but Hermione had nixed that idea: 'No magic while we're in the castle.' So they dripped, and squelched with every step. Harrys drenched clothes felt pasted to his body, the scabbard seemed to weigh a ton, and wet locks of black hair kept falling into his eyes. The discomfort wasn?t much, however, compared to the worry nagging at his brain.
'Ron and Draco?' Hermione said. 'I think the biggest danger there is that they?ll kill each other.'
Harry looked sideways at her. He could tell perfectly well that she was trying to sound cheerful for his benefit. He always knew what she was thinking where he was concerned. What she was thinking where Draco was concerned was of course another matter. There she was a closed book. He had never really gotten a grasp on what she felt for their silver-haired ex-enemy, and wasn?t sure he wanted to.
He knew he loved her; he knew she loved him. And Draco — Draco was as much a part of him as his own right hand. Sometimes an arthritic and painful hand, but still part of him. Some thoughts were just better buried.
'All right,' came Hermiones slightly breathless voice, cutting into his reverie. 'What is it?'
'Whats what?' echoed Harry, falling back to earth with a thud.
'You. You?re feeling guilty about something, Harry Potter. I know you. There isn?t anything you could have done, by the way. The floor collapsed under us, if you recall.'
'I know. I wasn?t feeling guilty about that.'
'Well, you look like the guilt bus ran you down.' She poked at him playfully with a wet finger. 'Who?re you feeling bad about? Ron or Draco or both?'
'Both,' Harry admitted, squelching around another staircase turn. 'I shouldn?t have snapped at Ron — hes just looking out for me. I can sort of see what Dracos thinking — Ron can?t. I?ve got reasons to trust him Ron doesn?t. I shouldn?t have made him feel like I didn?t understand. And Draco — all right. Hes my friend — '
Hermione grinned. 'Ouch. Did that hurt?'
'Quiet, wench. I?m on a roll here. I said hes my friend, and given that hes Malfoy, hes been a good one. And he really would care if I died, I realize that.'
'Oh, Harry, for goodness sake. If you died…' She shuddered. 'He'd die,' she said, quietly — so quietly that she wasn't sure Harry heard her.
He didn't seem to have. 'I can?t help feeling like if I?d been a better friend to him in the beginning, if I?d given him a reason to trust me about all this, he wouldn?t have run off and none of this would have happened.'
Hermione sighed. 'He walked away from you, you know. From all of us. It was his choice.'
'I don?t know. Sometimes people walk away because they want you to leave them alone; sometimes they walk away to see if you care enough to follow them into hell. I think I went the wrong way.'
'Don?t say that. You?re a good friend, Harry. The best anyone could have.'
'Yeah.? Harry knew he sounded unconvinced. 'Maybe.'
He might have said more, but they had reached the end of the staircase now. It terminated in a heavy- looking mahogany door studded with brass. The door handle was carved in the shape of a frog. Harry took hold of it and pulled, and the door slid open without even a creak of rusted hinges.
He stepped through the doorway and Hermione followed, her hand on the Lycanthe at her throat. They found themselves in a huge room, empty of any occupants. The floor was polished flagstones, alternating in darker and lighter squares like the pattern of a chessboard. High above was the ceiling, which like the ceiling of the Great Hall at school seemed enchanted to reflect the sky outside. At the moment it was a brilliant black field glittering with diamond-powdered stars. Huge tapestries hung along the walls, depicting scenes out of dreams: in one, a castle of bone rose from a bleak wasteland, in another a silver chariot shaped like a flower was driven across the sky by huge fiery-winged horses that reminded Harry of the horses that drew the Beauxbatons carriage.
'Its beautiful,' said Hermione, looking around. 'And horrible.'
But Harry was staring at something on the floor. 'Hermione…whats that?'
She looked where he indicated. Inked on the floor in what looked disturbingly like — but certainly couldn?t actually be — blood, was a circle inside of which was a sketched five-pointed star. In between the points of the star were drawn various symbols: a dot, a cross, a square, an oblong, and something that looked a bit like the letter
'H.'
'Its a Draxagram,' said Hermione, looking a bit unhappy. 'Its Circle Magic — this ones got a pentagram in it, so its got something to do with summoning dark forces. Wizards use them for summoning magical creatures, especially powerful ones that you don?t want to get out of control. They can?t get out of the circle when they appear.'
'What if you step into the circle?' Harry asked, morbidly fascinated.
Hermione shuddered. 'Don?t ask.'
She turned away from the pentagram, and so did Harry. He followed her towards a raised dais in the center of the room, which contained the rooms only furnishings, if such a strange collection of objects could be called furnishings.
In the center of the room were four slender golden pillars, set in a straight line. Harry could not imagine what they might be for. They looked like the supports for some massive tent, each about two arms lengths apart. A few feet in front of the four pillars was a crystal sphere, rising upon the coils of a translucent green base in the shape of a serpent. In the heart of the globe burned a still flame, living, animate with a life so alien that Harry stared in fascinated horror. It was a thing he felt to be alive, even if it could not be alive.
The flame inside the clear globe threw violent shadows over the walls, the tapestries, the bare flagstone floor.
'There it is,' said Hermione, beside him, her voice soft. 'The Orb.'
He went over to it and laid his hand on it. Something about it was weirdly fascinating. He found himself overcome by a peculiar urge to touch the thing. Hermione came up beside him then and laid her own hand on the
