhere."" Draco snorted - a sound that was most unlike him - and rubbed the back of one dirty hand across his cheek, leaving a smudge. It was sort of endearing, the smudge, or would have been had Harry been in the mood to find things about Draco endearing. "Eat your cheese, Potter, we've got something of a hike ahead of us." 

"You're the one who's been talking about it like it was a nature stroll through the local park." 

"Well, sorry," Draco said, not sounding sorry at all. "Shall I rephrase? 'The cruel path to the Dark Lord's stronghold, beset by many thorns, lies ready; we have only to set foot upon it, and -" 

"Thorns," Harry said tiredly, and sighed. "Look, be serious for a second, Malfoy - aren't you afraid?" 

Draco licked a bit of spilled alcohol off the side of his hand and regarded Harry thoughtfully. "I've been afraid, Potter," he said. "And the things I've always been most terrified of, they've always happened anyway. The way I see it, it doesn't do much good being afraid, one way or the other." His eyes narrowed then, and he laughed, a strangled sort of noise. "You're the Gryffindor - aren't you the one who's supposed to be lecturing me on bravery? Not to mention team spirit and patriotism. I thought all I was supposed to be an expert on was underhandedness and nice hair." 

Harry ignored this. "Bravery doesn't mean you're not afraid," he said. "It just means you don't turn back, even when you are." 

"And the lecture begins," Draco said, although he didn't sound really out-of-sorts, just tired and strained. "Tell me all about being a hero, Harry Potter." 

"I can't," Harry said. "I'm not really comfortable being a hero. I'm just not comfortable being a coward either." 

"Ah," said Draco, "the whole concept of this war must be something of a no-win for you, then, mustn't it?" 

Harry blinked. "War?" he echoed. "Is this a war, then?" 

Draco just looked at him over the neck of his bottle. Harry had always imagined a war against the Dark Lord as a business of troops and soldiers, platoons of wizards clashing by night on dark battlefields, trenches ablaze with magical fire. He had never thought of it like this: himself and Draco, alone and dirty and bitterly cold, without maps or plans, advice or guidance, bereft of all familiar things save each other. 

Harry looked up. When they were flying, the stars had seemed very close. Now they had retreated up into the sky, as far-off and unreachable as everything Harry could not touch: courage and surety, a sense of home and safety, the secrets Draco held behind the shutters of his grey eyes. 

"I killed a man today," Harry said, just to hear the words spoken. 

"I know," Draco said. "Welcome to the war." 

*** 

Master Lucius, 

It appears there is talk among the Dark Lord and his servants as regards their opinion of your trustworthiness. It might be advisable for you to put in a reassuring visit or two. Not to mention, I find myself pining for your sparkling company. 

Your obedient servant, 

Rhysenn  

She had underlined the word "servant" twice, and drawn little stars around it. With an impatient grunt, Lucius crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it into the fire; it caught alight and vanished in a puff of ash. 

Irritably, Lucius began to pace the room. He'd spent a pleasant day at the Manor so far - having not heard from Tom had made the day even better - engaged in a minor bit of house-elf torture. He'd also tried on all his old trousers to see if they still fit - they did - and contemplated the purchase of twin greyhounds, which would follow him everywhere he went. He would name them Jareth and Chamberlain and they would wear matching collars inscribed with the Malfoy crest. 

A very pleasant bit of daydreaming it had been, too, until his reverie had been rudely shattered by the missive from Rhysenn. The truth was, he had been avoiding Voldemort - socially, so to speak - while he sorted out his thoughts regarding the Tom fiasco. Surely by now the Dark Lord must know of the murder sprees, the dead Death Eaters, and Lucius was going to have to have something very convincing to say when he - 

Lucius broke off mid-reverie as a loud crash sounded behind him: he spun around just as the crack of displaced air faded from the room, and stared. There, in the center of the expensive Persian library carpet, stood Tom Riddle. He was white as a sheet, drenched in sweat, and the front of his shirt was stained with blood. His throat was necklaced with ugly weals, and in his arms he held the limp body of Ginny Weasley. Her long scarlet hair trailed over his arm, her legs dangled lifelessly, her left arm hung at an ugly angle. Her eyes were shut, sunk in bruised skin. 

Lucius bit back a furious groan. "The girl -" he said. "Is she dead?" 

Tom's breathing was ragged. "She is alive, but barely," he snarled, coughed, and spat blood onto the carpet. "And so am I. I need your help, Lucius - I need you to save her life." 

*** 

They were walking. The end of the short winter day had come, and the sun was setting behind the mountains Harry had thought looked like a wall. The sunset had opened across the sky like a scarlet fan, edged with black lace clouds, and in the shadow of the mountains and the sunset Harry was following Draco down a narrow path that wound between low hills crowned with crumbling rocks. The ground was hard and winter-bitten, and Harry hoped Draco was not just pretending to know where he was going. 

"Are you sure we're not lost?" Harry asked, for the fifteenth time. 

"If you ask me that again, I'm going to fuck right off and leave you here," Draco said. "I'll take my chances with the Dark Lord. I bet he never worries about getting lost." 

"Of course not," Harry said, navigating a frozen puddle with care, "he just kills anyone who gives him wrong directions." 

"You have to admire that kind of singlemindedness," Draco said. All the palinka he had drunk did not appear to have impaired his motor skills; he was striding along well ahead of Harry, bareheaded despite the cold. The frigid air had brightened his pale cheeks to scarlet. 

"No, you don't," Harry said. He knew Draco was being argumentative and annoying on purpose, but did not care. "I don't need to admire anything about Voldemort, thank you." 

Draco rolled his eyes. "I know you're all about saying the Dark Lord's name, but you know the best time to be trilling out those syllables might not be right outside his front door, right?" 

"Yeah, because that squirrel over there, that's one of the Dark Lord's spies," Harry said, indicating a squirrel crouched on a nearby branch. "When did you get so paranoid, Malfoy?' 

Draco stuck his lower lip out and exhaled irritably. "Look, Potter," he said. "Do I think we'll make it to the Dark Lord's fortress? Yes, I do, largely because as far as I can make out, the Dark Lord's always had a two-pronged plan: kill you, and rule the world. And he's always been just as obsessed with killing you as he is with ruling the world, largely because he's a petty bastard, really. So do I think he'll let anything stand in the way of getting you in his grasp? No, I don't. But it isn't just him I'm worried about. This is evil country, you know - cursed land. Things roam here whose attention we really don't want -" 

"Oh, not this horror-novel stuff again." Harry flung out a hand in exasperation. "Malfoy, I-" But to Harry's dismay, he had flung his hand out a little too hard. There was a whoosh-thuk, a knife shot from Harry's wrist, and the unfortunate squirrel Harry had previously accused of surveillance activities tumbled from its branch with a squeak and a heavy thunking noise. 

"Oh, no," Harry exclaimed, aghast. 

Draco was scarlet with the effort of not laughing. "You've eliminated one of the Dark Lord's spies!" he announced. "Perhaps you're right! Perhaps we could stroll right up to his front door, singing traditional wizarding drinking songs the entire way, and be none the worse for it. In fact..." Draco took another swig from his bottle of brandy, tucked it under his arm, and began to warble a deliberately off-key tune. 

As I strolled down along the quay
All in the lateness of the day,
I heard a lovely maiden say:
"Alack, for I can get no play." 

A minstrel boy heard what she said
And straight he rushed to her aid,
But too much drink the task forbade,
And so the maid he could not lay. 

Alack for I can get no play,
Oh woe is me and lackaday,
O chaste and pure I'll always stay,
Alack for I can get no play. 

To mirror went she straightaway
And did her ruby hair array
And for her gown she much did pay
Though on her bod it should not stay. 

Then down she walked along the street,
A handsome lad she chanced to meet,
And sore by dawn were her dainty feet,
But all the boys were gay. 

Then cried she at the break of day
And hung her head in such dismay
To mourn the dearth of fine boo-tay
"Alack, for I can get no play." 

Alack for I can get no play,
Oh woe is me and lackaday,
O chaste and pure I'll always stay,
Alack for I can get no play." 

Finished, Draco flung his now-empty brandy bottle against a nearby tree. It shattered. Harry looked at him, at the messy blond hair and the satisfied smirk on Draco's face and the sharply drawn shadows under his eyes. "That is not a traditional wizarding drinking song," he said. "You just made that up right now." 

"Maybe I did," Draco said, blinking gently. They had come out now into a field, sparsely dotted with stunted trees. Draco paused. "I need to sit down for a moment," he said, and flopped down onto the frozen grass. "Sorry if the music wasn't quite your style, Potter." 

Harry sat down next to him. The ground was cold, but it was very pleasant to rest. "It wasn't half bad," he admitted. 

"Thanks," Draco drawled thoughtfully. "I think I'll dedicate it to Ginny." 

"Wh- oh, never mind. I don't even want to know what you meant by that." 

"No," Draco agreed, staring idly up at the sky, "you probably don't." 

There was a long silence. It stretched out between them like pulled taffy. Harry turned on his side slightly and looked at Draco, who seemed lost in thought. The moonlight blanched him; in the middle of the field, with nothing around to cast a shadow, Harry could clearly see the shadows cast by Draco's own eyelashes against the sharp tops of his cheekbones, the dark spaces below his mouth and eyes, gathering in the hollow of his bared throat. Harry wondered if he was correct about what Draco was thinking, or not. 

"So, do you love her?" Harry asked. 

Draco blinked. "Who?" 

Okay, perhaps not. "Ginny," Harry said, with emphasis. 

There was another long silence, but this one was taut. "I think what you mean when you say love, and what I mean when I say it, are two entirely different things," Draco said finally. 

"That's not an answer," Harry said. 

"I know it isn't," Draco said agreeably. He turned his head towards Harry, so that his cheek was pillowed on his hand. The moonlight washed his eyes out, turned them white and blind. "What's it to you, Potter?" 

"Can't it just be natural curiosity?" 

Draco laughed, and the dry grass stirred with his breath. "Or you want me out of your way." 

"I don't," Harry said evenly, "want you out of my way." 

Draco's gaze scanned Harry quickly. In the pale light, his lashes were the same color as the dry straw, his hair a few shades lighter and his skin lighter still. Harry remembered the Draco of his dream, older and with all the flaring curves of chin and cheek and jaw gone to hard straight lines. "I don't know," he said finally. "Sometimes I think I could. But then, sometimes I used to think I could beat you at Quidditch. I could picture it so clearly, it was like it was happening. I could feel the wind in my hair and the Snitch in my hand, me closing my fingers over it..." His voice had turned drowsy. "..you know the way it feels, when you hold it in your hand, and it beats like a heart?" 

"Yes," Harry said quietly. 

"Sometimes you want things so badly, you picture them so clearly, it's as if they're already real." 

"And you want...Ginny?" Harry asked, utterly confused. "So you do love her." 

"I want," Draco said, "to be able to love her. Sometimes I think I could. I can picture it. I think it would make me happy. But I think perhaps it's not in my nature to be happy. Happiness is simple, after all, and I've never liked anything simple." 

"Happiness isn't simple," Harry said. "And I don't see why you can't love her." 

"I still can't see the stars," Draco said. 

"The moon's too bright," Harry said again, wondering if Draco had forgotten having had this conversation before, because he was drunk. "It blots them out." 

"Exactly," Draco said. 

Harry stared at him, mystified, and Draco reached out a thin hand then, and touched his hair. It was a light touch, like a leaf grazing his cheek, and a shiver passed over Harry. 

He stared. 

"You had straw in your hair," Draco said, and pulled his hand back. 

"Oh," Harry said. "Well, thanks." 

"I would have thought happiness would be simple for you," Draco said quietly. "You know who you love." 

There was another silence as Harry tried to puzzle out what Draco meant. How could anyone not know who they loved? Love was like pain; you didn't not know when you felt it, any more than you could miss having stepped on a carpet tack. "If you mean Hermione," Harry said, "it's like I said in the letter I wrote to her when I left Hogwarts. I've always -" 

He broke off then, not because Draco had made any noise to interrupt him, but because Draco had somehow interrupted him with his silence - in a way Harry could not have explained, he had felt the explosion of something inside Draco, a burst of bright realization followed by a sudden terrible tension. He turned to look at Draco, whose eyes were very wide, his mouth half-open. 

Chapter 14_2