hair with back at the Manor the week before. A little grudgingly, she reached out and took the sweater. She was about to thank him when a voice spoke up from behind them. 'According to Feroluce, he had a good time with you two.' It was Ben, hands in pockets, looking vaguely amused. 'You let him breathe fire.'
Ginny felt herself blush. 'Just the once.'
Ben smiled. 'Its all right.' Ginny noticed something she had noticed seen before, which was that he seemed to be avoiding looking at Draco. When he had first seen him, kneeling over Ron, he?d done an astonished double- take, and nearly dropped the stretcher he had been holding at wandpoint. As for Draco, he?d barely reacted to Ben. He looked at him once, hard, and Ginny almost saw him thinking, Thats not Harry. As far as she could tell, he had responded more to the Gryffindor regalia — cloak, sword, and scabbard — than to Bens actual, physical resemblance to Harry. She had a feeling Draco had a sort of recognition of Harry that went beyond the way he looked to the way he was. He would probably recognize Harry in the pitch dark.
She had already brought Ben up to date on what had happened at the top of the tower while they waited outside the mediwitchs tent; now he proceeded to fill them in on the armys efforts to get into Slytherins castle. They walked as they talked, back through the tents towards the walls of the castle, where the army was grouped.
They were a mass of huddled figures in the darkness, punctuated by bursts of wandlight. A discontented buzzing rose from them, as if from a hive of wasps.
'They don?t seem happy,' Draco observed dryly.
Ben shook his head. 'Its no use,' he said, looking frustrated. 'There are wards up all around the castle that prevent this number of people from entering. We could try climbing over the walls one by one, but thats like asking to be picked off by Slytherins army of Dark creatures. Have you ever seen veela when they get angry? I don't want to subject my men to that until I have to. If we?re going to attack, we need to attack in numbers, we need to attack in force — '
'We need to attack in leather tights,' added Draco.
'Would you like to borrow a pair?' Ben asked him, without missing a beat.
'Draco, shut up,' said Ginny.
'Is there no magical way to take the wards down?' Draco asked.
'We?ve been trying, of course,' said Ben. 'I thought perhaps you might have some knowledge, being the Heir of Slytherin. And I see he marked you with the signa serpens.'
Ben spoke lightly, but his eyes on Draco were hard and inquiring.
Draco looked down at the Dark Mark on his slender arm, revealed where his sleeve was rucked up, just under his elbow. 'Yes,' he said tightly.
'Doesn?t that frighten you?' said Ben.
'I don?t frighten easily.'
'You want to fight,' said Ben, sounding incredulous. 'You want to use that Living Blade of yours to cut down the darkness? Knowing what you are?'
Ginny met Dracos eyes with her own. She could see the stars reflected in his eyes, a lighter silver against the dark silver irises. He looked intent, and hesitated a long moment before speaking.
'Maybe I don?t know who the enemy is any longer,' he said slowly.
'Maybe its me. I don?t know. But I do know who my friends are. I want to fight with them. If you let me fight, I?ll fight on your side. If you don?t let me fight — '
'Then what?'
'I?ll fight on your side anyway.' Draco jabbed a finger towards the castle, looming huge and black against the dark sky. 'In there is everything that matters to me in my life. I want my life back.'
Ginny felt a brief flash of unaccountable irritation, but suppressed it. She knew Draco was speaking figuratively, after all, his mother wasn?t in the castle, and she certainly mattered to him. Still, it was true enough that he was quite unreasonable where both Harry and Hermione were concerned, and pretty much only where they were concerned. She had been, in fact, surprised at his fierce adamancy about returning to get Ron — and had then felt guilty for it. What kind of person would he be, if he hadn?t wanted to save her brothers life? And what kind of person had she thought he was, and how could she be in love with a person like that, and was she in love with him? It was all very confusing. She shoved the thoughts down firmly, and looked at Ben.
'Did he have these wards up around his castle in your time? Do you know?'
Ben shook his head. 'Armies were never able to attack Slytherin Castle directly; he always attacked first. The only force ever sent against him vanished.'
'Well, they did arrive,' said Draco. 'It just took them a thousand years to get here.'
'There must be some way to knock the wards down,' Ginny insisted.
'If it takes Magid power, fine. Dracos a Magid, even if he doesn?t know all that many spells — '
'Thank you for the ringing endorsement,' said Draco.
Ben ignored this bickering. He was staring up at the sky, thumbs hooked into the scabbard of his belt. 'Some larger kind of magic is at work, here,' he said, looking somber. 'Strange signs and portents
— odd lights in the sky. Not to mention that one of my best archers was knocked out by a falling ottoman. Something,' he said, firmly, 'is up,' and barely had he finished speaking when there was a gigantic rending cacophony; the soldiers all around them yelled and leaped backward as the walls around the castle collapsed into rubble with a thunderous crash.
* * * * *
'Harry, what are you thinking about?'
'You know.' Harry looked over at Hermione and gave her a wry smile. They were both a little out of breath from climbing what seemed like a thousand twisting stairs. The walls of the narrow staircase had grown steadily dryer as they had ascended up from the water, and they were mazed with rather pretty patterns of multicolored lichen and moss, in shades of gray, green and violet.
Both Harry and Hermione were still soaking wet; Harry had wanted to use a Drying Spell on their clothes;
