HPSlashFics - 15 Part 1: Brightness Falls

"Man," said Aidan Lynch, glancing around him. "Harry Potter has utterly trashed your flat, Vik."

"Don't call me Vik," said Viktor Krum, stomping irritably around the bedroom in a circle. His dark eyes took in its shambles: the closet torn open and ransacked, papers blowing around the floor in the cold draft from the open window. A blanket had been flung over the floor and was marked with the filthy prints of muddy boots. "If Harry survives whatever's happened to him, I shall certainly be sending him a large bill for damages."

"I'll give him one thing," Aidan said, lifting a coil of shredded rope off one bedpost. "Bloke knows how to party."

"So what's in here?" Sirius asked, ducking into the room. He looked haggard, his dark hair hanging around his tired face. "Any clues?"

Aidan stuffed the rope into his pocket and shrugged. "Nothing really. Harry changed clothes, took some weapons. There's a burned stain from some liquid in the kitchen, but I don't know what it is. You find anything?"

Sirius shook his head. "Someone used the living room fireplace to communicate, but the ashes are too cold for me to tell anything specific." He glanced at Viktor. "It was kind of you to offer Harry sanctuary," he said a bit more gently.

"It was Fleur who offered," said Viktor. "I agreed because she pressed me." He surveyed the wreckage glumly. "My mother crocheted me that blanket," he said, bending to lift it off the floor.

"Blood," said Viktor, casting the blanket aside. The floor underneath it was stained dark with smeared, blackish blood. Aidan, kicking away papers , saw that a thick line of blood led towards the door.

"Someone was dragged," he said. "Someone bleeding - wounded - and then lifted -"

"Don't worry," Remus said, appearing in the doorframe. "It wasn't Harry or Draco." He looked at Sirius and shrugged wryly. "There's a dead body on the roof. And..."

They trooped up the stairs, Viktor leading the way. It was almost sunset, the western sky over Prague streaked with rose and gold. The dead body was that of a man in black clothes, He lay with his back arched in a bow, his throat gaping wide open. All around him, a lake of blood spread across the roof tiles.

And there were thestrals.-- five or six of them crowded around the dead body, dipping their muzzles into the blood. They looked up when the men arrived on the roof, whickering nervously.

Viktor, looking grim, was staring at the body. "One of Voldemort's men," he said. "The thestrals, they are just vermin. Shall I chase them off?"

'"They're not 'just vermin,' " said Remus. Sweeping his cloak around himself, he slowly walked towards the thestrals. Two of them backed away, one taking to the air. He paused, murmured softly. Even more slowly, he approached the largest; of them. Bending, he spoke into its quivering ear. It whickered back, a thick, guttural unpleasant sound. Remus straightened. "The boys left from the roof," he said. "They took a thestral and headed for a stronghold somewhere in the Romanian mountains. This one knows where it is, and will take us there, if we want to go."

"And yet your puns have not improved," said Sirius. He approached the thestral as well. Grabbing hold of its mane, he swung himself up on its back, then held out a hand to help Remus up as well. Remus clambered onto its back, and took hold of Sirius cloak to steady himself.

"No," said Sirius. "You two stay here and get hold of Dumbledore. Tell him where we're going. See what he can do about sending someone after us. Hell, tell him to come himself. I have a feeling we're going to need all the help we can get. Viktor - thank you for your help."

"You're a prat," said Sirius. He dug his knee into the thestral's side, and it took off into the night sky.

They were standing on a ledge overlooking a shallow valley. The path dipped away steeply behind them, winding down the mountain through cruelly sharp rocks and slippery shale. The valley was ringed with mountains, their ice-covered tops lost in cloud.

In the bowl of the valley stood a fortress. Harry had been expecting something more ornamental, reminiscent of Hogwarts, with its lofty crenellated turrets. This structure had very clearly been built for defense: behind tall ramparts, its bulwarks and ravelins were of thick, roughly dressed stone; the only windows were narrow lancets high on each blank face; and a guard tower stood at each salient. Harry cocked an eyebrow. "Impressive."

Draco indicated the fortress with a wave of one thin hand. "Ah, the memories," he said nostalgically. "I used to spend summers here as a boy. When the servants misbehaved, the house gryphons used to carry them out to the distant mountains and drop them off the peaks. Once my mother's Pekingese was eaten by vampires. Those rosy-colored days of boyhood," he finished with an elegiac smile. "How soon they fade."

Harry scrubbed a filthy hand across his forehead. It came away even dirtier. "Nice summer place, Malfoy. Where'd you spend Christmas? Mordor?"

"If you say so." Harry peered into the swiftly darkening twilight. He could see guards patrolling at the base of the fortress, moving in steady black columns like ants. Fires burned atop the roof, sending black tendrils up into the dark blue air. Harry took another step forward, his boots crunching on shale - and something metallic. Surprised, he glanced down. Something gold gleamed among the grayish shale.

He bent to pick it up. It was a cloak pin of intricate design, made of a brassy dark metal, badly dented. A dark red stone slept in the center of it, like a half-closed eye. With its intricate design he knew it instantly. "This is Ron's," he said.

Draco came to stand beside him. He had made the journey up the mountainside much more swiftly than Harry would have thought possible. He looked tired now, but no worse than before; only the shadows under his eyes were slightly more blue. "That is Weasley's, isn't it?" he said. "I remember him wearing it around all the time. Always struck me as odd he'd wear a petrified basilisk eye as a bit of jewelry. More of a Slytherin thing to do."

Harry closed his hand around the brooch. "That means Ron is here," he said quietly.

"Yes, it just - seems so real all of a sudden." Closing his hand around the pin, Harry slipped it into his pocket. Then he drew his sword, and a long, shuddering breath after it. "It's time," he said. "Take your sword out, Malfoy."

Draco looked at him, a steady but distant look under half-lidded eyes, as if he peered under a glass. Grey shale dust filmed his hair and clothes. He looked like a ghost. He leaned forward and kissed Harry on the cheek; a quick kiss from lips dry with exhaustion and dirt.

Draco drew his sword out of its scabbard; it glimmered dully in the light of the setting sun. "It means we all die someday," he said, and pushed past Harry, so that of the two of them he was the first to set his feet on the last path that led to the fortress.

"Never," said Tom. "You will never die, sweet one. You will live forever, always at my side. You will be there to remind me of the flesh I arose from, even when the rest of the world has sunk to flame and ashes. At the end of the universe, we will be together, and after it, together we will rule the void."

He smiled at her like a light going out, and Ginny wanted to scream, but found she could make no sound. She held tightly to the frame of the mirror as he turned and walked away from her, the light gleaming along the silver braid on his cloak. The sound of a door opening came again - although she could see nothing - and he vanished, without a backward glance. Ginny's fingers let go their grip on the mirror and she sank soundlessly to the floor.

She didn't know how long she sat there, curled around herself, fighting tears. At length a noise made her raise her head -a door closing or opening, very far away. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, rising to her feet. Tom, she thought with dread. He's come back.

Almost without volition, her right hand lifted to clutch the pendant around her neck. "Tom?" she whispered.

"No," said a familiar voice, "not Tom." She heard fabric rustling, and then two white hands appeared out of nowhere, and then a familiar, frizzy brown head. Ginny blinked in stupefaction as the invisibility cloak fell away, and Hermione stood in front of her in torn jeans and an old Puddlemere United shirt. She was shaking her head. "Honestly, Ginny," she said. "The messes you get yourself into."

"Hermione!" Ginny almost wanted to hug the other girl, but Hermione's scowling expression forbade her. "I'm so glad to see you - I mean," she added hastily, "not that I'm glad you're here, because this is clearly a terrible place to be, I'm just, you know. Glad to see a friendly face," she finished lamely. "And glad you're safe."

"I heard," Hermione said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "I was listening. Sorry to eavesdrop on you like that, but I wasn't exactly expecting Tom to burst in when he did. And I definitely wasn't expecting him to start declaring his love like that. Ginny, don't you think you're taking this whole bad boy thing of yours a little far?"

Ginny sank numbly onto the bed. "He doesn't love me. You heard him. I just remind him of his mortality or something."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's what he says. The truth is, he practically slavers when he looks at you. Its' sick, it's disgusting - and we're going to use it to our advantage." She held out the bundle she was carrying to Ginny. "Put this on."

Ginny opened the bundle. It looked like a pile of fabric - swath after swath of glowing blue-green cloth. She held it up. Robes, with an ornate bodice of green and gold embroidery. "You want me to wear these?"

"No, I want you to bake them in a pie." Hermione shook her head irritably. "Yes, I want you to wear it. I need you to talk to Tom for me. The prettier you look, the more likely you'll melt his little black heart and he'll give you what you want."

"You want me to ask him to call off the ceremony," Ginny said. "He'll never do it, Hermione."

"No." Hermione shook her head slowly. "I don't want you to ask him to call it off. I want you to make absolutely sure it happens."

The reflection staring back at Ginny from the mirror was of someone she didn't know. The blue robes, thrown on over the white nightdress she'd been wearing, made her look solemn, regal - someone to be reckoned with. She pulled back her wildly curling hair with a ribbon, and turned to face Hermione.

Hermione smiled, showing her dimples. "Rhysenn said the dress was enchanted: it's got an Impresarius charm woven into the fabric. Apparently the Malfoys wear them when they want to look more impressive and sway other people's opinions more easily. What do you think?"

Ginny shook her head. "Are you starkers? You can't trust her. And you're acting awfully strange."

Hermione sighed. "I know. I'm sorry." She sat down on the bed, running her fingers through her unruly mop of hair. "I'm a little hysterical, I guess. I had this whole plan, and, well -" She broke off, squeezing her eyes shut. "We only have one chance, Ginny. One chance to stop all of this. And I thought I'd be doing it with Harry here, but he's not, and I'm so worried about him I could die, and Draco, too. I thought I'd have them with me, but I don't - I'm totally alone, and I'm so frightened."

Hermione opened her eyes. She looked at Ginny again, and this time seemed to really see her, not just the culmination of a plan wrapped in expensive fabric. "I know," she said, her voice softening. "Thanks for being so brave. Do you want to go over it again?"

"No," Ginny said slowly. Did she really have the kind of power over Tom that Hermione seemed to think she did? She doubted it, somehow. "No, I understand the plan. I know what you want me to say."

Hermione nodded. "Good." She looked exhausted, her pale face marked with dark lines under her eyes, her cheek smudged with bruises. "You must tell no one that I'm alive or that you've seen me, Ginny. Not Draco, not Harry, not anyone. Understand? Promise me, please."

Hermione smiled weakly. "I know you do. I trust you." She stood up, swirling the cloak around her shoulders, and vanished. "I'll guess I'll go take care of my end of things," said her voice, coming from somewhere to Ginny's left.

"There used to be a door." Draco sounded as tired and exasperated as Harry felt. "I mean, if there wasn't one, it's certainly slipped my mind how we got in and out of the bloody place." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe we should take another circuit of the walls."

"We've already walked around the place three times," Harry replied, chancing another peek round the boulder they'd chosen to hide behind while a troop of guards passed. The guards were gone, but there was still no door, no entry into the castle at all. It seemed a ridiculous situation to be in, but there it was. "We're going to have to think of something else. Fortunately..."

"And I actually thought I might reach the end of my days without having to hear you say that again."

"It's a good plan," Harry said, hoping his injured tone covered the break in his voice. He hated it when Draco talked about his death; he knew why the other boy was doing it, but he hated it just the same.

"Sorry, I should have said 'extremely flawed' or perhaps 'flawed up the wazoo.' Although I despise vernacular slang, as you well know."

"Shut up a second, Malfoy, and listen." Harry paused a moment to organize his thoughts. "Okay, there's no door, right? So the only way to get inside is either through the windows or by getting up to the roof."

"The walls aren't going to be easy to climb," Draco said, raising his eyebrows. "They make those things sheer for a reason, you know."

"One of us has to wingardium leviosa the other," Harry said. "I think you ought to do it to me. Then I'll make my way down through the fortress and let you in."

"Because, of course, you know the way so well?" Draco's tone was cutting. "Clearly, if anyone's being catapulted into the upper reaches, it ought to be me. I know the way through the castle, I know how to find the front door, and I know what back ways to take in order to avoid the guards. In addition," he said, "I really haven't got the strength to wingardium a mouse, much less a strapping bloke such as yourself."

"I didn't say that," Draco pointed out. "It's a terrible, stupid plan. I can tell you, for one thing, that it's harder to wingardium someone than you might think. I can tell you that from experience -"

"I know," Harry said. "Hermione told me about that, but you were both using Lifting Spells then. This will go much more smoothly. Besides," he added, "you haven't got a better idea, have you?"

"I didn't think so," Harry said. He stood back, raising his right hand. The scar along the palm shone white in the light of the rising moon. "Are you ready?"

Draco stepped away from the boulder, looking resigned. "Stupid Gryffindor plans," he said, "they bookend my life." He put his hands in his pockets. "Go ahead."

"Wingardium leviosa!" Harry cried. He felt the familiar energy pulse through his hand, and then Draco rose into the air, not with the familiar forward-directed motion of broomstick flying, but as if he were being lifted on invisible strings. As Harry raised his hand higher and higher, Draco rose quickly, until his bright hair melted into the darkening twilight and he became a black speck, rising swiftly but steadily up the fortress's side. Harry stepped back out of the shadow of the boulder, squinting his eyes --

And backed directly into a platoon of guards who were rounding the corner of an outflung buttress. He heard them shout in angry surprise as he stumbled, and one grasped at his upraised hand. He saw the black speck that was Draco jerk wildly before being flung hard against the fortress wall. Then his view was blocked as the guards, weapons drawn, surrounded him.

Once Hermione had gone, Ginny sat and stared at herself in the mirror that hung opposite the bed. She looked strange to herself , incongruous and barely real, her pale, anxious face standing out above the brightly colored fabric of her dress, and the dark bed hangings falling all around her.

Hermione had said that Tom would come to her. She wasn't sure why she'd believed it, but it beat the alternative, which was to accept that her future would consist of being Tom's concubine while the wizarding world collapsed around her into ashes and dust, and everyone she knew and loved died.

She'd often wondered what exactly Tom's interest in her was -how it could be explained or described. She felt as confused now as ever. He didn't love her, of that she was sure, whatever Hermione might say. But there was something in the way he looked at her that was like - that was like the way Draco looked at her.

Maybe it was merely that they both wanted her. She knew Draco had wanted her, once. It wasn't that he'd kissed her; she knew him, and he was perfectly capable of kissing - thoroughly and expertly - people he didn't care for at all. It was the very slight tremble in his wrists when he took her face between his hands. That tiny weakness spoke to her more than any words he was ever likely to say.

Assuming they ever even saw each other again. Ginny rose from the bed, intending to splash some cold water on her face. Halfway across the room, she stopped and stared. A dark shape hovered outside the window, too large to be a bird, coming closer and closer -

The window exploded inward in a wave of shattering glass. Carried with it, like a bit of driftwood carried on an incoming tide, was Draco Malfoy. He struck the ground and crumpled, amid a rain of silvery shards.

Ginny raced to where he lay on his back amid the glittering pile, one arm over his face, like an enchanted sleeping prince whose glass coffin has just been smashed to bits all around him.

"Draco?" she whispered, kneeling to him, heedless of the glass. She drew his arm gently away from his face. For a moment she felt certain that he was dead. The impact of striking the window had been formidable - and he was so still, sprawled amongst the jagged bits of broken glass, the thin bright lines of a dozen shallow cuts visible on his face, his hands, his clothes sliced to ribbons - she leaned closer, her hand still gripping his.

He opened his eyes. They roamed her face, his expression dazed. His lips parted and he spoke, his voice soft and almost bewildered.

The pain was intense. It was the first thing he had become aware of on waking. His wrists, tied tight behind his back, hurt sharply, and there was a dull ache in his shoulders. His head felt as if someone had bashed it in with a stovepipe. Groaning, Ron rolled over, and stared about.

He was lying on a metal platform. It hung from the ceiling of the Ceremonial Chamber, each corner secured by a long iron chain. It was far too high from the ground for him to jump, even if his hands and feet had not been tied and the floor had not been made of very hard stone.

The chamber was circular, the walls tapering to a conical ceiling whose apex was open to the sky. Ron could see stars, and a sliver of icy moon. The floor was bare, polished green stone, swirled through with rococo designs. A huge five-pointed star had been drawn upon the center of the floor in some kind of reddish-black fluid that Ron hoped was paint. Objects had been set at four points of the star: a mirror, a dagger, a sword, and a cup. He recognized the cup instantly; it was the one he, Harry, and Hermione had stolen from the museum.

The ceremony is about to begin, he thought listlessly. Looking to the side, he could see Wormtail busy at work, fixing a row of iron rings to the wall. When he stepped back, Ron could see that they were shackles. Voldemort stood beside the pentagram on the floor, deep in conversation with a young man with dark hair.

The double doors to the chamber opened then, and Rhysenn hurried in, her dark hair flying behind her. She approached the young man and whispered into his ear. He nodded curtly, bowed to the Dark Lord, and left the room, passing Lucius, who was just entering. He stepped back to let Tom pass, a strange smile on his face, then turned to Voldemort. His voice, when he spoke, was clear and carrying.

Wormtail straightened, his silver hand gleaming. "Well, that's a relief." Ron didn't know if he meant the shackles or Draco's probable demise.

"Potter," Voldemort breathed. "At last. As soon as he gets here, Lucius, we will begin the ceremony."

The ceremony. Ron knew this would mean his death, and yet his heart was singing. Harry was here; Harry had come for him. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, Ron felt the stirrings of hope.

"Sodding Weasley, indeed," Ginny said, crossly, sitting back on her heels. "That's very nice, Malfoy. You could at least pretend you're happy to see me."

"I'm not," Draco said, "happy to see you." He closed his eyes for a moment; Ginny saw how blue-black the lids were, and her angry response died on her lips. His eyes flew open, then, alarm lighting the pale irises. "Harry," he said, and got to his feet. Glass spilled off him as he stood up, a shower of razored confetti. He went to the broken window and leaned out, the set of his shoulders tight with anxiety.

Draco nodded. "He flew me up here. He thought if one of us could get up to the roof, he could let the other one in...."

"And then what?" Ginny said. "You were planning on taking on all of Voldemort's guards, just the two of you?"

Draco shot her a wry look. "You make it sound like a stupid plan." He leaned further out the window, his tension deepening. There certainly seemed to be no one on the ground below: just bare black rock, unoccupied even by guards. He sighed and shut his eyes.

"Wait." He held up a hand, rapt in silent concentration. A moment later, his mouth quirked into a near-smile and he opened his eyes. "He's all right," he said. "He had to hide around the side of the castle. I'm meant to let him in if I can." He rubbed the back of his neck with a long- fingered hand. "I don't suppose you know the way to the front door?"

Ginny shook her head. "I don't even know how to get out of this room. There are no doors, and just the one window. And you smashed it."

Draco reached into his sleeve and drew out his wand. To Ginny's surprise, he handed it to her without hesitation. There was something strangely intimate about holding another witch or wizard's wand in your hand. Draco's seemed infused with his personality. She wasn't sure how it felt about being held by her, either. If wands could be said to have moods, she would have described his as coolly amused.

She raised her hand and performed a quick Reparo spell on the window. As the glass pieces flew back together, forming a seamless square, she chanced a sideways glance at Draco. He was bone-white, his eyes sunk into hollows, his lips a bloodless line. "Draco," she said, lowering the wand. "Maybe you should sit down."

He nodded, exhaustion so plain in even that small movement that her heart sank. As he walked to the bed, she saw how carefully he moved. His grace had not gone, but it seemed tempered with a hesitancy she had never associated with him. He leaned back against bed cushions patterned with black thorns, and examined his hands. They were laced with tiny cuts, a fretwork of darker lines against the white skin. "You know, I don't remember this room at all," he said. "Perhaps it's meant as a prison. There must be some way out of it, though. Other people can come and go, right?"

"I think so," Ginny said uncertainly. She hadn't seen Tom leave; she'd been hiding her face. It occurred to her that she ought to tell Draco about Tom. Slowly she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at him. His hair against the black bedlinens looked very fair. Black had always been a good backdrop for him; it showed up his icy beauty well. He was still beautiful, even spare and drawn as he was, but with a strange translucency. "I wasn't paying attention when -"

"Shush," Draco said suddenly, and sat up. "I like your hair like that," he said, and lightly touched the ribbon that held it back. He smiled then, the old wry twist of his mouth that always made her pulse jump. "I love and I hope," he said.

"Your necklace," Draco said, and his hand dropped from her hair to touch the hollow of her throat. "J'aime et j'espere...I love and I hope. Where did you get that pendant?"

"Ah." Draco dropped his hand. "Curious. My mother used to have one much like it, that my father had given her. Apparently it was a Malfoy heirloom." He smiled faintly. "But love can hope where reason would despair...it's a nice sentiment, isn't it?"

"I meant sentiment in its more specific sense, dearest," Draco said, with an airy wave of the hand that recalled his old self. "A sentence considered as the expression of a thought; a maxim; a saying; a -"

"It's not that," she said, winding the bedclothes tightly in her fist. "It's just I wish you wouldn't call me dearest, not right after you say you aren't happy to see me'

Draco's eyes had gone a slatey gray. He stood up, his hand gripping the bedpost. "Such a funny little thing you are, Ginny - what would you do if you were trapped in a burning building with no hope of escape? Invite all your friends in to toast marshmallows?"

"Don't make fun of me." Ginny glanced away from him, but too late; a few hot tears splashed down on her bare arm, making her jump.

"What's the difference?" she said drearily. "There's no way out of here anyway. And I promised -" Hermione that I would stay, she was about to say, but that promise was superseded by the other she had made, not to mention Hermione's presence to anyone.

"Promised what?" Draco said. "And there must be a way out." He walked over to the wall and tapped on it, then moved aside a portrait. There was more blank stone under it. "I deplore your defeatist attitude, Ginny. Stone walls do not a prison make, nor -"

"Stop it!" she said fiercely, standing up. The blue robes spilled sround her, their heavy weight as much a reminder of her situation as chains. "I hate it when you do that - "

"Well, if you hate it," Draco said, "that certainly supersedes our current desperate situation. I wouldn't want you to be upset." His tone was acid.

"I'm not like you," Ginny said. "I can't be a heroine all the time just for it's own sake. I need something to fight for."

Draco turned away from the wall, letting the picture fall back in place. "And you think I can give you that?" he said, looking, for the first time, almost uncertain.

"I don't know," Ginny said. "Can you?" She took a step towards him. "Just once, I want you to answer me something, and I want you to be serious, and not say anything in Latin, and not quote anything, and not make jokes, and not spout off any poetry. Do you think you can do that?"

Draco shook his head. "Be careful what you ask for," he said, "without my Latin and my poetry and my jokes, you know, I'm just ordinary, Ginny."

"But I want you ordinary," she cried. He flushed though his eyes were clear as glacier ice. "And it doesn't matter - you never could be ordinary, even if you tried."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Draco said, though there was a resigned look on his face, as if he were on his way to the gallows. "I remember," he said, "once, when you gave me the strength to fight. I suppose I owe you as much back. Less would be - dishonorable. So ask me, ask me whatever you must."

For a moment he was absolutely still, only the nervous movement of his hand, curling inward, showing that he had even heard her question. Finally, he said, "You really want to know?"

"We're trapped in a prison, any help is continents away, Voldemort is about to subjugate the entire world to his evil will and the best we have to look forward to is very messy deaths, and you want to talk about our relationship?"

"It's going to be very hard to do that without any poetry," Draco said plaintively.

He looked almost amused. Shrugging, he went over to the wardrobe and rapped on it. It made a noise much like the noise of any wardrobe when you rapped on it. "I've never told anyone I loved them before."

"She asked me once, and I said yes. But I never offered it. It would have seemed like an insult," Draco said, his tone thoughtful, and Ginny knew he was telling her the unvarnished truth - if not about the way he felt about her, then at least about the way he felt. "To her and to Harry. No, I couldn't have done that."

"I liked looking at her," he said, "and I liked that she loved me, but no, I never loved her, not the way you mean, and I never told her I did. It would have been a lie." He hesitated. "I used to think I couldn't fall in love, and then I thought that if I did it would kill me, and now I know that neither is the truth. But love hasn't killed me, although sometimes," he said wryly, " it's made me wish I were dead. I never asked you, did I," he finished with a trace of a smile, "if you loved me?"

"I've told you I do," she said. "And I know what you think: that I love you because in my head I've made you out to be something that you aren't. But it's not true. I don't think you're some hero on a white horse who's going to rescue me, and I don't even want that. I just want you the way you are."

"Yes, the way you are, and that means the bad things too." She stopped abruptly. The room was still; Draco was still, waiting. She felt an uprushing of words--all the thoughts about him that she had kept so carefully in check. " - You're cowardly sometimes, and you laugh everything off that you don't agree with, and you're selfish, and afraid of your own feelings. You despise weakness, and that means you're capable of real cruelty towards the helpless, and you despise your own weakness most of all, and that means those who love you have to watch while you hurt yourself. And right now," she added, half as an afterthought, "you look terrible."

"But I know the good things about you, too," Ginny rushed on, her voice cracking. "And I know that when you love people, you love them completely - so I suppose there's no point asking you if you love me - because if you did, you'd know it."

"No." He looked as stricken as if she had slapped him. "No - oh, God, you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, haven't you? And it's my own fault." He took a step towards her, and now they were close enough to touch, though he didn't reach for her. "Ginny, I'm the last person who would know. I'm not sure I've ever managed proper love, not in all my life, only passions where they weren't wanted and nothing where they were. It's no one's fault, or no one but my father's perhaps - I've only learned the difference between love and hate this past year... I'm a child and perhaps what you need is someone more ... grown-up. Finnegan, even," he said, and his voice was both grudging and strangely sad.

"But you do know the difference between love and hate," she whispered. "You love Harry -"

"Until I die," Draco said. "Although I suppose that isn't saying all that much."

"It's a different sort of love, I suppose," Ginny said, and when Draco said nothing to that, she went on: "You love Hermione - you were in love with her. That night in the rose garden you as near as told me so."

"I wonder sometimes if I fell in love with Hermione because Harry loved her," Draco said, thoughtfully. "So much of Harry transferred itself to me when we switched places - and that was the strongest emotion in his heart; perhaps I took it on myself. Not that that banishes or changes the emotion, I suppose, but it might explain it."

"In a way, yes," Draco said, lightly, "but I have put it away, with other childish things - and yes, I know, I'm quoting. I'll stop. Look at me, Ginny, please." She looked at him. She could see the fever in him, but his eyes were very clear, and lovely in their clarity. When he died, those eyes would shut forever, she thought, and banished the thought with an inward sharp wince. "Believe me," he said, "Hermione doesn't stand between us, and you mustn't blame her. It isn't because of her that I can't tell you that I love you. I'm the one you should blame and hate. This whole stupid situation has robbed me of the chance--the perfectly ordinary chance--to learn to fall in love where and when I might choose to - robbed us both, I suppose. If I could choose, I would love you with all the love my rags of heart were capable of, but I need time for that - and time is the one thing I don't have. I'm dying, and love can't grow in a dying heart, any more than you can grow a flower in darkness and water it in blood. Can you understand that?"

"No," she wanted to say, but it would have been unkind. And through her sadness, she felt a great, strange pity for him: to die without loving and having that love returned did seem cruel to her romantic heart. Underneath all his layers of bitterness and indifference she knew Draco would feel the same, would knew that lack, and the torment of regret. "I almost understand," she began, "I wish that you could-- "

She broke off, hearing a noise behind her. Slowly turning around, she saw a flicker of movement near the wardrobe in the corner. A moment later, Tom stepped into the room.

Apparently , Harry thought, you could lie through telepathy, provided that you were very careful and the person you were talking to was very tired and distracted. He'd told Draco that he had run from the guards, and this was true. And he'd also told him that he was hiding behind a rock on top of a hill, and was all right. This was true as well. What he hadn't mentioned was that he'd been spotted behind the rock, and wasn't likely to remain all right for very much longer.

The guards had caught sight of him a few minutes ago, and had begun circling the rock he was hiding behind in a wide circle. Slowly, the circle began to tighten. Realizing the jig was up, Harry straightened up and stepped out from behind the rock, turning to face the guards as he did so. He heard them laugh.

He dropped his sword, raised his hand high. He no longer feared to be detected by Voldemort; he would take as many of them down with him as he could.

They were pounding up the hill towards him, a sea of moving black robes. He opened his mouth, ready to speak the Killing Curse - and light blazed from his hand. He staggered back, shocked. He hadn't spoken a spell, so how -? From the runic band on his wrist a bright light began to blaze. The light grew: a glimmer at first, then brighter and brighter, and he saw Voldemort's soldiers fall back, hands thrown up over their faces. They were screaming, as if the light pained them. One by one they fell, staggering, stumbling back, and their cries filled the night.

Harry would never be able to describe the precise color of the light. It was red, but no red he had ever seen before. More red than sunset, more translucent than blood, brighter than fire. It lit the sky like daylight. It was too bright to look upon. He cried out and turned his face away, but even then he could see the afterglow imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

Then it vanished, silently and instantly. The sky went dark. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was standing in a field of corpses;all around him in a circle lay Voldemort's dead guards, their bodies twisted, hands still flung up to ward off some terrible blow. He bent to pick up his sword, and only when he straightened up did he see that the runic band was gone, - having done what it was made to do, it had sifted from his wrist in a fine spray of black ashes.

Tom moved towards her. Ginny braced herself for the look of shock and dawning anger on his face when he saw Draco, her mind whirling through a series of useless excuses. Tom, I'm so sorry, I never -

"Ginny," he said. "Rhysenn told me you wished to see me. You do realize that I'm quite busy at the moment?"

She stared at him. He looked back at her, boredom and impatience evident in every line of his face.

Very slowly, Ginny turned around and looked behind her. Draco was nowhere to be seen. In a way, it was worse than Tom's sudden appearance. In her surprise, she sank down on the bed, open-mouthed.

She rose to her feet obediently, and the heavy folds of her robes spilled down around her, silver and blue, green and gold. A hot light flared up in Tom's face, the look of a goblin staring at a bank vault full of Galleons. His sensual mouth curved. She had time to think only that Hermione had been right, when he closed the distance between them and gathered her wrists in one hand. His other hand went to her hair and caught the ribbon that bound her plait, tugging it sharply free. Ginny flinched, but he ignored her, his long fingers catching in her hair as he shook it down over her shoulders.

He dropped the ribbon. It curled on the floor like a coiled snake. "Is this why you wanted to see me?" he asked, brushing the backs of his knuckles against her collarbone, a languid caress that made her shiver half-unpleasantly.

"No," she said quickly, and although he didn't take his hand away, he did cock an eyebrow curiously. "I wanted to ask you if I could come to the ceremony. I want to watch you ascend to power."

"There's a good chance the ceremony will kill your brother," Tom said, offhandedly, twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers.

"I know," Ginny said, "but I must learn to bear these things, mustn't I, if I'm going to rule the world at your side?" She wondered if her nausea and anger sounded in her voice - and if the gig would be up if they did, but Tom merely smiled lazily, and caught a handful of her hair between his fingers, dragging her face closer to his. She knew he meant to kiss her, and it took all her strength not to pull away. His mouth was cold, and tasted of ice and wine on the verge of becoming vinegar.

The kiss ended, and Ginny stood, the world tilting around her. "You won't learn to bear these things," Tom said. "If you aren't born with the ability to bear them, you can't learn it, but that's just as well. You're more lovely when you're unhappy." He let her go. "It doesn't matter what you want," he said matter-of-factly, "the Dark Lord wants you all in the Ceremonial Chamber to watch him take power. I expect he will chain you to the wall. I may leave you in your chains when it is all over," he added with a smile, "and take my pleasure with you that way; I think I would enjoy that."

He bent to kiss her again, when, suddenly, the windowpanes rattled; Ginny turned in time to see the whole room illuminated with a flash of frighteningly bright scarlet light. It seemed to bathe the room in blood. She cried out and cringed, though the reddened sky was already fading back to black. "What was that?"

Tom had let her go; he was staring at the window with his hand half-raised. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked from the room, vanishing as he neared the wall. How does he get out of here? Ginny thought. She wondered what the scarlet light meant, and why it had startled Tom. Had Harry killed Voldemort at last? Was there some Gryffindor equivalent to the Dark Mark?

A thump sounded behind her. She turned to see Draco clambering out from under the bed. He stood up, coughing and looking somewhat the worse for wear. "I take it Voldemort has gotten rid of the maid service," he said. "There are some quite appalling dust bunnies under that bed. I swear one of them was looking at me."

"I don't know," Draco said tensely, "but it's a good thing it went off like that, because in another second I would have been out from under the bed and chopping that slimy git's hands off. Has he hurt you?"

Draco leaned against the bedpost. "Come here," he said, and she went, although she was growing quite tired of back-and-forthing where some boy had told her to go. Still, this was Draco, and she loved him, and he was only asking because he was too ill to make any more effort than he must.

Draco touched his fingers lightly to the skin above her collarbone, as Tom had done.

"Looking for bruises," he said. "The last time I was in the same room with you, my Ginny, it wasn't you at all. It was a prostitute Tom had paid to Polyjuice herself into your likeness. And he'd strangled her, and left her dead on the whorehouse floor."

"Oh shut up," Ginny grinned back. She paused. "You're serious. - That really happened?"

"Oh," she said faintly. "That's so disgusting. And that poor girl. It's my fault, isn't it?"

"No," Draco said. "And I think we've all had enough of blaming ourselves for things we couldn't possibly have been responsible for, don't you?" He regarded her quizzically. "He loves you, you know." he said. "He may be a deranged psychopath who kills everyone in his path, but in his own sick, revolting way, he does love you."

"Well," Ginny said. "There are worse things than not being loved, aren't there?"

A flash of great sadness passed across his face. "Some," he said, and bent to pick up the ribbon that had fallen at her feet. "Do you want this?"

"Then I'll wear it," Draco said, and wound it around and around his left wrist, and tied it there. He put out a hand, and pushed the heavy hair, all draggled where Tom had ripped his fingers through it, back from her face. "If I get a chance to kill him for you," he said, "I will."

She touched the ribbon, smooth as the skin under it. "I thought you weren't the white knight dragon-killer sort," she said, trying for lightness but only sounding sad. And it was true: he didn't look much like he could kill a dragon, now, pale and thin and filthy with dirt, leaves caught in his cloak, marked and scarred by glass and bramble scratches. And still, he was the only boy she'd ever really loved. "I want you to know," she said, "I understand what you were trying to say before - about why you can't love me - and -"

"Fancy words," he said, and leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. He tasted of fever, cold salt, and determination, and a bitterness like tears. When he pulled back, his beribboned wrist grazed her cheek. "Sorry," he said, half-smiling, "After Tom, perhaps you're a bit tired of being suddenly kissed -"

"Oh!" Ginny interrupted, suddenly realizing, "I was going to watch how Tom got out of the room, and I didn't see it. He just vanished. Damn it -"

"I was watching him," Draco said. "He went through the mirror. I was just waiting to make sure that we'd be clear when -" Suddenly, his hand tightened on her shoulder, his eyes unfocusing. He stepped back, away from her. "Harry's got past the outside guards somehow - he's found the front door. There are more guards there. He wants our help. Come on - quickly." Seizing her wrist, he drew her after him through the mirror, which parted around them like water, and into the hallway beyond.

Ron, chained to his platform, saw the dark square of open sky above him turn from black to red in a single flare, bathing the Chamber in bloodlight.

The doors to the Chamber flew open, and a bevy of guards poured in, chattering to Lucius in their harsh foreign tongue. Lucius turned to the Dark Lord, puzzled and pale. "My Lord, the guards you stationed outside are dead. All dead."

"Then Potter will have found the front entrance," Voldemort said. "Send these fellows down to the entryway to capture him." Lucius stared, and the guards shifted uneasily. Voldemort laughed. "It won't be difficult, my cowardly ones. Potter can be easily enough swayed by ... logic."

Ron stared up at the open roof above him, watching as the sky faded from scarlet to gray. He was lost in a memory of his own visions. I saw the sky on fire, he thought, and then, This Divining power is the worst of punishments - to know, and to be able to change nothing.

Sirius missed Buckbeak, who was a much better mount than this scabby thestral. Still, he had to admit that no hippogryph could fly as fast as the death-horses did. Without mortality to weight it down, the thestral skimmed across the sky like a loosed arrow. The added burden of Sirius and Remus seemed to slow it only a very little.

Remus was silent. Sirius watched the landscape sweep by and tried not to worry. They had passed over cities, then farmland, gray and brown in the drained light of evening. Lakes and ponds with showed as patches of silver, some frosted with white at the edges. Now they were rising into a mountain range that jutted from the earth like a jaw full of broken teeth. This was cold, unfriendly land and it wrung his heart to think of Harry wandering here, facing this last, bitter trial alone.

Remus saw it first. He cried out and tugged at Sirius's arm. Rising over the mountains, far to the east but far too early for sunrise, a tower of scarlet light flared in the sky. Too bright for fire, and too even, it rose like a pillar of blood, staining all the air around it a deep golden red.

Sirius seized the horse's mane and dug his knees into its sides. "Let's see how fast this flea-bitten thing can go," he said, and the thestral shot forward, swifter than a Firebolt.

Ginny hurried after Draco, who seemed to know where he was going. Hallways, some of stone and some of black and green marble, flashed past as they ran. Cries, and the sound of metal on metal, grew louder as they went. At last Draco drew to a stop at the top of a wide, curving stone staircase. He thrust a hand behind him, holding her back. "Wait," he said.

They were standing above the Great Hall of the fortress. White and black alternating marble steps arced down to a broad pavement and a set of enormous stone doors bound in brass. They stood open, showing the night sky. The Hall was a blur of chaotic movement. Ginny could make out at least six black-clad soldiers, wielding knives, axes, and daggers. Harry stood on the bottom step, fending them off with a drawn sword. The blade was stained with blood. Several dark masses huddled on the floor: some of Voldemort's guards had already fallen - wounded or dead, she couldn't tell.

Draco was staring down at Harry, and his hand dropped to rest on the hilt of his sword. She saw him smile a little, just with the corner of his mouth, and then Harry glanced up fast and gave a short nod before turning his attention back to skewering one of Voldemort's guards through the leg.

Draco drew Terminus Est from its scabbard and held it lightly for a moment, balancing its weight. The roses carved into the blade seemed to glimmer. He spoke to Ginny without taking his eyes from Harry: "You've never seen me fight before, have you?" he asked. His tone was even and conversational, but his gaze never left the figures moving below.

Draco exhaled. "Well, brace yourself," he said. "You're going to want to sleep with me even more after this."

But he didn't get to find out what she would never do: he was already racing down the stairs, taking them recklessly fast; he passed Harry, leaped over the last steps, and flung himself into the thick of the crowd of guards. The sword in his hand flew around him, a blur of flashing light. Ginny leaned forward as far as she could, the railing of the stone banister cold under her fiercely gripping hands. Surely he couldn't be that good - but he was, she realized with an odd pang at her heart, this was clearly to Draco what Quidditch was to Harry. The sword seemed to dance in his hand, it both lived apart from him and with him, flashing out again and again among the tightly packed dark mass of bodies like the back of a silvery fish momentarily breaking through dark water.

In a few moments, the remainder of the guards lay strewn on the floor, dead or unconscious. Draco cleaned his sword on a dead man's cloak, sheathed it, and turned to Harry. "Good thing I showed up, Potter," he said, as Harry navigated through the bodies to his side. "Your technique was appalling."

Harry was shaking his head. He leaned closer to Draco and said something Ginny couldn't quite hear; he was pointing at the bodies on the floor. Snapping out of her frozen state, she ran down the stairs, almost tripping over her long skirts, to join them among the sprawled bodies. The smell of blood in the air was heavy and electrifying. ". . . no wands?" Harry was asking.

"There are some fairly complex wards inside the fortress," Draco explained. "Besides, I doubt Voldemort lets them have wands."

"Ah," said Harry. "That explains why -" He glanced up, saw Ginny, and did a double take. "You're here?"

"She -" Ginny began, but froze at the heavy tramp of approaching feet. "More guards!" she hissed, stumbling as she backed up, nearly tripping on a corpse. Fighting the urge to cry out, she gestured to Harry and Draco that they should flee for the stairs. The boys drew their swords and the small group fled across the room - and stopped short.

Beneath the arch of the open doors at the room's north end was Lucius Malfoy. Wormtail stood beside him, hunched and shuddering in his tattered wizarding robes. Rhysenn drifted behind him, pale as a ghost, and behind her, filling the doorway and the hall behind them, were ten of Voldemort's black-clad guards.

Ginny heard Draco's sharp inhalation of breath. He was staring at Lucius as if he'd just been punched in the stomach, blank-eyed and struggling for equilibrium. She heard Harry whisper, "Steady on, Malfoy, steady on -"

Lucius looked at his son, his smile thin as a razor cut. "Why, Draco," he said. "I 'm surprised to see you. I'd have thought you'd be dead by now." He cast a critical eye over his son. "I'd say you're looking well, but we all know that's hardly true, don't we?"

Draco gripped the hilt of his sword, his knuckles whitening. "Father," he said. "You can't imagine I'd miss the opportunity to share my dying words with you."

Draco raised his arm. "Here's a preview," he said. Ginny heard something whip past her head and turning, realized that Draco had flung his sword at his father. The blade missed Lucius by inches and thumped point-first into the wall beside his head, where it stuck, quivering gently.

Lucius didn't blink. He glanced at the sword indifferently, and then at his son. "Haven't I always told you that swords are poor throwing weapons?" he said in a gently chiding voice. "I prefer a sharpened dagger myself."

Draco's face shut like a fan. "Come now, Father," he said flatly. "Not even a little afraid of me?"

"Not at all," said Lucius, and let his eyes drift to the corpses strewn about the hall. "If you'd wanted that sword to strike me, it would have."

Draco's face twisted. Harry stirred and stroked his arm lightly, but Draco seemed hardly to notice; he was staring at his father.

"You've killed all of the Dark Lord's guards," Lucius said to Harry. "That wasn't very nice."

Draco looked Harry up and down, as if expecting to find that he had grown an extra pair of arms. His gaze lit on Harry's wrist. "Your runic band -"

"Yes," Harry said quickly. "Quite. Anyway," he said to Lucius, "I'd say I'm sorry I killed your guards, but we all know that's hardly true, don't we?"

For a moment, Ginny saw anger flash in the back of Lucius's eyes. Then he smiled, bringing his hands together, the fingertips touching lightly. "Well," he said, "we did kill your girlfriend, so I suppose this makes us even, young Potter. I know you like things to be fair."

Harry stared for a moment, as if the words made no sense. "What?" he said. "But - Hermione's my girlfriend."

"Yes," Lucius said. "And we killed her. Not very swift, are you? But then I suppose you don't have to be; you've got Draco for that."

Slowly Harry lowered his hand, the bloody-hilted sword still grasped in it. "It's not true," he said. He was very white. "It can't be."

It was Draco's turn to seize Harry's arm. "Potter," he said, and then leaned in and spoke very softly, saying something Ginny couldn't hear. Harry didn't look at him; he was staring straight ahead.

"She's too smart for you," Harry said to Lucius. "She'd never let you hurt her."

Ginny bit her lip hard. Tell no one I'm alive - not even Draco or Harry, Hermione had said. But the look on Harry's face - it was almost too much for her to bear. Surely Hermione wouldn't want Harry to be in this much pain.

Silently, Rhysenn came to his side and placed something in his palm. When he raised his hand, the fingers spread wide, Ginny saw the two Charms on their gold chains, dangling from his grip - the one that she had helped make in Harry and Draco's room, and the one that Hermione had brought back from Malfoy Manor after that first adventure, and had afterward worn around her neck. "Rhysenn took the Charm from her dead body," he said. "Didn't you, dearest?"

"I took it from her," Rhysenn said, her voice nearly inaudible. "After I kissed her."

"Ah, the kiss of death - your specialty," said Lucius. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he flung the Charms at Harry's feet. "Take them," he said. "They'll be little use to you."

They clattered to the ground at Harry's feet. Draco winced involuntarily, but Harry seemed hardly to notice. It was Ginny who bent down and scooped them up, sliding them into the silk pocket of her robes.

If the look on Harry's face was unbearable, Draco's was worse; he looked torn open. She wasn't sure if it was his own pain or Harry's that had shattered him so. She didn't move towards him; someone who looked like that could not be comforted.

"No!" Harry cried, and raising his sword, ran at Lucius, Draco's outstretched hand reached to hold him back just a second too late. Lucius drew his wand, mouthing the words of the Cruciatus curse -

And Harry seemed to trip - but there was nothing for him to trip over; it was more as if he had struck something, something Ginny could not see. He gasped, dropping his sword, and fell backwards, rolling to the side, as the green light of the Curse sailed harmlessly over his head. He rolled over and over, tangled in something - Ginny could see the flash of a white arm, and a tangle of brown curls, and then the Invisibility Cloak fell away, and it was Hermione, lying with her arms and legs tangled around him and her face streaked with tears.

"I couldn't," she sobbed, staring at Harry, who was lying on top of her, looking astonished. "I couldn't - you weren't meant to know - but it was too cruel, I couldn't do it. Oh, Harry -"

Harry said nothing, but, incredibly, smiled and tightened his arms around her. They clung together, her shoulders shaking and his face turned in to her hair.

Wrenched, Ginny turned away. And there was Draco, staring at Harry and Hermione, a strange look on his face. He was smiling, but his eyes were barren. She could see her own pain in the gray mirrors of them. She reached to touch him -he stiffened, going rigid, but not because of her.

He strode up behind Lucius, Tom at his side. Ginny was struck again by his hideousness. Blood red and papery white he was, with thin black lips and nails like claws. How could this monster ever have been her beautiful Tom?

Voldemort halted, his lips curling back from his teeth. "Tom," he said, looking at Ginny, "your whore's got free somehow."

Tom said nothing, but his blue eyes met hers and burned like flames. She felt her skin crawl. He would make her pay later, she knew, if he could.

"Draco never does do anything on time," Lucius said. "It's why he's never first in his class." He sounded genuinely regretful.

"And there's Potter," Voldemort mused, glancing at Harry. He and Hermione were sitting up, still clenched tightly together. Hermione was murmering into Harry's ear, his hands tight between hers. He was nodding intently. "And his girlfriend the Mudblood," Voldemort added, and his toneless voice sounded very nearly surprised.

"I told you I kissed her," Rhysenn whispered. She was trembling. "That usually kills them, but ..."

"Be silent." Lucius's hand whipped out, striking her to the floor. She fell at his feet, her black hair showering down around her, and lay motionless.

Detaching herself from Harry, Hermione rose to her feet. "It's not her fault," she said. "I played dead."

"I'm sure you did, Mudblood," said Lucius. He lifted his wand. "Now you'll have no need to play -"

"No, Lucius." Voldemort stilled his servant's hand. "I like an audience. Take her!" he barked, and the guards began to surge out from behind him, moving towards the children. "Remember, I have your Diviner friend tied up in the Ceremonial Chamber," Voldemort said, seeing Harry move towards his sword. "Touch another one of my guards - struggle at all - and I'll have him torn in pieces, slowly."

Harry relaxed. His face was a mask. Two guards came to hold him, two more Hermione. Draco turned to Ginny. He was paper-white, but his eyes were blazing. He caught at her shoulders. "Ginny -" he began, but another guard seized him, and tore him away from her. The guards began to march them down the hall, barely pausing to step over Rhysenn's prone body. Voldemort and Lucius followed, Wormtail creeping behind them.

Ginny had almost begun to wonder where her guard was, or if they intended to leave her here alone among the dead, when Tom was at her side. Sudden as a striking adder, he seized her, his hands digging into the soft flesh of her arms. She staggered and cried out, unable to stop herself.

"Ginny," he whispered, his voice a hiss like poisonous vapor. "My foolish, stupid Ginny. You are mine and mine alone, don't you understand that?"

"Yes," she said, looking up into his face. That lovely face she knew so well, the eyes like deep blue wounds. She could see rage, and behind that, a bright sharp agony. I've hurt him, she thought, wonderingly. I've actually hurt him.

He loves you, Draco had said: In his own sick, revolting way, he does love you.

The pain of impossible love; Ginny knew the look of it the way she knew the sight of her own hands. "I am yours, Tom," she said.

He shook her, hard. "I saw your ribbon around his wrist," he snarled. "Like a knight's favor - is he your noble white knight, Ginny? Is he going to save you?"

"You're mine," he said. "You'll always be mine. You are what I tore out of myself to become what I had to become, and I am what you tore out of yourself to make me all your rage and all your hate, and all your poisoned love. You can never belong to anyone else but me!" His voice had risen to a near-hysterical pitch, and his eyes were wide and wild. "I saw how you looked at him, and I won't have it! You're mine, and I'll make you mine after the ceremony - I'll make you mine forever. Do you understand me?"

For a moment, she thought he might break her neck on the spot, and risk the consequences to himself later. Either that, she thought, or he might take her up on her offer - something she didn't want to think about, but if it prevented him from ascending to godhood, might well be worth it.

Instead he just laughed, his grip on her arms relaxing. "My Ginny," he said. "How you do tease me." He kissed her forehead as if he meant to mark her, and let her go. "Nice try," he said, and took her hand.

Ginny said nothing. Hand in hand with Tom, she went down the corridor. In front of them, moving slowly because they were being dragged, were Harry, Hermione, and Draco. Voldemort walked behind, and Lucius beside him. Rhysenn, crumpled on the ground, did not stir as they passed.

This is it, Ginny thought. The last of it, the final battle. This is where it is all decided. This is where we die or live, where we save the world or lose it. This is the end.

Raising her head, she marched down the hall, keeping her gaze steadily in front of her, not looking to the right or left. Whatever happened, they would meet it together - Harry, Hermione, Draco, Ron, and herself, as they had met so many things in the past, and triumphed.

She did not look to the side when they passed Wormtail, creeping along alone by the wall, his silver hand glimmering in the darkness. He cast a resentful look at her Weasley hair as she went by, and grunted to himself. "Bother," he muttered. "We're going to need at least two more pairs of shackles."

Chapter Fifteen ~ PART ONE: Brightness Falls