Something about Ron. Hermione put the glass down on the sink, slowly and carefully. Her earlier, cursory search of Rons room had yielded nothing and she had felt ashamed for looking, especially when she had no idea what she was looking for. But something tickled the back of her mind now; something she could not push down or ignore…
As quietly as she could, she doused the light and left the bathroom, creeping down the hall past Charlies room, and crossing the landing to the stairs. A quick anti-creaking spell took care of noise; she padded upstairs in near-silence, and slipped into Rons room.
She lit the lamp and glanced around. It looked exactly as it had that afternoon. Neat and tidy, covered with posters, the same frayed orange bedspread. The same stack of photographs was sitting on the desk, where Ron must have placed them after pulling them down off the walls. The same pile of comics by the bed. She?d been through the desk drawers and found nothing much of interest — so she had thought. She knelt down now and reopened the largest drawer, sliding it out completely and placing it on the floor.
There was a box inside it, which she had seen before. It was a blue box, simple painted wood, with a gold embossed seal on the top: Mahoneys Divination Supplies, 14 Diagon Alley. She knew the box: she had given it to Ron herself, at the end of the summer. What he had said, or so nearly said, to her when they?d been imprisoned in Slytherins castle had always stayed with her although he had never mentioned it again: she had always wondered if it had something to do with his never-used Divination talent. This box had been the result of those musings.
She pried the lid off, and sat back, gazing at the box contents thoughtfully. There was a scrying bowl: small and made of copper. There was a pack of tea leaves with a small instructional booklet on how to use them. There was a sphere of dark crystal on a bronze stand, on which was etched the words: I hold the secrets.
Hermione lifted the sphere thoughtfully in her hand. Then she brought her hand down, hard, smashing the crystal ball against the metal edge of Rons bedside table. She braced herself for the noise of it shattering: to her surprise, it broke apart quietly and neatly, in two perfect halves.
A small, carefully rolled bundle of handwritten parchments tumbled out.
They had been folded over and over and wound around with a thin silver chain. A feeling of inexpressible sadness took hold of Hermione as she picked them up: she knew what they were. Even knowing what he knew, even knowing the truth, Ron would not have been able to bring himself to throw them out. Underneath everything, she sometimes thought, he was the most sentimental of them all — the most easily amused and the most easily hurt. With a sigh, she picked up the small packet of love letters and dropped it into her robe pocket, where it sat heavily, just over her heart.
'So thats the deal,' Harry said. He?d been pacing up and down the top of the tower since the guards had brought him back, now he stopped, and put his hands behind his back, and looked at Draco. The wind had picked up: it kept blowing strands of Dracos hair into his face, and when he reached to push it back, the adamantine cuff seared a cold line across his skin. 'The cup in exchange for the antidote. Well, not to cup, so to speak -
just a letter to Hermione asking her to send it to the Manor. Which she would, once she realized whats at stake. Its pretty simple, really.'
'I wonder,' Draco said. He found himself possessed of a curious calm. 'If hes been planning this for a long time.'
'I don?t think so,' said Harry. His hair blew across his face. 'Not this specifically. Anyway, it doesn?t matter.'
'Right,' Draco said. 'We have to think. What do we do now?'
There was a short silence. Then Harry spoke, his tone very careful: 'What do you mean, what do we do now?'
Draco hesitated and looked harder at Harry. But Harrys face was strangely set and unreadable; his green eyes were serious and dark.
'About my father,' Draco said. 'What do we do?'
Harry shook his head — not so much a gesture of negation than as if he were coming up out of deep water and for a moment, could not hear properly. 'We give him whatever he wants,' he said. 'We haven?t got a choice, have we? Hes got your antidote.'
A strange, uncompromising weariness had settled on Draco. It was as if he looked at Harry from a great distance, through clouds of muffling fog.
'We?ve got a choice,' Draco said. 'We don?t have to do what he says.'
'But then we don?t get the antidote,' Harry said, speaking very slowly, as if he were explaining the situation to a small child.
'I know,' Draco said. 'Then we don?t get the antidote.'
Realization flooded into Harrys face; he went very red, then very white.
'What are you saying?'
'I?m saying theres no point,' Draco said. 'If my father says its the antidote, then its probably the antidote. But there?ll be some loophole, some clever excuse not to give it to us — he?ll keep holding it over our heads, make us dance like puppets on strings, and we?ll still lose in the end.'
'He said it would save your life,' said Harry.
'And it will — now,' Draco said. 'But there?ll be something else, and something else after that. You see how he is. He thinks he owns me. And as long as I exist under his power, then he?ll make me a stick to beat you with. If you give in now, he?ll just know that it works.'
Harry shook his head again. 'It doesn?t matter. None of that matters right now. What matters is what we can do, right now, this minute, and right now you?re dying and we have to stop it.'
Draco heard himself laugh out loud. Not a very pleasant laugh, either.
'This is why you?re such a bad planner, Harry,? he said. 'As if the world doesn?t exist past the next five seconds.'
Harry closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists. Draco could tell that he was trying to get a hold of himself. He watched him with a detached feeling of sickness in his stomach. He did not like hurting Harry, and wondered in a desultory sort of way why he always seemed to be forced into circumstances where there was no other choice.
'What did my father say to you?' Draco demanded, finally. 'To make you react like this — do I have to remind you that he lies?'
Harry opened his eyes. 'Oh, I know he lies,' he said. 'But hes like you.
He won?t lie if the truth is at hand, and more powerful than any lie might be. He didn?t tell me anything I didn?t already know. Not really. It was the way he said it.'
Draco didn?t really hear him. His mind had stopped on the second sentence Harry had spoken, But hes like you.
'I won?t let my father turn you into some kind of pawn for him to play with,' he said harshly. 'I won?t. Any trade he offers isn?t a real trade, can?t you see that?' He pushed back the damp hair that was falling in his eyes — despite the freezing cold, he was sweating. 'I know you can?t think like that, Harry. When it comes right down to it, you just never seem to grasp how evil people can be. My father hates you. Any deal hes willing to make will not have your best interests at heart. Or mine. You?d have to be blind or stupid or both not to see that.'
'Maybe I?m both. But I?m not going to let the fact that you hate your father dictate whether you live or die — '
'Hes expecting you to give in, Harry! His whole plan is built on it.'
'Fuck his plan and everything else,' Harry said tightly. 'I?ve lost everything — all my friends. I won?t lose you as well.'
'You face everything alone in the end, anyway — you said so yourself — '
'God damn it!' Harrys voice snapped in half like a bone breaking. 'What would you do if it was the other way around? What would you do if it was me dying?'
'That would be different,' said Draco, unfazed.
