You're right. It's just…'
'Just it still seems like if he wanted a Diviner, he could have found someone other than Weasley, yes,' said Draco. 'I won't claim that hurting you wouldn't have been an attractive side benefit for him. He does hate you.'
'But you don't think he's…bait, then?' Hermione asked from her place on the stairs.
'If he was just bait for Harry,' said Draco, raising his eyes to look at her, 'then why go through so much effort to make Harry hate him?'
Hermione's lips parted as she looked at him, her eyes darkening. 'Because it doesn't matter,' she whispered. 'Harry is Harry…he'd go after Ron regardless.'
'Ahem,' said Harry. 'I'm still here. And I don't hate Ron.'
Hermione's head whipped to the side and she stared at him. 'You don't?'
He shook his head. 'No. I hate what he did, but…I think you were right. I think it might not have been his fault.'
Draco felt something inside himself twist slightly — he knew without needing a fuller explanation, what Harry meant. He knew Harry could not quite understand how Ron might have allowed himself to be compelled in such a way, knew that Harry felt that there must, somehow, in Ron, have been some underlying desire to betray his friend that had simply been played on by outside forces. Knew that Harry could not really understand what had happened but would forgive Ron anyway — and it was so like Harry, wasn't it, to be able to forgive without needing to understand.
I would never forgive, Draco thought. If I were him — never.
Hermione expelled a long breath, and then she had dropped her books on the floor and had run at Harry, flinging her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He caught her as if this were the most natural thing in the world, and stroked her hair.
Draco began to feel that perhaps he ought to go somewhere.
'I think I'm going to go somewhere,' he said, backing towards the door slightly. Harry and Hermione broke apart and turned to look at him. Their hands were interlaced.
'Where?' said Harry.
'Somewhere that's…else?' Draco hazarded.
Harry's eyes widened. 'Like where? Do you want me to walk you back to the infirmary?'
'No.' Draco tried to think of a place no one would be able to accompany him. 'I'm going to take a bath,' he said with all the dignity he could muster.
'You just washed your hair,' Harry pointed out. 'How many baths do you need?'
'Well,' said Draco, lamely. 'You know.'
Hermione looked confused.
Draco thought irritably at Harry, Look, I'm trying to leave you alone together. Why must you be so difficult all the time?
Leave us alone? But why?
Don't be dense.
'That's right,' said Hermione aloud, 'just telepathize away. Don't mind me, standing here watching you two make faces at each other.
HONESTLY.'
Draco ignored this. This is about you and Ron and Hermione, not about me. I think you two need to talk and you don't need me around making it awkward.
But I do need you, Harry said, looking confused.
You need something, Potter, Draco thought, and turned away to the portrait door. But don't ask me to tell you what it is.
Ginny had made her calculations carefully: it would take Tom at least ten minutes to get down to the Slytherin dungeons, and ten minutes to get back. Add another five minutes at least to talk to Professor Coulter (who she knew from her parents had been the Head of the Slytherin House before Snape) and she had at least twenty-five minutes. Which was fine, as she doubted she'd need more than five.
Still, it seemed to take an age for her to walk across the library and arrive at the table strewn with Tom's things. Well, perhaps strewn wasn't the word. They were carefully arranged, the blank little diary next to the vial (it had ink in it, she could see that now), the stained blade beside the bowl of blood.
She stood for a moment frozen, her hand extended over the table towards the silver bowl. This was what she had come for, of course. Tom's blood.
But then again — Tom's blood. Her heart beat a rhythmic tattoo of inquiry against her ribcage. What do you think you're doing, Virginia Weasley?
This is so far beyond you. This is huge. This is Tom Riddle we're talking about here. Do you really think this is a good idea?
She pushed the voices down and reached for the bowl. Then she blinked.
Okay, I can't go flinging myself through time with a bowl full of blood. I need some kind of…container. Where the hell is that vial I packed? Think, Ginny. Think.
Half swearing under her breath, she reached into her pocket and began emptying it onto the table. Both the books she carried everywhere were in there — she set the Liber-Damnatis on the table, and put the diary on top of it. She had brought a vial, she knew she had — she dug down deeper into her pocket — and the library door slammed open. Heart splintering in terror, Ginny threw out a hand to keep herself from falling. Her right elbow jogged hard against hit the table, which shuddered; the bowl overturned itself, drenching the books she had set down next to it with blood.
Oh, no. No, no no. How could he possibly have gotten back so quickly? It's barely been a minute — She raised her eyes. He was a shadow in the doorway, backlit by the torchlight from the corridor outside. She could see only the outline of him: cloak and hair and angled shoulders. There was a slighter shadow next to him. 'Priscilla,' he was saying, 'if you ever send me on a wild goose chase like that again, I shall be very displeased with you — '
Ginny fumbled the tattered diary off the table with numb fingers — and stared. The blood that had splashed on it had vanished the way that ink had once vanished into its pages. It was spotless. Her astonishment loosened her grip, and she dropped the diary at her feet.
Oh, no.
She went to her knees, scrabbling at the little black book, jamming it into her pocket. She could hear the girl's voice growing closer. 'Tom, I'm so sorry, he said he'd be right there — Tom, what is it? What's wrong? You look so strange — '
Ginny jerked her head up. And bile rose into the back of her throat. Tom Riddle was standing less than three feet away from her, a look of utter, blank astonishment on his face. He froze where he was, and stared at her.
And Ginny stared back, rigid, unable to move. She had only to reach for the Time-Turner around her neck, she knew. It promised certain and immediate escape. And yet she couldn't move.
'Tom…?' said Priscilla, uncertainly. Several steps behind Tom, it was apparent that she could not see Ginny.
He did not turn around. 'Stay outside the wards, Priscilla. Don't come forward. Good. Now turn around and get out of here, if you know what's good for you.'
Apparently Priscilla did know what was good for her — she gave a startled squeak, but obeyed him. Tom did not look away from Ginny, not even when the library door opened, and then closed behind the departing Ravenclaw girl. Nor did Ginny move. She stayed where she was, on her knees, as he took another step forward. The faint candlelight picked out the angles and shadows of his face, the round youthful chin, the long mouth and longer eyes. She had seen him before, of course, but never up close like this, never alive like this. Never with a
