Chapter Fifteen ~ PART TWO: VALEDICTION  

Ron saw the chamber doors open, and a guard enter, dragging a wildly struggling captive with him, her curly brown hair obscuring her face as she writhed and kicked. Hermione! he thought with immense relief, dragging himself as close as he could to the edge of the platform and looking down. I knew she'd be all right!  

She was followed by a far more subdued Harry, whose hands were bound behind him, and Draco, whose hair was thoroughly mussed and who looked too sullen to put up a fight. Hermione, hissing and spitting, threw something of a tantrum over wanting to be shackled next to Harry: the end result of this was that she was bound to the wall at the end of the line of shackles, farthest from everyone else. This, Ron thought, was uncharacteristic of her, but he didn't dwell on it: he was distracted by the advent of Ginny, who walked into the room not under guard at all, but hand in hand with dark-haired Tom Riddle. 

Where the others were filthy and beaten-looking, Ginny looked radiant, seeming almost to glow inside her blue satin robes. Her hair rained down around her shoulders, strawberry-gold. She showed no resistance to Tom as he carefully shackled her to the wall beside Harry, who offered her a stiff little nod. Draco, tied between Hermione and Harry, didn't look at her at all as Tom leaned in and fastened the iron manacles about her slim wrists, gazing at her intently as he did so.  

Mum would certainly not approve of this, Ron thought with a dry hysteria, as Tom stepped back and surveyed his work appraisingly. "Very fetching," he said. "Like Andromeda, waiting for the Hydra." 

"It was the Kraken," put in Draco, who was gazing at the ceiling. 

"It wasn't," said Tom. "It was the Hydra." 

"It was the Kraken, you undereducated yob," said Draco. "You know, books aren't just for storing up memories of your maladjusted, spotty adolescence, Riddle; some people actually read them." 

Tom glanced over towards Voldemort. "Can we gut him now?" 

It was Lucius who shook his head. "Not yet. We may need him," he said cryptically. 

Tom's lip curled, but he didn't reply. Instead he leaned in and kissed Ginny, hard, on the mouth. Seeing her stiffen, Ron remembered his vision in which she had been dead, neck snapped, lying broken on a bed of her own fiery hair. He turned his face away. 

*** 

Ginny watched Tom walk away from her, the bitter taste of his kiss still on her lips. She knew what the others must think of her. Except Hermione. Hermione ought to understand. She had only been following Hermione's orders, after all. 

It was not that there was any part of her that wanted Tom, longed for his touch as she might long for the cool tang of a knife blade against her wrist, savored his beauty as she might savor the sweetness of poison. In no way had she been grateful for the freedom Hermione's orders had given her to respond to his caresses, acknowledge his deadly adoration. 

No. 

As he had fastened the shackles around her wrists he had leaned in and whispered in her ear, the words of the long-ago cast spell that had started all this. 

As thou art bound, let us be bound 

Thee to me. 

Voldemort was already waiting inside the pentagram for Tom, his stiff posture showing his impatience. He held his wand in one white, spidery hand. Lucius stood outside the pentagram, arms folded, expression impassive. Wormtail knelt at Voldemort's feet, holding an open book up for the Dark Lord's perusal, a look of abject fear on his face. As Tom stepped grinning into the pentagram, a bright line of fire ran all the way around its edges, outlining it in flame. 

Beside Ginny, Hermione sucked in a gasp of breath. "It's starting," she said. 

*** 

The pentagram burned, and inside the fiery outline, Tom stepped to Voldemort's side. Ron, looking down from his platform, saw the Dark Lord greet his disciple with a frown. "At last you grace us with your presence, apprentice." 

"Apologies, my Lord." Tom, hiding a smile, swept a graceful bow towards his older self. 

"Take your place at my side," Voldemort snapped, and Tom did so. "And now, Tom - the bloodletting. Begin it." 

Tom looked up, still smiling. Ron saw a dark brilliance flash in his blue eyes, and the sharp white of his teeth as he grinned, and raised his left hand. The tips of his fingers flashed a bright green fire, and an agonizing pain lanced through Ron's body. The skin of his arms burned as if hot pokers were being held against them. Screaming, he thrashed in his chains, but the manacles around his wrists were mercilessly tight. He felt a drawing pull against his veins, as if a vampire were sucking the blood out of him. He whimpered hoarsely as hot blood spilled from his slashed wrists and arms, dripping down his fingers and splashing onto the marble floor below. 

*** 

"Ron!"  

Hermione heard Ginny scream as Ron twisted and struggled on his platform, his cries of pain audible to them all. She turned to look at Harry. His face was white and set. Draco was gazing at Harry, his teeth sunk into his lower lip. And it begins, Hermione thought. This is what Voldemort wants us to watch. Each death worse than the previous one until only Harry is left. 

Ginny, sobbing, thrashed and struggled in her bonds, crying out alternately for her brother and for Tom. Some part of Hermione pitied her, and some other, more ruthless part, wanted to slap her into silence. What was the point of begging Tom Riddle for help or mercy? He didn't know the meaning of the words. He was standing beside the Dark Lord now, looking around in smirking pleasure as Ron's blood spattered down onto the floor in front of him. The blood sizzled as it touched the flaming lines of the pentagram. And as it touched them, they began to glow more strongly, the flames licking higher, the whole area inside the pentagram shimmering. It was almost beautiful, even more so as the Four Worthy Objects, mirror and cup, dagger and scabbard, began to glow with a fierce brilliance, like four separate torches. 

Hermione began a swift series of mental calculations. At the rate Ron was bleeding, they had ten minutes, perhaps twenty, before he went into shock. After the shock, death would follow shortly. They were lucky, she thought, that Tom had gone for the wrists. If he had hit an artery, they would have even less time than they did. 

Raising her hand as high as the chain would allow, she slid her fingers under the collar of her t-shirt, finding the lockpick she had tucked under the strap of her bra by touch. Then she went to work on her shackles. 

*** 

Voldemort raised his black-draped arms to the sky, clearly visible through the open ceiling of the Ceremonial Chamber, and began to chant. "Fulmen evoca! Callis inveni! Exitum repta! Exitum! Exitum!" 

As he chanted, the strange light inside the pentagram turned from white to green. A fine silvery mist rose from the floor, half-cloaking the figures inside the five-pointed star. The mist drifted across the floor of the chamber, winding around the legs of the four shackled prisoners. It felt like cold fingers. Draco tasted it on his lips and shuddered. The taste was bitter as aloe. 

He turned his head to the side. "Harry," he whispered, but Harry seemed not to hear him. He was staring ahead of him, white to the lips, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that Draco could see where his nails dug into his palm. Draco couldn't tell if he was staring at Ron, whose struggles were slowing, or at Voldemort. Or even at Lucius, standing impassively just beyond the perimeter of the pentagram. As Draco watched, he crossed and uncrossed his arms, and Draco saw the bright flash of the Malfoy signet ring on his finger. 

He glanced down at his own hand, where the same ring burned on the same finger. When he was a child he had looked forward to being old enough to wear the Malfoy ring, to using its carved back to stamp his initials into soft sealing wax. He remembered the way the stone caught the light when his father reached, bare-handed, to swing him up in his arms, and a pain lanced through his chest, so sharp and so severe that for a moment he thought that it was the poison, burning him from inside. 

The truth was that he still could not believe it. As a child, he had loved his father unconditionally. He had always known his father's love for him was not the same. That it was conditional love, contingent on the honor he brought to the Malfoy family. He had known that his father did not mind the sight of his son's blood, or the sound of his son's cries of pain. He remembered dead birds, their necks broken, and chairs lined with nails, and the memory of the scars up and down his back, the cicatrices of his family name. I am a Malfoy. The cold comfort of that. 

But conditional love was still love. That his father might not love him at all had never occurred to him. He was his father's bone and blood after all, almost a perfect carbon copy, and surely that did not mean nothing? Even Voldemort seemed to hold some fatherly affection for his younger self. And yet Lucius faced the prospect of his son's death without blinking. I am young. I can have more children.  

Draco looked away from his father, unable to bear it any longer. He saw Ginny, hanging limp in her shackles, and Hermione, working away at one of her manacles as if she could rip it off her wrist. Good old Hermione, he thought, refusing to ever give up. And then there was Harry, looking directly at him now, his green eyes lambent, like far-off water. He seemed to be gathering himself for something. "Malfoy," he said. "When I tell you to close your eyes, close your eyes, all right?" 

Baffled, Draco nodded. "Yeah, all right." 

Chains rattled as Harry reached his hand towards Draco, but even with their arms extended as far as they could reach, only their fingertips touched. Draco swallowed against the bitter taste in his mouth. "Potter, you -" 

But Harry was staring upward. "Malfoy, the sky." 

Draco jerked his chin up and stared. Through the open chamber ceiling, he had a perfect view of the black night sky above, spangled with stars like chips of ice. It had begun to roil, like the bubbling mixture in a potions cauldron. Streaks of blue and gold, violet and silver, hurtled across it, colliding in vast explosions that seemed to rock the heavens. 

Jagged tongues of black lightning crackled across the sky. One stabbed down through the open roof, striking the ground of Voldemort's feet. Tom looked startled, but Voldemort only threw his head back, howling his chant to the sky. "Fulmen evoca! Fulmen evoca! Fulmen evoca!" 

The Four Worthy Objects began to rise into the air. Now they hung at eye-level to the Dark Lord, each at one point of the star, a thin line of blue energy connecting them. Another jagged line of lightning struck the mirror; Draco wondered if it would shatter, but it merely began to glow with a terrible, eye-piercingly bright silver light. 

Letters began to appear inside the mirror, rising slowly to the surface like a drowned corpse rising to the surface of water. Voldemort ceased his chanting abruptly, seizing at the mirror, drawing it towards him. He opened his mouth, shouted out a word, which Draco could not hear. 

For a moment, there was perfect silence. Even the wind had stopped. The echo of the Word hung inside Ginny's mind, twisting and turning like a moth caught in a spider's web. 

The mirror shattered in Voldemort's hands. He shouted hoarsely, raising his eyes to the sky. It had turned to blood. A roaring came from all around them, a terrible wailing howl, more unearthly than any scream, as if the heavens themselves were crying out in rage. Draco heard Harry suck in his breath. "Shut your eyes! Shut your eyes, Malfoy!" 

Draco shut his eyes, just as the world exploded. 

*** 

"Shut your eyes! Shut your eyes!" Hermione screamed, and Ginny did, covering her face with her hands for good measure. The ground under her feet seemed to rock and tremble, and there was a terrible smell of burning, and heat, heat like a bonfire, scorching her skin through the thin material of her robes. She gasped superheated air, almost screaming at the pain in her lungs. 

She was not the only one screaming. Above the terrible roar of wind and lightning, she could hear other screams, higher and harsher than her own. Voldemort was howling like a mad thing, and over his howls she could hear - was that Tom screaming? She nearly opened her eyes at that, but suddenly there were hands at her wrists, and she felt the manacles that pinned her to the wall loosen and then open. She pitched forward and nearly fell, but was caught by firm hands around her shoulders. "You can open your eyes now," Hermione said. 

Ginny's eyes flew open, and she stared. Hermione stood in front of her, unshackled, her face smeared with grime and smoke. Behind her, Ginny could see Harry unfastening Draco from his shackles, standing with his hands on the other boy's shoulders. Both of them were staring towards the center of the room, where the pentagram still burned, and Voldemort spun in its center, shrieking. As Ginny stared in amazement, she saw him grab for Tom, who jerked back in surprise, his arms flailing. His hand caught the edge of Ron's platform, tilting it violently. Ron, limp as a dishrag, rolled off the platform and landed on Tom, knocking him to the ground. Voldemort continued to scream, a high mindless wailing that went on and on like a police siren. 

"My God," Ginny whispered. "What on earth is going on? I thought the ceremony was supposed to make Voldemort all-powerful -" 

"It would have," Hermione said grimly, "if he'd done it right." She beckoned to Harry and Draco, who came towards them, keeping close to the wall. Thick black smoke was billowing up from the pentagram now, nearly hiding the figures inside it. Ginny could still see Voldemort, spinning and screaming, thrusting out his left hand again and again towards the sky. Beyond the pentagram, Lucius had backed up against the far wall, his mouth open in stunned surprise. He showed no inclination to go to the aid of his Master. 

As for Tom, Ginny could no longer see him - or her brother - at all. 

"You did this," Draco said, arriving smoke-smeared and panting at Hermione's side. He stared at her, half in accusation, half in amazement. "Bloody hell, what did you do?" 

"Double transfiguration," Hermione said calmly. "It's quite simple really, but I can't explain now. We have to get to Ron. Harry, your scabbard?" She held out her hand. 

Staring at her with a mingled expression of love and slight terror, Harry handed her his scabbard, leaving the sword of Gryffindor bare in his hand. "I can't believe it worked," he said. 

"Of course it worked," Hermione replied, taking the scabbard and shoving it through her belt. Then she gasped. Ginny followed her gaze and saw a figure emerging from the smoke around the pentagram. It was Ron, she saw to her surprise, but he wasn't walking - he seemed to be hanging limp in some sort of invisible net, carried along by invisible forces. His head hung down against his chest, and his arms, the deep wounds on his wrists clearly visible, dangled at his sides. 

"Ron," Ginny whispered. She tried to run to her brother, but Draco had seized her wrist in an iron grip and was holding her tightly. 

"Wait," he said. "He's being brought to us." 

It was true. Ron neared them, then crumpled at their feet, a puppet with its strings cut. The air shimmered above him, and Rhysenn appeared, the cloak of invisibility slipping off her shoulders. Her white dress was covered in blood from neck to waist, and blood stained her bare arms. "You'd better hurry," she said, looking at Ron almost anxiously. "He hasn't got much more time." 

Ginny choked back the sob in her throat, dropping to her brother's side as Draco's grip on her wrist loosened. Ron was terribly pale, half-soaked in blood, even his red hair stiff with it. She touched his cold cheek lightly. "Hermione," she whispered. "Is there anything -?" 

But Hermione was doing something very peculiar; she was unclipping a barrette from her hair, one of the bright, sparkling ones that Blaise had given her. She glanced at it where it lay sparkling in her palm, then whispered over it: "Resolvo veneficus. Veritas." 

As Ginny watched in amazement, the tiny barrette trembled in Hermione's palm, then suddenly sprang upward, growing and lengthening. The tiny sparkling jewels turned to great glimmering emeralds that clung to the handle of an enormous silver cup, the interior of which was carved with a pattern of waves and scales and glimmered as though it were full of liquid. The Cup. 

" So that's how you did it," Draco said, sounding both amazed and delighted. "That flask, that wasn't the Cup at all - it was a transfigured fake! And Voldemort never thought to check it, since why would you bother hiding something that wasn't the real Cup? You're a genius, Hermione, you -" 

"Later, Malfoy," Hermione said, and set the rim of the Cup to Ron's lips. Water spilled from it into his mouth, running down over his chin. "Come on, Ron," Hermione whispered. "Come on, now -" 

He coughed, spitting water, the color returning to his cheeks in a flood. As Ginny watched in amazement, the wounds on his wrists vanished, sealing themselves back up, the skin knitting together seamlessly, leaving no scar. The healthy pink tinge returned to his face and his eyes opened, clear and blue. He blinked, staring around him in surprise. "Er," he said. "Hello, everyone." 

Hermione burst into tears. 

"Oh, dear," said Ron. 

"Ron!" Ginny flung herself on her brother, hugging him tightly. His arms came up around her and he patted her on the back awkwardly. 

"Er..." he said. 

Ginny sat back, sniffling. "I thought you were..." 

"I thought I was, too." Ron sat up, glancing around at the billowing smoke, the roiling sky, and the darting figure of Voldemort, shrieking and dashing inside in the pentagram. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded. 

"The ceremony didn't work," Hermione said briefly. "One of the Objects Voldemort tried to use wasn't a real Worthy Object, and the whole thing disintegrated. Now Voldemort's trapped inside the pentagram. He can't get out." 

'"Great!" said Ron. He glanced around anxiously. "I mean, that's good, isn't it?" 

"As long as it lasts, it's good," Rhysenn said. "I would estimate it will take another ten minutes or so for the effects of the ceremony to fade. Then he will be free. And very angry. I suggest you begin running away now." 

Harry shook his head. "I'm not running," he said. He looked at Ron, and Ron at last raised his eyes to Harry, and their gazes met. All Ron's regret was in his eyes, all his stubborness and his sorrow. 

"Harry," he said, awkwardly, "Harry, if I -" 

"Come on." Harry stuck out his hand. "If you don't- I mean, we could use your help." 

There was the barest fraction of hesitation; then Ron took Harry's hand, and let Harry help him to his feet. They stood staring at each other, as if not sure whether they had license to grin foolishly yet. Draco looked away from them - and his eyes widened. 

"Bugger," he said, eloquently. "Look who's not trapped in the pentagram." 

From the center of the roiling smoke, a figure had emerged. Streaked with smoke and grime, his elegant robes hanging off him in filthy tatters, his blond hair was matted with ash. One of his sleeves was stained with blood. He stared around him malevolently, coughing on smoke. His glamour's gone, Ginny thought. 

"Tom," she whispered. "But I thought - " 

"It wasn't his spell," Hermione said. "So he isn't trapped in the pentagram like Voldemort is." She looked anxiously towards Harry. "What should we do?" 

Tom staggered a few steps further from the pentagram, blinking, before his gaze snapped to Ginny. Their eyes met, and she shrank back towards Draco. Tom flung out his left hand, snarling, but nothing happened. His face twisted violently, lips curling back over his teeth. Then he turned and dashed from the room. 

Ginny sprang to her feet. "No - we can't let him -" 

"Wait." Seizing her arm, Harry turned to Draco. "Malfoy, you know the layout of this place better than anyone. Can you -" 

Draco nodded. "I'll get him." He turned and sped after Tom, leaving the huge double doors standing open behind him. 

Harry released his grip on Ginny, turning to Ron. "If Tom's free, then Lucius -" he began, but as he spoke, his grip on Ginny loosened. She tore free and dashed after Draco through the double doors. 

*** 

Harry said a word Hermione had no idea he knew, and started after Ginny. She caught at his sleeve. "Don't," she said. "Draco will never let her go with him, anyway." 

"I suppose so," Harry said dubiously, glancing sideways at Ron. 

"She's safer out of here, isn't she?" Ron said dryly, glancing towards the pentagram, still gouting ash and flames. "Still, maybe I should -" 

"I will go after her," Rhysenn said, rising to her feet with the grace of smoke. "I will make sure she stays out of harm's way." 

She drifted out the door in a swirl of black hair. 

Harry's dubious look came to rest on Hermione. "She's being awfully helpful," he said. 

"Yes," Hermione said serenely, re-Transfiguring the cup into a barrette with a flick of her wand. 

"I suspect you had something to do with it," Harry said. 

"Maybe so," Hermione agreed, clipping the barrette back into her hair. 

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Harry said. 

"I hardly think I'm the only one of us keeping secrets related to Rhysenn," Hermione said, brushing the dust off her Puddlemere United t-shirt. 

Harry's mouth opened slightly, and he looked so appalled that Hermione, for a moment, felt sorry for him. 

But then he had been locking lips with that succubus-creature only a few days after they'd broken up, and he hadn't told her. There was only so sorry for him that she could be. Then again, she'd kissed Draco, and hadn't told Harry, although there hadn't really been an opportunity to talk to him alone, aside from that time that Draco had left them in the bedroom together so she could talk to him alone. Maybe that would have been a good time to do it. Oh, dear. 

"Harry," she began. "Look, I should tell you that Draco and I -" 

"Arrrggh." It was Ron, interrupting with a strangled noise. He pointed. "Voldemort," he said, a bit indistinctly. "He nearly got out of the pentagram that time. Look, maybe we should..." 

Harry was already tugging the sword of Gryffindor out of its scabbard. "I'm going in there." 

"No!" Hermione protested, quickly. "Harry, you can't..." 

"I have to." He looked at her, steady green eyes unwavering. "You know it." 

"If this is some symbolic thing, Harry -" 

"It's not," he said quietly. "That pentagram won't hold him much longer, you heard Rhysenn. And then what? We run? He may not have the God-like powers he wanted, but he's plenty powerful enough. Right now he's trapped, blinded, still reeling from shock. Right now, I have a chance. We have a chance." 

"So you'll let us go with you," Ron said swiftly, coming up to stand by Harry. 

"I wish you wouldn't," Harry said grimly. "I wish I could make you promise to wait here -" 

"Never," said Hermione. 

"Not a chance," said Ron, and looked towards the pentagram with hatred in his eyes. "He tried to kill me - drain my blood. Not to mention the kidnapping and the torture. No, I have my own scores to settle, Harry." 

Harry nodded. "Do you have a wand, though?" 

Ron shook his head. "No - they took it away from me." 

"Give me your wrists," Harry said, and when Ron did, Harry transferred the now-frayed leather cuffs he was wearing from his wrists to Ron's. "These'll help." 

Ron blinked bemusedly, looking at the cuffs. "Very stylish." 

"Terror of squirrels everywhere," said Harry, and turned to Hermione before she could ask him what he meant. "Hermione?" 

"I've got my wand," she started to protest, indignantly, but then his arms were around her and he was hugging her, hard. "I love you," he said, and kissed her, once, hard on the mouth, the sword of Gryffindor pressed between them. When he let her go, it caught on her shirt, tearing the hem of it, and Hermione put the back of her hand to her mouth and smiled around it at Harry, her eyes full of tears. 

"Harry," she said, "be careful," which had always been her way of telling him that she loved him. And he nodded and turned back towards Ron, who had been pretending to inspect the cuffs. 

"Are we ready?" he asked, and Hermione remembered an icy night in Hogsmeade, kneeling, all three of them in the snow and swearing that they would be together until the end. And here it was, the end, and she didn't feel at all ready for it. 

"Ready," she lied, and Ron nodded. Harry began to walk towards the pentagram, and they followed him, the way they had followed him now for seven years. God, please keep him safe, Hermione thought, her eyes on Harry as he stepped into the pentagram. She glanced back at Ron, who gave her a nervous smile, then went to follow Harry - 

And something struck her, knocking her sideways. "You little bitch," said a cold and icy voice, and she looked up into the winter-gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy. 

*** 

"Draco, wait!" 

Halfway down the corridor already, he turned, saw her, and cursed out loud. "Why are you following me? Didn't you hear what Harry said?" 

Ginny stopped, her hand outstretched. "It's not fair," she said. "I should be the one to go after him." 

"Maybe not." A bitter smile twisted Draco's mouth. "You have a history of not being able to quite say no to him." 

"That doesn't matter - you shouldn't be the one risking yourself! It should be me! I'm the one who brought him back into the world, he's my responsibility!" 

"I'll tell you what," Draco said. 

Her lips parted in surprise. "Kill him? You can't kill him -" 

“Oh?” His tone was cold. “Why not?” 

She hesitated. It would be so easy to tell him the truth: Because if he dies, I might die as well. And if that had truly been the only reason she was reluctant for Tom’s death, she would have said those words. But it wasn’t. And she didn’t. 

“I thought so,” Draco said, dismissively. He turned on his heel. Slumping against the wall, she watched him walk away in silence. 

*** 

Lucius stood over Hermione, wand in hand, his face twisted with fury. Like Tom had been, he was filthy with ash, his fine gray robes smeared with it, his knuckles raw and bloodied. "You did this," he snarled, his wand hand utterly still as he trained the tip of it just between her eyes. "Filthy little Mudblood." 

The Cup will protect me, Hermione thought, but her heart was pounding. There was such cold hatred in his eyes. She had rarely been spoken to with such hatred, not even by Snape - years ago, she thought, Draco had spoken to her like this. And if it had not been for Harry, perhaps this is what Draco would have become, a monster like his father, with a mind of winter and eyes that cut like the jagged edge of an icicle. "It's over," she said. "There's nothing you can do to me now." 

"Hermione?" It was Ron, finding his way towards her through the smoke. "Hermione, did you -" 

He broke off as he came into view of them and stared. Hermione could see what he was thinking - he had the knives in his hand, but what use were they, when Lucius had a wand? And Harry was gone, into the pentagram, probably locked in battle with Voldemort this very moment. 

"Ron!" she shouted, holding up her hand to warn him to stay back. "It's all right," she added, foolishly, "he can't hurt me -" 

Lucius laughed, a high snarl of a laugh, and seized her by the arm, yanking her into a sitting position. Before she could react, she felt his hands in her hair, tearing at the barrette. It came off in his hand, along with a large clump of her hair, ripped out at the roots. She cried out, reaching for it, but Lucius shoved her hard and she sprawled back onto the floor, gasping in pain and surprise. 

"I should have guessed before," he said, "when I saw the look on your disgusting little Mudblood face as we were dragging you off. I thought I saw a gleam of triumph in your eyes. You're not stupid," he said, turning the barrette over in his fingers, "I'll give you that. You have a sort of narrow, vicious cunning to you, like a rat, or a weasel. I've heard that about your kind before. Something about the mixing of blood seems to encourage that sort of low cleverness. Ensuring that Voldemort got the wrong cup, now, that was a bit of cheap trickery there. And it nearly worked out for you, didn't it?" 

He jammed the tip of his wand up under her chin, forcing her to raise her face to his. By far the worst thing about looking directly at Lucius Malfoy, she thought, was the echo of Draco that was there: the same fine-boned face, the same drawling, lazy, diamond-sharp voice. 

"Get away from her," Ron said, but he hung back as if frightened that any move he made might force Lucius' hand. 

Lucius laughed, a jeering, sharp laugh, and jammed the knife deeper into Hermione's throat, making her choke and gag. "Avada -" 

"No!" Ron flung out his hand - and from the cuff around his wrist shot the thin blade of a knife. It flew across the room, burying itself in Lucius' arm, just above the elbow. Bellowing with pain, Lucius fell to his knees, the wand dropping from his hand, Gasping for breath, Hermione snatched it up, pointing it at Lucius. "Stupefy," she croaked, and light burst from the wand's tip. 

Eyes rolling up in his head, Lucius crumpled to the hard marble floor, blood running in thin rivulets from his injured arm. Hermione raised her amazed eyes to Ron. "Ron," she said. "That was incredible. Where did you learn to handle a knife like that?" 

Ron looked from the wrist cuff, to Hermione, and shrugged sheepishly. "Oh, you know." he said. "Around." 

*** 

The taste of the smoke was bitter. Bitter on his tongue; bitter where it stung his eyes. Harry could feel the heat of the floor through his boots, knew that if he fell against it, it would burn him. 

Sweat trickled down his spine, plastered his hair to his forehead. The sword of Gryffindor was heavy in his hand, the hilt slippery, and the blade banged against his leg as he walked. His wrist was starting to ache. 

Nobody ever mentioned this sort of thing when they wrote adventure stories about heroic confrontations, he thought. Nobody mentioned the gut cramps of panic and tension, the hollow lightheadedness of fear, the coppery-bitter taste of hate and violence. 

He could hear the Dark Lord screaming. The screams grew louder as Harry reached the heart of the pentagram. They were mixed with other screams as well. Harry's foot struck something; and he recoiled; it was Wormtail, he saw with horror, who had crawled towards him across the burning marble floor. His clothes smoked, as did his skin - red and blistered in some places, burnt nearly black in others. "Water," Wormtail croaked, seizing the hem of Harry's frayed traveling cloak with his metal hand. "For the love of God, water please -" 

He raised his head then, and Harry saw that his eyes had been burnt out. There were only blistered white orbs where they had once been. He heard himself cry out in disgust and horror, and stumbled back, bile rising in the back of his throat. His cloak came off in Wormtail's grip and he was left shivering in his jacket and thin shirt. "Master," Wormtail croaked. "Master, please..." 

He thinks I'm Voldemort, Harry thought with a bewildered nausea, and then the choking thick gray air in front of him parted and the Dark Lord loomed up out of the smoke. His chalk-white skin was smeared with patches of black char, and in his clawed left hand he gripped the hilt of the Worthy Dagger. With a howl of triumphant rage, he lunged forward, plunging the blade into Harry's chest. 

*** 

Ginny watched as Draco vanished into the darkness at the end of the corridor. Then she slumped back against the double doors of the Ceremonial Chamber, her heart pounding wildly. 

She wondered if she would feel it, the blade going into Tom, his life pumping out of him. Or maybe death would come down like a curtain, a neat severance dividing this life from the next. 

Or maybe nothing would happen at all. 

Or maybe Tom would kill Draco, but that was more horrible to contemplate than her own death. Especially since it would be her fault. Coward, said the voice inside her head, cowardly traitor, coward, you let him go to face your own responsibility. 

"Decided not to go, then, did you?" said a voice at her shoulder. Ginny turned to see Rhysenn there. The folds of her white dress blew in the bitter, smoky air of the corridor, and her feet did not quite touch the floor. "I guess you don't need me to protect you after all."  

"He wouldn't let me go," Ginny said flatly. "And you're right, I don't need you." 

Rhysenn chuckled. "I'm sure he'll be fine, you know." She twirled, standing up on her toes, her black hair wrapping her slowly like ribbons around a Maypole. 

"Who'll be fine?" Ginny asked, suspicion creeping into her voice. "Tom or Draco?" 

"Does it matter? You're soft on them both, or so I hear. Either way, you win." 

"That's not true," Ginny said, her voice sounding sharper than she'd expected. "Tom has to die. I'd kill him myself if - if I could," she finished, lamely. 

"You could break his black little heart," Rhysenn said cheerfully. She had stopped spinning, but her hair still wrapped her, like swipes of black paint against the white of her dress and skin. 

"No one dies of a broken heart," Ginny said crossly. 

"I wouldn't say no one." Rhysenn tilted her head to the side. "He is curious, that one. At times he seems to radiate pure darkness, but at other times I think I catch a flicker of humanity in him ..." 

Seamus, Ginny thought. Something tickled the back of her mind. "You suck souls out, right?" she said. "I mean, that's why you're called a succubus, isn't it?" 

Rhysenn blinked. "Your etymology is poor, but you are not entirely incorrect. I draw the souls of men into myself, and feed from their power." 

"Ah," Ginny said, her mind suddenly busily at work. "That's very interesting..." 

*** 

The force of the blow sent Harry reeling back, Voldemort's malevolent laughter in his ears. Automatically he looked down, saw the dagger sticking out of his chest, and felt a strong urge to vomit. 

Yet - there was no pain. Strangely, no pain at all. The dagger had gone through his jacket, just over his heart. He expected to see blood spreading out across the fabric. But there was nothing. 

Voldemort had stopped laughing. He pointed a long, spidery finger at Harry. "You," he hissed. "This is all because of you. You are the reason the ceremony failed me! And your death - oh, such a death I had planned for you! Your tortures would have lasted for eternity!" He raised his left hand again, flung it towards Harry, hissing, but nothing happened. He howled again, raising his fists to the sky. "And now I am cheated even of this - the chance to strike you down with my own hand!" 

He means that his Magid powers are gone, Harry realized. His thoughts were so clear, so strangely lucid. Maybe this was shock. He took another step back, closed his hand around the hilt protruding from his chest, and pulled. The dagger came free with a scraping noise. 

"Master!" It was Wormtail again, having crawled, burnt and bleeding, nearly to Voldemort's feet. He reached out to catch at his master's robes, a terrible wheezing sound coming from his throat. "Master, you can help me, please, help me!" 

Voldemort tugged at his robe, an expression of distaste twisting his lipless mouth. "Release me! You dare to touch me without my permission? Remove your filthy hands from my robes immediately -" 

"But Master - Master, I am dying -" Wormtail whined, clutching harder. "Water, please, Master, just some water -Master, you promised I would live forever - Master!" 

Harry looked down at the dagger closed in his fist. There was no blood on the blade. He put his hand to his chest. He felt no pain, only the rip in his jacket where the dagger had entered - and something under it, something flat and hard. The inside pocket of his jacket. Taking another step back, he plunged his hand into the pocket and drew out - a book. 

The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct. With a hole through it, now, where the dagger had gone in.  

"Draco's going to murder me," Harry said, aloud, just as Voldemort, lips curled back from his teeth, drew back his foot and kicked Wormtail brutally hard in the head. Wormtail crumpled, and fell like like a stone. 

Voldemort turned, fastening his gaze on Harry. His eyes narrowed in surprise. "What...?" 

Harry dropped the dagger, then kicked it, sending it skittering away across the floor. "If you want to kill me," he said, "you're going to have to do better than that." 

***  

Tom, being in much better health than Draco, could run quite a bit faster, and would have escaped quite handily if it weren't for the fact that Draco knew the layout of the fortress much better than he did. So it happened that when Tom had reached the foot of the stairs and stalked his way to the great double doors that led to the front gate, he found Draco leaning up against them, holding Terminus Est in one hand and waving insolently at Tom with the other. 

"Leaving so soon?" he asked. 

A snarl rose in Tom's throat. All his plans, so well laid, so gorgeously constructed, had just come down around his head. He could still taste the ashes of burning on his lips and hear Voldemort's screams in his ears. The mistake, he knew, had been in leaving the details of the ceremony to his older self. He had no idea what the Dark Lord had done wrong, but it seemed clear it had been something significant. The ceremony that had been meant to catapult them both to ultimate dominance had instead left them both half-dead, their magic paralyzed. 

All in all, Tom was in no mood for the stupid insolence of teenagers. 

"Get out of my way," he hissed, advancing on Draco. 

"Dear me, no," Draco said, raising the tip of Terminus Est so that it pointed directly at Tom. "I'm afraid you can't pass - which, coincidentally, is what Snape always says to us before Potions exams." 

"Cease your driveling and get out of my way, or I will -" 

"Or you will what?" Draco replied, mimicking Tom's inflections with a sort of savage glee. His gray eyes were clear, burning like hot silver - his father's eyes. Though Lucius had never looked at Tom with such hatred. "Your magic has abandoned you, if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt you ever were much of a physical fighter." He brought the sword up a little higher; Tom could see, now, the pattern of black roses burnt into the blade. "If you've got a threat to make, I suggest you make it a good one." 

"I have no wand, no weapon," Tom pointed out. "You wouldn't -" 

"Oh, but I would," Draco said, and laughed shortly. "You've mistaken me for Harry." He moved forward then, so quickly that Tom did not even see the movement, only heard the faint rustle as the cloth over his shoulder slipped and parted, gaping open where Draco had cut it, leaving a patch of bare skin. As Tom stared, blood welled up from the thin cut bisecting his shoulder. "I will cut you down as I cut down your guards," Draco said, his voice flat and emotionless. "Only I will take a pleasure in hurting you that I did not take in killing them." 

"But -" Tom flung up his hands in a gesture of distress, but his sharp mind was ticking quickly over his options. Draco was armed, it was true, and his skill with the sword was undeniable; but he was also weak, near death, and likely half-blind. Escape was still an option - as was snatching up a sword from one of the fallen guards and counting upon greater strength and the element of surprise to allow him to run Draco through. "To kill a man unarmed, that's a cowardly, despicable thing - your father would be -" 

"Don't you bring up my father," Draco spat, his eyes flashing before he collected himself. "And I suppose strangling unsuspecting prostitutes is an act of bravery? I saw what you did to that girl in the Midnight Club." 

"She was only a whore," Tom said, backing up another step until his heel bumped against the prone body of a guard. 

"But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead." The sword glinted in Draco's hand as he turned his wrist. "Is that your best excuse?" 

"Don't quote Marlowe at me," said Tom. He glanced down. All he needed to do was bend, reach down, and the soldier's short dagger would be within his grasp. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to kill her. Rough play -" 

"And Pansy? Were you playing with her? You do seem to have a predilection for killing little girls." 

"She was in my way," said Tom. "And she belonged to a family that had betrayed me. I killed my own family. Why not hers?" He grinned, cocking his head to the side. "I find your recriminations surprising, I must admit. If the memories of Seamus Finnegan do not lie, you were not so unlike me yourself, once." 

"Once," Draco said. His voice was steady, but the tip of the sword trembled just a little. 

"But that was in another country?" Tom chuckled. "Before love cured you of your nasty ways. Touching, that." 

The sword trembled a bit more, and Tom's confidence increased. If he could anger Draco enough that Draco rushed at him, he could duck him and seize the dagger. An angry man was an easy man to defeat. 

"Do go on," Draco said. "Is this where you tell me that I'm prettier when I'm upset? Or do you save those blandishments for Ginny?" 

Hearing the echo of his own words in Draco's voice, Tom gaped at him. And realized, belatedly, that the sword was trembling in Draco's hand not because he was angry, but because he was laughing. 

Laughing at him. 

"Oh, Ginny," Draco said, in a high and rather squeaky voice, "I do so prefer your hair down." He grinned at Tom. "Oh, yes, I was there. Hiding under Ginny's bed with the dust bunnies. You interrupted us, you know. Most unfortunate. We'd been having a lovely time before you showed up. I was playing connect-the-dots with the freckles on her lower back. You know, if you connect them all together they almost exactly resemble a map of Birmingham?" 

Tom gaped at him. A burning tide of poisonous rage was flooding through his veins. He had never felt anything quite like it before. It choked him. He could not breathe. 

"Poor girl, she was quite concerned that I might hurt myself killing you," Draco said, holding up his hand so that Tom could see the white ribbon, now torn and blood-stained, tied around his wrist. "She even gave me this as a token of her love. Remember it?" 

With a roar, Tom seized up the guard's dagger and hurled himself at Draco. He had intended to plunge the blade into Draco's throat, but rage made him sloppy and the point of it went into Draco's shoulder instead. Draco hissed a curse, dropped his sword - useless at such short range - and seized hold of the front of Tom's robes, flinging him sideways as they went over together in a heap. Tom landed hard on his back, the wind knocked out of him, clawing at Draco's belt as he tried to drag the other boy down. 

Draco jammed a knee into his chest, kneeling on top of Tom, and yanked the dagger out of his own shoulder. It came away, blade thinly smeared with phosphorescent blood. Wincing, he dug the tip of the dagger into Tom's throat. 

Tom immediately ceased struggling and froze. Draco jammed the blade in harder, parting the skin over Tom's Adam's apple. Tom could feel the blood trickling down into his collar. He'll really do it, he thought, astonishment mixing with terrified rage. He looked up into Draco's flat gray gaze. He'll cut my throat and walk away smiling. And Lucius always said his son was weak... 

Draco raised the dagger. "Good night, sweet prince, and may hordes of extremely unattractive demons drag you to your eternal torment," he said. "I only wish I could watch." 

The blade fell - 

"She'll die if you touch me!" Tom shouted. 

The dagger jerked to a half, inches from Tom's throat. "What?" Draco breathed. 

"Ginny," said Tom, panting in fear. "We're bound together. If she dies, I die. And if I die..." He bared his teeth in a rictus grin, hands spread wide. "Well, we don't know for sure, do we, but I suspect it won't improve her health - if she survives at all." 

Draco didn't move, only stared down at Tom, his fine-drawn mouth gone slack with surprise. 

"You know," Tom said, "you really are prettier when you're upset. Who'd have guessed?"  

*** 

Harry heard Voldemort's intake of breath, sharp in the sudden silence. "You..." the Dark Lord hissed. "How...?" 

"You know, I always thought if you killed me, you'd be wielding your wand," Harry said. "Not sneaking up behind me to stab at me in the fog." 

"My wand was destroyed when the mirror was destroyed," Voldemort replied coldly. "As, once again, you have destroyed everything I have. You - a stupid little half-blood with cowardly traitors for parents. You, who have cheated me out of my life, my victory, and even my vengeance." He took a step towards Harry, a cold, ugly light festering in his eyes. 'You, who should have been no more than an ant in my path, and crushed as easily. Tell me, what have I done to deserve you?" 

"Gee," Harry said. "You want a list?" With a silent apology to Draco, he dropped The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct, and reached with his free hand into his belt, drawing out his wand. With his left hand, he held his sword, lightly, as Draco had taught him to. He did not like fighting with his left hand, particularly, but Draco had insisted that he learn. 

Harry raised the wand in his hand. 

Voldemort stopped dead in his tracks. "And now you will kill me," he snarled, "unarmed and helpless - so much for the vaunted bravery of the Potters. You are a coward just like your father, Harry -" 

Harry flung the wand. It landed at Voldemort's feet. 

"Pick it up," Harry said. 

Voldemort stared at him, motionless. 

"Pick it up," Harry said. "Pick it up and fight me, damn you. You ought to know how to use it - it's the same wand as yours." 

"You are a fool," Voldemort said, and snatched the wand up. 

For the first time in his life, Harry felt that Voldemort might have a point. 

The Dark Lord pointed the wand at Harry. "Flammifer sphaera!" 

A boiling sphere of flame erupted from the tip of his wand. It hurtled towards Harry, who ducked, flinging himself under it, and rolled to his feet. Silently, he thanked Draco for teaching him how to duck and roll with a blade in his hand and not impale himself. He flung his hand out towards the Dark Lord. "Incendiaries globus!" he shouted, but the fireball that exploded from his fingers and shot towards Voldemort was nowhere near as impressive as the one the Dark Lord had flung at him. 

Voldemort ducked it, laughing, and came at him again, wand extended. "Serpens." A thick black snake slithered from the tip of his wand and rocketed towards Harry, fangs bared. Harry barely had time to whip his sword around before it was on him; the blade sliced it neatly in half, splattering Harry with noxious green fluid. The snake collapsed like a dropped rope, subsiding into ash. Nauseated, Harry skittered back, but Voldemort was already flinging another curse: "Crucio!"  

Harry flung his arm up, and the curse hit the flat of his sword. The sword jerked in Harry's hand, a hairline crack fissuring the blade. Harry raised his right hand, fingers extended. His voice shook as he tried to speak, "Signa -" 

"Quasso!" Voldemort shrieked. Harry tried to duck the red jet of light that sprang from the Dark Lord's wand, but it was following an irregular path; it leaped up, then down, and struck his right arm, just above the elbow. Harry screamed as the bone inside his arm shattered; he could hear it break, like a dry twig snapped in half. 

Voldemort was walking towards him through the smoke, laughing. Harry tried to raise his right hand, point it at the Dark Lord, but it hung limp at his side, unmoving. Focus, he thought desperately, trying to clear the red burn of agony from his mind. Focus, Harry. 

Voldemort stopped, looking down at him. Harry tried to raise the sword in his left hand, but Voldemort knocked it aside with an impatient curse. There was a terrible look on his face, a sort of yearning hunger. "Beg me, Harry," he said, almost in a whisper. "Beg me like your parents did - beg me to spare your life. This is how they died, you know - screaming, shrieking, and begging - howling broken on their knees. It took your mother some time to die, you know - she shrieked and shrieked for mercy -cowards, both of them, just like you -" 

"She was begging you to save me!" Harry screamed. Black dots swarmed in front of his eyes; he didn't know if they were caused by the agony in his arm, or the rage in his soul. "She wasn't begging for her own life, she was begging for mine! That's not cowardice - it's courage - and I'd rather die than beg you for anything!" 

Voldemort laughed as if he had been waiting for Harry to say exactly that. "Die, then,' he said, and raised his wand, pointed it at Harry - Harry threw up his hand, knowing it was too late, Voldemort was already mouthing the words, green light sparking at the tip of his wand - 

Voldemort screamed, staggering backward, the curse jetting from his wand but sailing harmlessly over Harry's head. Lowering his arm, Harry saw that Wormtail, not dead after all, had fastened his teeth into Voldemort's leg and was hanging on for dear life. Blood ran down the Dark Lord's leg and puddled on the floor. Like a rat, Harry thought, dazedly staring at the yellow teeth clamped into Voldemort's calf. Just like a rat.  

Once again, Harry tried to raise his right arm, couldn't do it, and fell back against the ground. With his left arm, he reached for the hilt of the sword of Gryffindor, but it was too far away to reach it in time. His groping hand closed on a shard of broken mirror instead, its edges razor-sharp. He gasped in pain, then froze as, with a guttural yell, Voldemort jammed the dagger he held into the back of Wormtail's neck. Wormtail gurgled and let go, slumping to the ground, a bloody froth pouring from his mouth. Voldemort turned, grinning, raising the wand again, sweeping it towards Harry. 

"Avada Kedavra!" he shrieked. 

A jet of green light shot from the wand, directly at Harry. Desperately, Harry flung his left arm up, as if he could ward off the deadly spell, knowing the gesture to be futile. 

But he had forgotten the shard of mirror that was clutched in his hand - a shard of not just any mirror, but the Great Mirror, one of the Four Objects worthy of the name of God. The green bolt of light struck the surface of the mirror - and rebounded, shooting back towards Voldemort, only this time it was a thousand times as bright as it had been, a thousand times as deadly. 

There was only time for a look of incredulous horror to pass over Voldemort's face. Then the light struck him in the chest, with such force that it lifted him off his feet, flung him down against the marble floor with the sound of shattering bones. A howl of agony rose from him - a terrible, shrieking noise that seemed to go on and on as his body twitched and spasmed. Gasping, half-blinded by the brightness of the Unforgivable Curse, Harry struggled to his knees, dropping the shard of mirror to the ground, and began to crawl. He crawled to the sword of Gryffindor, seized it, and kept crawling, painfully, towards Voldemort. 

The agony in his broken arm was excruciating. The wind tore at him, the acrid smoke choking his throat, and Voldemort's howls went on and on. If only he'd die already, Harry thought, but the spells Voldemort had put on himself, the ones designed to protect him, to make him nearly immortal, were working against him now. The Aavada Kadavra curse was eating into him, trying to kill him and failing, wracking his more-than-mortal body with agonies Harry couldn't even imagine. 

And so, he crawled, the Dark Lord's shrieks ringing in his ears. It felt as if he were crawling a thousand miles, crawling from one end of the earth to another. When he finally reached Voldemort's side he raised the sword in his left hand, and thought again of Draco, who had insisted on teaching him to fight with the hand he didn't favor. In that, as in so many other things, he had turned out unexpectedly to be entirely right. 

Harry brought the sword down in an arcing sweep that severed the Dark Lord's head from his body. The blade of the sword bit into the marble floor beneath Voldemort's neck, and his screams stopped, instantly and forever. There was only the sound of the wind. It was over. Harry slumped forward in a dead faint. 

*** 

"So what should we do with him?" Ron asked, standing over Lucius' limp body. "Kill him?" 

"No!" Hermione stood up, then whitened, swaying, and put a hand to her head. "No," she said, again. "We can't - he might know what the missing ingredient in Draco's antidote is." 

"You'll never get him to tell you anything," Ron pointed out. "Not unless you torture him." 

For a moment, Hermione's face was hard as marble. "I'm willing to do that." She swayed again, and held out the wand to Ron. "You'd better hold this," she said. "My head -" 

Lucius screamed. Both Ron and Hermione jumped back, Hermione stumbling and catching at Ron's arm to steady herself. Lucius' scream went on and on, his back arching up from the floor. He thrashed from side to side as if in pain. 

"What's going on?" Ron demanded, flabbergasted. 

"I don't know," Hermione whispered. "Do you see that?" She pointed. Hovering above Lucius' head was a small, glimmering ball of bluish light. As they watched, it darted downward, disappearing into his open, howling mouth. 

He went silent, collapsing back against the floor. Hermione, still gripping the wand, bent to his side and pressed her fingers against his throat. "He's alive," she said. 

"What happened?" Ron said. "Did I mess up the Stupefy spell? I've done it before, and that's never - I mean, I've never seen anything like -" 

Hermione was shaking her head. She looked at him over Lucius' prone body, and he saw the sudden light shining in her eyes. "I think," she said slowly. "I think this might mean that Harry's done it. I think he might have killed Voldemort." 

*** 

She didn't tell me that, Draco thought numbly, staring down at Tom. Why didn't she tell me that? 

He thought of Ginny, standing in the hallway, her hands out as if she could hold him back from going after Tom. 

Nothing, she had said. It's nothing. 

She had let him go, knowing he might kill Tom, knowing that it might mean her death if he did, and she had let him go anyway. 

I am the cause of this. Tom should be my responsibility.  

Tom was laughing. "I knew you couldn't do it," he crowed. "Love and dignity cannot abide in the same house - who was it who said that? Aeschylus?" 

"Ovid," Draco said, and brought the dagger down, with savage force. 

The blade missed Tom by inches, and the heavy hilt slammed into his temple. With a shudder, he went limp. 

"I hate it when people misattribute," Draco said, to no one in particular, and dropped the dagger. He looked down at Tom with some satisfaction. His blue eyes were rolled up in his head, and his freckles stood out against his pallor. "That was for punching me in the museum, Finnigan," Draco added, and reached across Tom to grab the hilt of Terminus Est and drag it towards him. 

Once it was thrust through his belt, he frowned. He didn't have enough strength, either magical or physical, to drag Tom back to the Ceremonial Chamber with him, and this was hardly the time to be interrupting Harry with logistics. Leaving Tom here was not an option. He'd wake up and escape, and all Draco's efforts would be wasted, not to mention that whole business of letting a homicidal maniac loose upon the unsuspecting wizarding world again. 

Then again, he didn't much fancy spending the rest of his life sitting on an unconscious Tom Riddle, either. There weren't many men in the world Draco wanted to spend this much time pressed up against, and Tom certainly wasn't heading that particular list. 

It was then that Draco's gaze came to rest on the black ring that gleamed darkly on Tom's left hand. It was the twin of the one his father had once given him, the carved onyx griffin with the Malfoy sigil on its back. Ah, Draco thought. With a grin, he reached down and twisted the ring, three times, around Tom's limp and unconscious finger. 

*** 

The faint only lasted a few seconds. When Harry awoke, he was lying facedown in a pool of the Dark Lord's blood. Gagging, Harry rolled over and dragged himself slowly into a sitting position. 

The smoke around him had begun to clear. He could see Wormtail, lying dead a few feet away, blind white eyes turned up to the sky. The wind had increased its howling. It tore at Harry's shirt with icy fingers, froze the blood that covered his hands and stiffened his shirt. 

He raised his eyes to the sky. "Enough," he said, quietly. 

The wind dipped and softened, curling around him like a lover's hand. Then it vanished, and there was only the clear sky far overhead, spangled with the brilliant stars that Draco could no longer see. They glittered in their beauty, frost-white and lake-blue, with flashes of icy green. The clouds hung utterly still behind them, a net of pillowy lace flung across the sky. As Harry gazed, he thought he saw a shadow pass across the face of the moon, the outline of some great, flying beast, a dragon or a hippogryph. 

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the shadow was gone. And he was tired, so tired, and the beauty of the sky meant nothing though he was dimly glad that he was still alive to see it. 

He stood up, cradling his broken arm against his chest. Then he bent, and picked up his wand and his sword. The hilt of the sword was thickly smeared with blood. He looked down at Voldemort. The Dark Lord's head had rolled a little distance away and come to rest face-up, eyes staring at the sky, lipless mouth open to reveal the snarling teeth. 

Harry had always thought he would feel triumph at this moment, transcendent triumph that would lift him off his feet. But he felt only a great and echoing emptiness, and a strange sort of sorrow. Mum, he thought, Dad. I did this for you. You're avenged now. You can have peace. 

Silence answered him. Shivering, he turned around slowly. Through the fading smoke, he could see the distant outline of waiting figures. Somewhere out there were Hermione, and Draco, and Ron, and it was time for him to rejoin them. 

And perhaps, just perhaps, he might never have to leave them again. 

Moving slowly, like an old man, Harry limped out of the pentagram. 

*** 

When Ginny stepped back into the Ceremonial Chamber, leaving Rhysenn in the corridor outside, she found that the choking smoke had begun very slightly to dissipate, though it still stung her eyes and brought a bitter taste to her mouth when she breathed. She blinked stinging tears out of her eyes, looking around for Hermione, Harry or Ron. She saw only the shattered ceiling above leaking starlight, the boiling smoke hiding the room's center - 

And Draco, who had somehow managed to get back into the Ceremonial Chamber without passing her in the corridor. He was over by the wall, kneeling next to a prone Tom. Ginny hurried over. 

"Did you kill him?" she asked, breathlessly, as she neared them. 

Draco looked up. There was a hard edge to his expression, "You know I didn't." he said, and stood up. He prodded Tom with the toe of his boot; Tom didn't move. "Help me get him into the shackles," he said to Ginny. 

It was harder than it sounded. Tom was dead weight between them, and Draco seemed to be making an effort not to look at her or touch her. When they closed the second manacle around Tom's wrist, leaving him dangling between them like a corpse in a dungeon, Draco turned away. "I have to find my father," he said. 

"Draco," Ginny said. "Are you all right?" 

"The ring brought me here so he must be nearby," Draco said, glancing down at the heavy silver band on Tom's limp hand. "And Harry? Have you seen Harry?" 

Ginny shook her head. "No. I'd guess he's somewhere ... in there." She pointed at the swirling smoke. Shadows seemed to move inside it, though that could have been a trick of the light. "Draco, please -" 

He looked at her, motionless, a slender shadow in black with blood staining his shirt - red, drying to black, not his own blood. "You stay here with him," he said. "Guard him with all the instincts of self-preservation you can muster." 

"I should have told you," she began, stricken. "It's just that...." 

He took a step forward, gripped her shoulders so hard that she gasped with pain as well as surprise. "Yes," he said. "You should have. Imagine our positions reversed, if you had been the unwitting instrument of my death, if I had tricked you into it."  

"I thought you wouldn't hurt him if I told you..." 

"And you wanted him hurt that badly?" Draco demanded, incredulous. 

"No," Ginny said softly. "But I am afraid of the part of myself that doesn't want it. And Draco - I wanted you to be able to fight, to protect yourself, without worrying about me, with handicapping yourself out of fear for my safety -" 

He pushed her away, so hard that she stumbled. "I thought you had stopped being a spoiled little child. I was wrong." 

"I'm not a child," she said. 

Gray eyes blazed in his thin face. "Don't you ever do anything like that again," he said, and turned and walked away. She watched as the smoke coiled around him, erasing him slowly until he had vanished from her sight. Then she turned back to Tom. 

*** 

It was Hermione who saw him first, of course. The smoke clearing around him as he walked away from the pentagram, cradling his right arm against his chest. There was blood on his white shirt, blood on his hands, blood that had spattered his face, and the bloody sword of Gryffindor hung by his side. "Harry!" she shrieked, and ran forward, stumbling and then righting herself, racing through the smoke. 

Ron saw Harry lift his good arm and put it around her, and bow his face down into her hair. They clung to each other, filthy and injured and matted with blood. They clung to each other, and Ron looked away. 

He glanced down at Lucius, still limp as a dead fish. Harry gets the girl, and I get Malfoy's dad, Ron thought wryly, but the old resentment wasn't there anymore. He prodded at it, experimentally, like prodding at a sore tooth, but he felt nothing at all. He didn't really love Hermione, not that way. It had been a cobweb of dreams, a phantom flower fed on lies and old jealousies. 

He looked back at Harry and Hermione. Hermione had let go of Harry's neck and was examining his arm. He saw her tap her wand against it, and Harry straightened the arm out and smiled. There was a great tiredness in his smile, and as he and Hermione walked towards Ron, Ron wondered if she saw it. 

"So you did it," Ron said, as Harry neared him. "I knew you would." 

For a moment, Harry's smile was real. "Yeah, I -" He glanced down and saw Lucius, and the smile was wiped off his face. "Is he dead?" 

Hermione shook her head. "Ron Stupefied him." 

Harry looked at Ron. "Wake him up." 

Ron blinked, surprised. "What?" 

"Wake him up," Harry said hoarsely, but Ron, wandless, shook his head. Harry raised his right hand, wincing. "Enervate." 

Lucius' eyes flew open. He groaned, reaching for the dagger still embedded in his skin, and yanked it out by the hilt. He began to sit up, hand clamped to his arm, blood seeping out around his fingers. His teeth were bared. "My Lord Voldemort," he ground out. 

"He's dead," Harry said. There was pure hatred in his voice. "This blood on my hands is his, as is the blood on my blade. And if you don't want yours to join it -" 

"Draco," Lucius whispered. His eyes were wide, rimmed in red, his voice hoarse. "Is he all right?" 

"Shut up," Harry said furiously, but his hand, clamped to the hilt of his sword, was shaking. "You're not fit to say his name, you sick, filthy murderer - you're worse than Voldemort in your way. He's your son - your own son -" 

"Where is he?" Lucius' hands, cvurled into claws, reached for Harry. "The blast - was he injured?"  

"You can save your crocodile tears," Harry spat. "Like you care." 

"But Harry," Hermione said. Her voice was remote, horrified "He does care." 

"I know you like to think the best of everyone, Hermione," Harry said, without looking at her. "But he gave up his paternal feelings towards Draco years ago. Gave them over to Voldemort like they were so much trash."  

"I know that, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "But Voldemort's dead now." 

Harry turned his head towards her slowly, the confusion plain in his green eyes. "I don't understand," he said, and then a voice sounded behind him, a slim black-clad form taking shape as Draco stepped through the smoke. 

"Harry," he said. He stood, blinking a little, eyes narrowed against the smoke. He didn't seem to see his father there, or Hermione, or Ron, or anyone but Harry. "You're all over blood -" 

"Not mine," Harry said quickly. "Voldemort's. Well. Mostly." 

There was a long pause. "So," Draco said, finally, "It looks like I've missed the excitement again, as usual," and there was relief in his voice, but his gaze stayed on Harry, taking him in slowly, lingering on each abrasion, cut, and bruise. "Your arm," he said. "I felt it break. But you're all right?" 

"Hermione healed me," Harry said. 

Draco lifted his hand, as if to touch Harry, his shoulders, his face and hands, to reassure himself- 

"Draco," Lucius said again, in the same hoarse, new voice. 

Draco dropped his hand, turning, his face a mask of surprise, and saw his father kneeling, hands clasped, and Ron standing behind him with the dagger. Draco didn't move, his hand still upraised, but Ron saw the edge of one pale eyelid twitch as Draco stared at his father. 

"My boy," Lucius said, and staggered to his feet. "Please -" 

"Shut up," Harry said, cutting him off, and turned to Draco. "He survived the blast," he said. "Peter didn't." 

"Oh," Hermione said, sounding surprised, as if she'd heard this piece of information for the first time. She looked at Draco. "Tom...?" she asked. 

"I knocked him out," Draco said. "He's shackled up against the wall. Ginny's watching him." He pointed. 

Hermione looked briefly uneasy. "Just Ginny watching him? No one else? Are you sure that's a ..." 

"Good idea?" Draco finished, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, I don't know. I have faith in her." 

"Hm," Hermione said. "Still. Tom is - tricky. I'll go help her out." 

She vanished into the smoke. 

"Wll, I'm certainly feeling the trust here," Draco remarked, but his voice was sharp and unamused. He glanced at his father and clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "You're looking a bit peaked, Father," he said. "Voldemort's total and ultimate defeat got you down?" 

Lucius gazed at his son with haunted desperation. "Thank God, Draco," he said roughly. "Thank God you're all right -" 

Draco's eyelid twitched again, but his voice was cool. "Really," he said, "you must be desperate indeed if you're trying these sort of tricks." 

"There is no trick," Lucius said. "When the Dark Lord died, all his spells were broken. Everything he took from his servants was returned to them. Everything," he added, a mute appeal in his eyes. 

Draco sucked in a short, sharp gasp of breath, his eyes widening impossibly until they seemed to fill his whole face, and even Ron felt a stab of pity for the horror in their depths. 

"Malfoy," Harry said, taking a step forward, but Draco held out a hand to stop him, gaze still locked with his father's. 

"That may well be so, Father," Draco said, a little of the color returning to his cheeks. "But that doesn't make you any less the sort of man who'd lie and cheat his way out of a desperate situation." 

"You mean that they plan to kill me," Lucius said, looking from Ron to Harry, and back to his son. 

"Probably," Draco said. "We can die together - a surprisingly poetic denouement for our particular family tragedy. The tragedy being that we happen to be part of the same family."  

Lucius' breath hissed out of him. "Die together? But you -" A sudden horror flashed in his eyes, a groan breaking from his throat. "The poison. Of course. Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?" 

He buried his face in his hands. Draco looked at him, a slight curl at the corner of his pale mouth. "Don't," he said, and his voice cut like a whip's edge. "Remember what it says in the Code of Conduct - "Regret, like hot pink, is unsuitable to a Malfoy.'" 

"Draco." Lucius dropped his hands from his face, stumbling forward, his hands outstretched towards his son. "My son - my own blood -" 

Draco didn't flinch away from him, too astonished, it seemed, to move. It was Harry who moved in a flash of black and silver, flinging himself between Draco and his father with a sharp bark of rage and the soft grating noise of his sword pulled from its scabbard. The tip of it rose like a bright silver dragonfly to hover just at Lucius' heart. "Your blood," Harry said to Lucius, his voice tight with a savage mockery. "Before you flooded his veins with poison, you mean? How dare you talk to him like that? How dare you even look at him?" 

Lucius shook his head, a little wildly. Ron could see where the thick fair hair, streaked with gray, was escaping from its neat black-tied tail at the back of his neck. It was more gray than he had remembered. "I do not need to look at Draco to see him," he said. "I see him every time I look in the mirror - he is blood of my blood, bone of my bones, flesh of my own flesh. He is my son and you have no right to keep me from him!" 

"I have every right!" Harry thundered. "You're not his father - a father loves and cares for his children. My father died to protect his son - you murdered yours!" 

"I'm not dead yet," Draco said, softly, and Harry, still shaking with rage, shut his mouth into a hard line. 

Lucius turned his gaze on his son. "Draco," he said. "I know I have wronged you, but you must understand - it was Voldemort's spell, his curse on me - when you were a baby I loved you as much as any child has ever been loved - before that love was taken from me." 

"Taken from me," Draco said, "you mean. You gave away what was not yours to give." 

"It was what he asked for," Lucius said, "and I was afraid." 

Draco looked down at his feet, and then back up at his father, glancing through his lashes like a child. "I love you, Father," he said, and Lucius lurched forward, almost on to the point of Harry's sword. Draco stepped back, neatly, shaking his head. "But love isn't enough," he said. "It never is." He looked at Harry. "I need to talk to you," he said. 

Harry's mouth was working. "I can't let him go," he said. "I'll leave him alive if you want me to, but I can't let him go." 

"I didn't ask you to," Draco said. He was, Ron thought, remarkably calm, although Ron would never forget that first look of agonized horror in his eyes. "There's a small room, there, at the end of the Chamber," he said, and pointed towards the far end of the Chamber, where a small blue door hid in a recessed shadow. "With a door that bolts. I suggest Ron take my father there and stand guard outside with a dagger. Or maybe two." 

"No," Harry said, and added, before Draco could say anything, "not with a dagger. With my sword." He lowered the blade, and handed it silently to Ron. Lucius made no attempt to run, only stood staring at Draco with the eyes of a starving man gazing at a banquet of food he can never have. 

Ron raised the sword, and placed the tip of it between Lucius' shoulder blades. 

"Move," he said, and Lucius did. 

*** 

The two boys stood together in the swirling smoke, wrapped in a silence as intent as the silence on a battlefield after the combat has spent itself. 

Icy air sifted down from the smashed ceiling. Harry shivered, his eyes on Draco as the blond boy watched his father receding into the smoke, marched at swordspoint by Ron. A stranger would have thought his face blank of any expression, but Harry saw the tightness around Draco's mouth, the faint butterfly tremble of his eyelids, and knew that pain twisted his insides like a handful of knives. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

Lucius had disappeared. Draco turned to look at Harry. His eyes were the same bitter gray-black as the smoke. "What for?" 

"I don't know. Maybe I should have warned you. Told you about your dad - you know, not out loud. Prepared you." 

"There are some things you can never prepare for," Draco said. There was a pale bruise rising on his cheek, and the collar of his shirt was torn. A frayed ribbon, tattered and bloodied, swung jauntily from his wrist. "It's not your fault," Draco said. "Just the universe, laughing at us as usual." 

"I won't kill him," Harry said. "Not if you don't want me to." 

Draco's eyes were remote, his voice slow and cool as the progress of glaciers. "You will do what you must," he said. "You always do." 

"No," Harry said. He could feel Draco slipping away from him, water through his fingers. Deliberately, he reached out, and placed his hands on Draco's shoulders. The other boy looked at him, surprised. "I have done," Harry said, "enough killing in the name of light. And if you want your father to live, I will let him live." 

"You would let him live past me, and not kill him in revenge for my death?" 

Harry nodded. 

"I am not sure I could say the same, were our positions reversed," Draco said. "But that's why you are the hero, and I am not." 

"You would do it," Harry said, "for my sake." 

Draco looked away. The ends of his hair brushed the backs of Harry's hands. He said, "Don't restrain yourself on my account. I know you need to avenge your parents. I know only my father's death can ensure that. And surely he has earned your retribution." 

"You won't forbid me, then?" Harry asked. 

Draco said, "I want no part in this. I will abide by whatever decision you make." 

"But Malfoy -" 

"No." Draco looked back at him, his eyes the color of storm clouds. "Don't force my hand." 

"He's your blood, your family," Harry said. "You'd be well within your rights -" 

Draco raised his hand, and laid it over Harry's on his shoulder. "You are my blood," he said. "My family." Looking at Harry, he smiled faintly. "I must say, I thought -" 

"What?" 

"That your scar would be gone," Draco said simply. "Once Voldemort was dead. But it's still there. I'm glad. You wouldn't be you without it." He lowered his hand. "Will you do one thing for me?" 

"What?" 

"Take this." Draco drew Terminus Est and held the sword out to Harry. Tendrils of smoke twined the steel-gray hilt and dulled the pattern of black roses etched into the crosspiece. "I would rather that my father did not die on a Gryffindor blade," he said. 

Harry dropped his hands from Draco's shoulders, and took Terminus Est. The sword was heavy in his grip, its weight and balance unfamiliar. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I will do this one thing for you." 

*** 

Tom hung in his shackles. Hermione couldn't help but think how uncomfortable he looked, even unconscious. Blood had trickled into his fair hair from a cut across his temple. She thought of the strangled girl in the Midnight Club and hoped it hurt a great deal. "We could kill him," she said. 

"We can't," Ginny said. She was leaning against the wall, not looking at Tom, her eyes searching the smoke. Rhysenn drifted beside her, her black hair lifting like raven's wings on the gusts of cold, bitter air that blew at intervals through the chamber. 

Hermione raised an eyebrow. I wish I could trust her. "Why not?" 

"Because of Seamus," Ginny said. "If there's still a chance we could save him..." 

Rhysenn looked confused. "Is his name Tom, or is it Seamus?" she asked. "I'm not sure I understand. Although," she added, and wrinkled up her nose as if she'd tasted something bitter, "There is something very peculiar about him - something unnatural." 

"He has two souls," Hermione said. "One his own, and one possessing him." 

Rhysenn looked startled for a moment, then laughed. "One of you is two souls in one body," she said, "and another is one soul in two. Remarkable." 

"I wouldn't say Tom is one of us," Hermione said crisply. "And what do you mean -" 

"One soul in two bodies," Draco said, appearing as if out of nowhere. He had his hands in his pockets, an his eyes were unnaturally bright, the way they sometimes were when he was very angry, very agitated, or both. "That's rather poetic, for a demon." 

"Draco," Ginny said, but he didn't look at her. Biting her lip, she turned and walked away - not very far; Hermione could still see her bright dress and hair through the smoke. 

Ignoring her departure, Draco turned to Rhysenn. "I take it you've been Hermione's partner in all this?" he said. "Faking her death, slipping her lockpicks, drugging Voldemort's tea?" 

"I never drugged Voldemort's tea," Rhysenn protested, looking taken aback. "Besides, he drinks coffee. Er, drank coffee." 

"My point is that I never expected you to be all that helpful," Draco said, and Rhysenn smiled her cool, secret smile. "Bit like Chudley Cannons pitching in at the last moment to help out Puddlemere, wouldn't you say?" 

Rhysenn blinked. 

"Sports metaphors not quite your thing, I take it," said Draco. 

Hermione gave a little grunt of impatience. "Draco, honestly." 

"I merely meant that her loyalties lie elsewhere," Draco said blandly. "To wit, with my father. Or what seems to be left of him." 

"They don't, actually," said Hermione. "She's meant to be loyal to the master of the English Malfoy family. Technically, that's you. Your father lost the title when he 'died', and never bothered setting about regaining it - because, well, why do you think?" 

"Ah, legalities," Draco said. "They tell us everything we need to know about how things ought to be and nothing about how they are. My father is the Master of Malfoy Manor, Hermione. Every stone of the Manor knows it." 

"But you are the last of the Malfoys," said Hermione. "Without you, there will be no more. And Rhysenn is pledged to protect the Malfoy line - and that means you." 

"I didn't quite realize how it was," Rhysenn said calmly, "until Hermione explained it to me, and then I understood it perfectly." 

"Yes, well, Hermione could convince an electric eel that it was a harmless rubber duck," said Draco. "Of course, that wouldn't help the poor bastard who tried to take a bath with it." He turned on Hermione. "I bet you told her I'd free her if she helped us." 

"I did, actually," Hermione admittedly. 

"Well, I can't," Draco said. "Only my father can. Maybe he will, too. Normally I'd say you had to catch him on a good day - namely, Saturday the twelfth of Absolutely Sodding Never - but who knows? Anything seems possible at the moment." 

"You can if your father gives permission," Hermione said. "And he has. He says you can do whatever you want." 

Draco's mouth twisted, and he gave a bitter little laugh. "Does he, now?" He looked sharply at Hermione. "You foresaw all this, didn't you?" 

She shrugged. "I guessed."  

"Blind Justice was never so cruel," said Draco, and turned to Rhysenn. "You do realize," he added, looking over his shoulder at Hermione, "that you're asking me to unleash an evil sex demon with the power to suck out men's souls onto an unsuspecting world?" 

"Yes," Hermione said. 

"I can suck out women's souls, too," said Rhysenn helpfully. 

"An equally opportunity soul-sucker," said Draco, "the world needs a bit more of that, doesn't it?" He raised his hand, pointed it wearily at Rhysenn. "Rhysenn of the Malfoy Family," he began, "I hereby undertake to free you from the blood oath that binds you, and from the -" 

"Wait!" Someone seized his arm. It was Ginny, her small face flushed scarlet. "Not yet." 

Rhysenn stamped her high-heeled foot in petulant rage. "Oh, get rid of her!" she seethed. "We were so close - and you promised!" 

"I didn't," Draco said, looking down into Ginny's upturned face, "Hermione did." Slowly, he lowered his hand. "What is it, Ginny?" 

"Free her if you like," Ginny said. "But I need her to do one more thing for us -" 

"No!" Rhysenn cried. Draco looked as if he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy. He was probably tired of doing things other people asked him to do himself. 

"It's my only chance to save Seamus," Ginny said. She looked directly at Rhysenn. "It'll only take moments. Please." 

Rhysenn tossed her hair. "I don't care about your friend," she said. "Ask Draco." 

Draco sighed. He raised his hand and pointed it at Rhysenn. "Rhysenn Malfoy," he said. "I hereby undertake to free you from the blood oath that binds you - when you have completed the task Virginia Weasley asks of you, and not before." He lowered his hand. "Do it, and you're free. Do you understand?" 

Rhysenn nodded, her gray cat's eyes gleaming. "Yes, Master." 

"Don't call me that," Draco said sharply. 

"Thank you," Ginny said, and touched his hand. 

*** 

It was Rhysenn who undid Tom's shackles, and used her spells to lift him, hanging limply, into the air. He hovered before them, ghostlike, as the four of them - Rhysenn, Ginny, Hermione, and Draco - made their way down the corridor outside the Ceremonial Chamber. 

"There's a room at the top of the stairs," Draco said, "a sort of study - will that serve your purposes?" 

"Most adequately," Rhysenn said. Her eyes were on Tom. She was looking at him, Hermione thought, like a cat might look at a trapped bird. 

"Glad to hear it," Draco said. He sounded unusually subdued. Hermione wondered if it was Ginny's presence that disturbed him - she hadn't missed the strange looks that had passed between those two - or something else. He was trailing his hand along the wall as they went, almost as if he were steadying himself. 

They reached the door and pushed it open. They stood in a tower room whose windows looked out over the valley and the mountains beyond them. The stars grinned down from the sky like naked daggers. The walls of the room were hung with gold and silver tapestries, and in the center of the room was a circular cage, its bars made of gold. 

"Huh," Draco said, raising a curious eyebrow. 

"Some study," Hermione said. "Nice cage." 

"It was built to hold my mother," Rhysenn said. She waved her long-fingered right hand, and lowered Tom slowly to the ground just in front of the cage. Her eyes were bright. "You can leave us now." 

"All right," Hermione said, backing away, but Draco stayed where he was, his eyes on Ginny as she knelt down by Tom's side and brushed the fair hair back from his face. She brushed the charred ash from the front of his ruined velvet robes, and touched the bruise at his temple. Then she looked up. 

"Draco," she said, frowning a little, as if she'd forgotten that he was there. "You can't stay." 

He looked at her for another long moment before tearing his eyes away. He walked to the door quickly and Hermione followed him. She turned back only briefly as the doors shut behind them, and saw Rhysenn kneeling down on the opposite side of Tom, across from Ginny, as if they were doctors and he were a patient they were examining. 

The doors clicked shut and Hermione hurried to catch up with Draco. "Wait," she said. "Aren't we supposed to go the other way if we want to get back to the Ceremonial Chamber?" 

"Who says I want to get back to the Ceremonial Chamber?" Draco said. His tone was brittle. He was still trailing his hand along the wall, leaning on it more heavily now. 

"But Harry -" 

"Is busy killing my father," Draco said. "Not that I blame him particularly, but that doesn't mean I want to watch." 

"He won't kill him," Hermione said. They had turned another corner, and she was no longer sure exactly where they were. She looked around anxiously, but one stretch of gray stone corridor looked much like another. This one was very dim, the bracketed torches along the walls unlit. Hermione drew her wand out and lit the tip with a murmur. "He just wants answers about the antidote." 

"There are no answers," Draco said. "There is no antidote. He's just chasing phantoms." 

"How can you be so sure?" 

"Because I know my father," Draco said. "He doesn't do things halfway." There was a bitter pride in his voice. "Neque enim lex est aequior ulla, Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 

"What?" 

"It was what was engraved on my father's tombstone," Draco said. "Nor is there any law more just, than he who has plotted death shall perish by his own plot." He stopped, then, and struck at the wall with his fist. When he drew his hand back, the knuckles were split and bleeding, raw and silver. "Justice," he said, "it seems, like love, is overrated." 

"Or maybe just cruel," said Hermione. 

"I never had a father," Draco said, looking at his bleeding hand with a clinical interest. "Just a taskmaster with a sword in one hand and a whip in the other. Still, he made me what I am. If I lose him, perhaps I might never find myself again." 

"It was no failing of yours that he couldn't love you," Hermione said, reaching out her hand, but afraid to touch him. "At least you know that now, for certain." 

"Yes," Draco said, "he loves me now - and will die, loving me, with my blade through his heart. I have been trying not to think about that, you know." 

"If you tell Harry not to hurt Lucius, he won't," Hermione said, alarmed by the whiteness of Draco's face. "Come on - we'll tell him. There's still time." 

"I can't do that," Draco said. 

"You can - he'll listen to you, I know he will." 

"All right," Draco said, but when she turned to walk away he didn't follow. She paused, looking back at him. He was leaning against the wall, looking down at his feet as if they belonged to somebody else. 

"What's wrong, Draco?" 

"Nothing," he said. "I think I just need a moment to rest." 

He had never asked to rest before, not in all their time traveling together, not in all of today, not as he had grown more and more ill during the school term. Hermione turned in alarm, just in time to seen him slide down the wall to the floor. 

*** 

By the time Harry reached the small door where Ron waited, the weight of Terminus Est in his hand had come to feel familiar, even pleasant. He imagined holding it to Lucius' throat as Lucius begged for his life. "I will spare you if you tell me where an antidote can be found for the poison in Draco's blood," he would say, and Lucius would fall all over himself to provide a counter to the poison. Harry would rush to bring the antidote to Draco and Draco, the color flooding back into his face, would- 

"Are you going to kill him?" Ron asked. 

He was standing by the door with the sword of Gryffindor held awkwardly across his chest. Voldemort's blood had dried on the blade. As he shifted his grip on the hilt Harry could see the dark scars along the insides of his wrists. 

"I don't know," Harry said. 

"Would you like me to come in with you?" Ron said. 

Harry hesitated, looking at Ron. Surely he could not want to come, but he was offering, and the offer was a sincere one. Harry felt a sudden, sharp rush of the old affection for Ron, that awkward but tenacious affection that had once been the strongest he'd ever known. Before Hermione, before Sirius. Before Draco. "Yes," he said. 

They went in together, Ron closing the door behind him and leaning against it with the sword at his side. It was a small room, the only light trickling from a high, blue-glassed window that illuminated the room with an eerie glow. Lucius sat on the floor, his back against the wall, hands clasped in front of him. He got to his feet as Harry approached him, a look of sneering rage on his haggard face. "Where is my son?" he demanded. "Where is Draco?" 

"The antidote," Harry said harshly. "That first. Then I'll tell you about Draco. Maybe even let you see him - if he wants to see you." 

Lucius barked a harsh laugh. "You are just like your father, Harry Potter," he said. "A reveler in small and petty power. How delighted you must be to be able to hold this over me -" 

"It's not my fault he hates you," Harry said. "Why wouldn't he? You poisoned him." 

Lucius' jaw clenched. "I would have thought - I thought - with all the powers of Hogwarts and Albus Dumbledore at your disposal - you would have been able to cure him without my assistance." 

"Snape tried to create an antidote," Harry said, each word sharp and distinct like the flick of a knife. "He did the best he could, but it wasn't enough. One ingredient was missing, one thing he couldn't identify. What is it?" 

Lucius was shaking his head, a mad, darting light in his eyes. "I told you - told you both, that night on the tower - that was all the antidote there was. There isn't any more. And Draco had to break the vial, didn't he? That sort of act, brave and foolish, ought to be saved for Gryffindors. My son ought to know better -" 

"That's enough." Harry grip tightened on the hilt of Terminus Est. He swung the sword up so that the point of it rested in the hollow of Lucius' throat. "Tell me what the missing ingredient is in the antidote Snape created," he said. "Tell me, or I'll cut your throat slowly." 

Lucius held his hands up, but less to ward Harry off, it seemed, than to beseech his understanding. "I'll tell you," he said huskily. "You don't need to threaten me. I'll tell you. It's dragon's blood." 

Harry laughed scornfully. "Dragon's blood? You think Snape wouldn't have identified that? I might not like him much, but the man isn't stupid." 

"It's not ordinary dragon's blood," Lucius said. "It's the blood of argent dragons -" 

Harry pressed the point of the sword in deeper. "I've never heard of argent dragons." 

"No," Lucius said. "You wouldn't have. They've been extinct for over a thousand years." 

*** 

"Enervate."  

Tom awoke with his back against cold marble. His jaw throbbed where Draco had punched him, and there was a deep bitterness in his heart. With the cold slowness of a snake, he raised his eyes to see Ginny leaning over him, her poppy-red hair showering down over them both. She was biting her lip, an expression of terrified submission in her dark eyes that was balm to his wounded soul. 

"Tom," she said. "You're awake." 

He caught a handful of her hair, and tugged on it hard. She winced, tears springing to her eyes, but didn't move. "What is this, Virginia? Why are you here? Did they leave you here to guard me, thinking that I wouldn't harm you? I'll tell you right now, they were wrong. I'll break your neck myself and die with you rather than give myself over to their righteous ministrations." 

"Would you?" she said, her mouth trembling. "Would you really, Tom?" She put her hand to his face, her thin fingers hot against his marble-cold cheek. "I told them you wouldn't harm me, but only so they'd leave me alone with you. I want to escape with you, Tom. I want to be with you." 

He barked a sharp laugh, pulling harder at her hair. She only inclined her head, her eyes darting, frightened. He strained to feel that connection between them, the blood-bond that had allowed him to feel her emotions, sense the hatred, disgust and despair in her that had fed him like a banquet. But it had gone with the severance of his magic, spilling like blood from an amputated limb. "Little liar," he said. "Why should I believe that?" 

"Because you were right, Tom," she whispered. "You and me - we're the same. The others will never understand me, not like you do. And they'll never really want me - not like you do. They'd be happier if I just disappeared." 

He chuckled. "I could have told you that," he said. "But I always thought you were too stupid to see it. And what of your boy - the one who wears your ribbon on his wrist?" 

She shook her head. "He'll never love me," she said, and when he dragged his fingers cruelly through her hair, added quickly, "And he's dying - he won't live much longer. And when he's dead, the rest of them won't want me around at all." 

This was something Tom could understand. "They don't understand the evil in you," he said. "The darkness that runs like black ink through your Gryffindor blood." 

She was shaking her head. "No," she said, "not like you do, Tom." She leaned forward, close enough for him to see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. "Thee to me," she said, and she bent to kiss him, with the trembling shyness of a girl who'd never been kissed before. 

Her fear, the desire that forced her past her shuddering reluctance, was salve to his gutted pride. He lifted his aching head from the marble, meeting her lips with his own. 

It was like no kiss he had shared with her before. Their previous embraces had been like rape, with him taking from her what she did not want to give. This was an exchange of fire. Her mouth burned on his, her small hot hands cupping the back of his neck, her sharp teeth tracing his lower lip. His body responded fiercely, instantly, his mouth opening, tasting the inside of her mouth, his hands winding in her hair, tugging her against him. He had tasted potions before that tasted like this kiss did: fiery, bitter, necessary as breathing. His bones melted and ran, his blood seethed in his veins. His tortured lungs strained for air, but he could no more have pulled away from her that he could have opened his chest and ripped out his own heart. 

Black diamonds swam in front of his eyes. Numb, his hands slipped from holding her, his fingers spasming. Against his mouth, he felt her begin to laugh. 

*** 

Hermione dropped to her knees. Draco was lying motionless on the ground, where the wall curved to meet the floor. She turned him over. His eyes were closed, a pulse beating hard in his throat. "Draco," she said. She could feel the hammering of her own blood in her ears, the adrenaline of terror pumping through her veins. "Draco -" 

He sucked in a breath, and began coughing. Relief flowed through her - he was still alive. He shuddered a breath, and opened his eyes. "Sorry about that," he said, "I didn't realize -" He paused then, blinking. "It's darker than I thought," he said, and groped towards her with his hand. "Hermione -?" 

"I dropped my wand," she said. "Wait." She scrambled to retrieve it, and raised it in her hand. "Lumos," she said, and light filled the corridor again, casting stark shadows against the bare stonewalls. 

Draco, who had pulled himself into a sitting position, blinked again and looked towards her, his expression troubled. "Can you make it brighter?" he asked. 

The wand trembled in her hand. "Lumos fulmens," she said, and light like the sun leaped now from the tip of her wand, and the corridor was bright as day. She could see the cuts on Draco's face, the shadows cast by his lashes against the tops of his cheekbones, the blank, unseeing look in his eyes. She lowered the wand slowly. "I think my wand must have broken when I dropped it," she said, hearing the sound of her own voice as if from very far away. "I can't - it isn't working." 

"Ah." He sounded relieved. Her heart felt like it might crack inside her chest. She crawled towards him, and he jumped when she took hold of his shoulders and pulled him back against her. They leaned against the wall, her arms around him. She could feel the sharpness of his bones, the labored haste of his breathing. "We should wait here," she said. "When Harry comes, he'll bring light." 

"I know," Draco said. 

*** 

"Is it over?" Ginny asked. 

Rhysenn lifted her mouth from Tom's and looked sideways at Ginny, reminding the redheaded girl of nothing so much as a cat surprised in the middle of toying with a mouse. Her gray eyes seemed to glow, her thick, black hair, more lustrous than Ginny had ever seen it, fountaining down around her like black water. Her pale skin was absolutely radiant. Ginny half-expected to see blood around her mouth, as if she were a vampire, but her lips were only a little swollen from kissing. They curved into a smile. "Sorry," she said. "I got a bit carried away." 

"I could tell," Ginny muttered. She knelt down, and touched Tom's face. He was breathing, soft and slow, and his skin was cool to the touch. "Is he all right? Did you…take it?" 

"He is missing a soul now," Rhysenn said. "Another man would be dead. But he has a second soul, and should recover." 

A horrible thought occurred to Ginny and she turned to Rhysenn, her heart pounding. "Are you sure you got the right soul?" 

Rhysenn looked at her blankly. "The right soul?" 

Ginny almost screamed. "Tom's soul! Not Seamus's!" 

Rhysenn shrugged. "Souls do not have names. They are merely souls." 

"Oh, God." Ginny pressed her hand to her forehead. "What if you took Seamus's soul? Then we've murdered him. And we'd better kill Tom before he wakes up, because if he does..." 

"I do wish you'd decide whether you want him alive or not," Rhysenn said plaintively. "It's very confusing." Ginny didn't reply. Seeming to take a sort of pity on her, Rhysenn added, "It was an unusual soul, if that helps." 

"Unusual? Unusual how?" 

"It tasted of paper and ink," said Rhysenn. 

Ginny expelled a long, shaky breath. "All right. I think you got the right one." She laid the back of her hand against Tom's - no, she told herself, no longer Tom, he's only Seamus now - face, stroking the soft, peach-fuzz curve of cheek into jaw. "I guess you're free." 

Rhysenn gasped, so loudly that Ginny looked up. Her gray eyes were wide and full of wonder and amazement. "Free? I am truly free?" 

"Yes," Ginny said. 

"I need never answer to another Malfoy?" 

"You need never answer to anyone," Ginny said. "You're free to go prance around half-naked wherever you like. Preferably far away from here." 

"Free," Rhysenn breathed, and then she was up on her feet, and racing towards the window. She threw it open, and leaned out into the starry night. "Free!" she screamed, and turned to look at Ginny. The cold air spilling through the open window whipped her black hair across her pale, unpretty face. "Thank you," she said. 

"Don't thank me. Thank Draco. He's the one who freed you," Ginny pointed out. 

"That is true," Rhysenn said, pausing like a bird hovering mid-flight. "He can still be saved, you know," she said. 

Ginny's eyes flew open. "He can? How? Do you know the antidote? Do you-" 

"Only you can do it," Rhysenn said firmly. "Only you," and with that, she leaped lightly up onto the sill of the window, and vanished into the ice-spangled night. 

Only me? What does that mean? Ginny wondered, her heart pounding, and then she heard a groan and glanced down to see Seamus stir, his eyes opening, fastening on her face. And they were blue, as they had always been, clear sky-blue, untainted by any darkness. "Ginny?" he whispered. "Is that you?" 

Taking his hand in hers, she held it to her chest, winding her fingers with his. And now my penance begins. "Welcome back, Seamus," she said. "Welcome back, my dear." 

*** 

"You're lying," Harry said. His hand trembled, the sharp point of the sword pricking the base of Lucius' throat. 

"I wish that I were," Lucius said. There was bitterness in his voice, heavy as a black weight on Harry's soul. "If there was any one thing I could go back and change -" 

"Stop it," Harry snapped, cutting him off. "Besides, it's ludicrous, that you'd expect me to believe any of this. Thousand-year-old dragon's blood? Why?" 

"Both the poison and the antidote were the creation of Salazar Slytherin," Lucius said. "Handed down through the generations of Malfoys ever since - it is a perfect poison, traceless, tasteless, passed through the slightest wound or scratch into the blood. Instantly curable with the antidote, it also brings swift death." 

"No, it doesn't," Harry said. "Draco's been dying for weeks." 

"He is a Malfoy," Lucius said, "and great protections run in his blood. But even those protections must erode eventually, such is the poison's strength." 

"So if I had a time-turner," Harry said, "I could go back into the past, and get some of that dragon's blood -" 

"Have you a Time-Turner?" Lucius asked, almost dryly. "No Time-Turner can take you back to a time before the Time-Turner itself was created. Even if you could find a Time-Turner that ancient, even if you could survive two thousand-year time journeys, even then, the antidote takes a hundred years to prepare. Draco doesn't have a hundred years left in him. I doubt he has a hundred hours." 

"Shut up!" Harry snarled, the sword jerking in his hands. A thin thread of blood ran down into Lucius' collar. "What matters is that there's a chance." 

Lucius glanced down at the sword against his throat. Over his shoulder, Harry could see Ron, watching them both intently, a strange look in his eyes. "At least I know," Lucius said, "that whatever torments of guilt I myself may suffer over Draco's death, your suffering will be greater." 

The urge to slam the sword through Lucius' throat throbbed at the back of Harry's temples. There was a dull roaring in his ears like the sound of the sea, but louder, more urgent. He wondered if it was the sound of his own rage. "Why is that?" 

"Because you allow yourself to hope," Lucius said. 

Harry shook his head slowly, the roaring behind his eyes, surging inside his head, growing louder and louder. Like a wall of black floodwater, thundering towards him. "And you don't," he said, "because you are too cowardly to risk it." 

Lucius gave a sharp little bark then, of anger and something else. "If you came here to cut my throat, then cut my throat," he said. "I've told you what you wanted to know. There is nothing else I would be willing to tell you. So get on with it." 

Slowly, Harry lowered the sword. It rose higher, that blackness in the back of his mind, the surge and roar. Something was happening. He struggled to speak. 

"No," he said, and briefly, the floodwaters receded and Harry saw Ron's head jerk up as the redheaded boy stared at him. A faint light of surprise flickered in Lucius' eyes. "No," Harry said again. If he could have seen himself, he would have been startled by the look in his own eyes - a cold look, Draco's bitter humor. And his tone was Draco's, too, when he spoke again, as dry as winter air: "As much as I despise you," he said, "that is as much as is my regard for your son, who is no longer anything like you. I have had my parents taken from me and it has been a wound inside me that has never healed. I would not cause that same pain to anyone that I love. So live," he said, and flung the sword at Lucius' feet, where it clattered, and Lucius, looking startled, took an involuntary step back. "Live, and know that you do it by my sufferance - and with my pity." 

Lucius' face changed - and for a moment Harry seemed to see through the polished villain he hated to the ragged and rotting shell underneath. A twisted snarl warped Lucius' mouth, he looked as if he were about to speak - 

And the flood waters rose again in Harry's mind, black and choking, and this time he knew what the sound was: it was Draco, calling out for him so loudly that the cry had become one uninterrupted and nearly unintelligible howl of despair. It was not Draco's voice calling him, but something more primal than that. 

Lucius was speaking, but he had vanished, ceased to matter. Blindly, Harry flung himself towards the door, fumbling for the knob - he heard Ron call his name, loudly and urgently; he turned and saw Ron behind him, holding his sword in one hand, and Draco's in the other. 

"Take this," Ron said, his voice like a whisper against the screaming in Harry's head. He was holding the sword of Gryffindor out to Harry. "I can't hold two swords, and I don't want him getting hold of the other one." 

Blindly, Harry grabbed the sword out of Ron's hand, leaving the other boy with Draco's blade. Something nagged at the back of Harry's mind, something strange about Ron's expression, something Harry wanted to ask him. But the panic in his head was too great; it crashed and roared around him like floodwaters. He had to get to Draco. Without another word to Ron, he spun on his heel and began to run. 

*** 

Hermione did not know how long they sat there, the minutes ticking by, as she held Draco in the circle of her arms as if doing so could keep him tethered to the world of the living. Time seemed to stretch out; she could have believed that he breathed once an hour. She stroked his hair lightly with her fingers, drawing it away from his face, as if he were a child. "I can't reach Harry," he said, finally, opening his eyes. His gaze wandered unseeing across her face. "I don't think I'm strong enough." 

"It's all right," she said. His hair felt fine as silk tassels threading through her fingers. "He won't hurt your father. He loves you too much for that." 

"He'll do what he has to do," Draco said, his tone distant. "I gave him my permission - I can't ask him to forgive my father, not after what he's done." 

"He'll make your father tell him what the missing ingredient in your antidote is - then we can cure you. That's what's important," Hermione said, with a wild stubbornness. 

Draco laughed, bringing silver-red bubbles to his lips. He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. "My Hermione," he said, "not everything can be solved with an infusion of new information." 

"Shush," she said, "You need to sleep - and when you wake up, we'll have a cure for you I could charm you - ." 

"- And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, and better than thy stroke," he said. "I'm quoting again - Ginny would be annoyed." He smiled faintly. "I kissed her earlier today, you know, because I thought I ought to kiss her before I died. Maybe that was thoughtless. Do you think she'll be angry?" 

"No," Hermione said, "no, I don't think she will be." She wound a curl of his hair around her finger, soft as trammeled silk, fine as flax, and he moved restlessly under her caress. His skin burned almost too hot to touch. "Close your eyes," she said. 

"If I do, I won't open them again," he said, "and I would like to wait for Harry, if I can." His tone was matter of fact. "You're a terrible liar, you know." 

She stilled her caresses. "I am?" 

"Yes," he said. "You just offered to charm me asleep with a broken wand." 

She reached to cover her gasp, but was too late. "I had forgotten it was broken -" 

"No, you hadn't." He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "I'm blind, aren't I? I ought to have known - even in the darkest night, you can see your own hand in front of your face." 

"With the antidote, it could be reversed - possibly -" Hermione whispered. 

"It doesn't matter," he said, and blind as he was, he caught her anxious, fluttering hand easily, and drew it towards him, and pressed a kiss to her palm. He folded her hand closed, trapping the kiss in the cage of her fingers. "I can see you anyway," he said, "in your white dress, standing on the steps, with your hair full of snow. I wonder if there are such beautiful things where I am going?" 

Something hot splashed onto the hand he held; Hermione realized distantly that she was crying. "There should be only beautiful things," she said. 

He laughed quietly. "I asked Harry once if he believed in Heaven," he said. "I must have known, even then. I think I knew since the arrow went into me. I didn't want to believe it was true, and then it was easier to believe than not to believe, and then Harry left and I hoped it was true. And now I am only tired, so tired - it hasn't been a wasted life, this life of mine, has it, Hermione? I've been in love and had my heart broken and broken other hearts, and I've been found and lost, and saved the world - that's not nothing, is it?" 

"You won some Quidditch games, too, if I recall," Hermione said, pressing the palm of her hand to her face, as if to transfer the kiss to her cheek. 

"But never the Cup," Draco said. 

"No," Hermione said gently. "Never the Cup." 

"That belonged to Harry," Draco said. "Though I've forgiven him for it." 

"And he you. I hope you believe that now." 

"I believe it," Draco said. "But it doesn't make me less afraid." 

"Of dying?" 

"I always thought I would die before he did," Draco said. His tone was soft, reflective. "It was what I wanted, and I was glad for it. But I also thought I knew where I would be going when I died. To the place where the restless shades are, those who walk the riverbank wailing and crying out for justice. But I will have justice. Harry will have given me that. And I will have rest, because he will have given me that also. So where will I wait for him? What if there are no shores to stand on, where I am going now? I would wait for a hundred years, if that were what was required, but what if he cannot find me?" 

"He can always find you," Hermione said. "You can always find each other." 

"Now, yes, but then? Or are you positing telepathy in the afterlife?" Draco said, a shaky undercurrent to the lightness of his tone. "Forever is a very long time to be alone, Hermione." 

Lightly, she touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. The heat scorched her skin. "We're all alone," she said.  

*** 

Magic, Ron thought as he watched Lucius stare at the door that had shut behind Harry, could do many things: it could transform a cat into a teapot, a blade of grass into a sword. But there were other forces at work in the world, stranger than magic and more powerful. The forces that held a family together, that broke and mended hearts, and that had transformed Lucius, in a matter of hours, into an old man. He looked stooped as he turned to Ron, the gray in his pale hair markedly apparent, lines grooved deep around his mouth and eyes. "And now they leave me with you," he said. "They might as well set a monkey to guard me." He squinted at Ron. "I have always wondered," he said, "if perhaps your ancestors intermarried with Muggles? There is something not quite right about the lot of you. Your muddy gazes and unfortunate hair - that whole business with your mother spawning two or three of you at a time -" 

Ron looked placidly at the sword in his hand. The blade was clean, the ornate words carved into the side lovely to look at. "If you're trying to get me angry," he said, "it won't work." 

Lucius didn't reply. He was staring at the blade and its design of roses. "This is my son's sword?" he asked. "It is unfamiliar to me."  

"Sirius gave it to him," Ron said. 

"But it was I who taught him to use it," Lucius said. "Years of training, from the time he was a boy." 

"And it shows," Ron said calmly. "He's very skilled with a blade." 

Lucius bared his teeth. "Are you mocking me, Diviner?" 

"Diviner." Ron slid a finger up the edge of the blade, felt his skin part against the sharpness, winced at the slight, satisfying pain. "Do you want me to tell you your future, Malfoy?" 

Lucius laughed. "If you wish to predict my death -" 

"Oh, no," Ron said. "Not your death. Not yours." 

"Draco -" Lucius began. 

"No," Ron said, "not his either, or at least, not his alone. He is not all that you care about, not all you lost when you allowed the Dark Lord to kill what made you human. There is your family. Your honor. The name of Malfoy. You cannot clear your conscience in a day, Lucius Malfoy, nor is there redemption to be found where there is no willingness to earn it. What the Dark Lord took from you may have been returned to you, but it came at the end of a lifetime of evils for which there will be retribution. Make no mistake; it will find you, Lucius. Black shadows are gathering around you. I can see them even now." 

Lucius did not move, only his red-rimmed eyes flickered over Ron's face. "That hardly sounds like a prophecy." 

"I'm not done," Ron said. "Listen. I will tell you the rest of it." 

He told him, and watched the changing colors in Lucius' face as he spoke. With words, he painted a picture of the remainder of Lucius' life, and it was a long life and full of horrors, and they were not only horrors that were visited on Lucius and all that he loved, but the horrors Lucius would visit on others in his twisted desperation. He spoke of blood and death, and the Malfoy named blackened irreparably, and the Mansion brought to earth in a pile of rubble, and the treasures of a thousand years scattered and destroyed. He spoke of vengeance, and he spoke of humiliation and he spoke of shame. And as he spoke he saw that Lucius believed every word that he said, and Ron knew that the serpent in the tower had been right and that he possessed other powers than the power to see the future. 

He stopped speaking only when he knew that he need speak no more, than he had done what he had set out to do. Lucius gazed at him like a man staring up out of a pit. He said, "Is there no escape from this?" 

"There is one way out," Ron said. "But it is not for cowards." 

"Anything," Lucius said. 

Ron held Terminus Est out to Lucius, blade gleaming in the faint light, and as if in a dream, Lucius took it. 

"My son's sword?" 

"Yes," Ron said, "And if you only do one good thing in the whole of your miserable, evil, misspent life, let this be it." 

He turned and walked out of the room without another glance at the old man who held his son's sword in trembling hands. Ron shut the door behind him, and leaned against the wall beside it, steeling himself. And yet no sound came from inside the room - no gasp or cry, not even the sound of the sword falling; but in a few moments' time, a thin trickle of blood ran out from under the door, and Ron knew that it was done. 

*** 

Harry was not coming. Hermione had realized this, and the despair was like chalk dust in her throat. 

He winced them, and his hand tightened painfully on hers. "I am not sure I agree with the poets about all that "Death, where is thy sting?" business," he said hoarsely. "It seems to me that it stings more than enough." 

"Are you in pain?" Hermione asked, leaning closer, feeling the rhythm of the pulse in his wrist beat and fade. This is the last time, she thought wildly, the last time I'll watch his lashes flutter down like that when he talks, and the quirk at the side of his lips, the wry curve of his mouth, that turn of his head, that laugh just under his voice. I must remember these things that I can tell them to Harry, if he does not come in time. Harry, she thought despairingly, Harry, please come, please come quickly! 

"Like being torn in half," Draco said. "Not a breach, but an expansion -" he broke off, and coughed more blood. "It tastes of poison," he said wonderingly, and looked up at Hermione almost as if he could see her. There was a light in his eyes, but it seemed reflected rather than as if it came from within. "One soul in two bodies," he said. "That's what she said." 

"I don't understand," Hermione said softly. He coughed again, and put his hand to his mouth; when he took it away, it was silvery-red with blood. She caught at his fingers, the blood slippery against her skin. "Just rest," she began, then turned her head - was that a sound? - yes, it was - the rhythmic tattoo of running footsteps. She heard their echo increasing, drawing closer and closer. "It's Harry," she whispered. "It must be," and she squeezed Draco's hand, hard, her heart contracting in anticipation. 

His fingers did not return the pressure. She looked down at him. His eyes were closed, the lashes lying still against his cheekbones, untroubled by expelled breath. She released her grip on his hand, and it slid silently out of her grip, falling to rest against his chest, fingertips to collarbone, as if he were asleep. 

"Oh," Hermione said. There was nothing inside her chest now but a great emptiness. "Oh, Draco." 

*** 

Harry was lost. The fortress was a maze of twisting corridors, like the guts of some giant snake. Each one looked the same, gray walls and gray floor. He ran, the sword of Gryffindor clutched in his hand, careening around corners, the pounding of his own heart as loud in his ears as the rhythmic strike of his boots against the floor, and as he ran the howling in his head grew louder and louder until it was painful. 

As he ran he tried to tell himself that his panic was sourceless, that there was no cause for it, that he had last seen Draco only a few moments before in the Ceremonial Chamber, shocked but upright, as well as could be expected. He told himself that even as the breath hissed in and out of his chest and he ran until his sight was flecked with black motes, and he turned the hundredth corner, and there was Hermione, sitting on the ground, her back against the wall and her long brown hair shawling down over her shaking shoulders and covering her face. 

Her wand was in one hand, and it blazed with light like a fallen star. Her other arm was curved around Draco, her hand on his chest, and the fierce glow of her wand lit them both as if they were players on a stage. Harry could see everything, very clearly, limned in pitiless illumination: Draco's head in Hermione's lap, the bright fringe of his lashes where his eyes had fallen shut, the silver hair stuck to his forehead in pewter strands, the thin hand open against his chest, the clawed scars stark against the skin. He's fallen asleep, Harry thought with a crazed lucidity, and as if she heard the thought, Hermione raised her head and saw him there, and her mouth began to tremble. He saw how her hair was stuck to her damp cheeks, and then she set her wand down and reached her hand out to him, and as she did so, she slowly shook her head, answering the question he had not, yet, asked aloud. 

Chapter 16_1