not remember ever having been carried like that before, not by his father anyway, and was surprised to find he didn't mind it too much. He threw an arm around Sirius' neck, looked sideways, saw Ginny's white and worried face, the moon behind her, and then all the shapes of the world ran together like watercolor and Draco did something he had always sworn he would never do, and fainted.
Wham.
Harry opened his eyes, feeling somewhat as if he had been struck head-on by the Hogwarts Express train and thrown about fifty feet into a patch of nettles. He blinked, focusing his eyes, and saw that he was back the armchair in the Malfoy family library, staring up at the ceiling, which was traced with a design of the constellations picked out in gold leaf.
It took him several tries, but he managed to sit up and flex his fingers. His whole body stung with pins and needles. He became aware of being watched, and turned his head sideways to see Hermione kneeling by the arm of his chair, looking at him with huge eyes.
'Hey,' he said.
'You're all right,' she said, and it was both a question and a statement.
He nodded.
'I never should have sent you through,' she said colorlessly. 'I never should have. I can't believe I did anything so stupid.'
'Hermione — '
'I keep telling myself it wasn't really me,' she went on in the same colorless voice. 'I haven't been me for the last week or so. I would never have done anything so idiotic. It's my job to keep you from doing stupid things, not aid you and abet you. What if something had happened to you, it would have been my fault and that would have killed me, Harry, it would have killed me.'
She was still staring at him with the same huge eyes and he was suddenly reminded of the way she had looked at him after he'd faced that Hungarian Horntail his fourth year, remembered how she had gripped her face so tightly in fear for him that she had left deep fingernail marks on her skin. It had startled him at the time that anyone could care that much what happened to him; it startled him still. 'Hermione-don't,' he protested, a bit incoherently, and reached out for her.
She was up and off the floor and in his lap in less than a second, her arms wrapped around his neck. He buried his face against her, where her neck curved down into her shoulder. Her hair smelled like it always did, a smell that reminded him of Moroccan mint tea.
He felt her chest hitch, and then she was crying against him, dryly and with a soundless sort of despair that alarmed him. What on earth…?
'Oh, Harry, I just can't believe it, and I'm sure you did everything you possibly could have. It's not your fault.'
Harry pulled back and looked at her, confused. 'What's not my fault?'
'Draco. He's dead, isn't he?'
Harry looked at her, profoundly startled. 'How did you — '
'The love spell's off me,' she said, simply. 'I felt it go.' The tears had started sliding down her face, and Harry thought she looked somehow as if she was trying to be calm for his sake, which was very Hermione in a way. 'What happened?' she burst out finally, her voice breaking. 'How did he-no, never mind, don't tell me, I don't want to know.' She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes.
'Harry, I feel so guilty, this past few days all I've been wishing is for this stupid spell to be off me, and now it is, but I never wanted-'
'Hermione,' said Harry kindly. 'Shut up for a minute, okay? I have to tell you something, and you're not going to believe it…'
'Ron? Ron saved his life? You're kidding. I can't believe it. I bet Ron can't either. He must be going spare. Where's the Floo Powder? We have to get to the Burrow. Oh, I wish I could Apparate. Where's the bloody Floo Powder?'
'Hermione, do stop rushing about. Five minutes ago you were crying hysterically and now you seem to be doing an impression of McGonagall on speed. I'm getting a headache. Anyway, I think the Floo Powder is downstairs in the kitchen.'
'Go get it, then.'
'Don't be daft. Accio Floo Powder!'
'Harry, you're not supposed to do wandless magic — oooh, it worked.
Nice Summoning Charm.'
'My specialty, thanks to you.'
'All your specialties are thanks to me, nitwit.'
'What a smug girlfriend I've got.'
'Don't try to be clever, just give me the Floo Powder.'
'No.'
'What do you mean, no?'
'Come and get it.'
'Come and get it? What are we, twelve?'
'You're afraid of my superior strength.'
'I am not afraid of your superior strength. You are afraid of my superior intellect. Do not make faces at me, Harry Potter. All right, that does it.'
