Chapter Nine: The Knight, Death and the Devil  

Here is your crown, 

Your seal and rings. 

Here is your love 

For anything. 

And here is the night, 

The night has begun. 

And here is your death 

In the heart of your son. 

And here you are hunted 

And here you are gone, 

And here is the love 

That it´s all built on. 

Here is your cross, 

Your nails and your hill 

And here is your love 

That lists where it will. 

-L.C. 

She would always remember the light in the room that day: gray hospital light. Her father had carried her from Dumbledore´s office, although she could walk perfectly well, her mother hurrying behind. Madam Pomfrey had readied a bed for her; Ginny winced as her father set her down on it, not from any physical pain but out of guilt over what the blood and dirt all over her would do to the scrupulously white sheets and pillows. "I´m so sorry," she said to Madam Pomfrey, but her parents only hushed her and drew the curtains closed around her bed, urging her to rest. 

But she could not rest. Her body would not allow it; it did not want to lie still. It was restless, as if it wanted to crawl away from her. Crawl back to Tom, perhaps. She did not know what he had taught her body to do during the long darknessness that she did not remember. When she stood, and went to the window, she found herself reaching to draw it up with her left hand. It took a moment of fumbling before she recollected herself: she was right-handed. 

The window opened noiselessly onto a clear spring day: the front of the school was bathed in sunlight. The light stung Ginny´s eyes, but she kept them open. When she closed them, she saw him again. She had seen his face only briefly; before today, he had been a dream trapped in diary pages, an insubstantial phantom conjured out of her own loneliness and need. She had reached out for him then, but he had slipped away from her like water. But there in the Chamber, it was different. As the life pulsed out of her with every beat of her heart, he seemed to evolve in strength and substance, until at last she could see him whole: the black, tangled hair, the white face, the slightness of him, the tensile strength in the slender hands. The young-old eyes whose color she could no longer recall, but they had been clear and unshadowed. Eyes that opened onto a mind like a cauldron of snakes. 

The sound of raised voices drifted up to her window, recollecting her to the present moment. Ginny looked down listlessly. A carriage had drawn up to the foot of the front steps: it was black, and the design upon the door was of a wand crossed with a sword. There was a word etched in gilt lettering underneath: she couldn´t read it. But it was not the carriage that caught her eye, nor the blond man who stood impatiently by it. She knew him. She knew the boy who stood at his side as well, hunched and miserable looking despite the warm weather. The sunlight was bright on his pale hair. She knew him, and she hated him, but it wasn´t him she looked at either: it was the book his father held in his narrow-fingered hand. Black, tattered, shabby.... 

The carriage door opened. The blond man tucked the book under his arm as he gestured for his son to get in. 

"No," Ginny whispered. "You can´t take it..." 

That book was hers. Somewhere in its poisoned pages were her words, the dreams she had poured into it, the wishes and the nightmares. Who else could be said to have a claim upon it? Tom, but Tom was gone now. Harry perhaps, who had bought its destruction and her own salvation with blood and venomous death. But Harry would not have wanted it, and who else had a right? Not Lucius Malfoy, whom she loathed, nor his equally loathsome son. She saw him jerk hard on his son´s arm as he pushed him into the carriage and climbed in after. The boy winced; Ginny was glad. 

"Home, Anton," the man said, his clipped tones clearly audible through the still air. "Now." 

The carriage pulled away from the stairs. As it did, the sunlight struck it, and the gilt letters along the side flashed out like fire: 

MALFOY. 

*** 

The top of the tower was smooth and slightly tilted, as if it had been sheared off at an angle by a pair of giant scissors. It was square, and surrounded by crenellated walls just high enough to lean against while sitting down. 

Draco climbed atop the crenellated wall and looked around thoughtfully. He was familiar enough with this tower from his childhood to know what he´d see: sheer walls falling away to the ground, gleaming dark silver in the twilight, the gardens below like dark smudges against snow, the distant road that led down to the lights of Malfoy Park. The sun was sinking far to the west, layering the sky with gradually deepening shades of scarlet: seashell, rose petals, blood. Under other circumstances he would have thought it was beautiful. 

"Are you sure you should stand up there?" asked Harry, who was hovering back by the bolted door in the tower wall. "You could fall." 

"I won´t fall," Draco said. 

Harry muttered something under his breath. Draco turned around and looked down at him. Harry had his arms folded across his chest and was gazing up, his face a white smudge between the dark collar of the cloak he wore and his darker hair. The cold air had whipped bright color into his cheeks. 

"I said I won´t fall," Draco said. 

"I know," Harry said. "Just come down anyway." 

Draco shrugged, and jumped down from the wall, landing lightly on the flagstones. The adamantine cuff around his wrist banged against his side as he leaped. Lucius had cuffed his left wrist and Harry´s right before locking the tower door: they had discovered that, almost as effectively as an adamantine cell, this prevented them from doing any magic. 

"I´m down now," Draco said, stating the obvious. "Feel better?" 

"I´d feel better if you came over here and helped me try to open this door," Harry said. 

Draco shook his head. "Don´t bother," he said. "You can´t force it." 

Harry stopped tugging at the door and turned to look at him. There was a rebellious set to his chin. "Enchanted, is it?" 

"Of course." 

"And I don´t suppose you know how to get the locking spell off?" 

"It´s not a locking spell exactly. The door is enchanted to open only from the inside. It can´t be opened from the outside. Not ever. And no, I don´t think it´s a reversible spell." 

"All spells are reversible," Harry said. 

"Well, you´re welcome to knock yourself silly trying. I, for one, am going to sit here and try to think of a plan." 

Draco sat down, his back against the stone parapet. A faint dizziness washed over him as he sat, and he closed his eyes, willing it to pass. Eyes shut, he sensed rather than saw Harry sit down beside him. He could feel Harry´s proximity, as if his friend´s physical presence stirred some psychic current between them. It helped somehow, and the dizziness vanished entirely. 

"Are you all right?" he heard Harry say. 

He opened his eyes. "Yes," he said. 

"You look peaky." 

Draco tilted his head to the side and looked at Harry. He seemed a bit tired, but overall his strung-up and exhausted look was gone. It had been replaced by an alert and burning energy. His eyes shone, his cheeks were flushed, and his hands danced across his lap with an eager rhythm. The adamantine cuff around his wrist gleamed as his hands moved. Quick, deft hands, they said: Find me a sword to wield, a banner to wave; find me a place to stand and I will defeat whatever evil comes. Follow my lead. 

"You´re enjoying this," Draco said. "Aren´t you?" 

Harry glanced up in surprise. "Of course not." 

Draco looked at Harry harder. Harry blinked his wide eyes, his face expressionless. "You really are enjoying this," Draco repeated. "Damn. Could you be any weirder?" 

Harry looked offended. "I´m enjoying what?" 

"This." Draco made a sweeping gesture with his arm that encompassed the tower and the surrounding sky. "You like it when we have some external threat to deal with. Dragons, manticores, various of my insane relatives..." 

"I am not enjoying this," Harry replied indignantly. "I´m very upset." 

"Oh, yes," Draco said. "You look it. Thrive on disaster, you do. I suppose it´s something having to do with being a hero and all that. Few weeks go by, nothing happens, you start wondering, 'What´s it all about, really? No universes to save or evil to defeat, what´s the point of living any more? If only I had a nice demon horde to cope with, how much happier I´d be.´ Well, you got your wish." 

"No!" Harry said, rather too sharply. "I don´t want to deal with a demon horde. I don´t like demons. Anything else would be better. Zombies. At least they look like monsters. Even if they do eat people." 

"Actually, they only eat people when instructed to do so by their zombie masters. A lot of people get that wrong." 

Harry rolled his eyes. 

Draco shrugged defensively. "Zombies are people too," he said. 

"Yeah," Harry said flatly. "Dead people." 

"You´re awfully picky for a Gryffindor." 

"I´m not picky," Harry said. "If I was, I´d hardly hang about with you, would I?" 

Draco blinked. "Um," he said. "I know we´re all about the pointed banter, but that was a little too pointy. What´s eating you, Potter? And don´t say 'zombies´ or I´ll push you off the parapet." 

"Nothing," Harry said sulkily. "Well, the obvious, in that once again, we´re at the mercy of a deranged maniac with a plan to take over the world, none of our friends can help us..." 

"On top of that," Draco said, "I don´t know about you, but that Whirlwind Charm really messed up my hair." 

"Fuck you, Malfoy, it isn´t funny." Harry looked away, down at the frozen cathedral of the forest, its masonry of ice white-silver in the twilight. "I was a lot happier with your dad when he was trying to kill me and not adopt me." 

"He´s not really trying to adopt you," Draco said. "As if he could. He´s just trying to distract Sirius and the rest from whatever it is he´s actually planning to do." 

Harry´s mouth tightened. "Why does he think that will work?" 

Draco shrugged, and the old pain in his shoulder twinged. "Because if there´s one thing my father is good at, it´s identifying people´s weaknesses. There isn´t much that would make Sirius as crazy as the suggestion that he wasn´t your adoptive father any more. It´s all about protecting you, and his debt to your parents, and who he is, really. You´re what he stayed alive in Azkaban for." Draco´s voice trailed off. "You know all this, Potter." 

"Maybe." Harry´s voice was soft. The twilight was beginning to fade now, and the darkness etched his face with shadows. "I just can´t think like that. Like your father does." 

"Yes, well, luckily you have me for that." 

"Yeah," Harry said. "Luckily, I have you." 

*** 

The moment Hermione landed her Nimbus 3000 in Malfoy Park, she knew something had gone terribly wrong. 

The town was utterly lightless. Every lamp and lantern was unlit, every torch extinguished, all the shop windows were darkened, and the doors were bolted shut. The streets were quite deserted, and a cold wind whistled between empty-looking buildings. 

Hermione propped her borrowed broomstick against the wall of the Cold Christmas Inn, and gazed around in perplexity. Could she somehow have gotten the date wrong? 

A quick check of the folded note in her pocket assured her that the date wasn´t wrong. There should be carriages here, she thought, gazing around with deepening unease, there should be decorations, servants waiting to give directions, the Cold Christmas Inn should be open and bursting with light... 

"Hermione!" An unexpected voice jolted her out of her reverie. "What are you doing here?" 

Hermione spun around and stared. Standing on the steps of the Cold Christmas Inn was a familiar figure with a mop of bright hair. "George!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Have you come from the party?" 

"Have I what?" George stared at her. "You mean you don´t know?" 

Hermione´s heart skipped a beat. "I don´t know what?" 

"Come here -" George caught her by the arm and steered her around to the side of the Inn. He dropped his voice and spoke in a near-whisper: "You weren´t at the party, were you?" 

She shook her head. "No. I´m late. I just arrived -" 

George laughed hollowly. "Lucky you." 

"George, you´re scaring me. What happened?" 

"What happened? Lucius Malfoy happened." 

Hermione felt her jaw sag. "But he´s...he´s dead." 

"Yeah," George said briefly. "Looks like he didn´t get that memo." 

"Are you sure it was Lucius?" 

George looked exasperated. "Maybe not. Maybe it was Draco´s other tall, blond, evil, cackling, Death Eater father." 

Hermione´s hand flew to her mouth. "Did he hurt anyone?" 

"No," George said slowly. "Not exactly. He put a Whirlwind Charm on the guests.... everyone was flung out of the manor, scattered for miles. We´ve just started regrouping." 

"And you landed here?" 

"No, I landed in the middle of a group of carolers on Hampstead Heath. Gave them a right scare. Then I Apparated back home, and everyone was there, except Ron and Ginny of course. Poor little sods, can´t Apparate. It´ll take them forever to get back. Anyway, Dad sent me here to look out for latecomers, warn them off..." 

"So everyone´s all right?" she asked. "Harry and Draco, too?" 

George reached out a hand to her. "Come on, Hermione...let´s head back to the Burrow. Charlie´s there, he can explain better than I can." 

Hermione remained motionless. "George, just tell me." 

"Neither of them are dead." George´s voice was flat. "Now just come with me, will you please?" 

He held out his hand again, and this time she took it. 

*** 

"Checkmate," the Dark Lord said. 

Ron kept his eyes fixed on the half-empty chessboard. The board itself was made of onyx and travertine, the sides ornately carved with scenes of court life and battle. The pieces were hewn out of whole jewels: clear rubies and dark emeralds. The knights had solid gold eyes. The board and its pieces were probably worth half the Burrow. Maybe more than half. 

The Dark Lord sat back in his chair. Ron heard the scratching of his nails against the piece he was holding, and shuddered. He had not looked up at his opponent once during the entire game, but the brief flashes he´d caught of the bone-white hands with their long black nails had been more than sufficient to throw him into a panic that felt akin to nausea. 

"You let me win," the Dark Lord said. 

Ron wouldn´t have thought that the fear could get worse; apparently, he´d been wrong. He´d been gripping the pin that held his cloak together tightly with his right hand; now his hand clenched around it so convulsively that it cut into the soft flesh of his palm. 

"I said," the Dark Lord repeated, "that you let me win. Didn´t you, boy?" 

Ron´s voice came out in a whisper. "I´m really just not all that good at chess," he said. Gathering together all his Gryffindor courage, his raised his chin and met the Dark Lord´s gaze. Red eyes like coals stared back at him from a flat, snakelike face. The Dark Lord had no eyelids. Ron felt ill. "I mean, I´m all right. But I´m nothing special." 

"Where chess is concerned, perhaps not," Voldemort said. "It may, perhaps, given your native skill and your lack of training, be impossible for you to beat me. What is important, however, is that you try." 

Ron couldn´t believe it. Was Voldemort giving him a pep talk? "I just don´t see...how I could be much of a challenge for you." 

Voldemort´s lipless mouth curled into a smile. "Oh, but you are," he said. "If not, perhaps, in the way that you might think." He waved a hand at the chessboard; instantly the pieces rearranged themselves and the board was again ready for play. "Well shall play again now. And this time, if I am not fully satisfied of the sincerity of your attempts to defeat me, I shall remove all of the skin from your right hand. Slowly." 

Ron swallowed hard. 

"Shall we begin again?" the Dark Lord asked. 

*** 

Going back in time had never hurt before, but this time it did. Ginny spun the Time Turner over; the world and Malfoy Manor rushed away from her. When it returned, in a burst of light and color, she fell forward onto her knees on the smooth flagstone floor and rested there several minutes, as waking-up pains raced through her nerves like little points of darting fire. 

When they subsided, she got to her feet and looked around. Some things changed only a very little with the passage of time; Malfoy Manor was one of them. The difference between the present day and five years in the past was negligible. The same high, beamed ceiling, the same leaded windows paned in blue and green diamonds. The same heavy dark green velvet curtains that hung along the walls. There was no fire in the grate now, because it was spring. The books...Ginny stepped forward and looked at the books; they were what was different. Most of these books had been removed from the Manor before she had ever been inside it. Heavy, rich-looking old books, many obviously of great value and very rare - Oh, how Hermione would have been overjoyed to get her hands on them! Wishful Ways for Wizards and Dreadful Deeds for Dragons jostled against each other on a low shelf next to The Unstrung Harp, by C.F. Earbrass. A higher shelf held The Book of Counted Sorrows, the Black Tome of Alsophocus, The Book of Eibon, the Necronomicon (the ownership of which was said to merit a year´s term in Azkaban - it held all the secrets of raising the dead) and a dozen others, all of which looked equally morally questionable. Other shelves held fiction and even plays: the six plays Shakespeare had written and never released in the Muggle world were there, even The Weird Sisters´ Bane, which remained unfinished. 

Ginny, while nowhere near the book lover that Hermione was, was appreciative nonetheless of the rarity of this collection. She let her hand trail over the spines of the books, the bracelet on her wrist clinking and chiming as the charms struck together. The window above the desk was open, letting in air that smelled of grass and the faint sound of wind tangling in leaves. Over the sound of the wind, the fainter sound of footsteps in the hallway was audible, and growing ever louder as they neared the library door... 

Ginny felt her heartbeat pick up. She glanced around, hurriedly - the Time-Turner provided a handy enough escape route, but it hardly made her invisible, and she did not want to be seen. She ducked behind the nearest velvet curtain just as the door to the library opened. 

The sense of claustrophobia pressing in on her was immediate and intense. The weave of the curtain was so thick as to be almost impenetrable: she tapped lightly against it with the wand she´d concealed up her sleeve, and murmured, "Fenestrus." 

A tiny hole the size of a Sickle opened in the curtain. Ginny peered through it, holding her breath. 

A house elf had entered the room, carrying a feather duster and muttering to itself. "Must have everything spotless for Master Lucius...the Master does hate dust... Noddy doesn´t want to get in trouble like Dobby, bad silly naughty Dobby, doesn´t want to have to shut his ears in the oven door --" 

The house-elf broke off with a squeak as the sound of wheels on gravel wafted through the open window. Ginny tensed, hearing carriage doors slamming and voices calling out. They´re home. 

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Ginny held her breath behind the curtain, waiting until she heard footsteps in the hallway, waiting as they grew louder, waiting as the door opened. She shut her eyes tightly. 

"Master!" the house-elf squeaked. 

Ginny´s eyes flew open, and she pressed her right eye to the hole in the curtain. Up close now, she could see how disheveled Lucius was - his shoes were half-polished, his hair tousled, his face white and masklike with fury. And in his left hand, he was clutching - 

A book. A small, shabby black book with a tattered cover. 

"Noddy, you stupid creature," Lucius snapped. "Did I not specifically state that I wanted a fire always lit in this room?" 

"Y-yes. Noddy is very sorry, Master -" 

"Don´t be sorry. Just do it. And then go to the kitchen and get me a glass of brandy. The decanter here is deplorably empty." Lucius´ expression was deeply sour. "And if you see either my wife or my son, do pass on the message that if either of them interrupts me in my study, they´ll be spending the night in the dungeons." 

"Yes, Master, Noddy will do so, Master, and it is very good to have Master home again -" 

"Oh shut up, you repellent little earwig," snarled Lucius in a paroxysm of rage, turned away and stalked across the room towards the far door that Ginny knew led to the smaller study. As he passed the fireplace, Lucius paused, then hurled the tattered little diary into the empty hearth. Ginny´s heart contracted. 

The study door slammed behind Lucius, and Ginny heard the sound of the bolt sliding home in the lock. The tension running through her muscles was becoming unbearable. Don´t do it, she thought at the house-elf, hurry off to the kitchens and forget all about it - 

But the elf did not hurry off. Instead, it raised a finger and pointed it at the hearth; instantly a lively fire leaped up in the grate, obscuring the diary from view. 

"Oh, no," she murmured under her breath. "Oh, no, no no -" 

She clapped a hand over her mouth, but fortunately the elf appeared not to have heard her. Gathering up its duster, it hurried from the room. 

As soon as the door shut behind it, Ginny threw the curtain aside and pointed her trembling wand at the fireplace: "Accio!" she whispered, and the burning book lifted out of the flames and flew across the room towards her like a miniature shooting star. She tried to catch it but it was too hot to touch; she dropped it and it fell at her feet. Seizing up a book from a small case nearby, she knelt and beat out the tiny flames. When they were all out, she gathered up the diary in a trembling hand. It was warm to the touch, as it had often been before, although she knew that now it was merely because of the fire. The cover was singed, as were the edges of several pages, but it was otherwise intact. 

"Oh, thank goodness," she whispered. She brushed a finger over the torn cover: now that the fire´s heat was fading, she could feel how dead it was under her fingers, no longer the live thing it had once been. She turned it over and read the words on the back: Vorpal´s Variety Store, 15 Vauxhall Road, London. 

"Excuse me," came a cold little voice from the doorway, "but who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" 

Ginny bolted to her feet, hastily concealing the small diary inside the larger book she was holding, and stared. A little boy with a mop of silver-fair hair and an arrogant expression stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Although she knew perfectly well who he was - he was instantly recognizable - it took a moment for her mind accept what she was looking at: 

Draco Malfoy, aged twelve. 

*** 

"I´m bored," Harry said, conversationally. 

"Mmm. Yes, I am too, rather. Isn´t it odd how quickly stark terror turns to stark boredom? And hard to say which is preferable." 

They sat atop the tower wall, side by side, two pairs of booted feet dangling over the edge. Harry looked sideways at Draco: his breath was puffing out in small white clouds. Lucius had Charmed both their cloaks before locking them out on the tower, and indeed the charms seemed to be protecting Harry from the chill weather - his hands were cold, but his gloves helped that, and the icy air nipped at his ears and cheekbones, but it wasn´t too bad. Draco looked colder than he was, or perhaps it was just that his skin was so fair: his cheeks were scarlet, the lids of his eyes pale blue with cold. 

"We could spit down on passersby," Draco suggested. "Although I don´t think there are very many passers-by at the moment." 

Harry nodded. "We could make shadow puppets." 

"We could use our cloaks to make very small trampolines." 

"We could talk about our feelings." 

"There´s a thought." Draco looked intrigued. "Want to tell me what´s really been bothering you for the past couple of weeks?" 

Harry thought about this. "No," he said. 

"Well, that was a productive discussion," said Draco, with a broad and expansive wave of his arm. "I´m glad we talked. Harry - if I may call you Harry -" 

"Well, what else would you call me?" said Harry, miffed at being wound up. 

Draco paused mid-snark. "Don´t I usually call you Potter?" 

"I guess," Harry said neutrally. "But isn´t that a little weird? I mean, you know, after everything, and..." 

Draco blinked. "Isn´t this one of those aspects of our relationship that we don´t address?" 

"I didn´t know we had an official policy on that." 

"The official policy is that we don´t have a policy." Draco looked upset. "You´re messing up the vibe, Potter." 

Harry subsided with a smirk. "Sorry." 

There was a moment of silence. Then Draco reached into the pocket of his robe and extracted a garishly decorated paperback book. Harry immediately recognized it as the novel which accompanied Ginny to breakfast, Quidditch practice, and homework. "Well," said Draco, a bit hesitantly, "I could read out loud." 

"Malfoy," said Harry curiously. "Why do you have a copy of Passionate Trousers in your robe pocket?" 

Draco cleared his throat. "It was meant to be a Christmas present for Ginny." 

"Doesn´t she already have a copy of Passionate Trousers?" 

"She probably has the whole set. It´s a trilogy. Passionate Trousers, Trousers Aflame, and Trousers Revisited. I filched this one out of her book bag before we left school." 

"You were going to give her back a book you stole from her? What were you going to get me? A shirt I already own?" 

Draco made a rude face. "It´s a private joke," he said. "And anyway, I was going to get her copy autographed. The author was meant to be at the reception today, but I guess he -" 

"He? You mean -" Harry squinted at the book cover. "Aurora Twilight is a man?" 

Draco chuckled. "You don´t know...?" 

"Know what?" 

The other boy looked hugely amused. "Well, I´m not going to tell you, then." 

"Making shadow puppets is starting to look better and better," Harry muttered. 

"Quit whinging, Potter." Draco propped the book open on his lap. "It´s a fine evening, and we have mediocre literature to enjoy." 

Harry sighed, then settled back against a crenellation as Draco began to read aloud: 

Passionate Trousers, Chapter Thirty-Five 

The chill air of the dank dungeon clung to Rhiannon's tormented limbs. Again she feebly struggled against the chains which restrained her manacled ankles. The moist orbs of her amply straining bosom heaved moistly beneath the tattered cloth of her –  

"Moistly?" echoed Harry. "Is moistly even a word?" 

"Shakespeare coined words all the time," Draco pointed out.  

"And you think that the author of Passionate Trousers is on a par with Shakespeare?" Harry inquired.  

Draco lowered the book. "Do you want me to keep reading or not?"  

"Oh go on then," said Harry, and settled himself back against the stone wall.  

A shaft of light pierced the dungeon gloom as the iron door creaked open and the sinister hooded wizard who had taken her prisoner appeared, cackling maniacally.  

Who are you?" Rhiannon gasped, thrashing wildly in her chains. "Who are you and what have you done with Tristan?"  

"Muhahaha," said the wizard, and threw back the heavy hood which had, until that moment, obscured the features of her captor from Rhiannon's view. 

Rhiannon gasped. "Lady Stacia!"  

"Indeed, it is I," announced the voluptuous witch. Her dusky bosom heaved above the laces of her red velvet corset, and black jackboots adorned her shapely feminine legs. "Welcome to Castle Plumeria, Rhiannon," she sneered, and cracked the riding whip she held in her bejeweled left hand towards her prisoner, who trembled in terror. "Undress yourself!" Lady Stacia ordered. 

Rhiannon gasped. She was becoming slightly dizzy, probably from all the gasping. "Surely you must be joking..." 

"Strip!" Lady Stacia cried, allowing the tip of her riding crop to graze the milky curves of Rhiannon's nearly naked torso. "Or I will do it for you...."  

"You know," Draco said conversationally, glancing up at Harry, "this book is a lot better than I remembered."  

Harry muttered something inaudible.  

"You are not a woman!" Rhiannon cried as Stacia sashayed towards her, intent upon performing myriad unnatural acts upon her body, which Rhiannon would later pretend she had not enjoyed at all. "You must be some kind of demon!" She then proceeded to....  

"You not enjoying this at all, are you," Draco said, and closed the book. "What's eating you, then? Don't tell me you and Weasley never stayed up nights in your lonely tower dormitory, reading Witches Without Britches under the covers with a torch."  

"How did you...well, of course we did. It's not that..."  

"Then what? What? You have that look, that look you always get when you're not telling me something because you're afraid that if you do tell me, I'll either be angry or tell you you're a git, so instead you just sit there sulking like a pregnant hamster and don't say anything at all."  

Harry made a weebling noise.  

Draco looked exasperated. "Budge, Harry. Nobody likes a non-budger."  

"I'm not worried you'll be angry," Harry said, eyes searching Draco's face - which was, as usual, expressionless. "I'm more worried you'll be shocked." 

"You do something shocking? You? What, did you have a dream where all the house-elves were wearing spandex, and when you woke up you felt strangely..."  

"I had sex," Harry said. "Last night."  

Passionate Trousers hit the floor of the tower with a bang. Draco looked at him with huge gray eyes of liquid amazement, "You did what ?" 

Harry repeated his alarming news. There was a long silence. Draco slowly lowered his head and rested his chin on his hand; his eyes were full of curious lights. "You´ve proved me wrong for a change, Potter. I am shocked." 

Harry said nothing. 

Draco continued to stare. "Are you sure, Potter - are you quite sure it wasn´t a dream? You were awfully drunk last night." 

"I´m sure. She was there when I woke up this morning, too." 

"Who was there?" Draco asked, looking as if he knew the answer to this question already. 

"Erm," said Harry. "Rhysenn." 

"Gah." Draco goggled at him. "And what on this earth, Harry, possessed you to think that this was somehow a good idea?" 

"I´ve no idea - I don´t even remember it properly." 

"You don´t remember? Then how do you know that -" 

"Because, she told me! She was there in the bed when I woke up this morning and she told me!" Harry winced, remembering the look of cold amusement in her eyes, the images her words had conjured up...Things happened to me last night that have never happened to me before... 

"And you believed her?" Draco´s mouth twitched into a smile. "In that case, I´ve got some flying carpet stock I´d like to sell you." 

Harry cleared his throat. He could feel himself blushing like a sunset. "We were both ... naked. Under the covers." 

"Oh, well, that clinches it." Draco rolled his eyes. "I´m not sure there´s any way of getting to the bottom of this without me asking you a whole bunch of questions I really don´t want to ask you. Let´s just take it as read that you had sex with her, if that´s what you want to think." 

Harry glared at him. "I can´t tell if you´re being sarcastic or not." 

"It´s me, Potter. I´m always sarcastic." 

Harry´s mouth crumpled. "Hermione will never forgive me," he said. 

"And that´s where you´re not wrong," Draco agreed brightly. 

"I don´t see why you think this is so funny..." 

"Not funny," Draco corrected. "Hilarious." 

Harry glared at him. 

"Come on, Potter. I mean, in the face of everything we have to deal with, this issue of whether you got sozzled and knocked boots with a sex demon seems a little frivolous." 

"She might have done something weird and unnatural to me," Harry pointed out stiffly. 

"I hope so," Draco said. "Not much else would justify this amount of carrying on." 

"And here I thought you´d be upset," said Harry. "Silly me." 

"I am upset," Draco said, not looking upset at all. "And I´d be more upset if I thought it was very likely that she´d told you the truth, which I don´t. For one thing, it stretches the bounds of credulity to suppose that you would have sex before I did. It was bad enough when Weasley did. But you - look at you, with that choirboy face. You can´t even say the word sex without hiccoughing." 

Harry looked at Draco resentfully. It was quite unfair that Draco, while no more experienced than he himself had been yesterday, should have be born looking as if he knew everything there was to know about sex and was already bored with most of it. "I can too say the word sex," he snapped childishly. "Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex." 

And he might have proceeded in this vein for quite some time, if a voice had not unexpectedly interrupted him. "Indeed," it said, and Harry spun around to see Lucius Malfoy standing by the open tower door. "I had always heard that adolescent boys talked about nothing but sex, but I had not expected quite so literal a demonstration." 

*** 

"Pansy?" Hermione demanded, her voice rising ever higher. "Pansy PARKINSON?" 

"Well," Charlie said. "Actually...yes." 

"Are you sure? Are you totally sure she was that - that Slytherin cow?" 

Fred and George simultaneously inched their chairs away from Hermione. Charlie, bravely, held his ground. "Judging by her reaction, yes. We´re sure." 

"That bitch!" Hermione shrieked, banging her fist down on the table. The vase trembled. "I can´t believe I had the chance to wring her twisted little neck yesterday and I didn´t even know! That hateful, horrible - oh, when I get my hands on her, I´ll throttle her until she turns blue! And then I´ll tear her into pieces and I´ll jump on the pieces until - until she´s had enough!" 

"You do that," said George. 

"Indeed," agreed Fred. "And if there´s going to be hair-pulling, bring a camera, too." 

"Oh, shut up, Fred," said Hermione irritably. "Just because you´re a pervert doesn´t mean all boys like to watch girls fighting." 

There was a short silence. 

"Anyone for tea?" Charlie inquired. 

"I don´t want tea," said Hermione grumpily. 

"I know," Charlie said amiably, "but we´re all out of bitter revenge, so it´s either tea or nothing." 

"I´m hungry," George opined in a hopeful tone. 

"Good." Charlie bounced up from the table. "I´ll make some food." 

"That´s Charlie," observed Fred cheerily. "When in doubt, cook." 

Hermione, refusing to be cheered, continued to stare moodily at the table. "I really wish you hadn´t told me about Pansy," she said through her teeth. 

"Took your mind off Harry and Malfoy for a second, didn´t it - ow!" George said, breaking off as Fred punched him, none too subtly, in the arm. "What? She was worrying!" 

"And now she´s worrying again!" Fred snapped, waving an arm towards Hermione as if she were a natural disaster for which George was ultimately responsible. 

George was spared answering by the opening of the kitchen door. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came in, heavily bundled up in winter cloaks, flakes of snow melting in their hair. 

"Any word from Ron and Ginny?" Mrs. Weasley asked immediately, shedding her heavy cloak and dropping her gloves on the table. 

"No, Mum, nothing," said Charlie quietly. "But..." He pointed the metal cooking spoon he was holding at the kitchen clock: both Ron and Ginny´s hands stood firmly on Travelling. "They´re obviously fine. I´m sure if either of them could Apparate, they´d have been back before Fred and George." 

"I know, I know...oh, Hermione, love, I almost didn´t see you!" Hermione felt a brief flash of guilt as Mrs. Weasley hugged and kissed her and Mr. Weasley proffered a fatherly handshake; she knew they´d rather she was Ginny or Ron, or even Harry - they both adored Harry as if he was their own son. She was sure they were ill with worry inside, although they both hid it well. "Are you all right, dear?" 

Hermione nodded. "I´m fine," she said, and settled back quietly as the two elder Weasleys joined their offspring at the kitchen table. Soon enough everyone was picking at Charlie´s signature macaroni and cheese, which he made with chunks of garlic bread cooked in. (Hermione had always found it rather odd, although not perhaps as peculiar as Mrs. Weasley´s famous black-cherry toffee-espresso brownies, a stray crumb of which Hermione held secretly responsible for the death of Errol two years before.) No one was saying much. 

The conversation was enlivened somewhat when there was another knock at the door: this time it was Lupin and Sirius, having spent the past hour installing a semi-hysterical Narcissa at the home of a family friend who had promised that his house was so well warded and so Unplottable that Lucius would never find it. They were both glad to see Hermione alive and well, although neither seemed interested in the macaroni. 

"How´s everything at the Guild, Remus?" Mr. Weasley asked as Mrs. Weasley Summoned chairs for the newcomers and they squeezed in at the table between George and Charlie. 

Lupin shrugged. "Panicked. Moody´s running around shredding files. He´s convinced all his classified documents are about to be seized by minions of Voldemort. He seems crushed that his and Dumbledore´s plan to stop Lucius didn´t come to anything." 

"Well, no one could have foreseen..." Mrs. Weasley said softly. 

Sirius sighed. "I know, I know, but considering how foolish I feel, I can only imagine how foolish the head of the Guild must feel about now. How are things at the Ministry, Arthur?" 

Mr. Weasley looked at his wife, then back at Sirius. "I wouldn´t know," he said gruffly. "Apparently I´m no longer Minister. In fact, I´m not even allowed in the building." 

"WHAT? Dad!" Charlie dropped his fork. "You didn´t tell us that!" 

Lupin spoke quietly, "Tell us what happened, Arthur." 

Mr. Weasley sighed. "Apparently some sort of irregularity with the votes that elected me was discovered by a few of the Council members. So I´m out of office pending investigation. And I´m not allowed in the Ministry building, because my presence might compromise that investigation. They showed me out. It was humiliating." 

Sirius glanced at Lupin. "I remember you telling me, Arthur, that you suspected some interference with the ballots during the election. I admit I thought you were being paranoid. I´m sorry." 

Mr. Weasley waved a dismissive hand. "Water under the bridge," he said. "The question is, what do we do now?" 

"I think Remus and I had better go by the Ministry while we still can," Sirius said. "Although I´m afraid that if I catch sight of Lucius Malfoy, I won´t be able to restrain myself from wringing his scrawny neck." 

"All that stuff he said about him being Harry´s guardian - that wasn´t true, was it?" George interrupted unexpectedly. "I mean, he´s a convict, he was declared insane, how could he possible be considered a fit guardian for anyone?" 

"Well, the Manor and Malfoy Park are something of a special case where legality is concerned," Lupin said. "That area is, in essence, like a small kingdom or medieval fiefdom, in that Lucius exerts a near-total control over everything that happens within its environs. It´s a very old, familiar kind of magic, like house-elf magic, that has to do with blood ties to land and specific, localized kinds of charms. But yes, of course, those kind of ancient laws are an anachronism, not recognized by the Ministry." 

"What Ministry?" Arthur said bitterly. 

"Well, exactly," Lupin said. "Lucius has never bothered to attempt to implement most of the old laws of the Manor, at least not since Voldemort´s time, as the Ministry would have certainly stopped him. Generations of Malfoys have pretended those laws didn´t exist, and so they´ve remained technically on the books. And those laws, of course, don´t recognize the outside jurisdiction of the Ministry, so it hardly matters whether the Council ever declared Lucius to be insane. They could have declared him legally a rodent, it wouldn´t matter." 

"I´m confused," said George. "Is he or isn´t he Harry´s guardian?" 

Lupin looked at Sirius, who shrugged. "In essence, it doesn´t matter," Sirius said. "That big speech and everything, that was just to shock and unsettle us. The pretense of legality buys him a tiny bit of time - maybe a day or two. That´s all he wanted, obviously. The more time we wasted running around worrying about it, the better off he´d be. It´s a distraction game. Typical Lucius." 

"So he hasn´t got a legal leg to stand on?" Charlie said, sounding relieved. 

"That would depend," Hermione said suddenly. "On how corrupted the Ministry is. When He-Who-Must-Not-Be-named was in power, he didn´t obey any laws. He didn´t have to. It´s quite possible the Ministry would back Lucius up on this, if they´ve all been corrupted." 

Mr. Weasley looked at her with concern. "Hermione, love, I doubt things are quite that bad." 

Hermione replied almost in a whisper, "I don´t know. I don´t trust anyone anymore." She glanced blindly at Mrs. Weasley. "Mrs. Weasley - would it be all right if I went upstairs and lay down for a bit? I feel a little dizzy." 

The older witch was all sympathy. "Of course, of course! You can use Ginny´s room." 

"Thanks." 

Hermione slipped away upstairs without glancing back; she knew perfectly well that everyone at the table was looking after her with concern. She was glad to get away. Ginny´s room was on the second floor, across from Fred and George´s. Hermione stopped on the second-floor landing for a moment, lost in thought. Then she continued up the stairs towards the attic where Ron slept, walking as quietly as she could. 

*** 

Draco rose to his feet, all his laughter gone. "Father," he said, sounding surprised and a little awkward. "I hadn´t thought you´d come..." 

"Didn´t you?" Lucius inquired lazily. He was dressed warmly against the chill of the night, in a heavy fur cloak, gloves, and even a fur hat. On someone else it would have looked ridiculous: Lucius managed to carry it off, but only just barely. "Did you think I was planning on leaving you up here forever?" 

"No," Draco said. "I figured you´d send minions." He had put his composure back on like a cloak, after a moment of what had seemed like unguarded surprise. His gray eyes were half-lidded, his mouth curled into a narrow smile. "Not that I´m not glad to see you, Father." 

Harry began to rise to his feet, but Draco stayed him with a silent whisper: Don´t. Stay where you are until I see what he wants. 

Harry slid back down the wall. The runic band at his waist touched his bare skin as his shirt slid up, caught on the stonewall, and he flinched - it burned with cold fire. Inside him, the lion on its chain growled softly. 

Lucius took a step forward. The tower door behind him remained propped open slightly - a maddening glimpse of freedom. As he came towards them he nudged at something on the ground - the discarded Passionate Trousers - with the toe of his boot. "Up here reading romance novels to each other?" he inquired brightly, bending to pick it up. "Odd behavior for boys, I´d say. Something you want to tell me, Draco?" 

"Yes," Draco said evenly. "In that hat, you look like a pimp." 

Lucius smiled thinly and straightened up. "Get up," he said, and it took the sudden tensing of Draco´s shoulders for Harry to realize that Lucius was, in fact, speaking to him. He got slowly to his feet, and as he did, Draco stood up as well, pushing Harry back as he did so - managing again, as he had done earlier, inside the Manor, to put himself between his father and Harry. Harry wished that he wouldn´t - he almost welcomed a chance for Lucius to strike at him. He was more than slightly curious about what would happen if Lucius tried. 

"Months ago," Lucius said, his eyes on his son again, "You told me I would have to kill you if I intended to harm Harry Potter - is that still true?" 

Draco said nothing. 

"Never mind," said Lucius with a graceful shrug of fur-covered shoulders. "I see that it is." 

This time, Draco spoke, his voice toneless, "What do you want, Father?" 

To Harry´s great surprise, Lucius´ answer to this question was clear and straightforward. It struck Harry as painfully as if Lucius had dropped a box of bricks on his chest. "That cup you took from the Stonehenge Museum," he said. "I want it. Give it to me or tell me where it is, and you walk free of this tower." 

There was a silence. Draco swung around and stared at Harry, and in the other boy´s anguished gaze, Harry saw one thing clearly - Draco had no more idea where the cup was than he did. 

*** 

Never had the oddity of time travel been brought home to Ginny with quite such force before. This was the Draco she had known at age eleven, the one she had hated and been afraid of. She had remembered him as tall and gangly, towering over her, huge and terrifying. And here he was, but - 

"You´re so tiny," she exclaimed, without thinking. "Look at you!" 

A brick-red flush spread over the boy´s face. "I am not tiny!" he snapped, drawing himself up to his full height - which would have been about elbow level on Ginny. "I´m a whole inch taller than Harry Potter!" 

He glared at her. She couldn´t believe it. She was torn between panicking and wanting to laugh. He really was tiny - a fragile little small-boned child, with rather too much fair hair and a thin face dominated by enormous gray eyes. The sort of little boy whose cheeks got pinched by old women in grocery stores. This was the monster who had humiliated her at age eleven? Ginny felt ashamed of herself. 

"And you didn´t answer my question," he snapped. "Who are you? Tell me immediately, or I´ll go to my father!" 

"I wouldn´t," she said immediately. "He´s in his study and he doesn´t want to be disturbed." 

Draco narrowed his eyes at her, but fear of his father kept him in place. "Well, what are you doing here, then?" 

"I´m the new, er, Arithmancy tutor," she said, realizing as she said it that this hardly explained her posh violet-colored dress and expensive jewelry. "For your summer studies." 

"Governess? I don´t need a governess. I´m going to Quidditch camp this summer. I just came home to pick up my kit, in fact." Draco´s lip curled into a sneer. Ginny looked at him with fascination. She remembered having thought he was a very ugly boy; he hadn´t been, but the ugliness of his expressions had made him seem that way. "I don´t believe you at all, and anyway my father would never hire someone with so many freckles to work in this house. You practically look like a Weasley." 

Ginny jumped. "I look like a what?" 

"A member of the poorest and most repulsive family on the face of the earth," announced Draco, with a superior smirk. 

"You are a horrible little boy," she snapped. "And when you go to camp this summer, I hope Seamus Finnegan puts dead spiders in your bed. In fact, I know he did. I mean, I know he will do. I mean..." 

Draco screwed up his face into a disbelieving frown. "I don´t like you," he said. 

"And some things never change," replied Ginny sourly. 

At that moment, the sound of the bolt being drawn back on the study door nearly startled her out of her wits; she clutched the books she was holding to her chest and gasped. Her eyes met Draco´s across the room. He looked as terrified as she felt, and for a brief moment she almost saw the Draco she knew in the face of his younger self. Then he turned and fled, banging the library door shut behind him. 

And not a moment too soon. Ginny reached for the Time-Turner around her neck and flipped it hastily; the world around her dissolved into grayness and from a great, great distance, she heard Lucius Malfoy´s voice fading as he called out, What was that noise? Who´s there? Draco, was that you? 

*** 

"I can´t believe you called your father a pimp," Harry said. He sat with his back to the parapet wall; Draco knelt next to him. It hurt a very little bit to talk, but the pain was receding. It was the one good thing about magically induced pain, he thought - it vanished almost instantly once the spell that caused it was lifted. 

The tense look behind Draco´s eyes eased slightly. "Well, he probably is one," he said. "I´ve always known he´s into some nasty stuff...dragon´s blood bars, unicorn smuggling, polyjuice brothels..." He broke off as Harry winced. "Are you sure you´re all right? Look up at me -" His mouth tensed as Harry lifted his face. "Your pupils are still all dilated." 

"Well, so´re yours," said Harry mulishly. "He just left it on me longer, is all." 

"I know. I guess he really couldn´t believe Hermione hadn´t told you where the cup was." 

"He must not read Teen Witch Weekly. If he did, he´d know she wasn´t speaking to me." 

"He probably let his subscription lapse while he was in the mental institution." Draco´s grin was a white flash in the darkness. "Can you stand up?" 

Harry tried and found that indeed, he could stand up. He still smarted slightly - he hadn´t realized that the Veritas curse would be so painful. It had felt as if two enormous steel grappling hooks had been sunk into his chest and were ripping it open, exposing all his innermost secrets. 'You know," Harry said slowly, turning to lean against the parapet, "that look on his face when he realized we really didn´t know..." 

"I know." Draco´s smile faded: shock and anxiety had wiped his face clean of its usual guardedness. He looked defenseless, tired, and years younger. "I´d think it was funny, but I suspect it means he´ll soon be back with something worse." 

"Is that the famous Malfoy optimism?" 

Draco did not reply. He was looking up at the sky as if he expected answers to appear there, written magically in the space between the stars. 

"What are you thinking?" Harry asked. 

"I was pondering the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, 'I drank what?´" 

Harry laughed. Draco rested his elbow on top of the wall, his chin in his hand. He seemed to be staring out at the winter landscape, black and white as a chessboard now that the last sunlight was gone. The bare branches of the distant trees flung thin shadows along the snow, narrow as knife cuts. In between the trees, the moonlight struck sparks of fire from dangling icicles and nets of frost. 

Harry felt an odd cold peace steal over him. Things were bad, it was true. They would probably only get worse. But he had faced worse in the past, they both had, and they had won out. At least this presented him with a target: something to fight against. 

"I told you you were enjoying this," Draco said, so quietly that Harry had to bend his head to hear him. He was black and white in the moonlight too, a statuary angel with sad blank eyes. 

"I´m not," Harry said, with partial truthfulness. "Well...maybe just a bit. It´s just that-" 

He broke off as the tower door opened again. Harry turned slowly, his feeling of dread returning. 

It was, of course, Lucius, once more alone. His heavy cloak was tightly fastened against the cold, and a brilliantly wicked look of inner glee illuminated his narrow features. "Hello, boys," he said. "Did you miss me?" 

"Of course," Draco said flatly. "This tower just feels empty without a gibbering maniac on it." He turned slowly to face his father, keeping his back braced against the wall. He looked very tired. "What have you come for now? Just more taunting?" 

Lucius shook his head, and his look of inner glee intensified. "I have not come with curses or taunting," he said. "Only news." 

/What´s his game this time?/ Harry demanded silently of Draco. 

Draco shrugged. /I don´t know./ 

"You might, however," Lucius added, "want to sit down." 

"This is ridiculous," Harry burst out angrily. "You can´t hurt us, not in any lasting way. The Ministry is watching - and even if you´ve got them in your pocket, which I don´t believe, there´s still Dumbledore and the rest, they´d never let you live if you hurt either one of us -" 

"I have no intention of hurting either one of you." 

"Then what´s the point of coming up here and making empty threats?" Harry snapped, but Lucius wasn´t looking at him. Instead, he was staring at his son and there was a look in his eyes that Harry found most unsettling - a dedicated predatory sort of appetite that made Harry want more than anything to distract Lucius´ gaze onto himself. "You´re just trying to frighten us, and it won´t work. You just have a little bit of time until they come for us, and you can´t hurt us, you can´t kill us, and you know it. And you can´t touch me --" Harry´s voice came out on a hissing whisper. "I´d like to see you try it." 

Lucius raised one silvery eyebrow, as if he found Harry´s outburst tactless. "You I would not bother to kill," he said, still looking at Draco, and his gaze narrowed and narrowed until it seemed as sharp as a needle with which he jabbed at his son. Draco continued to stand very still against the parapet wall, his face in shadow. "You I would not bother to kill, Harry Potter, and Draco is dying already."

When Harry had been eight years old, he had been following Dudley to school one day - several paces behind him, as his cousin always insisted. They were late, as they often were, due to Dudley´s habit of eating breakfast twice, and they´d been forced to sneak around the back of the school after the front gates had been closed. Ducking under some low-hanging tree branches, Dudley had held one back for him, and Harry, forgetting momentarily the instincts drilled into him by a lifetime of his cousin´s abuse, had followed after. Dudley, of course, had immediately released the branch, which had whipped backward and slashed Harry across the face. Even Dudley had been surprised by the amount of blood it had produced, but more than the humiliation or the bleeding, what Harry always remembered was the sudden, vicious shock of it: the blinding pain out of nowhere. 

He felt the same shock now, as if Lucius had walked up and hit him in the face. The words Lucius had spoken seemed in fact to make no real kind of sense, as if he had spoken them in another language. 

"What?" Harry said. He heard his own voice, clear and stiff, as if it were a stranger´s. "What did you say?" 

"I should think I was quite clear," said Lucius, who seemed almost manic with the pleasure of his own malice. "Draco is dying." 

Harry looked quickly to Draco, but the other boy was as unmoving as he had been before Lucius had spoken, a still black silhouette against the silvery parapet wall. His chest rose and fell rapidly but other than that he was motionless. 

"Dying of what?" Harry demanded in a half-whisper; he wanted to speak more loudly, but he could not quite seem to get enough air. 

"Poison," Lucius said, as if this should be obvious. "What else?" 

Tell him, Harry thought, hard, in Draco´s direction. Tell him it isn´t true. 

Draco did not reply, but he moved at last, very slightly; he raised his chin and looked at his father. The gesture lifted his face out of shadow. "It was the arrow," he said to Lucius. His voice was calm and factual. "It was the arrow, wasn´t it? There was some kind of poison on the shaft." 

"Aren´t you clever," Lucius said dryly; he continued to speak after that but Harry didn´t hear him. The sounds he made were drowned out by the roaring of the blood in Harry´s ears; it sounded like thunder. As if to make up for this deafness, his vision leapt into a sudden painful clarity and he could see everything within his field of vision both perfectly and simultaneously. The shape of each irregular flagstone, the line of snowflakes melting along the parapet wall, the knifelike shadow Lucius cast on the ground. 

He knew Lucius was not lying. Knew it from Lucius´ dry gleefulness, from the dull knowledge in Draco´s eyes, and even more than that he knew it from his own memories: Draco losing a Quidditch game he should not have lost, Draco stumbling over a practice fencing match, all his grace gone. Draco lounging against walls, leaning on bedposts while he talked, sprawling on the floor in front of fireplaces: Harry had put all this recent laziness down to half-insolent posturing, but it wasn´t that, was it. It was that otherwise he would not have been able to stand up. 

"How long," Draco was saying, when Harry´s hearing returned, "How long have I got, then?" 

"A month," Lucius said. "Two weeks, maybe, before you can´t walk anymore." 

A faint hard shudder passed over Draco: Harry saw his hands tighten at his sides and felt the shiver down in his own bones. Whatever had been blocking his throat dislodged itself and he spoke, "You poisoned him?" he whispered. "You -" 

"I never said I was the one who poisoned him," Lucius said. "I am merely presenting the facts, and they are these: he has been poisoned. The poison is a rare and subtle one. It is nearly untraceable in the blood. It will not be a painful death. But neither will it be a particularly quick one." 

"If he dies of this," Harry said in a flat icy tone, "I´ll kill you myself." 

"Be quiet, you spluttering child," snapped Lucius. "You will do no such thing. I will be Memory Charming you both shortly. You will not recollect anything I have told you. When Draco dies, it will be assumed to be a natural illness." 

"Then why?" Draco asked. He was still leaning against the wall. The moonlight silvered his eyes and made them opaque. "Why tell us at all? It isn´t like you to be sadistic with no larger purpose. If there´s really no cure..." 

"I did not say," Lucius remarked, "that there was no cure." 

The air whistled in Harry´s lungs as he sucked in a breath. "There´s a cure? Then what -" 

"Harry," Draco said in the same toneless voice. "Stop." 

Harry subsided reluctantly. A cool smile ghosted across Lucius´ narrow face as he looked from Draco´s white face to Harry´s, and back again. Slowly, he flexed his fingers inside his gloves. He appeared to be doing complicated mental arithmetic - arithmetic that amused him greatly. "I think," he said, "that I´d like to talk to Harry, now. Alone." 

"I´ll just step off this tower then, shall I?" Draco said with flat bitterness. "Won´t matter much if I splatter myself all over the moat anyway. Just hastening the process." 

"Your theatrics do not impress me," Lucius said. "I know you better than that. Malfoys do not tolerate suicides." 

"No, but they seem to roll the red carpet out for murderers," said Harry in a savage sort of voice he barely recognized as his own. "Don´t they?" 

"I do what I must," said Lucius, unfazed, and gestured Harry towards the tower door. "Now, if you will come with me..." 

"I most certainly won´t," Harry snarled. 

Lucius rolled his eyes. "If you´d rather I called upon my colleagues to drag you, be my guest," he said. "I can´t promise they´ll be too terribly gentle. You are not popular among my acquaintances, Harry Potter." 

Harry opened his mouth to protest again, but Draco cut him off before he could speak. "Harry, he said. "Go." 

Harry felt his mouth sag open. "But, I -" 

Go! Draco said inside his head, so loudly that Harry nearly winced. He tried to reply in kind, but Draco had shut his mind down so completely that it was as if Harry were shouting into an empty and echoing cavern - there was no response at all. 

"Really," Draco said out loud. "I´d rather you went." 

Lucius´ smile was positively incandescent. He swept an arm towards the tower doorway: "After you, Mister Potter." 

And Harry went, his feet dragging, feeling as if some part of himself - the sane, logical part, which expected the world and everything in it to make some sort of sense - had been severed from him and might never be recovered. 

At the door of the tower he turned and look past Lucius, back at Draco. Draco had finally moved away from the wall and was standing in the middle of the tower, in full moonlight, as bright as day. He seemed etched in light, as if all the angles and planes of him had been outlined in silver ink - cheekbones and chin, the lines of his narrow hands, the thin line of his mouth. Only his eyes, meeting Harry´s across the space that separated them, looked black. 

Later, when Harry, alone, tried to picture his friend, it was this image of Draco that would always come to his mind, even though he tried to replace it with happier ones: the cold white figure, straight and slender, outlined in moonlight against a frozen emptiness of stars. 

*** 

The Ministry was, as Arthur had reported, in a shambles. Low-level officials scuttled here and there looking terrified, and the once-gracious looking marble entry hall was filled with frantic wizards and witches rushing about, registering complaints, reuniting with relatives scattered by Lucius´ Whirlwind Charm, and exchanging hurried anecdotes. "Oh, I was dropped right down into the middle of some lot of mad Muggles having some sort of game, very boring, no flying at all. Where did you end up?" 

Lupin looked wryly at Sirius. "The Memory Charm Squad must be out in full force today," he observed. 

Sirius nodded. "Typical Lucius, wanting to cause as much disorganization as possible...look, there´s young Percy Weasley over there." 

Any hope they might have had that Percy would provide some assistance was dashed when they got within speaking distance of him, however. Looking harried to the point of torment, his red hair sticking out in all directions and his normally immaculate robes crumpled, Percy greeted them with a distracted air of panic. "Terrible things are going on," he hissed in a half-whisper, having consented to be dragged into a stairwell for a brief chat. "My office has been transfigured into a broom closet!" 

"That is dreadful," Sirius agreed. Lupin fought the urge to kick him in the shin. "You must be distraught." 

"I am distraught! It was a corner office! It had a view of the Thames!" Percy tugged at his hair with a woeful air. "Now it´s full of mops and Parkinson´s Perfect Parquet Polish!" 

"Can´t you register a complaint...?" 

"Apparently it involves filling out several forms in triplicate, then sending them to the Department for the Investigation of Random Acts of Magic, which I happen to know was closed down last year for lack of funds. Goddamn Malfoy," Percy seethed. "I´ll get him for this." 

"You think Lucius Malfoy had something to do with this?" 

"Him and his cronies. I´m telling you, the only Ministry officials who haven´t had their offices transfigured into something nasty are the ones who´ve always been a little bit shady, if you get my meaning." Percy gave Sirius a wide-eyed look. "You do get my meaning, don´t you?" 

"Percy, I always get your meaning," Sirius said. "You haven´t a subtle bone in your body. None of you Weasleys do, except perhaps Bill. It´s why you make such bad liars and, I´m rather beginning to think, why your father wound up in the position of Minister when he did." 

Lupin spoke quietly. "Any word on who might be replacing him?" 

Percy glanced quickly up and down the deserted marble hallway before replying. "The general procedure is that the head of the Advisory Council acts as temporary replacement if the Minister is no longer able to perform his duties. The position of head of the Council rotates monthly. Right now," Percy finished grimly, "it´s Francis Parkinson." 

"What a surprise." Sirius´ tone was flat. "Francis Parkinson: runs a successful company that sells cosmetics and household charms. Keen on broomstick racing, pretending he wasn´t a Death Eater twenty years ago, and yapping on about how the Muggles are ruining this fine country. I used to know him when I was an Auror." 

"Apparently." Lupin was impressed. "So, in other words, he´s a minion. How much of the Ministry would you say is now entirely under their control?" 

"Let me put it this way," Percy said in a chilling tone. "Do whatever you have to do here and get out. Then, don´t come back. This location is now hopelessly compromised. It won´t be safe much longer..." Percy paused and for a moment the officious tone left his voice. "You´ve come from the Burrow, haven´t you? Any word on Ginny and Ron?" 

Sirius shook his dark head. "I´m sorry, they´re not home yet. Still, both are hale and hearty, according to your mum´s clock." 

Percy sighed. "I´m sure they´re fine. Still, if you wouldn´t mind adding their names to the Missing Persons list in the main hall for me? In case they turn up without their memories or something." He drew his cloak more tightly about him, a woebegone expression creeping across his freckled face. "I´d better go," he said, and ducked out of the stairwell. 

"I think young Percy has been reading too many comic books," Sirius remarked as the third Weasley child disappeared down the hall. "´This location is now hopeless compromised´ indeed. Why didn´t he just say it straight out: 'This building is full of miserable Death Eaters in training whose fondest dream would be to make festive if unconventional balloon animals out of your internal organs.´" 

"Not everyone possesses your fabulous descriptive powers, Padfoot." 

"Too true." They ducked out of the stairwell and made their way back to the Main Hall, still a hive of feverish action. Lupin watched Sirius a little uneasily as they made their way across the parquet floor. Sirius had that air about him of being ready to do something unexpected. That was never good. 

They paused in front of a long roll of parchment tacked to the wall near two of the larger doors. Knots of wizards and witches stood about, muttering in low voices: nearby a pretty redheaded teenage girl was hugging an older witch and wizard - obviously her parents - and crying. 

The parchment had a number of names on it, most of which had been checked off and a location noted where the Whirlwind Charm had dropped the subject: Jessica Noll: Kensington High Street; Serena Verdant: blasted heath, Yorkshire; Darcy Claiborne: haystack, Suffolk. Sirius picked up the quill that was floating nearby and began to scratch Ron´s name onto the bottom. 

"I wouldn´t bother, if I were you," said a sour voice from behind them. "He´s not considered missing. He´s considered to have run off." 

Lupin knew who it was even before he turned around. Snape. He stood behind them in his customary black, his greasy hair half-hiding his narrowed eyes, looking like a bat who had just swooped down from the high ceiling overhead. His long fingers were stained, as if he had come straight from his Potions laboratory. 

"Snape," Sirius said. "What are you doing here?" 

"Dumbledore sent me to find you," Snape said. "He had an urgent message he wanted me to deliver." 

"All right," Sirius said, and folded his arms across his chest. "What is it?" 

"Don´t you think it would be better if we spoke outside?" Snape demanded in a hissing whisper. 

"No," Sirius said. "I think it would be better if we spoke right here." 

"Sirius..." Lupin began with a groan. 

"What are you afraid of anyway, Snape?" Sirius snapped. "The idiot Death Eater minions in this building? They can´t do anything to us. They don´t want to show their hands too soon, so they´ll leave us be - after all, we´re not Muggles, and we´re not breaking any rules." 

"Oh, no?" Snape´s eyes glittered. "I´m fairly sure there´s a rule about no dogs on Ministry property." 

Sirius affected an injured look. "And I invited you to my stag night, too." 

"Although he did skip the reception," Lupin pointed out. 

"Yes," Snape admitted. "But I had a good reason." 

"Oh?" Sirius looked curious. "What was it?" 

"I didn´t want to go." 

"Then why did you bother going to the stag night?" Sirius threw up his hands. 

"I like the Cold Christmas Inn." Snape´s voice was ruminative. "I enjoy their dartboard." 

"You weird, antisocial, gerbil of a man," said Sirius. "I don´t know why I bothered inviting you in the first place." 

"I assumed Narcissa asked you to," Snape said. "She always liked me." 

"Yes, well, nobody´s perfect," Sirius muttered. 

"I told her many times she was too good for you," Snape announced. "It would have made far more sense if you´d married him." He pointed at Lupin. "Nobody else can stand either one of you, and you could take each other for walks." 

"I´m not sure any amount of urgent messages from Dumbledore are worth this," Lupin said, interrupting the glaring contest developing between Snape and Sirius. "Severus, if you´ve got something to say..." 

Snape´s eyes darted around the room. Then, with a sigh, he reached into his pocket and drew out a glass vial; he uncorked it and poured the potion inside onto the floor. A bright cloud of scarlet smoke flew up and enveloped the three of them inside a cloudy crimson bubble. Lupin could hear his own breathing and Sirius´ in his ear; but other than that there was total silence. No noise from outside the bubble penetrated at all. 

"Now we´ve broken a rule," said Snape, with some satisfaction. 

"Always riding the ragged edge of rebellion, aren´t you, Snape," said Sirius. His eyes were bright and amused. "I take it nobody can hear us when we´re in here?" 

"Exactly, but it´s temporary, so listen closely." Snape spoke rapidly. "Professor Dumbledore has asked me to request that you once again assemble the old group. Headquarters will be the Burrow; it´s already been re-warded. The great likelihood is that if the current Ministry is if not entirely under the control of Voldemort´s supporters, it soon will be. It may be necessary to create an ancillary Ministry, and a secondary Council, recognized by the foreign Ministries -" 

"That hasn´t been done for hundreds of years," Sirius protested in an awed tone. 

"Your grasp of history is as always, astounding. I recognize that this is an extreme procedure but these are extreme times. You are to be in charge of assembling our allies. Work quickly. We have very little time." 

Barely had Snape finished speaking when the scarlet cloud disappeared, leaving Lupin feeling oddly exposed. He looked around, expecting that everyone would be staring at them, but nobody was. 

"The cloud is invisible to all except those inside it," Snape said, seeing his confused expression. "Handy, isn´t it? An invention of my own." 

"Yes." Lupin was sincerely impressed. "Very nice." 

"I call it the Cloud of Silence Potion," Snape added, warming to his topic. 

"I would have called it Bernard," said Sirius. "But that´s just me." 

"You think you´re very funny, don´t you, Black," the Potions Master snapped. 

"I am, as always, a slave to majority opinion," Sirius replied. 

"I must get back to the school." Snape had apparently decided that ignoring Sirius was the best approach. "Dumbledore will owl you both later." He began to walk away, but paused after only a few steps, and turned. "Have you any message for him?" he asked, slightly reluctantly. 

Sirius paused for a moment. Lupin knew that his dislike of Snape was battling it out with his desire for help from the man he admired most in the world. Finally, he said, "Tell him that his Head Girl is safely with us, in case he was worried. Ask him, if he hears anything from Lucius about our boys...anything at all...to please tell me immediately. Even," he added, more quietly, "even if it isn´t good news." 

Snape looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded briskly, and walked off. 

Sirius took a deep breath. "I need some air, Moony," he said, and his voice was suddenly tight. Without a moment´s hesitation Lupin took his friend by the arm and steered him past a knot of wizards and witches, almost knocking over the teenage girl and her parents in his haste to get out the double doors. 

Once outside, Lupin released Sirius, who leaned heavily against one of the impressive marble pillars adorning the front of the Ministry façade. He looked down, his hands balled into fists at his sides. There were scars along his knuckles: scars he had gotten in Azkaban, Lupin knew, for they had not been there before. He had never asked Sirius how he had acquired them. Aside from the scars, he had neat, careful, artistic hands, the nails freshly manicured for the wedding that had never taken place. 

"I´m so worried, Moony," Sirius said, looking away from Lupin, towards the empty Ministry gardens, their bare grounds covered with a light powdering of snow. "I´m so worried about both of them I can hardly breathe. The last thing I did was yell at them..." 

"They´re fine." Lupin pushed his own worry down and spoke convincingly. "Look at your Vivicus charm." 

Sirius glanced down at the silver band around his wrist. The red stone in it pulsed brightly as long as Harry was healthy and well. It was bright now. "I know," he said. "If it wasn´t for that, I´d have gone mad ages ago. I know Harry´s all right, and if he´s all right then Draco is too. Lucius would have to walk over Harry´s dead body if he wanted to hurt Draco. I know that. I know it, but I don´t feel it." 

"You´d feel it if there was something wrong," Lupin assured him. He took a step forward and put his hand on his friend´s shoulder; it was tense as an iron bar. "Breathe, Sirius. You´ll feel better once we´re doing something." 

Sirius nodded, and put his hand up to cover Lupin´s with his own. For a moment they stood there motionless; Sirius looking at his feet, Lupin looking out over the grounds. He´d spent his childhood comforting Sirius like this: Sirius, who had never had anyone else. James was too happy a person to really understand unhappiness in others, and Peter was not the consoling type. When Snape and his Slytherin cronies had dusted one of Lupin´s sandwiches with silver powder at supper, and Lupin had spent all night throwing up messes of silver and blood in the infirmary, Sirius had been the one who cried, and Lupin had consoled him then, as well. He remembered how startled and impressed he´d been by this odd prickly boy who always hurt more for other people than he did for himself. 

His was startled out of his reverie by the sound of footsteps on snow: he turned and glanced behind him. The redheaded girl was following her parents down the steps towards a waiting carriage, and had glanced back over her shoulder to look at him. He recognized her then, belatedly; he had not had her in a class since she was thirteen, but he had seen her often enough among the Slytherin students: Blaise Zabini, Draco´s girlfriend. 

*** 

It had begun to snow, lightly, like flour sifting from the sky. Draco, standing alone on the tower, spread his arms wide and leaned his head back and let the flakes fall into his open eyes and mouth. The moonlight stung his eyes like concentrated white fire: it held him where he stood as surely as a silver spike driven down through his body and into the stones at his feet. 

It is no easy thing to be seventeen years old and dying: to be so young and to be in love and to be told that abruptly, all this will be ending. Draco had never been a particularly spiritual person: he had always been too attached to the material plane and what it could give him. If he could not touch a thing, it did not exist; if he could not see it, it did not matter. But then there was Harry, who believed in what could not be seen: in people who were better than they seemed to be, in the invisible world of good and evil and hope and redemption. 

All your life, you lived in a windowless room. And now you can look up and see the stars. So Dumbledore had said to him, months ago, and Draco heard it again in his head as he looked up at the black winter sky fretted with icy fires. It was the sort of night that might have made him believe in angels; it was the sort of night that might have made him think that he could be one, himself. 

*** 

Something was scratched into the mantel above the fireplace in Lucius´ study; Harry squinted, but could not read the words. 

It was warm in the room, despite the fact that the fire had died down in the grate. It was also very silent; the Death Eaters had led Harry into the room and departed noiselessly as cats. Harry wondered absently if they wore roller skates under their robes or if Voldemort had simply trained them rigorously to glide instead of walking. They moved like Dementors, which was probably on purpose. 

Harry moved away from the fire. He would have appreciated the warmth under other circumstances, but it felt wrong, somehow, when there was no fire up on the tower. He felt Draco´s cold down in his own bones, and shivered. 

Are you all right? he asked, sending out a tendril of thought. 

The reply came immediately. Draco´s inner voice sounded light, unconcerned, and quite flat. He might have been commenting on the weather at a garden party: I´m fine. Is my father there yet? 

No, Harry said. I´m alone in the study. What should I do? 

You could steal stuff, Draco suggested. There´s some valuable antiques in there. Check out the grandfather clock. 

Harry hesitated a moment before replying. I have a feeling your dad would notice if I tried to walk out of here with a grandfather clock shoved down my trousers. 

Draco´s mental laughter sounded like the faint rustle of leaves. Harry was amazed he could laugh at all. That´s such a setup for so many jokes at your expense, I don´t even know which one to pick. 

Well, don´t strain yourself. So, what else is in here? 

Nothing important. Look at the desk - he always empties his things out on the desk when he comes home. Anything there that looks -- like anything? 

Harry edged over to the desk and looked it over. If he´d hoped to find some kind of evidence of Lucius´ recent evildoing, like a bloodied knife or a handy-dandy parchment with "Muggles To Be Killed" written across the top, he was disappointed. There´s not much here. Some blank papers, a pipe, some coins and things. It looks as if he was travelling fairly light. 

Hmm. Draco sounded thoughtful. What kind of coins? 

Harry blinked at the gold on the desk. They looked like ordinary Galleons to him, but then what did he know? He picked one up, feeling its cool heaviness against his fingers, then closed his hand around it spasmodically as the door to the study opened, and several more robed and hooded figured entered. Harry spun around, dropping the coin into the sleeve of his cloak. 

The tallest of the Death Eaters drew his hood back; it was Lucius. "Harry," he said. "How kind of you to agree to talk with me." 

Harry said nothing. 

With a wave of his hand, Lucius dismissed his entourage. They left quietly, and Lucius and Harry were alone. Lucius drew off the cloak he had been wearing and held it up; the mahogany coat rack in the corner bent itself sideways and plucked the cloak out of Lucius´ hand. Underneath it, he wore an expensive gray suit and a dark tie. He looked, to Harry, like a Muggle businessman. He squashed the urge to ask Lucius if the suit was Armani. 

Harry felt quite cold now, despite the fire. He watched as Lucius sauntered across the room and sat himself neatly in the chair behind the desk. He did not offer a seat to Harry, and Harry made no move to take one. They stared at each other for a long moment in silence, the tall blond man and the slight boy with his torn cloak and cuffed right hand. 

"Would you," said Lucius finally, "like a drink?" 

He raised his hand again, and the decanter on the sideboard rose into the air and came to hover by his side. Harry shook his head. Lucius, seeming indifferent, allowed the decanter to pour him a glass of port, then took a long and thoughtful sip. 

Harry, near screaming point with impatience, dug his nails into his palms and spoke evenly. "If he´s really ill," he said, "you shouldn´t leave him up there like that. It´s too cold. He might die too soon, and then where would you be?" 

"Doubtless you´re right," Lucius replied, with an affected sigh. "Very shortsighted of me. One of my many faults." 

Harry again said nothing. One of the useful things he had learned from Draco was how effective silence could be when utilized as a weapon. If he waited, Lucius would get impatient and speak. 

He did. "It is very interesting," Lucius said, "how much you have changed, Harry Potter. How much of you has bled away through this connection you share with my son - and yes, I know all about it - how much has bled away, and how much has been replaced. Do you even know who you are any more?" 

"I know exactly who I am," Harry said coolly. "I´m sorry if it´s confusing for you. Wait, actually, no I´m not sorry at all. You know why? Because I hate you." 

"How sad for me," Lucius said, taking a slender enameled pipe out of the wooden drawer on his left, and tapping it against the side of the desk. "And here I had so hoped we would become close." 

"Do you always want to become close with people you´re planning to kill?" Harry asked. 

Lucius laughed and reached for a small gilded box that Harry had thought was a paperweight. He opened it, and withdrew a pinch of tobacco. "I´m not going to kill you," he said. "I have thought a great deal about what the best way to get my son to cooperate with me might be, and have concluded that killing you at this juncture would be relatively ineffective toward that end." 

"I´m touched." 

"You would not be the first thing he has loved that I have destroyed," Lucius said. "It might teach him a lesson. Of course," and he shrugged, Draco´s own, elegant, shrug, "that lesson is not today´s lesson." 

"You can´t kill me," Harry said. "The Ministry would have your head. Whether Draco cares about me or not, that´s not the issue - and anyway, you´re wrong. You taught him not to love anyone, don´t you remember? He hasn´t forgotten, even if you have. He feels responsibility, loyalty....obligation to me -" 

Lucius chuckled. "Maybe he can´t love," he said. "Or he couldn´t. But what of you? You can, and he has become what you are. I see how it has changed him. You feel, and he feels through you. Through you he can know what it is to love and to grieve, to dream and to sacrifice. You can be his expectation of happiness; you can be his broken heart. Think of all that world of feeling he would lose, if he lost you." 

"But," Harry said, "it is not my death you are planning." 

"Planning?" Lucius echoed. "I am not planning his death. It has already begun. And perhaps, now that I have told you what my son would lose if you died, it is time for you to think of what would happen to you should the reverse occur. I appeal," he added, raising a small gold wand from the desktop, "to your sense of self-preservation." 

Think of what would happen to you, if he died, Lucius had said. And Harry tried. He stood where he was and he tried to imagine it, but it was like trying to imagine what it would be like to be paralyzed. As surely as his legs and arms moved when he told them to, as surely as his lungs filled with air when he breathed, Draco existed as part of him. Lucius might as well have said, Imagine you never were a wizard, or Imagine you had never heard of magic, or Imagine your parents had never died. 

"Why do you hate him so much?" Harry whispered finally. He heard his own voice as if from a great distance; wondered, vaguely, if Draco could hear or experience anything of this through him. He hoped not. "I understand why you hate me. But Draco, he´s your son. He loves you - he loved you, anyway, and he would still if you hadn´t burned all that out of him. What did he ever do to you?" 

There was a long silence. The fire crackled harshly in the grate; the afternoon shadows lengthened across the floor. A nervous pain twisted behind Harry´s ribs, as if his body comprehended what his mind could not, and was wincing in the anticipation of some terrible physical loss. 

"I told Draco this once, a long time ago," Lucius said. His voice was curiously flat. Harry had not heard him speak like this before. "When a man pledges himself to the Dark Lord, when he receives the Mark, he must, in exchange for this honor and to prove his loyalty, give to the Dark Lord one thing. One...gift. It must be something of precious personal value. I have seen men give up a great talent for music or art, a treasured memory, a grand passion. Draco asked me once what I gave up, and I said that what I had given was him. That is not strictly true, for each man can give only what is his own to give; even my son, in the end, belongs to himself alone. What I gave was my own capacity to care about him." 

"You gave up....your ability to love?" Harry asked. It felt bizarre, asking such a personal question of Lucius Malfoy. But his curiosity was stronger than his anxiety. 

"No," Lucius said. "Just my feelings of paternal love. I had no children at the time, of course. Had I never had any, as I planned, I suppose it would have been an empty gift in the end. But then, the Dark Lord has no use for empty gifts. Only a year after I pledged myself in his service, he requested that I have a son. So I had a son." Lucius´ eyes went to the window, and for a moment he seemed to gaze into nothingness. "The Dark Lord is nothing if not thorough. In me, he knew he had a servant who would produce a child he would not mind giving up when necessary - because, of course, I had given him up a long time ago." 

"Couldn´t..." Harry began falteringly, "couldn´t it be reversed, somehow, I mean, all spells are reversible -" 

"Reversed?" Lucius´ voice was suddenly icy again. "Why would I want it reversed? I am very satisfied with the bargain I made. To gain much, one must sacrifice much, and I have gained vastly. I have gained the world." 

And lost your soul. Harry thought of Draco, up on the tower. He reached out with his mind for him, but felt only a resistant uncommunicative silence. Anxiety gnawed at his stomach again, worse than before. "What do you want from me?´ he asked abruptly. "You didn´t bring me down here just to tell me stories about the past." 

"No." Lucius´ voice had a razor edge now; Harry suspected that the older man now very much regretted having said anything at all about his gift to Voldemort. "I brought you down here to offer you a bargain." 

"What kind of bargain?" 

"It is simple. You have that cup. I want it." 

"I told you already, I don´t have it and I don´t know where it is." 

"I understand that. But your girlfriend does. And therefore, I am willing to make a trade." 

The world turned dark around the edges. "A trade?" Harry whispered. "You mean - you don´t mean trading one of them for the other?" 

I´d rather die myself, he thought, and meant it, but did not say it. Lucius did not want or need his death at the moment. Offering it would mean nothing. 

Lucius chuckled. "Amusing as it would be for me to watch you make that choice....no, that isn´t what I mean. I mean, that I will trade you what you want, if you will write a letter to Miss Granger, and ask her to share the location of the cup with me. Tell her why, as well. She´ll understand." 

"You´ll trade me what?" Harry said, his head spinning. 

"This," Lucius said, and from an inner pocket of his robe, he drew an object and set it down on the desk in front of him. 

Harry stared. It was a clear glass vial the size, perhaps, of a rolled parchment. The top and bottom of the vial were thickly encrusted with wine-colored jewels. Inside was perhaps two inches of pale greenish liquid. 

"More poison?" Harry said, weary bitterness creeping into his voice. 

"No," Lucius replied. "Antidote." 

*** 

Hermione lay awake in Ginny´s bed, staring up at the ceiling. Restlessness hummed in her blood; she could not sleep. When she shut her eyes she saw Harry´s face, pale and worried when he turned away from her back at school. Not having seen him since, she fretted: what if he died, and the last thing she had ever said to him was that she didn´t want to be with him anymore? 

Giving up on sleep, she sat up slowly, and rested her chin on her knees. Thinking about what would happen to her if Harry died had always filled her with shuddering nausea; she remembered Draco telling her that she couldn´t imagine a world without Harry in it. Oh, but I can, she thought grimly. I just don´t want to live in it. 

She got up and padded quietly into the bathroom in search of water. After lighting the torch with a whispered Lumos, she stared disconsolately at herself in the mirror over the sink. So this was what love looked like: dark shadows under the eyes, pinched pallor, unhappy mouth. Draco would have laughed at her, wouldn´t he. Gazing at her own face, she spared a flash of ironic pity for Pansy: so this was Pansy´s idea of a devastating femme fatale, was it? Anyone who had to wear her face to feel pretty and loveable....she paused, the glass of water halfway to her mouth. What on earth HAD put this diabolical scheme into Pansy´s head? Why Ron? It wasn´t that he had been nursing a secret passion for her all these years, Hermione was quite sure of that. Oh, there was something there, there always was with two people who were so close and who had once been romantically involved, however briefly. There was always that lingering possessiveness, in Ron no doubt complicated by his intermittent jealousy of Harry that had never quite gone away. Still, Pansy must have caught onto something: a look, a phrase, a gesture, something about Ron... 

Something about Ron. Hermione put the glass down on the sink, slowly and carefully. Her earlier, cursory search of Ron´s room had yielded nothing and she had felt ashamed for looking, especially when she had no idea what she was looking for. But something tickled the back of her mind now; something she could not push down or ignore... 

As quietly as she could, she doused the light and left the bathroom, creeping down the hall past Charlie´s room, and crossing the landing to the stairs. A quick anti-creaking spell took care of noise; she padded upstairs in near-silence, and slipped into Ron´s room. 

She lit the lamp and glanced around. It looked exactly as it had that afternoon. Neat and tidy, covered with posters, the same frayed orange bedspread. The same stack of photographs was sitting on the desk, where Ron must have placed them after pulling them down off the walls. The same pile of comics by the bed. She´d been through the desk drawers and found nothing much of interest - so she had thought. She knelt down now and reopened the largest drawer, sliding it out completely and placing it on the floor. 

There was a box inside it, which she had seen before. It was a blue box, simple painted wood, with a gold embossed seal on the top: Mahoney´s Divination Supplies, 14 Diagon Alley. She knew the box: she had given it to Ron herself, at the end of the summer. What he had said, or so nearly said, to her when they´d been imprisoned in Slytherin´s castle had always stayed with her although he had never mentioned it again: she had always wondered if it had something to do with his never-used Divination talent. This box had been the result of those musings. 

She pried the lid off, and sat back, gazing at the box contents thoughtfully. There was a scrying bowl: small and made of copper. There was a pack of tealeaves with a small instructional booklet on how to use them. There was a sphere of dark crystal on a bronze stand, on which was etched the words: I hold the secrets. 

Hermione lifted the sphere thoughtfully in her hand. Then she brought her hand down, hard, smashing the crystal ball against the metal edge of Ron´s bedside table. She braced herself for the noise of it shattering: to her surprise, it broke apart quietly and neatly, in two perfect halves. 

A small, carefully rolled bundle of handwritten parchments tumbled out. They had been folded over and over and wound around with a thin silver chain. A feeling of inexpressible sadness took hold of Hermione as she picked them up: she knew what they were. Even knowing what he knew, even knowing the truth, Ron would not have been able to bring himself to throw them out. Underneath everything, she sometimes thought, he was the most sentimental of them all - the most easily amused and the most easily hurt. With a sigh, she picked up the small packet of love letters and dropped it into her robe pocket, where it sat heavily, just over her heart. 

*** 

"So that´s the deal," Harry said. He´d been pacing up and down the top of the tower since the guards had brought him back, now he stopped, and put his hands behind his back, and looked at Draco. The wind had picked up: it kept blowing strands of Draco´s hair into his face, and when he reached to push it back, the adamantine cuff seared a cold line across his skin. "The cup in exchange for the antidote. Well, not to cup, so to speak - just a letter to Hermione asking her to send it to the Manor. Which she would, once she realized what´s at stake. It´s pretty simple, really." 

"I wonder," Draco said. He found himself possessed of a curious calm. "If he´s been planning this for a long time." 

"I don´t think so," said Harry. His hair blew across his face. "Not this specifically. Anyway, it doesn´t matter." 

"Right," Draco said. "We have to think. What do we do now?" 

There was a short silence. Then Harry spoke, his tone very careful: "What do you mean, what do we do now?" 

Draco hesitated and looked harder at Harry. But Harry´s face was strangely set and unreadable; his green eyes were serious and dark. "About my father," Draco said. "What do we do?" 

Harry shook his head - not so much a gesture of negation than as if he were coming up out of deep water and for a moment, could not hear properly. "We give him whatever he wants," he said. "We haven´t got a choice, have we? He´s got your antidote." 

A strange, uncompromising weariness had settled on Draco. It was as if he looked at Harry from a great distance, through clouds of muffling fog. "We´ve got a choice," Draco said. "We don´t have to do what he says." 

"But then we don´t get the antidote," Harry said, speaking very slowly, as if he were explaining the situation to a small child. 

"I know," Draco said. "Then we don´t get the antidote." 

Realization flooded into Harry´s face; he went very red, then very white. "What are you saying?" 

"I´m saying there´s no point," Draco said. "If my father says it´s the antidote, then it´s probably the antidote. But there´ll be some loophole, some clever excuse not to give it to us - he´ll keep holding it over our heads, make us dance like puppets on strings, and we´ll still lose in the end." 

"He said it would save your life," said Harry. 

"And it will - now," Draco said. "But there´ll be something else, and something else after that. You see how he is. He thinks he owns me. And as long as I exist under his power, then he´ll make me a stick to beat you with. If you give in now, he´ll just know that it works." 

Harry shook his head again. "It doesn´t matter. None of that matters right now. What matters is what we can do, right now, this minute, and right now you´re dying and we have to stop it." 

Draco heard himself laugh out loud. Not a very pleasant laugh, either. "This is why you´re such a bad planner, Harry,´ he said. "As if the world doesn´t exist past the next five seconds." 

Harry closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists. Draco could tell that he was trying to get a hold of himself. He watched him with a detached feeling of sickness in his stomach. He did not like hurting Harry, and wondered in a desultory sort of way why he always seemed to be forced into circumstances where there was no other choice. 

"What did my father say to you?" Draco demanded, finally. "To make you react like this - do I have to remind you that he lies?" 

Harry opened his eyes. "Oh, I know he lies," he said. "But he´s like you. He won´t lie if the truth is at hand, and more powerful than any lie might be. He didn´t tell me anything I didn´t already know. Not really. It was the way he said it." 

Draco didn´t really hear him. His mind had stopped on the second sentence Harry had spoken, But he´s like you. 

"I won´t let my father turn you into some kind of pawn for him to play with," he said harshly. "I won´t. Any trade he offers isn´t a real trade, can´t you see that?" He pushed back the damp hair that was falling in his eyes - despite the freezing cold, he was sweating. "I know you can´t think like that, Harry. When it comes right down to it, you just never seem to grasp how evil people can be. My father hates you. Any deal he´s willing to make will not have your best interests at heart. Or mine. You´d have to be blind or stupid or both not to see that."  

"Maybe I´m both. But I´m not going to let the fact that you hate your father dictate whether you live or die -"  

"He´s expecting you to give in, Harry! His whole plan is built on it." 

"Fuck his plan and everything else," Harry said tightly. "I´ve lost everything - all my friends. I won´t lose you as well." 

"You face everything alone in the end, anyway - you said so yourself -" 

"God damn it!" Harry´s voice snapped in half like a bone breaking. "What would you do if it was the other way around? What would you do if it was me dying?" 

"That would be different," said Draco, unfazed. 

"How? How is that different?" 

"Because you´re Harry Potter." Draco´s voice was clear and toneless. He was stating facts - simple facts. "The Boy Who Lived. The one who´ll save everyone. You´re needed. I´m not." 

"That´s the stupidest thing I´ve ever heard," Harry said bitterly. "I can´t believe you´d take who I am and throw it in my face like that - what´s wrong with you? You think I could live with myself knowing that I let you die because I´m famous and you´re not?" 

"It´s not about being famous. And anyway, you wouldn´t have to live with yourself - you wouldn´t remember it. My father said he´d Memory Charm us both. You wouldn´t have to know," Draco said, and instantly regretted it. 

Harry stared at him. The pupils of his eyes had dilated so far that they looked black, rimmed with faint bands of green. "I have never," he said, "ever, in my life, wanted to hit someone as much as I want to hit you right now." 

"Hit me if you want," Draco said quietly. "But know this: if you let my father win, then Voldemort wins. And if he gets the cup, he can destroy the world with it. It sounds ridiculous, but there it is. You´re a hero, aren´t you? And this is a hero´s choice. Your friends - or everything else." 

Harry´s hands, at his sides, flexed, and Draco wondered for an odd detached moment if Harry really was going to hit him. Then Harry said, in a clear factual voice, "I should hope that you would know what I´d choose."  

Draco looked at him. And realized, with an odd sort of shock at his heart, that he didn´t know. He would have assumed Harry would have chosen, as he´d phrased it, everything else. He opened his mouth to ask, couldn´t think of a way to formulate the question, and then lost the opportunity forever, for at that moment the tower door opened again and Lucius stepped through. 

He was not smiling, but he had an expectant look about him. Something gold winked at his right breast pocket, underneath his open cloak. In his right hand he carried a rolled parchment and a quill. "So, boys," he said, looking from one of them to the other. "Have you made up your minds?" 

*** 

Hermione had spread the parchments out on the desk and was going through them with a shaking hand. She had managed to push her horror at being impersonated to the back of her mind: now it leaped out afresh. Someone had copied her handwriting, copied it so well that even her best friend had been duped by it. And they had not just copied her writing, but her expressions, her turns of phrase....Pansy must hate her so, so much, Hermione thought, her skin crawling, she must have planned this for so long, watched her so closely. The hair prickled along Hermione´s spine and she shivered. 

Dearest, 

I missed you today. I thought about you so much during Potions that I forgot to take notes - pretty soon I´ll be facing my greatest fear, what was it you said? A homework paper that only got nine out of ten? 

I can´t wait to see you tonight. I wish I didn´t have so much work to do for my final project. I know it´s because I´ve been spending so much time with you that it isn´t ready. We can work on the project together if you don´t mind if I bring some homework with me. Imagine me creeping along the corridors to you, my pockets full of burdock, mugwort and rue...if you wouldn´t mind bringing the yarrow root as well, that would be a help...now, don´t forget! 

All I want is just to spend time with you, of course, except that will have to wait until after New Year´s, won´t it? Thank you darling for your obedience and ability to understand...I know it´s been hard keeping this a dark secret. Won´t it be a relief when we can finally be together without any hiding. 

Oh lord, someone´s coming. I must run. I love you. 

Hermione. 

A frown crinkled the side of Hermione´s mouth. Burdock, mugwort and rue - what was that about? Something Ron had said to her before he left school leaped suddenly into her mind - "It wasn´t just sex, you know. We talked, we ate together, we did our Potions homework..." 

She looked again, hard, at the letter. The transition from the first paragraph into the second was fairly subtle; the entreaty to bring ingredients for a potion was buried under endearments, but Hermione had a feeling it was the real gist of the letter. None of the letters, upon more careful perusal, were all that passionate: they were carefully if affectionately worded. Which, indeed, would have been Hermione´s style had she actually written them. She was not much of a love letter writer: she had never even written a love letter to Harry, and could not imagine doing so. She loved him, but the idea of sitting down and writing a paean to his green eyes and adorable nose struck her as faintly ridiculous. Perhaps she had no poetry in her soul, but there it was. 

She slowly lifted her wand and touched the end of it to the paper. There was a simple rhyming charm... 

"Ink and parchment, quill and bone 

Let this letter´s truth be shown. 

Quill and inkpot, seal and feather 

Reveal the writer of this letter." 

The parchment trembled. Then the words on the paper rearranged themselves to form a name: PANSY PARKINSON. 

Hermione shrugged to herself as the name on the parchment melted away and the original content returned. Well, she´d expected it to be Pansy. No surprise there. She bit her lip. There was one more thing she could do; she hadn´t done it because she was afraid of the answer. They´d learned in DaDA that certain kinds of Confundus Charms could be woven into written material: the famous "book you could never stop reading," according to Lupin, contained in fact one of the strongest Obedience Charms ever created woven into the text. 

"Revelatus confundus," she murmured. 

The parchment trembled again. This time the words did not melt away, only some of them darkened and stood out against the rest of the text. 

Dearest, 

I missed you today. I thought about you so much during Potions that I forgot to take notes - pretty soon I´ll be facing my greatest fear, what was it you said? A homework paper that only got nine out of ten? 

I can´t wait to see you tonight. I wish I didn´t have so much work to do for my final project. I know it´s because I´ve been spending so much time with you that it isn´t ready. We can work on the project together if you don´t mind if I bring some homework with me. Imagine me creeping along the corridors to you, my pockets full of burdock, mugwort and rue...if you wouldn´t mind bringing the yarrow root as well, that would be a help...now, don´t forget! 

All I want is just to spend time with you, of course, except that will have to wait until after New Year´s, won´t it? Thank you darling for your obedience and ability to understand...I know it´s been hard keeping this a dark secret. Won´t it be a relief when we can finally be together without any hiding. 

Oh lord, someone´s coming. I must run and I love you-- I hope that you will always love me. 

Hermione read the highlighted words out with an audible exclamation of dismay: "Final project is ready. Bring burdock, mugwort and yarrow root. Now forget all except your obedience to the dark lord and always love me." 

She sat back on her heels, and shook her head, a heavy foreboding settling over her. "Oh, Ron," she said aloud. "What have you gotten yourself into?" 

*** 

Harry held out his hand to Lucius. "Give me the quill," he said. 

"No," Draco said sharply, and stepped forward, but Lucius had put himself between the two boys, and he held his son off with one arm. "Harry -" 

Harry bit his lip and averted his eyes from Draco. "Give me the quill -" he said again, quickly. "And some parchment." 

"A very wise decision," Lucius said. His smile was sharp enough to cut glass. "I am glad to see at least one of you has some sense." He continued to hold Draco off with one arm; with the other, he held out parchment and quill to Harry. "Write," he said. 

Harry took the quill and paper and stepped back. The quill was one Draco recognized: Lucius´ favorite raven feather, self-inking; the plume was dipped in gold. Harry, Draco thought furiously. Harry, this is stupid, listen to me. Tear up the parchment... 

But Harry had blocked him out; his words struck against the walls Harry had thrown up against him like soap bubbles breaking against rocks. Draco wanted to rush forward and push his father out of the way, but it would have been pointless - in the state he was in, he couldn´t have wrestled a Cornish pixie, and Lucius had always been very strong. 

As if he sensed his son´s thoughts, Lucius turned his glass-bright smile on Draco. Draco could sense his father´s delight: this was what Lucius liked best. Winning, dominating, controlling a situation. Controlling the people in it. His smile widening, Lucius reached into his pocket and took out a clear vial which Draco recognized immediately from Harry´s description. The antidote inside it was pale green. He set it down on the stones at his feet and looked at Harry. It was evident from his posture that he was making it clear that should Harry make a move towards him, he would crush the vial under his boot. 

"What was it my old Potions professor used to say?" Lucius mused, his head tilted thoughtfully. "´Why don´t I hear the sound of quills scratching against parchment´? Although, I suppose in this case, it would be only one quill." 

Harry said nothing, but his fingers tightened on the quill until they were a bloodless white. And Draco remembered, without being able to help it, what Hermione had said to him at the Hogsmeade station, about Harry. /They used me to get to him, Draco. They used me -they know how to hurt him the worst, and I can´t be part of that. I won´t be./ 

Abruptly, Harry´s grip on the quill loosened, and he began to write, holding the parchment awkwardly against his forearm. The sound of the nib scratching against the parchment was loud in the still night. Lucius looked down at the antidote at his feet, and then over at Draco. "Calm yourself, boy," he said, as gently as Draco had ever heard him speak. "Let your friend save you, if that is what he wants. Should he preserve you, perhaps you can do the same for him, later." 

The gentle tone in Lucius´ voice was too much to bear; Draco looked away from his father and at Harry. His friend´s head was bent; he was writing; he did not look up. A queer dreamlike state had come over Draco: he could see everything very clearly, and yet at the same time it was as if the whole world was locked away on one side of a sheet of glass and he was on the other. This was, perhaps, the first thing that had happened to him in a year that he felt Harry could not possibly understand, and that he did not want him to understand. He was not Dumbledore, to regard death as the next great adventure, but he was a Malfoy. He would stare death down and never show that he was afraid. One day... 

One day you will understand, he thought at Harry, not knowing whether Harry could hear him or not. I always thought I would follow you up to the gates of Hell if I had to. And that, once arriving there, I would beg the gatekeeper to take me instead of you. And if he must take you, I would ask to come with you. And if he would not let me come with you, I would wait for you on the shores of the river. I promised to watch over you and follow you always. I promised never to leave you. I never thought that death might prevent me. Not your death, but mine. 

Harry did not look up. 

So, he was not listening - but it did not matter. Draco´s own mind was made up. He closed his eyes. If he could see, he couldn´t do what he had to do. He judged the distance to his father, and took a step forward, and another. He heard Lucius begin to speak. Then Draco lashed out with his foot, a hard swift kick. The toe of his boot connected with the vial; he opened his eyes and saw it fly into the air and shatter against the low parapet wall. Green fluid and glass splashed over the flagstones. 

He saw Harry raise his head, his eyes uncomprehending at first: then he went white, and the quill fell out of his hand. The parchment followed, fluttering like a white feather, landing at Harry´s feet. Draco saw that Harry had written no more on it than Dear Hermione; he was surprised, it had seemed as if so much time had passed...He glanced up at his friend, but Harry´s expression had changed and then Draco couldn´t look at him anymore; he looked at his father instead, and saw something he had rarely seen before: Lucius looking shocked beyond reason. He had raised his hand as if he could hold Draco back; now he dropped it to his side, and looked at his son with a disbelieving bitterness...and something else underneath that, something that looked almost to Draco like a furious respect, although he knew that was impossible. 

"You realize what you´ve done," Lucius said to his son, his voice a fierce whisper. "That´s all there was - there is no more." 

"I know," Draco said. "I realize what I´ve done." 

Lucius´ mouth thinned into a razored line. "You´re a fool," he said, turned on his heel, and stalked though the door, slamming it hard behind him. 

*** 

The exhaustion was so bad now that it was like pain, without quite being pain. Ron could not calculate how long he had gone now without sleep or food: probably no more than a day, but the hours and hours and hours of chess had taken such a toll on his concentration that it seemed like much more. 

He had always enjoyed playing chess; now it was beginning to sicken him. Every time a game ended, he hoped against hope it would be the last one. Every time, the Dark Lord waved his hand and the board was magically renewed, and the deadly voice said, "Again." 

He could no longer tell pawns from knights from bishops. The pieces were heavy as rocks in his numb fingers. He willed his mind to concentration, willed himself to formulate some kind of strategy. Nothing came to mind. He had won several games and lost several games. It had not seemed to matter either way. Each time Voldemort had raised his hand; each time the voice came again with the single word: "Again." Ron had begun to think that this was not chess at all but merely some refined form of torture. 

Slowly, Ron picked up his knight, and looked down. His exhausted mind struggled to make sense of the chessboard, to decipher its patterns. It seemed to waver in front of him, rippling as if a cloud of heat were passing over it. His right hand spasmed, and the knight fell out of his limp fingers, striking the travertine board with a harsh, echoing click. 

It was as if the click were the sound of a switch being flipped inside Ron´s mind. Without warning the world ripped down the center like a fruit being peeled in half. His ears roared, and agonizing pain shot through his knees and elbows. A moment later he realized this was because he had tumbled out of his chair, hit the floor and crumpled. He rolled over and stared up at a world of shifting shadows. 

"What´s happening?" he whispered. "It hurts. It hurts." 

"What do you see?" said the knifelike voice of the Dark Lord. "Boy, tell me what you see." 

The shapes moved and coalesced. Now they were racing by him like scenery viewed from a train window. Images fluttered rapidly by, visible but inaudible, more real than dreams. It had never been like this before. Nothing had ever been like this before. 

"I see," he said, and shut his eyes, but it made no difference. The future rushed towards him and swallowed him up; he was inside it now, staring out. He was the still center of the turning world: he could see everything at once and the power of it was too much to contain. Words spilled out of his mouth; he could not stop them. "I see the Dark Mark over Hogwarts," he said in a single rasping breath. "I see the sky black with smoke - and the Mark again and again and again. I see all the wizarding houses in England and the sky over them is full of death. I see the dead. Some of them are children -" 

"Very good," said Voldemort. "Tell me more. Do you see Harry Potter?" 

"Harry - I see Harry. He has blood all over his hands. He´s crying. And now I see his bracelet. It´s in broken pieces. I see Harry leaving. He´s going over the water. He puts his hand to his throat but it´s gone - that chain he wears. The Charm." 

"The Epicyclical Charm," Voldemort said. "The one Lucius so carelessly made for his son. And Lucius´ son - do you see him?" 

"No - no. I don´t see him. I can´t see him..." 

A whispered laugh. Rhysenn? "Perhaps, Master, that one has no future." 

"Look again," the Dark Lord said to Ron. "Look harder." 

But Ron barely heard him. He was adrift in a world of images that no longer made any sense: he saw the sky lit by dazzling fire, saw a crumpled body inside a pentagram, saw flames leap from the windows of the Ministry, saw two people embrace and kiss inside a cage made of gold, and knew that what they were doing was terribly wrong somehow. He saw Hermione, who turned and looked at him with awful sadness, and Seamus, surrounded by green light as if he stood underwater. He saw a glass heart snapped in half and then he saw the runic band that Harry wore shattered into fragments, and he cried out, although he never knew until later what name he had called. All he knew was the darkness as it overwhelmed him and drew him down into a merciful oblivion. 

*** 

The door shut behind Lucius. 

Draco turned around and looked at Harry. 

He had steeled himself to face Harry´s furious anger; he had expected rage and resentment, even disdain or contempt. He had expected to be shouted at. But Harry was not shouting. He did not even seem angry. He had gotten down on his knees, and was carefully gathering up all the bits of broken vial scattered over the stones. He held the shards he had picked up in his cupped left hand; his other hand shook as he ran it over the stones, looking for the half-invisible slivers of clear glass. 

Draco´s mouth went dry. "Harry - what are you doing?" 

Harry looked up slowly. The moonlight struck his glasses; Draco couldn´t see his eyes, just the set of his chin and the twist to his mouth. The blood on his hands where the glass had cut him was black in the moonlight. "Maybe it´s not all gone," Harry said. "Maybe there might be some left...." 

Draco didn´t say anything about the sheer impossibility of this, just stood where he was, looking at Harry and thinking that having Harry be furious with him would have been better than this. 

"I just thought it might help," Harry said, and looked down at his hands, where the blood mingled with the last bits of antidote and the silvers of glass. His hair fell down and hid his face. Draco wondered exactly what it was Harry was talking about. He remembered Harry in his dream, kneeling in the sand, telling Draco he had come too late to be of any help. 

"Don´t," Draco said. "Harry...." 

"If we could get the bits to a lab...run tests..." 

/Harry./ Draco knelt down next to Harry. He took the other boy by the wrists, and held them tightly. /There isn´t any point./ 

Harry raised his chin. His eyes were abnormally clear; a tearless, lucent green. /Why didn´t he Memory charm us right away, your father? As soon as you smashed the vial?/ 

/Now he´s being sadistic/, Draco said wearily. /Now we made him angry - there´s no telling what else he´ll do./ 

/Or has done./ Even Harry´s inner voice was inexpressibly weary and flat. /All this time I thought you hated him. But you hate yourself more. Or maybe you hate me./ 

/Hate you?/ Draco´s grip on Harry´s wrists tightened, and Harry winced. 

"My hands," he said out loud. 

Draco looked down. "Hell, they´re full of glass. You´re a fool sometimes - why didn´t you put your gloves on?" He let go of Harry´s wrists. "Hold your hands out flat. I´ll get the glass out." 

Draco drew his gloves off. Harry didn´t say anything as Draco used his bitten fingernails to pull the silvers of glass out of the skin of Harry´s palms. Blood welled up where the glass had been and ran down Harry´s wrists like scarlet threads unraveling. 

"Tear a piece off my cloak," Harry said. "To save the glass in." 

Draco knew what he meant, and did it, folding the glass slivers into the bit of cloth. He knew it was a waste of time, but did it anyway, not looking at Harry. The odd kneeling position was making him sweat; he handed the folded cloth to Harry and rubbed his damp hands on his cloak. They left bloody fingerprints behind. "What a mess," he whispered under his breath. "Can you close your fingers?" 

"I can make a fist," Harry said. His voice sounded oddly constricted. 

Draco sat back on his heels. "Look, if you think that I..." 

He didn´t finish his sentence. The tower door opened for the fourth time that night; Harry, who was facing the door, sucked in a gasp - of astonishment or horror, Draco couldn´t tell. He twisted around and stared. 

The person standing in the doorway was not Lucius Malfoy. It was not a Death Eater either. It was a slender figure in a yellow cloak like a torch in the darkness; between the bright cloak and her bright hair her face was very white. 

Draco got to his feet, still staring in disbelief. "Ginny? What the hell are you doing here?" 

*** 

"Oh, my God," Ginny said, staring past Draco at Harry. She had thought for a moment that he was wearing black gloves, but as Draco moved towards her and the moonlight fell on Harry, she saw that it was blood. "What did he do to your hands?" she whispered. "What happened? Why are you two up here?" 

Draco simply stood and stared at her. The expression on his face was so complex as to be utterly unreadable. It was Harry who moved. He got to his feet and strode over to her. "Ginny," he said, taking hold of her shoulders. "Did anyone see you come up here?" 

She shook her head. "No. I followed Lucius to the door and then I hid and waited for him to leave. He didn´t see me. He looked really angry, so I figured it had to be something to do with Draco." She smiled weakly. "Only Draco can piss somebody off like that." 

Harry didn´t smile back. 

She went on quickly: "The door wasn´t locked, so I just waited for Lucius to go downstairs and I came up here. There weren´t any guards." 

"No," Draco said. "There wouldn´t be - but Ginny, what are you doing here? How did you get back into the Manor?" 

Her heart skipped a beat. The Time-Turner, nestled under the collar of her cloak, suddenly seemed a heavy weight. "I never left," she began, but Harry interrupted her. 

"It doesn´t matter," he said flatly. "You´re here and the door´s open. That´s all that matters. We have to get out of here, and quickly, before Lucius comes back." He twisted around to look at Draco, his hands still on Ginny´s shoulders. "Can you get us out of the Manor?" 

Draco´s eyes narrowed to silver crescents. "I can bloody well try," he said. 

Harry slowly lowered his hands. Later Ginny would find two bloody handprints on her cloak, one on each shoulder. Very lightly, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand: it was a gesture Ron might have made, or Charlie, reassuring themselves that she was all right. For the first time, she saw that there was a terrible sadness in his eyes that went beyond the normal anxiety of their situation. "Malfoy," he said, without looking at Draco. "You lead us." 

Draco said nothing - although whether he replied to Harry silently or not, she did not know and didn´t want to venture a guess - but he slipped past Ginny like a shadow, silent and lightfooted. She followed him, and Harry came behind. 

Going back down the narrow stairs that led into the Manor felt wrong - like heading into a prison. Ginny gave a little gasp as Harry closed the tower door behind them and the stars vanished; now they were in a dim and confined space of leaping torchlight. She followed Draco´s straight and slender shadow as he made his way down the stairs. At the foot he turned sharply right and ducked down a corridor; he pushed a tapestry aside and there was a door behind it. 

"Secret staircase," he said quietly, and put his hand to the doorknob. It opened smoothly under his touch. He exhaled a breath of relief and held the door open so that Ginny and Harry could pass through. 

This second staircase was even narrower, and there was no torchlight at all. A dim phosphorescent glow came from the walls. There was a dank smell, as if they were standing at the bottom of the sea. 

"I have my wand," Ginny said quietly, "I could Lumos.." 

"No." Draco caught at her hand. Something hard banged against her fingers; she looked down, and saw a clear adamantine cuff around his wrist. "No magic here." 

She nodded. Harry led the way, turning sideways to get around the first narrow turn of the spiral staircase. Ginny twisted around and looked up at Draco; he looked distant and distracted. Not sad the same way Harry did, but in a more contained manner. He was thinner these days and it had given him a harder edge: there was something metallic about his beauty now, as if the potential for cruelty there had evolved nearer the surface. "Tell me you´re all right," she said, in a very soft voice. 

"I´m all right," he said. His voice was cool and affectless. 

"I seem to recall having rescued you from a tower before once," she said, as lightly as she could, hoping to make him smile. 

The half-lidded eyes opened wide for a moment; he looked directly at her. "And I seem to recall telling you once that I didn´t want to be saved," he said. "Especially not by you." 

"Are you two coming?" Harry hissed from around the corner. Without looking back at Ginny, Draco turned and went after him. Biting back a furious response, Ginny followed him. Half-blinded by the darkness and the sting of tears, she stumbled after squeezing through the narrow turn and reaching the top of the stairs. A hand gripped her shoulder and righted her; it was Draco. 

"Steady on," he said. 

She yanked her arm away angrily. "Don´t touch me," she snapped. 

Harry, waiting on the landing below, looked weary. "I am not even going to ask," he said. 

"Better not to," Draco said. It seemed to Ginny that behind his closed expression, a faint grave amusement had quickened. 

"Don´t you laugh at me either," she said, knowing she sounded unreasonable. 

"Wouldn´t dream of it," Draco replied, and took the stairs two at a time, landing lightly next to Harry. 

"Ungrateful bastard," Ginny muttered under her breath, and went down the stairs carefully. The boys, waiting for her on the landing, were already deep in discussion when she reached them. 

"Where does this passage go?" Harry was asking. 

"Under the moat," Draco said. "It lets out in the rose garden. It should, anyway." 

"All right, assuming we can get outside," Harry asked, "what then? If we walk to Malfoy Park, where can we go from there? Keeping in mind that it´s night, it´s freezing, and only Ginny can do any magic." 

Draco shook his head. "We can´t go anywhere from there," he said. "We´re in the middle of nowhere, and the Park isn´t safe. The Bailiff and the Mayor are in charge there, and they´re both washouts as far as we´re concerned. They´re in my father´s pocket. Everyone in town is." 

"Where are your broomsticks?" Ginny asked, slightly sulkily. 

"At school," Harry said, pushing his tangled dark hair out of his eyes. "But there must be plenty of broomsticks here at the Manor..." 

Draco shook his head. "Not my father´s broomsticks," he said. "It wouldn´t be a good idea to take them. The valuable artifacts here tend to be charmed. Trust me on that." 

Harry bit his lip. "Can we take one of the carriages, then?" 

Draco shook his head. "No, they´re equally my father´s property and..." His head snapped up, his gray eyes lighting. "I´ve got it." 

Harry looked at him in surprise. "What?" 

"Am I the only one that remembers that there are two perfectly good broomsticks stuck up a tree outside the Cold Christmas Inn?" 

This piece of information seemed to catch Harry so off guard that it startled a smile out of him. "Bloody hell," he said. "Good thinking." 

Draco smiled back modestly. "I´m a genius, basically," he admitted. 

Harry´s cheerful expression wavered into a frown. "But they´re uncalibrated," he pointed out. 

This did not faze Draco. "As to that," he said, and drew something out of his pocket. He waved it triumphantly in front of Ginny and Harry. "Finally, a piece of good luck," he crowed. 

Ginny looked at Harry. "Are you seeing what I´m seeing?" she asked. 

"You mean a paper aeroplane?" he replied. 

"Yes," she said. 

He nodded. 

"There is no need to talk about me as if I´m not here," Draco said, sounding injured. 

"Yes there is, if you´re planning on us all boarding that paper aeroplane and flying it back to Hogwarts, there´s a great deal of reason to talk about you as if you weren´t here," Harry said. 

Draco threw the paper aeroplane at him. It hit Harry on the forehead. "They´re the calibration instructions, pillock," Draco said. "Sirius gave them to me this morning." 

Harry caught the aeroplane and tucked it into his robe pocket. "Well, now you tell me," he said, and actually smiled at Draco - it was almost a real smile, and Ginny´s heart lifted just a little. 

"Besides I know perfectly well that you can´t fly an aeroplane without whatchamacallit," Draco said. "Batteries." 

"That´s right, I forgot," Harry said. "You´re a genius, basically." 

Draco made a face. "Well, at least I´m not a -" 

"AHEM," Ginny interrupted. "Aren´t we supposed to be in some kind of hurry here?" 

Both boys assumed identical guilty expressions. "Right," Harry said. "Draco - you lead again." 

Draco nodded. Ginny hung back a little as they began to descend the stairs once more, watching the two of them walk ahead of her. In the dullness of the faint phosphorescent light they were only shadows, neither dark nor fair: it was next to impossible to tell which was which. 

*** 

"Sirius, if you don´t eat something, I´m going to empty the remainder of the spaghetti in this pot onto your head." 

Sirius looked up and gave Lupin a faint smile. "Sorry. Mind wandering again." He shrugged at the concerned look on his friend´s face. They were facing each other across the rough plank table in Lupin´s kitchen: this small house was the one he repaired to when not teaching at Hogwarts. It was, like Lupin himself, simple, plain, elegant, and slightly gray around the edges. It needed a new coat of paint. One might have said the same about Lupin, as well. 

They´d Apparated back to the house after their sojourn at the Ministry in order to pick up some wolfsbane potion for Lupin (the moon would be full in five short days) and to retrieve some of his other possessions: old books and papers from their more active days as spies. Lupin seemed to have sensed without needing to be told that Sirius did not want to go back to the Burrow and face the anxiety of the Weasleys, so, recollecting aloud the old wives´ tale about Apparating on an empty stomach, he had pushed Sirius down into a kitchen chair and proceeded to concoct a surprisingly satisfying supper of spaghetti and black coffee for both of them. The coffee was bitter and strong and the spaghetti tasted of tarragon: Sirius felt very guilty about not being able to ingest much of either. 

"Still thinking about what you were thinking about before?" Lupin asked, tearing a piece of bread off the loaf on the table. 

Sirius, who had made multiple bread pills out of his half of the loaf, nodded. "Afraid so. I keep seeing Draco´s face when I was shouting at them both outside the Inn. Harry was too drunk to be upset, I guess, but God knows how he felt the next day. And who was I kidding? Like I´ve never stolen a broomstick in my life." 

Lupin chortled. "That may be true, but that won´t affect how you feel when you see them in danger, or what you think is danger. You´re their father ... after all." 

"I wonder if I am," Sirius said reflectively. "Sometimes I feel like I´m more a friend to both of them than a father. A friend that cares a great deal for them, but still a friend. I´m terrified of somehow seeming to try to take James´ place with Harry, and as for Draco, he hates his father so much..." 

"Hates him?" Lupin shook his head. "He doesn´t hate him." 

Sirius looked at his friend in surprise. "Of course he does." 

"No." The candlelight turned Lupin´s eyes to low-burning lampshine gold; wolf eyes. "You don´t see it." 

"See what?" 

Lupin sighed. "You didn´t have parents, Sirius, not really. Not that you grew up with. And you didn´t know Draco when he was younger. My father says this...my father does that. Every other word out of his mouth was about Lucius. He´s defined himself by his father. Lucius used to be what he wanted to be; now he´s what Draco is afraid he already is. But that doesn´t mean he isn´t still his father." 

"He´s grateful to Lucius, you mean? Because without him he wouldn´t exist?" 

"No. That´s not it." Lupin´s voice was emphatic. "I remember when we covered the section in Advanced DADA on vampires. How they sire other vampires, how they pass along their traits, how they form into tight-knit clans. I talked about that vampire clan I routed out of those old mines in Romania and how the head vampire ran at me in the sunlight - sacrificed himself so the nestlings could get away. Everyone else was riveted by the story, but when I looked at Draco... I could see what he was thinking. Even demons love their children. How can my father hate me so much?" 

Sirius looked fixedly at his plate. He had never, to his recollection, seen the faces of his own parents. But he remembered - he remembered James´ parents, who told him he was wonderful and brilliant and talented and loved, and so he had been. And Peter´s parents, who had told him he was a coward, and so he had been. And Lupin´s parents, who had told him he was a monster whose sole responsibility in life was to make sure he never infected others with his own monstrosity, and the years and years of work it had taken to convince Remus, even in the smallest way, that this was untrue. 

"All parents have a hold over their children," Lupin said quietly. "And in the end, all children believe they are what their parents tell them they are." 

Sirius glanced up at his friend. "I spent all those years in Azkaban for murder, but I´ve never killed anyone. But if I get my hands on Lucius Malfoy, I will kill him. If I have to go back to Azkaban, I´ll kill him." 

"No you won´t," Lupin said matter-of-factly. "Because I´ll do it for you." 

*** 

Draco had been right: the passage did open out into the rose garden. By the time they reached the end of it, Ginny was nearly fainting: it was so rank and close inside the narrow passageway underneath the moat that her dormant claustrophobia had awakened. She had to lean against the dripping stone walls while Draco fiddled with the heavy catch on the trapdoor above; finally it popped open and clean night air flooded in. 

She exhaled a breath of relief. Draco looked at her. "Eager to get outside?" he remarked. 

Ginny said nothing. It was Harry who spoke, "Let me go first," he said. 

He went, clambering up the rough wall and through the open trapdoor, as agile as a lizard. His booted feet dangled at Ginny´s eye level as he pulled himself up; she could see the cracked laces and the heavy, muddy soles. Then they were gone, replaced by Harry´s hand as he reached down to her. 

"Come on," he said. "I´ll pull you up." 

Ginny glanced at the hand - he had hands like Draco´s, slender and articulately made, and with the same white scar along one palm - and took hold of it; she let Harry haul her up, wincing herself at the pain this must be causing his cut hands. In a moment, she was sprawled beside him on the snow and he was helping Draco up. Draco landed on his knees and hands beside her, then spun around to slam the trap door shut behind them. 

"Let´s go," he said, matter-of-factly, and got to his feet. "We have to get off the grounds." 

Harry looked at him and then said something that Ginny found peculiar, "Can you run if we have to?" 

Draco didn´t say anything back; his face shut, and he nodded silently. Ginny looked from one of them to the other - Harry´s white face, Draco´s set one - and decided not to ask. She wondered what Lucius had done to them, up on that tower: they seemed physically unharmed, aside from the shallow cuts on Harry´s hands. But there were ways and ways of hurting a person. 

"Come on," Draco said, and gestured for them to follow him. 

They had emerged at a point about a hundred meters from the house proper: it loomed behind them like the bulwark of an enormous ship. All the windows of the lower floors were darkened, Ginny saw as they made their way away from it: tawny torchlight flared from the upper stories like a line of flame along the ridge of a distant mountain. 

The moon had gone behind the clouds, and the only illumination was starlight. It lent a ghostly dimness to the frozen beauty of the gardens. They stretched away in every direction: long white rows of trees like orderly bones laid out for the moon to bleach. Slender threads of ice wove between the branches. Iced-over snow was piled everywhere like heaps of sugar pressed under glass: Ginny´s feet crunched loudly as she walked, making her wince. 

"It doesn´t feel that cold," she whispered, gathering her cloak to her and glancing around, "but there´s so much ice..." 

"My father´s playing around," Draco said shortly. Then he stopped dead - Harry stopped beside him, and then Ginny stopped as well. 

They were standing in front of a mausoleum built of black marble; it was taller than any mausoleum Ginny had ever seen and the marble of it was so black that it looked less like a man-made structure than a hole ripped through the center of the night. On the door was the crest she would always remember: the sword crossed with a wand under the name MALFOY. Beside that were smaller letters: Arte perire sua. 

"My father´s grave," Draco said, with a sharp, unamused laugh. "This was what he asked for in his will...this bloody huge ugly thing. Although the Latin inscription was my mum´s idea." 

"What does it mean?" Ginny asked, looking at him worriedly - the distance had come back into his expression again. 

"´To perish by one´s own creation,´" Draco said flatly. "Which, I suppose, she thought he had. No such luck, though." 

With no idea what to say to this, Ginny glanced over at Harry. He was standing, booted feet apart, looking at Draco - and she saw a look flash across his face that she could not have described. It seemed a sort of terrible, fearful concern, an almost-pain that hurt her even to look at. Finally, he reached out a hand and touched Draco on the shoulder. 

"We´d better go," he said. 

If Draco said anything back, it was silent. A moment later they were moving again, skirting the mausoleum widely. They cut along the side of a low hill, and came around it to see the walls that surrounded the Manor. High, unbreachable stone, with a pattern of intertwined "M"´s along the top. Farther down, there was a gap in the wall where the enormous wrought iron gate stood, frosted all over with ice. Ginny saw Draco straighten his shoulders. 

"Almost there," he said. 

They continued on in silence, the only sound the crackle of ice snapping underfoot as they walked. Harry was in front now, and Ginny watched him covertly through her hair. The look on his face back at the mausoleum had frightened her. He seemed lost in thought, but not so much so that he was no longer tense - his shoulders were rigid and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. 

He paused at the gate and glanced back at Draco. The gate loomed over them with its intertwined, wrought serpents throwing black shadows against the snow. The bronze bolt that held it shut was as thick as one of Harry´s arms. 

Draco stepped forward. "Let me do it," he said. "It´s best if only I touch things around here," and he reached out and drew back the bolt. The gate creaked open without a sound and they slipped through it: Harry first, then Ginny, and Draco last. He closed the gate behind them and Ginny heard the sound of the bolt drawing itself shut on the other side. 

Draco exhaled a breath of relief. "Now -" he began. 

He never finished his sentence. An unearthly wailing voice suddenly split the night: it sounded like a thousand angry pixies screaming all at once - and it was coming directly from the pocket of Ginny´s robes. 

"I belong to Malfoy Manor!" the wailing voice announced, increasing in pitch and volume with every word. "I belong to Malfoy Manor! I BELONG TO MALFOY MANOR!" 

Draco clapped his hands over his ears and mouthed something at her furiously. Half-fainting with shock, Ginny dug into her pocket - which was dancing and vibrating against her leg as if it had a live cat in it - and pulled out the second book she had taken from the library, the one she had used to hide the diary in. Freed from the confines of her robes, it shrieked even louder: "I BELONG TO MALFOY MANOR! BRING ME BACK TO MALFOY MANOR!" 

Not knowing what else to do, she threw the book at Draco. White-faced with shock, he caught it and threw it on the ground, bringing his booted foot down on it again and again until the spine splintered in half and the voice broke off abruptly, leaving Ginny´s ears still ringing in the sudden silence. 

For a moment, Draco stood staring down at the book and panting, his thin shoulders heaving under his cloak as if he had been running full tilt. Then he bent down and picked it up, and glanced at the cover. 

"I don´t suppose," he said flatly, "you want to tell us why you decided to steal a copy of something called the Liber-Damnatis from my father´s study?" 

"I - I´m sorry," Ginny said in a whisper. "I didn´t realize it was important enough to be charmed -" 

"Well, apparently it is." Draco thrust the book at her suddenly; she took it, terrified at his expression - it was set, blank and furious. His skin seemed to be pressing back against the bones of his face. "Take it," he hissed. "You unbelievable, blithering little idiot - you stole it, so take it, if you wanted it so badly -" 

"She didn´t know." Harry´s cool voice cut across Draco´s tirade. 

"I didn´t want it," Ginny whispered. "I just picked it up to - to have something to carry - in case I needed a, a weapon - and I forgot I had it. I´m sorry..." 

"It´s all right, Gin." Harry looked acutely uncomfortable. "You rescued us - no need to -" 

"And how did she manage that, exactly?" Draco said loudly. His eyes were narrowed; his soft mouth twisted into a hard line. "Eh, Ginny? How did you manage to stay behind in the Manor when everyone else was flung out? You never did tell us that." 

Ginny set her chin. "Are you accusing me of something?" 

"Malfoy," Harry said sharply, "Don´t you think we should..." Harry broke off then, a perplexed look on his face. "What was that?" 

Ginny paused and listened. At first she heard nothing but the faint rustle of leafless branches. She was about to say so when a sound so faint she might have mistaken it for the sigh of the wind caught the edge of her hearing: a low ululating cry, rising in pitch. It was not a human noise at all; it was the sound of a baying dog. No sooner had she thought that than it was joined by other, similar cries: not a dog but a pack of them...or a pack of wolves? 

She turned quickly and looked at Harry and Draco. Harry looked confused, but Draco did not: he looked merely horrified, and so pale that the thin scar high on his smooth cheekbone looked like a livid thread of silver. 

"Oh, God," he said. "They´ve let loose the hellhounds." 

*** 

In the dream, she was at the seaside. It was a curious dream, because she knew she was dreaming, and at the same time it also seemed more real than any other dream she had ever had. 

Hermione had been to the beach enough times to know that she was not standing on any beach that actually existed. The sand was too white and fine, the sea too blue and unmoving. There were no clouds and the sun was high in the sky yet the view seemed shaded with a peculiar twilight feeling. She shivered as she walked along the perimeter of the water towards two figures she could see in the distance. 

As she approached them they became suddenly clear, as if she were focusing the lens of a camera. One was a small dark-haired child, sitting among the ruins of a half-built sandcastle; the other was an older boy, blond, kneeling beside him and watching him intently. As she drew closer they raised their heads and looked at her. She realized without any sense of surprise that she knew them both. 

The child´s face was thin and haunted, his eyes a vivid piercing green. The scar that slashed across his forehead was a livid scarlet. He could not have been more than eight years old and in his small hands he clutched a red plastic bucket. Around the rim of the bucket were a number of peculiar symbols that looked as if they had been scratched into the plastic with a knife. 

Harry, she thought. Oh, Harry. 

The older boy had glanced at her once and then away. He looked to be the age he really was: if her dream-Draco was any different than Draco in life, it was simply that his face was more transparently readable, more like Harry´s. He wore pajamas, and his arms were crossed in front of him as if he were cold. 

The boy who was Harry spoke first. "Have you come to help me?" he asked her, raising his small face to hers. "My mother built me a castle but I knocked it down. Will you help me build it back up?" 

She looked down the beach, then back at Harry. "Even if we build it up, the tide will wash it away," she said. 

"No." Harry´s tone was positive. "The tides here run backwards. Everything does." 

She looked at the blond boy who was Draco, and wasn´t. "Is he telling the truth?" she asked. 

He frowned at the question. "Don´t you believe him?" he said. "Love is faith, I always thought." 

"Then maybe you should help him," she said. 

He uncrossed his arms slowly and held them out to her, palms-up: she saw that across his wrists two jagged incisions gaped, deep and empty. "I gave all I had already," he said. "I haven´t got any more." 

She could not stop staring at the cuts: she thought they must go down to his very bones, and yet they were clean and bloodless. "Doesn´t it hurt?" 

"Everything hurts," said Harry, and tipped his bucket towards her. Silver fluid spilled out of it and soaked into the sand at her feet. And then she realized what it was: it was blood. It spilled and spilled and she stepped away from the widening pool; surely such a small container could not hold much more blood. Surely no person could hold that much blood. But it continued to spread, moving towards her in a slow tide, and the gray-eyed boy with the cut wrists watched her, unmoved and unmoving, as she backed away and backed away and - 

She tripped and went down, tumbling backward. She was awake before she even struck the ground. 

... 

Hermione opened her eyes. Something was fluttering insistently against her face in the darkness. She sat up, brushing it away: then realized it was one of Pigwidgeon´s wings. He was hovering above her, holding a letter in one small claw. 

She sat up and reached out a hand for it, "Thanks, Pig." It was an ordinary piece of rolled parchment, tied with a bit of string. She held it for a moment before opening, letting the strangeness of her dream fade. It had seemed so real: the beach, the sand and the blood. Her intellectual curiosity had been piqued by the odd symbols around the rim of Harry´s red pail. Were they the same symbols that chased the edges of his runic band in reality? She would have to check her notebooks. If they were, she would be impressed at the recollective powers of her own subconscious. 

Pig had settled on her right shoulder. She suspected he missed Ron, and let him remain there as she opened the letter. It was extremely short. 

Hermione, 

I must speak with you. I am waiting for you downstairs at the front door. I sent up the little owl so you wouldn´t be frightened. I can´t let anyone else see me. Please come downstairs. It´s about Draco. 

She stared at the signature for several long moments in disbelief. Perhaps this was some kind of joke? How could she possibly think...? Hermione jumped back with an exclamation as the letter in her hand disintegrated into ashes. Damn paranoid Slytherins, she thought furiously, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. 

She had gone to sleep in her own pajama bottoms and one of Harry´s old souvenir T-shirts from the 1996 Chudley Cannons/Holyhead Harpies game. She drew a flowered robe of Ginny´s out of the closet, shrugged it on, and headed downstairs. Righteous indignation gave her feet wings, and within a moment she was standing in the entryway, pulling the bolts on the front door back and drawing it wide. 

The slender figure on the front steps jumped and turned around. She was wrapped in a thick green cloak with a gold-bordered hood: only a bit of her pointed chin was visible. Her breath puffed out in white clouds of frozen air. 

"So," Hermione said frostily. "You wanted to talk to me about something? Talk." 

The hood trembled for a moment; then it was pushed decisively back and a cascade of red-gold curls tumbled out. Dark green eyes stared into Hermione´s with a mute, resentful appeal. 

"Let me come in," Blaise said. "We can talk inside." 

*** 

Later Draco would remember their mad dash from the gates of the Manor to the edge of Malfoy Park as a nightmare of crazily tilting shadows. Ice had hardened over the road, making it smooth as glass and treacherous to run on: he had never been so glad for his heavy-soled dragonhide boots. Ginny seemed to be having more trouble: twice he caught her as she slipped; twice she righted herself quickly and kept running. Harry, of course, being Harry, was having no trouble: he was built to run, light and lean and wiry. He ran like the snow fell, like he flew: as if it was his one purpose. 

At the foot of a small hill the road forked; they went left, towards what should have been the lights of the Park. The town was dark: the inhabitants had battened down like a ship in a storm. Everything would be locked tight. They ran towards the Cold Christmas Inn and past it, the sound of baying growing closer and closer behind them. 

Draco knew the hellhounds of Malfoy Manor well enough, from his childhood. Twice the size of ordinary dogs, with long slavering jaws and pupilless eyes the size of oranges, they had given him nightmares for years. It had amused his father to purchase rare monsters and turn the hellhounds loose to hunt them across the grounds; Draco had seen the hounds pull down a full-sized gryphon and rip it apart with their teeth and claws. 

Hellhounds were also fast. Very fast. Draco knew the three of them had a head start of almost the full length of the gardens; he also knew it would not be enough. By the time they reached the clearing where the broomstick were, the sound of yelps an barking behind them was so loud it sounded like the crackle of a bonfire. 

Harry spilled into the clearing first, then Ginny, and Draco last. The clearing was just as Draco remembered it: the Inn up on the hill in the distance, the broomsticks stuck fast in the tree overhead, the steep incline that fell away to the iced-over river. 

Harry stopped under the tree and spun around, his red cloak flying out. "Ginny - get your wand out - quickly -" 

Ginny fumbled for her wand, but terror had made her fingers clumsy: she dropped it. Stricken, she bent to retrieve it, picked it up and pointed a shaking hand at the Cloudbursts, lodged in the tree trunk as if they hand been locked there. "Acci-" she began and gasped, a strangled wail escaping her throat. Draco spun to look behind him: coming through the darkness between the trees were at least seven vast and slinking forms, ornamented with fierce jewelry eyes. 

Beside Draco, Harry swore, once and fiercely. A moment later Draco felt something grasp his arm: it was Harry, his grip as hard as iron. /I´m sorry/ he said in Draco´s head, and then he seized hold of Draco´s other arm and pushed him, hard, into Ginny. Caught completely off guard, Draco staggered; Ginny clutched at him, and the two of them tumbled precipitately down the steep incline that led down to the river, rolling over and over in the snow. 

From a distance it might have looked like a gentle roll down a snowy hill, but it wasn´t: there was a great deal of ice, and jutting broken branches that tore at them. Draco heard fabric rip, and a stinging pain shot up his arm. They fetched up against a rock with enough force to knock them apart. Draco heard Ginny cry out, then rolled and came up, coughing and spitting snow. When the coughing subsided enough for him to breathe, he rubbed his sleeve across his wet face and it came away silver: not with snow, either. Blood. He was coughing blood. 

But there was no time to think about that. He struggled into a kneeling position, pushing his soaking hair out of his eyes. Beside him Ginny had already fought free of the snowbank and seemed to be trying to struggle to her feet. He looked up but could not see anything but the incline above them, marked with a ragged path where they had tumbled down it. 

He seized her by the shoulders and shook her hard. Later she would show him the place on her upper arms where his fingertips had pressed dark, coin-sized bruises into her skin. "Don´t move," he hissed at her. They were kneeling inches apart; he could see himself in her dilated pupils. "Do you understand me? -Stay down here and don´t move." 

She nodded at him with wide, frightened eyes. "Is Harry -" 

He didn´t answer her, just released her and stood up. Then he ran. 

It was not easy getting up the side of the hill: the snow was so thickly frosted over with ice that when he stumbled and his hands went through it, the ice broke and slashed at him like glass. Also, he was weak - his breath came short and the blood pounded in his ears, deafening him. He could not even hear the hellhounds, which panicked him more than any noise would have. Damn Harry for knocking him down the hill; stupid grandstanding heroics. He held on to the fact that if something had happened to Harry, he would know. Perhaps Harry had managed to get one of the broomsticks down, somehow; perhaps he´d run into the Inn, perhaps someone had opened their door to him, hearing the furious barking... 

Finally Draco reached the top of the hill and was in the clearing; he ran forward a few steps - then stopped. And stared. 

Harry stood where he had, in the same spot in the center of the clearing. In his red cloak, he was as clearly marked against the white snow as a splash of blood or paint. He was very still, standing with his hands at his sides. Snow from the disturbed tree branches overhead had sifted down on him, starring his black hair with white flakes, covering his shoulders. He could have been standing where he was for hours; for all the expression on his face, he could have been admiring the view. 

Around him in a semicircle, leaning on their haunches, sat the hellhounds, their razored paws dug deep into the snow. Their eyes were fixed on Harry: an unblinking row of fourteen red-gold orbs, licks of flame in the darkness. Their mouths were open, dripping black saliva and the sound of low growling came from their throats. They stared at Harry, and Harry stared back. His expression was set. He did not look frightened. 

The choking taste of blood filled Draco´s mouth again and he wondered for a moment if he were going to be sick. /Harry...?/ 

Harry didn´t move or turn to look at him; he was still staring at the hounds, and a small smile came to curl the corner of his mouth. He raised his right hand, palm up, and as he did his cloak fell away and Draco saw that at his belt, the runic band was blazing as brightly as a bed of red-hot coals. "Go," Harry said to the seven fierce, wolf-like creatures, who snarled and pawed at the ground. "Get out of here!" 

And they went. 

As Draco stood at the incline´s edge, shaking with cold and reaction, the seven nightmare creatures turned tail and walked stiffly out of the clearing. They looked indignant, like dowagers who had been invited round for tea only to discover there were no biscuits left. They went in an orderly line, one after the other, and only when the last one had disappeared between the trees did Harry slowly lower his hand and turn to look at Draco. 

He was quite pale, but composed. Bright spots of color burned on his cheekbones as if he had a fever. "I´m sorry I pushed you," he said mildly. "I hoped, if they thought I was the only one..." 

"What did you do?" Draco whispered. "I´ve never seen them obey anyone - not even my father. And your cloak - they hate red - my father used to have a gameskeeper he paid to dress up in Gryffindor colors and torture them through the bars of their cages - " 

"Your father," Harry said in disgust. "Why do you even bother calling him that?" 

"What did you do?" Draco said again, dizzily, hearing his own voice sounding very small in the winter air. He found he was holding his left arm with his right, the cut along his forearm having opened up again during his fall down the incline. "What did you -" 

The world tilted forward and he staggered; Harry reached to catch him, but Draco twisted away from Harry´s hand and righted himself by seizing at a nearby tree branch. 

"Don´t touch me," he said. 

Harry looked horrified. "Don´t be angry, I -" 

"It´s not that. I´m bleeding, and your hands are all sliced up." Draco held his left arm up; the cuff of his shirt was soaked through with silvery blood. "I don´t know if it´s safe to touch me or not." He leaned back against the trunk of the tree, exhaustion threading through his veins like its own cold venom, and let his eyes slip shut. "You should have just let the hellhounds eat me - probably they´d have choked to death on the poison before they ever got round to you." 

"Look at me." Harry´s voice was quiet. "You´re not going to die." 

Draco was so tired that even opening his eyes seemed an effort, but he did it. "You´re going to tell them all everything, aren´t you," he said. "Sirius, and Dumbledore and the rest." 

Harry nodded. "Yes," he said. "That´s exactly what I´m going to do. And they´ll know how to help you. What to do." 

"And what if they don´t?" Draco asked. "What if they can´t fix it?" 

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, a soft voice spoke from behind them. 

"Fix what?" Ginny said. 

Harry´s mouth remained open. Draco twisted around and looked at her: she was standing at the edge of the incline, her soaking yellow cloak wrapped around her, her red hair streaked damply across her forehead like indiscriminate swipes of paint. 

"I thought I told you to stay down there and not to move," Draco said, exhaustion making his voice harsh. 

"You did," she said. "But I was worried. It was so quiet." Her eyes went past him and fixed on Harry; there was a mute appeal in them. "I don´t understand," she went on. "What´s all this about poison and dying? What´s happening? Where are those...dog things?" 

"The hellhounds ran off," Harry said. "As for the rest of it..." 

He looked at Draco, and Draco sighed a weary inner sigh. He imagined the long road of telling people stretching out before him: telling Ginny, telling Hermione, telling Sirius, telling Dumbledore, telling the bloody Weasleys. He imagined all their reactions: shock and pity and horror and perhaps a creeping fear of what was happening to him. Every day the poison killed him a little more: already it had burned his blood silver, and who knew what subsequent form of destruction it might take? 

/Don´t look like that./ Harry´s inner voice was quiet. /I´ll tell her on the way to the Burrow. You don´t have to./ 

Draco looked at him in surprise. And realized that he didn´t have to - he didn´t have to tell anyone; Harry would do it. And it would be better having Harry explain: he could explain properly, and with the correct righteous fervor - he could remember the details that Draco was now too exhausted to recall. Draco could crawl into bed and fall asleep and Harry would take care of it all and he didn´t have to worry that Harry would screw it up, either, because Harry knew what he wanted better than he did himself. For the first time ever he was consciously glad for the connection between them: it was a blessing not to have to explain, and to be understood. The knowledge of it gave him a certain amount of strength, and he straightened up and held his hand out to Ginny. 

"Let´s get the broomsticks down and get going," he said, "I´ll explain everything to you on the way." 

*** 

The door to the bedroom closed behind the two girls with an audible click. Hermione walked across the room to the armchair by the bed, turned, and sat down in it as gracefully as she could, smoothing her wrinkled skirt over her knees. She raised her chin and looked at Blaise. "So," she said. "What do you want?" 

A smile touched the corner of Blaise´s perfect mouth. Again, that faint sense of familiarity assailed Hermione, and again she knew that it was because Blaise so much resembled Draco - not physically of course, they were nothing alike save that they were both beautiful. But her mannerisms, from her posture down to the haughty tilt of her small chin, were a copy of Draco´s own. "I wanted to talk to you about Draco Malfoy," Blaise said. 

"Oh dear," Hermione said coolly. "Is this one of those 'stay away from my boyfriend´ visits? Because if so, you´ve got the wrong girl. If Draco´s been cheating on you, it hasn´t been with me." 

"Oh, I know that," Blaise said easily. "He´d never touch you. Even if he did want you, he´d never touch you." 

Hermione gritted her teeth. "Glad we´ve established that," she said. "In which case, what do you want?" 

"I was in the Ministry with my parents this afternoon," Blaise said, glancing casually around the room. She walked over to a row of photographs tacked above Ron´s bed and began to examine them. "I saw Professor Lupin there with that convict godfather of Potter´s." 

Hermione did not bother offering the correction that Sirius was no longer a convict. She sat without moving while Blaise shrugged off her embroidered cloak; underneath it she was plainly dressed in jeans and a green cowl-necked jumper. She still looked dazzling. It was very irritating. 

"I heard Draco´s father kept him and Potter back at the Manor," Blaise said. "That´s true, isn´t it?" 

"As far as I know," admitted Hermione. 

"Then they´re in terrible danger," Blaise said, turning with a swift theatrical gesture to gaze at Hermione. Her eyes were wide and misty green; she was so very pretty that Hermione wanted to smack her. 

"You know," Hermione said, "I´d kind of figured that was a possibility, thanks." 

"All of you are," Blaise said. "This is much bigger than it looks - much bigger than you could possibly imagine. They don´t tell us very much - we´re too young. But I´ve heard - things." Blaise took a deep breath, and Hermione realized that she was, actually, genuinely, frightened. "A lot of people are going to die." 

Hermione´s heart skipped a beat. "Why are you telling me this, Blaise?" 

Blaise´s eyes widened. "What do you mean?" 

"I mean, give me one reason to believe your visit here wasn´t motivated entirely by malice. So far you´ve told me that my friends are in danger - which I knew - and made vague and upsetting statements about people dying. You don´t like me, you don´t like Harry, you´re a Slytherin through and through and I can´t imagine they´d be happy with you if they knew you were here. So why risk it for my benefit?" 

"You won´t tell them." Blaise´s tone was confident. Hermione wondered what on earth she was finding in those photographs to rivet her attention: they were mostly photographs of the Weasleys, some of Harry and herself, some of Ginny´s schoolfriends at Beauxbatons. "You´re a Gryffindor just as much as I´m a Slytherin. You wouldn´t turn me in like that. Even though you hate me, too." 

"I don´t hate you, Blaise." Hermione felt very tired. "I just don´t have one good reason to trust you." 

"Yes, you do," Blaise said. "Draco." 

"Draco? What about him?" 

"Think about him getting hurt. Think about it -" 

"I have been. All the time." The words were out of Hermione´s mouth before she could hold them back; she regretted them instantly. Blaise would put the worst possible spin on it and mock her and throw her words back in her face and - 

"So have I," Blaise said. 

Hermione raised her chin. "Draco said you hated him now." 

""I should hate him." Blaise shrugged. "I should hate him, and I sort of hate him, but I´ve known him since we were children and I can´t just... I mean, I know he´s impossible. He´s...arrogant, and..." 

"And self-centered," Hermione said. 

"Oooh, yes," Blaise agreed enthusiastically. "And pigheaded, and he can be so mean. He never listens, and..." 

"And he always think he's right." 

"Especially when he isn't. And he smirks." 

"Oh, I know. And he's vain." 

"He takes hours getting dressed." 

"He's obsessed with his hair." 

"He's terribly selfish in bed as well." 

"Gah!" Hermione nearly fell out of the armchair. "I did NOT need to know that." 

Blaise chuckled. "I was joking." 

"Ah yes," said Hermione sourly. "That rich Slytherin humour we're all so fond of." 

Blaise smiled in a placating manner. "He is obsessed with his hair, though. Oh, he think he's so pretty. It would be less annoying if he wasn't, of course." 

"I know," Hermione said. "He's all those things - and selfish - and he can be cruel - and if you aren´t someone he loves you might as well not exist at all," she added softly. 

Blaise, for a moment, sounded bitter. "How would you know? He loves you." 

"I´m sure he..." 

"Loves me too?" Blaise scoffed. "No. He was just using me. To draw attention away from the people he really does care about. I know that because...because he told me, when he came and asked me to pose as his girlfriend in the first place." 

"To pose as his girlfriend?" 

"I suppose he was always honest," Blaise said. "He told me that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, that he wouldn´t tell me why, that it had to do with people he wanted to protect, and that it might be dangerous, and did I understand that." 

"And did you," Hermione asked, "understand that?" 

"A little. Maybe. He offered me money..." Blaise took in Hermione´s horrified stare, and her lips twisted. "I know what you´re thinking. That I sold myself for pocket change to buy dresses with. I didn´t. My father...he lost all our money. Invested it badly, gambled it away on bad firecrab futures, I don´t really know. You don´t know what it´s like, though. My parents, they don´t know how to live without money. They´ve always had it. They couldn´t adjust. It was horrible. Then Draco came. He knew, of course. Everyone in my parents´ little circle knew. My mother and Narcissa were best friends once. He came and he offered me enough money...he has so much, he would hardly even notice what he gave us, he said...and I just had to be his girlfriend. Just for a year." 

Hermione was speechless. She had no idea what to think. She wasn´t sure who she was more disgusted with: Blaise, for accepting such an offer, or Draco, for offering in the first place. Of course, neither of them would probably ever even understand what was so horribly wrong with this arrangement. However much Draco had changed, he would never be anything but a Slytherin at heart. 

Blaise continued to speak, as if she had quite forgotten that Hermione was there. "He did what he said he would. He gave us money, and he opened accounts for me in Hogsmeade so that I could buy whatever I wanted - dresses, shoes. And I suppose I pretended that we really were dating. All the girls in my House always loved him, a little... and it was pleasant, being envied. And I thought maybe he did care for me, and he´d constructed this elaborate ruse so he could have me - he could have had me anyway, but I never told him that. Then, after a while, I began to see it wasn´t me he was in love with..." Her voice flattened. "I suppose you know the rest." 

"I don´t know what to say," Hermione replied honestly. "Or to think. I won´t say it doesn´t sound like something Draco would do. It does." If he thought he was protecting one of us...yes, he´d do something like that. "He can be really...sort of singleminded, I guess, would be the nice way to say it." 

"You don´t have to bother looking for nice ways to say it." Blaise shrugged lightly. "I know what he is." 

"Why me?" Hermione asked. "Why come to me with this?" 

"Because you love him more than you don´t like me," Blaise said evenly. "I see the way you are together - your little group, and him. He´s never said anything to me, but I always noticed." 

"If you noticed," Hermione said, "then you love him as well." 

"A little, maybe." Blaise´s face had shut like a fan; her eyes were remote. "Maybe we all do, to some degree or other. He´s always been able to make people love him when he tried or needed to. In his life, I think there´s only ever been one person who didn´t love him enough."  

And Hermione felt a strange little shock inside her - she understood what Blaise meant, and above that, she agreed with her. In that moment, she made the unconscious decision to trust the Slytherin girl. The words tumbled out of her unanticipated: 

"All right then," she said. "All right. I believe you." 

Blaise exhaled a breath of relief. "Good." Then she did something peculiar: she raised her hands, and unpinned the glittering barrettes that held her hair back. It swung forward in a heavy tumble of dark red-gold, the color of dragon scales. She looked at the barrettes in her hand for a moment - there were three of them, a matched set of slender green wands. She held them out to Hermione, who stared. "Give these to Draco when you see him," she instructed. 

Hermione balked. "No offense, but I doubt they´d suit him." 

"He doesn´t have to wear them in his hair," Blaise said, as if this were obvious. "He can pin them on his cloak, or turn them into buttons. I don´t care. I just want him to wear them." 

And I want him to dress up in tight trousers and a football jersey that says SCORING OPPORTUNITY across the front in big red letters, but we don´t always get what we want, do we? Hermione nearly replied, but stopped herself. If there was one thing she had noticed about Blaise, it was that she had remarkably little sense of humor. That alone would have prevented Draco from ever having any real feelings for her, Hermione thought with some satisfaction - then squashed the thought and the satisfaction as well. 

"All right," she said, with great misgiving, taking the barrettes from Blaise. "I´ll give them to him - but it´s up to him if he wants to wear them." 

"I wish I had more, but these are all I´ve got. They´re not easy to come by, you know...Pansy told me she had to make her own. I´m sure she took care of Weasley as well, so you don´t have to worry about him." 

"Uh-huh," Hermione said, wondering if Blaise was, perhaps, a little off her head. She looked down at the barrettes, but there seemed nothing terribly special about them - they were not jeweled after all, up close, but made of some shimmering hard green material, somewhat like titanium. 

"Don´t let him give them all to Potter, either," Blaise added, as an afterthought. 

"If his desire to see Harry in hair barrettes becomes uncontrollable, I´ll be sure to step in," Hermione replied dryly. She narrowed her eyes at Blaise. "If these turn out to be something dangerous, or some kind of tracking spell..." 

"They´re not," Blaise snapped, exasperated. "Look, when you can, just get both of them to a safe place, all right? Not here. The whole Ministry will be looking for them..." Her voice trailed off at the look on Hermione´s face. "What?" 

"What makes you think I´ll even see them again to get them to a safe place?" Hermione said in a small voice, hating herself for being vulnerable in front of Blaise, but too unhappy to stop it. 

Blaise looked at her, surprise making her face transparent, and for a moment Hermione thought she could look through the other girl´s shut expression to the real Blaise underneath - and in that moment, she did believe that Blaise loved Draco. It might have been a love made up in equal parts of childhood attachment, singed pride, and clannish loyalty, but it was still love of a sort. "They´ll come back to you," Blaise said. "They always do." 

"Oh." For a moment, Hermione could think of nothing to say. She cleared her throat. "And Ron - you said Pansy´d given him something already, so when he gets back here, do I have to get him to a safe place too?" 

The transparency vanished from Blaise´s expression; now she looked merely surprised. "You think Weasley´s coming back here?" she demanded. "You mean you don´t -" She broke off and spun around, green eyes widening. "What was that noise?" 

Hermione leaped to her feet. "The kitchen door -" 

Blaise went white. "Oh, no." There was a world of dread in those two words. She began to fumble in her pockets. 

"Oh, for goodness sake. It could be Ron, or Ginny or even Bill -" 

"Think what you want. I´m leaving," Blaise said, and drew a small silver Portkey box out of her robes. 

"But what about your broom? It´s downstairs-" 

"Owl it to me," Blaise replied, snapping the box open. With a toss of her red head, she vanished into thin air. 

Hermione shook her head. "Typical bloody Slytherin," she muttered, with more bravado than she felt. Blaise´s evident panic had communicated itself to her despite herself. Drawing her wand out of her pocket, she stepped cautiously out into the hall and began making her way towards the stairs as quietly as she could. 

It was quite dark; the hallway torches were unlit. It was very quiet. As she neared the staircase, she thought she heard the sound of the kitchen door closing - no one dangerous should be able to get past the wards, but wards could be subverted of course. There were ways and ways. Gripping her wand tightly, she began to make her way down the stairs. 

*** 

The Dark Lord reclined in the tall chair behind the chess table and regarded the air in front of him. It was full of dust motes; they hovered in the faint light of the narrow windows. The redheaded boy lay at his feet. He had not moved in nearly a half an hour now; it seemed likely that he would not again be useful this evening. What had been like a light inside him had spilled out like blood, and he lay, unconscious and still, on the hard stones with his face buried on his arms. One hand was extended, palm up; the intricate serpent scarring across the palm was clearly visible. 

"Marked with my sign before I ever saw him," the Dark Lord said aloud, and the girl inside her gold cage looked up as if he had spoken to her. "Marked now twice, he is doubly mine." 

"Will he die, Lord?" she asked. 

"Not yet. I have not even begun to get use out of him. The gift of Foretelling is like divine clockwork. I have wound him up; now, as a clock tells time, he will tell me of the future." 

"And why do you want to know the future, Lord?" 

The Dark Lord raised his inhuman eyes to hers and laughed. "You are a curious little demon," he said. "What can it matter to you? Your kind goes on and on without end; whatever the future brings, you will survive it." 

"As would you - you also cannot die." 

"Life is not to be lived for life´s sake alone," said the Dark Lord cryptically. "There is also power, and the seeking of it. And vengeance. You should know all about vengeance, little demon. Six hundred years bound in servitude to one family...you must want for your freedom very badly." 

"Are you trying to incite my servants against me, my Lord?" came a light voice from the doorway. 

The girl turned first; the Dark Lord second. He did not get up from his chair. "Lucius," he said. "I hope, for your sake, that you bring me good news." 

"The best news, Lord," said the pale man, drawing off his gloves and laying them on the table by the door. "All has gone exactly according to plan. We have Harry Potter in our temporary custody; Arthur Weasley is out of power, and the transition at the Ministry is going smoothly." He paused, and glanced at the redheaded boy on the floor. "I see we have had a casualty," he added, sounding amused. 

The Dark Lord chuckled. "He is not dead. He utilized too much of his power, untrained; it drained him. He will recover. Speaking of casualties..." He glanced up at Lucius. "What of my servants, my loyal Death Eaters? Have they all been alerted to my return?" 

At that, Lucius looked slightly uncomfortable. "I have not alerted them all, my Lord. I thought we would wait until the transition of power was complete -" 

"I thought you said it had gone smoothly." 

"I said it was going smoothly." Lucius sounded harried. In the gold cage, Rhysenn stirred and moaned as if in pain. "It has only been a day, Lord." 

There was a silence. The Dark Lord rose slowly to his feet, and turned to look at Lucius Malfoy; Lucius was neither his most trusted nor his most beloved servant, but he was what he was: indispensable. 

"Quintilius Varus," the Dark Lord said finally, softly. "Give me back my legions." 

Lucius flushed red. "Our great defeats are now in the past, my Lord," he said. "We have only victory to come to now, and we will have legions to fight for it." 

"I wished to return at the head of an army, Lucius. Not to have to ferret that army out and press them into service." 

"My Lord, they are loyal to you! They simply wait for instruction. There are a few minor...dissidents we need ridding of first, before our way is clear." 

The Dark Lord´s narrow hands clenched and unclenched at his sides: they were ashen, the nails a heavy black. Once he had had long slender fingers, articulately boned: beautiful hands fashioned equally for poetry or for prayer. Of course, they had been put to neither use. "I dream of such things, my Lucius. When I am victorious, I shall have a chessboard made from the snapped wands of my enemies. I shall carve the white pieces from the bones of Severus Snape, who betrayed me, and the red pieces shall be made of clear glass and filled with Harry Potter´s blood. I shall treasure it always." 

In the gilded cage, Rhysenn laughed softly. Lucius had turned very white. "You shall have all those things, Master," he said in a constricted voice. "All those things, and more." 

"And yet you tell me I must wait." 

"Yes." Lucius´s face was like stone. "You must wait." 

*** 

Hermione was halfway down the stairs when she saw them. 

Ginny stepped out of the kitchen first and Hermione assumed without thinking that of course she had come home alone. Ginny looked disheveled and exhausted, there was dirt on her soaked and draggled yellow cloak and her damp hair was a wild tangle. None of this surprised Hermione; what did surprise her was the expression on Ginny´s face when she raised it - beyond her look of numb shock, she had very obviously been crying. 

"Ginny?" Hermione said, pausing on the stairs. "Ginny, are you all right?" 

Ginny looked up. "Oh! Hermione." Her voice was heavy with exhaustion. "Yes. I´m all right." 

"Then what..." 

Hermione broke off as the kitchen door opened again, and Harry came through, followed by Draco. Harry was carrying two broomsticks in his right hand; Draco was fumbling with the clasp that fastened his soaked and draggled cloak. Both were walking in the slow manner of those who are weary to the bone. She opened her mouth to call out to them, but only a gasp of surprise escaped her lips. 

They were safe, they were home...And yet. She wanted to be overjoyed, but the joy didn´t come. There was something terribly wrong: she could see it, it was in the way Draco walked, the set of Harry´s shoulders. Harry was the one who noticed her first; she thought later that perhaps he had heard her sharp intake of breath. He raised his head and looked up; Draco followed his gaze, and they both stared blankly at her, as if they could not quite believe that she was there. 

She would always remember that moment later. It was not a long moment, and yet it seemed to go on and on. She stood and stared at them and wondered that although he should by all right be out of her mind with relief, instead a small cold fear was growing in her heart. 

They were filthier than Ginny was, both of them. Harry´s robes were torn and shredded, his gloves stained black, his face pinched with exhaustion and something else. Draco´s cloak was ripped, thick with twigs; there was a ragged bandage around his arm and his face was cut and bloodied. 

But it was not that which made her pause. It was the looks on their faces. She remembered Harry´s expression from their fourth year, after the Third Task - that half-drugged, dazed and stunned look of overwhelming shock. She had not seen him look like that since then. And now he did. 

And Draco. She would not have thought someone so young could look so old. It was not on his face, this look of age, but behind it, at the backs of his glacial eyes. It was knowledge and acceptance and other things that were worse than that. She remembered his telling her that he was fine, that he would see a mediwizard soon, and knew he had been lying, and that this was what he had been lying to cover up. It all made sense suddenly: Harry´s expression, Draco´s weary resignation, and she remembered her dream and the silvery blood all over the sand at her feet and she sat down suddenly on the stairs, realization and sudden despair weakening her knees. 

"I knew it," she said, "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it all this time..." 

*** 

An indefinite period of time passed for Hermione while she sat on the stairs with her hands over her face, struggling to not cry. In reality, of course, it was less than a minute before Harry came up the stairs and sat down next to her, Draco and Ginny having prudently disappeared into the living room. 

"I´d give you a handkerchief," he said. "But I haven´t got one. And I ripped the bottom of my cloak off to make a bandage for Draco´s arm. But, If you wanted..." 

She looked up. "I´m not crying," she said. 

"Oh," Harry said. There was a momentary silence. "If you wanted to have a cry, I could go away," he offered. 

"Harry..." She looked more closely at him: under the dirt and bruises, he was slightly wan-looking with tiredness, but he seemed healthy enough. The same reserve was in his eyes that she remembered, the same distance. In fact, he looked more closed off than ever. But his expression was not unsympathetic. She realized with a start that this was the first time she had been alone with him since they had ended their relationship. It seemed a thousand years ago. "I don´t want to have a cry. I want to go wake Charlie up and Portkey ourselves back to Hogwarts before anything terrible happens." 

If she had expected any resistance, she didn´t get it. "Good," said Harry decidedly. "I´ve been wanting to talk to Dumbledore. Although I ought to talk to Sirius first, is he here?" 

Hermione shook her head. "Back at Lupin´s house. They´re both fine, though. Everyone is, except..." 

Harry looked at her narrowly. "Except who?" 

"Ron," Hermione said finally. She tensed, not sure how Harry would react. But he looked merely surprised. 

"He´s not back yet?" 

"No. And Harry - I know about Pansy. Charlie told me." 

"Better him than me," said Harry, his tone almost flippant. Then, at the look on her face, his voice softened. "I´m sorry," he said. "But I´m also glad you weren´t there at the reception, when Draco let everyone know what happened. It was pretty horrible." 

"Oh, poor Ron," Hermione said softly. "He must have felt miserable. I mean, Pansy. He never even liked her. And to find out she was just trying to get at him for whatever reason, it must have been ..." 

"Awful," Harry said shortly. "I thought I wanted to hurt him a lot, but I guess I really didn´t after all." 

"Why did Draco do that?" 

"Because." Harry´s tone was clipped. "I asked him to." 

"Oh," she said. Then, unable to help herself, she added, "Harry, be careful what you ask him to do. He´d do anything for you. It wouldn´t be fair." 

"Fair?" Harry voice was bitter; she looked at him in surprise. "What´s not fair is that the more I try to protect the people I care about, the worse it gets for them. I tried to keep Ron away from the dangerous parts of my life, and he decided I didn´t care about him anymore and turned his back on me. What´s not fair is Lucius Malfoy alive and walking the earth while my parents are dead and buried..." 

"The Ministry will deal with Lucius -" 

"He doesn´t seem like someone who´s afraid of the Ministry." Harry´s tone was cold. "He stood there and told Draco that he had a month to live and maybe two weeks before the pain got too bad for him to walk anymore - and he laughed while he was saying it." 

Nausea rose up in the back of Hermione´s throat. "Oh my God, Harry." 

Harry seemed to recollect himself. Some of the fierceness went out of his expression. "It´s okay," he said. "He won´t die. We got away, so...he´ll be fine. He said Snape´s figuring out what the poison is, and Dumbledore will help us, and ... he´ll be fine." 

Hermione was dubious, but then she had always been more of an alarmist than Harry, and he seemed so sure it was hard to doubt him. She glanced down, and started - "What happened to your hands?" 

"Oh. I cut them on some glass." He held them out to her, and she took out her wand and ran the tip over the broken skin. The cuts vanished. Harry nodded appreciatively and drew his hands back. As he did so, his sleeve rode up and a spark of whitish light lit around his wrist. He frowned. "I don´t suppose you can do anything about this handcuffy thing?" he asked. 

"An adamantine bracelet, very clever," she said, touching it lightly. "No, Dumbledore will have to get it off for you. Lucius must have been pretty keen to stop you doing magic - then again, you are the big, scary Harry Potter," she teased. 

He smiled wanly, to her relief. "I guess I am," he said. 

For a moment, he looked very young to her - disheveled as if he´d just come off the Quidditch field, his clothes torn and stained, his glasses hanging crooked again. "I missed you," she said suddenly. 

"I know," he said. "I missed you, too." 

With a little sigh she leaned forward, and rested her head against his shoulder as she had done so many times in the past. For a moment he laid his hand gently on her back, holding her to him, and they sat together without moving. She inhaled the scent of him: sweat, blood, faint traces of soap and wet wool. "Thank you," she whispered. 

His voice was muffled. "For what?" 

"Coming back to me," she said. 

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. He went rigid all over as if his muscles had turned to iron, and pulled back from her. 

"Harry. I didn´t mean -" 

"You were right." He got to his feet, keeping his face averted so she could not see his expression. "We´d better get back to Hogwarts quickly. It´s not safe here." 

As she looked up at him in astonishment, he turned around and headed up the unlit stairs towards Charlie´s room. After a moment, not knowing what else to do, she rose to her feet and followed him up into the darkness. 

*** 

"You must be cold," Ginny said nervously. Harry and Hermione had disappeared up the stairs and she was alone with Draco in the living room. She had left for a moment to change out of her soaking wet cloak and dress, and upon returning had discovered him sprawled across the couch as though he belonged there, his head on one of her mother´s crocheted white doily pillows. "Do you want me to make some tea before we go?" 

A faint mumble was her only answer. She turned and saw that he was asleep, or seemed to be. His cheek rested on the palm of his hand; the lashes of his shut eyes lay along his cheekbones like a fringe of tasseled black silk. In his face she could see the child he had been, the child who had faced her in the Manor library and told her how poor and repulsive he thought she was. There were hollows in his face now he had not had when he was twelve, of course; he had had a heart-shaped child´s face then. Now it was more the shape of an expensive cat´s: wide across the cheekbones, narrowing out towards the jaw. He turned slightly as she watched him, his exhaled breath stirring his hair. "Draco," she said softly. "Are you asleep?" 

He opened his eyes and looked at her through his lashes. "I was getting there." 

"Oh. Sorry." 

"No, it´s all right." He propped himself on his elbow and looked at her. "I wanted to ask you something anyway." 

"All right. What?" 

"Come over here and sit down, will you? You´re making me nervous hovering over there." She looked at him, surprised, and he smiled. "And no, that wasn´t what I wanted to ask you." 

"All right," she said again, and not without misgiving went to sit on the couch. He slid his feet off to make room for her and half-sat up, propping himself against the cushions. 

"I wanted to ask you," he said, "when you got your Time-Turner back?" 

Ginny´s heart banged hard against her ribs, and almost without her volition her hand flew up to protectively clutch at the chain around her neck. Draco´s eyes widened. 

"You really do have it," he said. "I was guessing." 

Ginny drew away from him, pressing her back into the couch. "I will not give it back," she said fiercely. "I´m perfectly capable of being responsible with it -" 

"I didn´t say you weren´t," Draco said quietly. He was watching her narrowly, and a hot flush spread over her face as she remembered the book shrieking outside the gates of the Manor: I belong to Malfoy Manor! She seemed doomed to look like a fool in front of him, she thought with a small corrupting bitterness that made her even more sure that she had made the right decision. She would not tell any of them what she planned until her plan was successful and it was too late for them to try to stop her. Watch them try to tell her then that she was irresponsible, too young, not brave enough, not part of the group. 

"Look," he said, a bit more gently now, "Whatever you´re thinking, you didn´t do anything to give yourself away. But I know the Manor. I know there´s no way whatsoever of resisting that kind of Whirlwind Charm. If you´re in the Manor and you´re trespassing, you´re gone. Unless, of course, you´re in the Manor....but in another time. Time tricks being your specialty." 

"If you know," she said with a sinking heart, "then Dumbledore will know, and your mother, too..." 

"My mum´s off somewhere safe, apparently. As for Dumbledore, that´s trickier. I´ll have to think up a good lie that he won´t see through." 

Ginny´s hand tightened around the hourglass at her throat. "You´d lie for me about this?" 

He sat up straighter and looked at her intently. "That depends. Does Finnigan know you stole that hourglass?" 

"No," she said, surprised at the question. "I´d never - I mean, he wouldn´t want to know. Seamus wouldn´t approve of lying and stealing things. He´s one of the most moral and good people I know." 

"Oh, he´s a treasure, all right," said Draco with heavy irony. "I´m sure they´d build a monument to his wonderfulness, if they could find a grade of marble boring enough." 

"Hmph," said Ginny, unable to think of a retort to this. 

"So he doesn´t know anything about any of this?" 

Ginny shook her head. "I haven´t told anyone," she said softly. "Honestly, Draco...the Time-Turner...I would never do anything dangerous. I was just playing..." 

"I know what you were doing." A faintly superior look stole into his eyes. "You went back to get that book." 

"The...book?" Ginny nearly fainted with horror. Not the diary, he couldn´t have guessed that, he couldn´t possibly... 

"The Liber-Damnatis," he said. 

Ginny was speechless. 

"Trust you to nick one of the most valuable books out of my father´s collection," he said, sounding very amused. "He complained for years that it was missing, but since the charms never went off, he just assumed the house-elves had misplaced it somewhere. 'Picked it up to use as a weapon´ -" he snorted. "You´re not a very good liar." 

That´s what you think, Draco Malfoy, Ginny thought grimly. "I bet you can´t guess why I wanted it," she said, hoping against hope that he would enlighten her. 

He obliged, looking amusingly exasperated. "Hermione was only going on and on about it being one of the best resources for information about the Four Worthy Objects that ever existed for weeks," he said. "She kept complaining that she couldn´t find any existing copies in any libraries anywhere: I told her we´d had one once but it had gone missing when I was twelve and anyway, the Aurors would have confiscated it last summer if it´d turned up. She made me check the manifests..." He made a face at her. "You must think I don´t pay any attention at all." 

Ginny´s mind was whirling. Nothing seemed to quite be making sense: how, out of all the books in the library, had she managed to pick up the one book that Hermione had apparently been wanting - the one book that might tell them about the Worthy Objects? There were coincidences, she thought. And then there were Coincidences. This was obviously one of the latter. "So that´s how you guessed," she said, only half aware she was speaking out loud. "The book..." 

"Partly." Draco´s voice was unusually gentle, although it might have been exhaustion. "I think I knew when I saw you in this..." He reached out his left hand, wincing as the bandage rode up on his wrist, and gently touched the edge of her ruined yellow cloak. "I remembered the girl in the library that day. I mentioned her to my father later and he told me I must have been daydreaming. But I knew even before he told me that that she had been lying about why she was there. He never would have hired a girl like that to be my governess." 

"Oh, I know, you told me," Ginny said sourly. "Too many freckles." 

"No," he said. "Too pretty." 

His fingertips were still touching her cloak, lightly; she gingerly took hold of his wrist and bent to brush her cheek against the back of his hand. "I´m so sorry," she said. "I´m so sorry you´re ill." 

"I´ll be fine." He was looking down at her; their faces were very close. She could feel his breath against her cheek, stirring her eyelashes. An agonizing anticipatory tingle ran over her skin. "Ginny, I wanted to tell you that -" 

He broke off. For a moment she didn´t know why: then she heard what had interrupted him. Someone was knocking at the door. His hand tightened on her cloak. "Aren´t there wards up around this house?" 

"Yes." She looked towards the door. "They don´t let anyone with hostile intentions through. Oh! But it could be Ron- maybe something happened to him, he´s been gone for so many hours -" Pulling away from Draco, she leaped to her feet and ran to the kitchen door. He called after her to be careful, but she ignored him. She drew the chain back and threw the door wide open. 

The blond young man on the front steps blinked in the sudden light. "Ginny?" 

For a moment, she simply froze in dumbfounded shock. He had so much been the last person she expected to see that for a moment it was as if a stranger stood there. It took a moment for recognition to come flooding in. "Seamus?" she said. "Seamus, what are you doing here?" 

"I was worried," he replied, his face breaking into a relieved smile at the sound of her voice. "I heard what happened and I was so worried about you. I flew all night to get here -" and without even finishing the sentence, he covered the space between them with a few swift steps and threw his arms around her. Too shocked to move, she returned his embrace weakly. "Ginny," he whispered into her hair. "Oh Ginny, I´m so glad to see you..." 

*** 

The narrow corridor leading down to the Potions Dungeon was so poorly lit as to be a danger. Dumbledore waved a hand as he made his way down it and red and gold sparks followed him, lighting the way. A small smile curled the corner of his mouth. He found the habitual darkness in which Severus Snape liked to work amusing. He found most things about Snape amusing; Severus knew this and bore it grimly. Part of his penance, perhaps. Dumbledore was not sure. In the complex wall of guilt, penance, and intransigence which Snape had built about himself, there were few chinks through which an onlooker might gaze and understand. 

Dumbledore had reached the entrance to the laboratory now; he ducked as he passed through the low doorway. It was extremely dim inside, lit only by the light of a few faintly flaring overhead torches. The walls were lined with jars, flasks and vials or many-colored liquids, as were the surfaces of the multiple worktables. Fires burned, cauldrons bubbled, and enormous tomes of magic lay scattered everywhere. Dumbledore resisted the urge to move The Book of Gramarye to a place where it would not get essence of hemlock spilled on it. 

He paused in the middle of the room. "Hello, Severus," he said quietly to the man behind the largest worktable. The Potions master, dressed in his black work robes, was busy adding several drops of oil of thornwood to a simmering cauldron, and for a moment did not reply. At last he glanced up and nodded. "Headmaster," he said, by way of greeting. "What brings you down here so late?" He looked around, seeming to notice the darkness in the room for the first time. "Is it late, isn´t it?" 

"It is almost three in the morning, Severus." 

"Ah. I seem to have lost track of the time. I have been working." 

"I know." Dumbledore rested a hand on the wooden worktable nearest him. He was very tired but had resisted Madam Pomfrey´s offer of a Pepperup Potion. "And how goes the work? Have you had any luck identifying the substance in young Malfoy´s blood?" 

Snape set the instrument he had been holding down on the worktable before him and regarded it grimly. "No great luck, no," he said. "There were only trace evidences of any substance whatsoever to be found. I have identified certain components - traces of asphodel, belladonna and monkshood. I suspect it might be unicorn blood or powdered horn, which gives the affected blood such a unique color. But none of that explains the side effects. Nor can I be sure what other elements might have broken down in the blood since the poison was administered. It is most frustrating." 

"You said 'poison,´" Dumbledore replied. "So you think it is a poison, then?" 

"I cannot be sure entirely," said Snape. "I certainly know of no bane which takes so long to take effect, and which produces such peculiar effects. But I cannot imagine what else it might be." 

"You may or may not be happy to know that Lucius Malfoy agrees with you on that score." 

Snape squinted. "What do you mean?" 

"Young Malfoy arrived here this evening in the company of Harry Potter," Dumbledore said. "They claim to have eluded a trap set by Lucius at the Manor, and have come here seeking sanctuary. Which, of course, I am happy to provide." 

"Of course." Snape took up a beaker of purplish liquid and poured it into the cauldron. The substance within turned an unexpected gold color. "Anything for Harry Potter," he muttered under his breath. "I suppose they had the usual entourage with them?" 

"If you mean Miss Granger and Miss Weasley, yes. Rather unexpectedly, they also brought young Mister Finnegan. I shall have to owl his parents in the morning." 

"Isn´t there one missing?" Snape had begun searching among his flasks and vials for something. Seen through the tinted liquids inside, his face took on an odd particolored appearance: a blue cheekbone, hooked green nose, and orange chin. "What of our erstwhile Head Boy?" 

Dumbledore shook his head. "Ronald Weasley is not with them." 

"Unsurprising. If I were him I wouldn´t want to show my face around here either." Snape selected a vial of pink liquid and held it up to the faint overhead light. He poured some into a stone mortar filled with powder, picked up a pestle, and began to mix whatever was inside into a reddish paste. "He´s probably cowering somewhere, licking his wounds and feeling foolish." 

Dumbledore made a noncommittal noise. 

Snape looked at him sharply. "You don´t think so?" 

"Not particularly, no, but that is not the issue at hand. We were speaking of the poison..." 

"Yes. Lucius Malfoy knows of it?" 

"Apparently he claims to have administered it," Dumbledore said quietly. 

There was a short silence. Snape raised an eyebrow. "Poisoning his own son," he remarked finally. "Voldemort will be pleased with Lucius. Making the supreme sacrifice for the Dark Lord." 

"Given what Lucius gave up to serve Voldemort, is it really all that much of a sacrifice?" 

"For Lucius, yes. Draco is still his. Minted out of the same metal. Malfoy bones and Malfoy blood. And he is an exceptional child. Subsequent children might not be so...exceptional. I don´t suppose," Snape added, "that there is the slightest chance that Draco´s escape from the Manor will prove detrimental to Lucius´ public standing?" 

"Unlikely." Dumbledore´s tone was flat and heavy. "Sirius and Remus have already begun contacting all the old crowd and the reports are coming in. It appears that the corruption at the Ministry is more deep-rooted than we had ever imagined. We have been blind and complacent indeed and we will pay a heavy price for it. I imagine that soon enough Lucius will be able to walk down any wizarding street performing Unforgivable Curses right and left with no fear of punishment." 

"You paint a bleak picture," Snape said, some irony in his tone. "I thought that was my job." 

Dumbledore sighed. "You are right, Severus. The hour is late and my mood is subsequently dark. I originally came down here to give you something, not to wallow in grim predictions." 

"Oh, yes? What is it?" 

"You said that you were surprised that Lucius would consent to the destruction of his son," said Dumbledore. "I am not entirely sure that he did. He may have been hoping to use the poison as a bargaining chip." 

Snape, being Snape, twigged immediately. "There is an antidote, then," he said, setting down the pestle.  

"There was an antidote." Dumbledore reached into his pocket and drew out a roll of scarlet cloth. He laid it down on the worktable in front of the Potions master. "Harry Potter gave me this. These are the broken fragments of a vial that supposedly held the anti-toxin to this poison." 

With a long index finger, Snape flicked at the cloth, which unrolled itself along the table. All upon and down the cloth bright slivers of glass clung like tiny glittering stars. "There is blood on these fragments," Snape remarked. 

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "That is Harry´s blood." 

Snape looked up, his dark eyes hooded. "Such tiny slivers..." 

"I know, Severus. But I recollect that during the Lestrange case you were able to detect the Stunning potion that was used on the Longbottoms from a fragment of a broken wineglass, and I have hope. I know that you will do everything that you can." 

"Of course I will." Snape´s tone was flat. "Headmaster...how much time do I have?" 

"Lucius apparently told Draco that he had a month. From the look of him, however, I would guess it to be a little less." 

"Less than a month..." Inside the sleeve of his robe, Snape had balled his hand into a fist. "Should I go up and talk to him, then? He might want to see me. Draco, I mean." 

"I know what you mean." Dumbledore spoke thoughtfully. "He is already asleep. They all are. I thought it best that he not sleep in the Slytherin dungeon tonight..." 

"Headmaster, I object!" A muscle twitched in Snape´s cheek. "I know perfectly well that he has inexplicably befriended not just Potter but his entire crew of miscreants. I know that it would be impossible to pry him away from Potter with an Unbinding Hex. But no Slytherin student should sleep in Gryffindor Tower. It is more than just unseemly and against the rules, it is...it is traitorous!" Snape´s voice trembled with agitation. "Whatever alliances he might have chosen, however ill he might be, Draco Malfoy remains a Slytherin!" 

"Severus." Dumbledore´s tone was gentle. "I put him in the infirmary." 

"Oh." Snape deflated immediately. "Oh, of course. Yes. Madam Pomfrey should look after him." 

"Indeed." Dumbledore almost succeeded in keeping the amusement out of his voice. "Is there anything I can get for you, Severus, anything you require for your work?" 

"Tea," said Snape, slightly plaintively. "I find myself in need of a stimulant." 

"I shall have the house elves bring you some Lapsang Souchong," Dumbledore named the foul-smelling brew of which Snape was enamoured. "And Severus...thank you for your hard work." 

Even after the dungeon door closed behind the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Snape stood for a long time lost in thought, staring down at the roll of cloth before him, starred all over with its silvers of bright greenish glass. The scarlet of Gryffindor, the green of Slytherin. Potter blood and Malfoy poison. That Harry Potter had carried these fragments all the way to Hogwarts on the slim chance that they might prove useful surprised him. He knew from observation that Draco adored the Potter boy, painfully and intently, but had not assumed that Harry felt much of anything but toleration in return. That there might be friendship on both sides was curious to him. Had it been James, of course, there would have been no question... 

For the first time, Severus Snape began to consider the possibility that Harry Potter might not be just like his father. 

As he considered, he very carefully began to brush the glass fragments into a small metal cauldron. The first identifiable substance on the glass turned out to be human blood, which did not surprise him: the second was tears. It would be a long time before he found out whose tears they were. 

References: 

The Knight, Death and the Devil: The Knight, Death and the Devil is a woodcut engraving by Albrecht Durer. It shows a Knight making his progress through the world, frightened by Death, tempted by the Devil. The knight is meant to symbolize the faith within us all and ties in with Draco's statement in Hermione's dream that love is faith. Alternatively, I think of the Knight as being Harry, Death as Draco (because he is dying) and the Devil as Lucius, offering temptation to Our Hero. But that´s just me. 

The bit about Draco´s metallic beauty showing his cruelty was actually something Anthony Minghella said about why he cast Jude Law in The Talented Mister Ripley. 

"The black winter sky fretted with icy fire": "This majestical roof fretted with golden fire" is from Hamlet; the soliloquy that begins "I have of late, though wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth." I have no idea what scene or act that might be, I had to memorize it in 9th grade and it has stuck with me since. 

"Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions”: what Augustus Caesar said when he learned that his most important general had lost a tenth of Rome´s army in an ignominious defeat. "Quintili Vare, legiones redde" is the Latin. 

"I belong to Malfoy Manor": from Diana Wynne Jones´ Charmed Life, where the stolen books shout "I belong to Chrestomanci!" 

Liber-Damnatis: HP Lovecraft invented this tome of evil. 

"I was pondering the immortal words of Socrates when he said 'I drank what?´ - Socrates died after being forced to swallow poison by the Athenian government. The quote comes from the movie Real Genius. 

Chapter 10