'Its an imperfect world,' said Ben. 'Get used to it. Now are you going to be helpful, or not? We?re dealing with a lot of unstable magic here, and frankly I think we shouldn?t be wasting time.
We?ve got to convince an army to follow us into an uncertain future to battle the most evil wizard who ever lived. And we haven?t even had lunch yet.'
Gareth smirked. 'Well, since you don?t want my help…'
Bens dark eyes suddenly narrowed. 'I didn?t say we didn?t want your help at all. As a matter of fact…can we borrow one of your dragons?'
Gareth looked indignant. 'One of my dragons? You know how expensive dragons are!'
Ben looked mutinous. Ginny sighed to herself. It was a good thing, she thought, settling herself on the bed, that they had all the time that magic afforded them. It looked like they were going to need it.
* * * * *
Hermione was astonished to see how bad Draco looked. His hair hung over his eyes in lank silvery tangles, his eyes were dark with exhaustion, the shadows under them bruise-blue, and he looked as if he hadn?t slept properly in weeks. She would have guessed he?d been the one mortally wounded, not Harry. Harry looked chipper and bright-eyed fresh by comparison, although that wasn?t saying much.
She knelt down beside Sirius and reached out to touch Draco lightly on the shoulder. She wanted to do more, but was wary of being too demonstrative towards him around Harry, even now. 'You all right?'
she said.
He nodded, looked up at Harry and Ron with tired eyes, and said, 'We should go. We haven?t got much time to get to the Orb.'
'Harry told us,' she said. She bit her lip. 'It really is too bad we don?t have the Cloak any more — '
'My understanding is that you can?t open the Orb without Ginny,' said Sirius. 'And she, it seems, can?t be found.'
'I?ve been thinking about that,' said Hermione. 'If the Lycanthe can?t locate her, shes either outside the castle, or outside this time.
I say we get the Orb, get out of the castle, and try a Locator charm. If shes gone back through time she probably did it to escape, and she hasn?t properly learned to set the Turner yet. We were off by a few hours when we came back here from the past. Shes probably experiencing the same thing again. She?ll be back sometime, and the Locator charm will find her.'
She spoke with more confidence than she felt. She was fairly sure Ginny had used the Turner in some capacity, and wasn?t at all positive that this wouldn?t end in disaster. But there was no point saying so. If they couldn?t find Ginny in time, perhaps there would be some way to destroy the Orb. Magic had advanced a great deal since the original spell calling for all four Heirs had been cast. She said as much, and Draco looked at her, his eyes quizzical. 'The demons said that we would need a force equal to the force contained in the Orb to destroy it,' he said.
'What does that mean in laymans terms?' Ron asked nervously.
'I think it means that its pretty damn unlikely we could muster up that kind of firepower,' said Draco.
'I think it means that if Darth Vader loans us the Death Star we might have a chance,' said Harry.
Hermione giggled; nobody else did. Draco looked at Harry like he?d grown a second head. 'Still punchy, are we?'
Harry looked mildly abashed. 'I?m sorry about before. I was…'
'An enormous pest,' suggested Draco.
'Not myself, I was going to say.'
'Who were you, then?' Draco demanded, getting to his feet with a slight wince. 'Please inform me, so I can avoid him in future.'
'I said I was sorry,' said Harry, looking mildly irritated, but Hermione noticed that completely without thinking he had stepped forward and put a hand on Dracos arm, helping him to his feet. He did this as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do; only Rons face mirrored some of the surprise Hermione was feeling, although none of the pleasure. Please let them be friends again, she thought fervently. I know how much they both need it, so please let it happen.
Harry let go of Dracos elbow, and winced grimaced slightly. 'Its gone away, went away the second I touched this,' he said, touching a hand to the scabbard at his waist. 'I feel really stupid.'
'Well,' said Draco equably. 'I know how you feel. As it turns out, it only takes four drinks to get me thoroughly pissed. I would have expected myself to have a much higher tolerance.'
Harry raised an eyebrow. 'You got drunk?'
'One more drink and I would have been dancing around in my underwear.'
'Thank you for that particular piece of mental torment,' said Ron.
'Not a problem, Weasley.'
'Boxers or briefs?' wondered Hermione innocently.
'Hermione,' said Harry.
Draco grinned.
'I was just asking,' she said.
'Boxers,' said Ron absently.
They all looked at him. He looked back, surprised, then turned beet-red and looked imploringly at Harry. 'That time back at the Manor -
when you wrecked his bedroom and all his clothes flew around -
