'More than you think,' said Draco, with a touch of his old scornful drawl. He shrugged and walked out through the screen door, letting it bang shut behind him.
'I'm going to see if Harry's all right,' said Ginny, ignoring Ron's expression, and went upstairs.
Draco stood in the Weasleys? garden, letting the silver moonlight run down over him like milky rain. It was a cool, wet night, and the garden smelled like mint and dirt and rosemary. It was nothing like the gardens at Malfoy Manor, which always smelled of metal and leaf mold and blood.
He turned and faced south, the direction of his home, and reached into his pocket, realizing in sudden irritation, I don?t have my wand. Then he thought: that doesn?t matter. Magids his age weren?t supposed to perform wandless magic; that was true. Then again, neither were they supposed to sneak away from school in the dead of night for the purpose of putting powerful and illegal curses on famous international athletes. Wandless magic seemed minor in comparison. Sod that stupid rule, he thought, and raised his left hand, holding it straight out before him. The moonlight picked out the vivid silver lightning bolt scar across his palm as if it had been drawn there in liquid mercury.
Strange that the hand that Harry chose to cut is the hand that I do magic with. And the same for him. Was that conscious, I wonder?
He shrugged off the question and concentrated hard, thinking of the object he wanted, picturing it where it had lain the last time that he had seen it. For a summoning charm to work, it didn?t matter how far away the object to be summoned was, but one had to know where it was, and he did: on his fathers desk. He pictured his fathers study as he had last seen it, building the image in his head, even the smell of it: books and brandy and black magic. He shut his eyes and raised his left hand.
'Accio!'
Ginny found Harry in Percy's old bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, untouched since Percy had last been there with its plain blue sheets and hospital corners. He had taken off his glasses and was sitting with his legs drawn up, his head on his knees.
Ginny sat down next to him, feeling the bed sink under her weight.
'Harry,' she said. 'You need to get some sleep.'
He raised his head slowly. 'I?m not tired.'
She was always startled by how different he looked with his glasses off. Younger, of course, but less gentle somehow; colder, and more capable of hardness. There was a line etched between his eyebrows now, that smoothed itself out as he looked at her, trying to smile.
She wondered how many years it would take for that line to become a permanent dent between his eyes that never vanished, whether or not he was smiling. She wondered if she would be there to see it.
'Of course you?re tired,' she said. 'You?ve been up for hours, flown for miles. You need to sleep. You won?t be any good at all to Hermione if you fall off your broomstick and drown in the Channel.'
'I?m not any good to her anyway,' said Harry bitterly. 'This is all my fault.'
'Its not your fault!' said Ginny, outraged. 'How could it be your fault? Its more my fault than it is yours — I should never have left her alone with Viktor in the Leaky Cauldron — '
'No,' said Harry, shaking his head. 'Theres no reason for Wormtail to kidnap her except to get at me. Shes only in danger because of what she means to me. Just like Sirius was, and Ron, and everyone else I care about.'
'Well,' said Ginny, trying to sound light, 'At least Malfoys safe.'
Harry forced a laugh. 'I guess so,' he said, and reached up to push his hair out of his eyes. 'Ginny…'
'Please, Harry,' she said. 'Promise me you?ll get some sleep. We can put Malfoy in Charlies old room and you can stay here. Then we can get started on whatever needs to be done first thing in the morning.'
Harry hesitated a moment, then nodded. 'You?re right,' he said. 'I know you?re right.' He smiled at her, and her stomach flipped over.
'Theres just one thing, Ginny, if you wouldn?t mind; I?d really rather not be by myself right now, so…'
Ginny stared at him. 'Yes?' she said in a tiny voice.
'Could you ask Ron to come up? I don?t feel like going downstairs, but I?d really like to talk to him.'
'Oh,' she said. She stood up. 'Oh. Of course. I?ll — I?ll go get him right now.'
On the first floor landing, she passed Draco, who was carrying a large green book in his arms. She had a sudden, savage urge to kick him in the ankle, but knew it was unjustified and restrained herself.
'You?re in that bedroom,' she said, pointing down the hallway toward Charlies room, which was next to hers. 'There are blankets in the cupboard. And don?t ask me to make your bed, because I won?t.'
He looked at her curiously. 'Whats bothering you?' he asked.
'Potteritis again?' He didn?t change expression, but she could tell just by looking at him that there was a smirk chasing around inside his tidy blond head, trying to find its way out.
'I violently despise you,' she said. 'I just thought you should know that.'
'And I really don?t care,' said Draco, stepping neatly around her and heading off down the hallway to Charlies room. Ginny stood for a moment, staring after him. For some reason she couldn?t decipher, she now felt even worse than she had before.
He was standing in a chamber that was somewhere underground -
he didn't know how he knew that, but he did. He wore robes of black and green and silver, and boots of black dragon-hide leather.
He could tell without looking down that several inches had been added to the bottoms of his shoes to give him extra height. But he could still feel the heat that radiated from the floor burning through his bootsoles.
He was not alone down here. They stood around him in a semicircle. There were seven of them. And Draco recognized them immediately; recognized their long two-fingered hands, their smooth and earless heads. Demons. Only they wore long robes of black and red, and the tallest of them all, the one in the center of the half-circle, carried something in its outstretched hands.
A long silver sword whose hilt was set with a multitude of green jewels.
