crooked, but very much alive, was… Harry.
Hermione's knees gave out, and she sat down hard on the ground.
A second later, Harry had shoved Ron (rather rudely) out of the way, and was sitting next to her on the ground. 'Hermione,' he breathed, putting his arms around her. 'I'm sorry…I'm sorry…Ron's an idiot.' He turned and glared at Ron.
'Ron, you're an idiot!' Ron rolled his eyes. 'I'm fine,' Harry went on. 'Don't cry.'
But she wasn't really crying — more gasping in great, shuddering breaths as if she couldn't get enough air. Harry held her and she clung on to him, breathless, burying her head in his shoulder. Harry looked over her head at Ron and mouthed desperately: What should I do?
Ron mimed patting an invisible someone's head, which Harry did.
Hermione's gasps quieted somewhat.
The Weasley twins watched Harry and Hermione clutching on to each other as if the world were ending, and shook their heads.
George sighed. 'Look at him,' he said in an undertone, 'he's got one of the great makeout lines of all time available to him — 'hey, I'm back from the dead' — and he doesn't use it.'
'He's a cretin,' agreed Fred.
'I'm glad he's alive, though,' said Ron, who was listening.
'Me, too,' said George. 'We've got a match against Slytherin coming up next week and we'd be flattened without him.'
Nobody wanted to hang out on the walkway where Harry had fallen (even if he was all right), especially not Hermione, so they got in the car and drove back up to the top of the cliff, where they parked in the middle of a grove of trees and Sirius made a rather startling announcement.
'We're not leaving,' he said.
'Oh, right,' said George. 'We'll just hang around a bit, shall we, have a campfire.
Toast some marshmallows. Wait for the Dark Lord to return and kill us all.'
'We're not leaving,' Sirius clarified, 'without Draco.'
'Come on, Sirius! ' said Ron, sounding horrified. 'For six years its been my dream to leave Malfoy stranded on a horrible, barren plain full of giant spiders, and now I finally get the opportunity and you want to take it all away?'
'They're his giant spiders, Ron, they won't hurt him,' pointed out Harry.
'Well, you can't have everything, can you?' said Ron.
'Sirius is right,' said Hermione.
'Oh course, you would think so,' snapped Ron. 'You've been kissing Malfoy all over the place, after all, it's only natural you'd want to save his scaly hide. You-you bad girl, Hermione. You smoocher of evil.'
Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Ron! Honestly!'
Sirius crossed his arms over his chest. 'I am not leaving without Draco,' he said again.
'Has he been kissing you, too?' asked George. 'Gets around, Malfoy does.'
Harry had turned and was looking away from them, back in the direction of the Manor. 'He won't come, Sirius,' he said.
'You'll have to believe me that it would be a very wrong thing to do, not to at least give him the chance,' said Sirius.
'Wrong?' said Ron angrily. 'First chance he got he turned right around and stabbed you all in the back, didn't he?'
'Only because Voldemort used the Veritas curse on him,' said Sirius, sharply.
Harry and Hermione both started talking at the same time, and Sirius held up a hand.
'Draco didn't tell me,' he said. 'I guessed. And I wasn't going to tell you, because I figured it was his business, but you might as well know. And I'd like to see you, Ron,' he said with a flash of anger in Ron's direction, 'fight it as hard as he did.'
Hermione and Harry looked at each other, with identical expressions of guilty horror. Then they turned back to Sirius. 'Why didn't he tell us?' demanded Hermione. 'He said Voldemort didn't torture him to get him to talk.'
'The Veritas curse isn't torture,' said Sirius. 'Technically speaking.'
'He's so stubborn,' said Harry, angrily.
'Like someone else I could mention,' said Sirius.
Harry looked at his shoes. 'Go and get him, Sirius,' he said.
'Be practical,' protested George. 'How're we meant to find him?'
Sirius tapped his nose. 'You forget I'm a dog,' he said. 'I can follow his scent.
Chase him down.'
'That's kind of weird and disturbing,' said Fred. 'You know that, right?'
'But very effective,' said Sirius. 'You five wait here. I'll look for him for twenty minutes and no more. I've a feeling he hasn't gone far.'
