'But there aren?t any hexes on it!' Ginnys voice came out on a squeak.
'I know,' said Charlie, looking apologetic but firm. 'Gin, I just can?t.
It might not be safe. After what happened with that diary, if I gave you this without asking them, they would — '
'Charlie!' Ginny looked aghast. She spun around, looked at Hermione, who was anxiously fingering the Lycanthe around her neck. 'Hermione, tell him-'
'Ginny,' said Hermione firmly. 'Hes right.'
Ginnys dark eyes flew wide, and without another word, she leaped from the table, and fled upstairs. Hermione heard her bedroom door bang shut.
Charlie bit his lip, looking at Ron and Hermione. 'You understand, I just can?t — ' he began, then sighed, turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
There was a short silence. Hermione pushed her chair back from the table. 'I think I want to go be by myself for a while,' she said, biting her lip.
Ron looked up at her, his mouth drawn down thoughtfully. 'Do you really think the Turner might be dangerous?'
She didn?t meet his eyes. 'Are you willing to let Ginny risk it?'
Ron looked startled. 'When you put it like that…no.'
Hermione passed the back of her hand across her forehead. 'I?m tired. I?m going to go lie down.'
She could feel his anxious gaze on her as she left the room, but she didn?t turn around.
Draco sat propped against the wall in the entryway, Fleur beside him, leaning against his arm. He had shoved the dead bodies of the guards into a corner, and was trying not to look towards them.
Although he had never killed a person before, it wasn?t true that he had never killed anything — he had been hunting with his father many times, and had killed all sorts of animals, both magical and otherwise. But he had never really enjoyed it, never gotten the taste for it that his father had. He didn?t like killing things. He was good at it. But he didn?t like it.
Perhaps because of the dimness and the knowledge of death around him, he was suddenly visited with an all-to-vivid recollection of the land of the dead; the light too dim to show any color, the shifting shapes, the anxious ghostly voices calling out of the mist. The awfulness of the place struck him more forcibly now than when he was in it, and he felt again a lingering guilt — why should Harrys parents, who had never harmed a soul, be doomed to something worse than Hell, while he, through no effort and no merit of his own, came back and walked among the living?
Fleur interrupted his ruminations by rolling her head distractedly against his shoulder. He glanced down at her. Her hair shone like the edge of a silver coin in the half-light, and some of the color had come back into her face. She looked very pretty, although the fact that her hair color was so similar to his own always gave him pause.
It was nice enough hair, and looked terrific on him of course, but he preferred darker hair really.
'Draco,' said Fleur softly.
'Yes?'
'I?m feeling better now.'
He smiled to himself in the darkness. 'Good. Then you can release your death-grip on my leg. I?m losing feeling in my knee.'
'Oh, is that your leg?'
'Ah, this is where we get into all the fun 'are you happy to see me or is that a broomstick in your pocket?? banter. Go ahead. Don?t mind me if I just sit here.'
'You are no fun anymore,' she complained.
'Was I ever fun? Remind me of one second when I was fun, because I think I might have missed it.'
'Oh come, you are always fun,' she murmured, sliding into his lap; as she reached up her arms, a strand of her silver hair tickled his cheek — and a shooting pain drove through his side.
'Ow,' he yelped, pulling away from her.
Fleur dropped her arms, looking surprised. 'What is it? Are you
'urt?'
'Yeah, that thing got me in the side with its knife before I killed it.
Its not too bad though.'
'Is it bleeding? Did you tell 'Arry?'
'Yes on the bleeding, and no on the telling Harry. And don?t you tell him, either. He?ll just whinge, and we ?re in a hurry.'
Fleur set her round mouth into a firm disapproving line. 'Well, let me see it, then.'
With a resigned sigh Draco leaned back against the wall, pulling his jacket aside and his shirt up to reveal the cut that slashed across his side, just under his ribs. It was shallow, but long, and still bleeding slightly. Fortunately the black shirt he wore had soaked up most of the blood, but it still looked unpleasant.
'Draco!' Fleurs eyes were wide. 'You 'ave to let me fix it.'
'You said no magic.'
'That does not mean you 'ave to sit here and bleed.' With surprising alacrity, she reached down and began tearing at the hem of her robe with her small knife. Within a few moment she had several good-length swathes of fabric. 'Lean forward,' she told him, and, kneeling with her knees on either side of his legs, began to wind the makeshift bandages around his midsection. She tied the first one tightly at his side, wound another one over it,
