About time.'
Ginny said nothing, but the tense lines around her mouth deepened.
Hermione fought down the urge to scream. It was at this point that Harry would have stepped in and said something to Draco, and Draco would have made a smart remark back, but he would have quelled himself, because Harry had requested it. But there was no Harry here to curb or curtail him and there had never been anyone else he would listen to.
'Draco,' she said, knowing it would make very little difference. 'Don't.
She knows.'
An almost imperceptible shift in his position, and now he was looking at her out of the corner of one gray eye. She could sense the rage in him. It was like a thin silver wire winding through all of his movements. He was holding it down. She could see that, too. But eventually it would filter into everything he did like poison spreading slowly into water.
'I am not entirely sure,' he said, 'that we can assume she knows anything, given her recent actions. Although I suppose there is a logic to it.
Apparently we didn't have enough murderous psychopaths running around with my father, the Dark Lord, and that nymphomaniacal postal worker of his constantly stalking us. Apparently Ginny here decided four psychopaths makes a matched set. I think we should just all take a moment to admire the symmetry.'
'I know,' Ginny said again. She was still calm and her voice betrayed no hurt. Only her fingers, plucking nervously at the white counterpane stretched over her thin knees, indicated her tension. 'I'll take care of it, as much as I can. I'll tell Dumbledore — '
The effect of this statement on Draco was immediate, galvanic, and astonishing. He went white as a sheet and spun away from the window, hissing, 'No. No! You can't go to Dumbledore. I forbid it.'
Ginny stared at him. So did Hermione. 'You forbid it?' Ginny demanded.
'What on earth…?'
'Forbid it?' Hermione's tone was sharp. 'But why?'
Draco laughed — not a mirthful noise at all, but a peremptory bark of derision. 'You really don't know?' His lips curled back as he looked at them; he was the only person Hermione could think of who could make a sneer look elegant. 'Don't you understand what she's done? Intentionally or not, Ginny, you raised the dead. Lord Voldemort — Tom Riddle — he was dead, and you brought him back. That's necromancy. That's the worst kind of magic there is. It's the Dementor's Kiss. You go straight to Azkaban, no appeals, no second chances. Do you understand? They'll kill you for this.'
Hermione sucked in a little gasp of air. 'No, surely not. She's an underaged witch, and she didn't do it on purpose — '
'You tell that to my father,' Draco spat, his voice edged with venom. 'He tried to kill her when she was eleven, you think he wouldn't now? And maybe Dumbledore would try to protect her but I'd like to see him and this fucking deserted school stand up against the Ministry, the Dark Lord, and all my father's Death Eaters. They'll lay siege to this place and they'll drag her out of her and throw her to the Dementors in the middle of Hogsmeade and they'll be making an example — my father loves to make examples — ' He turned his blazing silver gaze on Ginny. 'And may I point out,' he added, more quietly, 'that, since Finnigan obviously isn't Finnigan anymore, and we don't know where he is, there might well be a murder charge in there somewhere, too.'
At that, Ginny did lose her composure. Tears flooded into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
Hermione held herself back. She wanted to go to Ginny and comfort her.
But more than she wanted to do that, she wanted to see what Draco would do. He stood where he was without moving for a long moment, looking down at Ginny, who was obviously trying to get a hold of herself. She cried the way someone who desperately does not want to be crying would cry — breathy, tearful gasps, as if she could not get enough air. She brushed the back of her hand furtively across her eyes, scattering tears onto the counterpane. 'I'm sorry — ' she said. 'Crying. It's stupid, I know.'
Draco's eyes narrowed. Then he reached out his hand and gently touched his gloved fingers to her cheek. 'It's a war,' he said. 'There are casualties in a war.'
'I don't like thinking of Seamus as a casualty,' Ginny said.
'I didn't mean Seamus.'
'He might be all right,' Hermione said, quietly. 'In most cases of possession, once the possessing demon or spirit is destroyed, the victim reverts to normal with no recollection of what occurred.'
Draco took his hand from Ginny's cheek, but sat down at the foot of her bed. This was better behavior than Hermione had expected. 'And in the other cases?' he asked.
Trust Draco to ask questions Hermione did not want to answer.
'Sometimes they remember,' she said.
Ginny's weeping had quieted, but she flinched at this. 'If it'll help Seamus,' she said, 'we should go to Dumbledore anyway. I don't care what happens to me.'
'But we don't know that it will help Seamus,' said Hermione. 'And Dumbledore isn't here, either — there's a note on his door that says he's gone to London. We don't know how dangerous Tom is or even how much he remembers. I mean, Ginny…you said he attacked you last night, and you were knocked out.'
Ginny nodded.
'But we found you this morning,' Hermione said. 'And he hadn't — hurt you any more. You said all the bruises you have and the bump on your head, that was all from last night. Then you were unconscious. If he'd wanted to hurt you or kill you, he could have. And he didn't. He ran away instead. Maybe it was just a temporary possession, and then Seamus reasserted himself, and was completely horrified and ran away.' She shrugged. 'I know it sounds stupid, but the point is, we don't know.'
'There is one thing we do know,' said Draco. He had taken a parchment out of his pocket and was holding it up to the light. After a brief moment, Hermione recognized it as the Marauder's Map. 'Neither Seamus Finnigan nor Tom Riddle is currently in the castle.'
'I know.' Ginny's voice was small. 'I can sort of…feel Tom when he's around. He's not around. He's gone.'
Hermione sighed. 'Our first order of business is to find Harry,' she said.
'Then we'll tell him about the Tom Riddle business, and see what he thinks we should do. Meantime, I'll owl Seamus — it's worth a try — and owl a few people in Diagon Alley, tell them to keep a look out for him.'
She blinked at Ginny's expression. 'Ginny, what?'
'Find Harry?' Ginny said. 'What do you mean, find Harry?'
Draco, in the middle of stowing the Marauder's Map in a pocket, looked up, his expression for a moment unguarded. Then his eyes went opaque.
Hermione cursed herself. 'I'm sorry, you've got enough to deal with, Ginny…'
'No.' Ginny sat up very straight, tossing her hair back. 'Tell me. I told you everything, please don't hide things from me.'
'Indeed,' said a voice behind them. A voice that made Hermione jump and spin around in surprise. A voice she had not been expecting here, just as she had not been expecting to see its owner.
'That's pretty much what I was about to say myself,' Charlie Weasley went on, striding quickly towards them, his fiery hair tousled and damp from the cold air outside. 'Now what's all this with the miserable expressions and the talk about hiding things? Would somebody like to tell me what's going on?'
When, halfway up what seemed like the sixth round of spiral stairs, a three-headed snake lunged out at him from behind an alcove, Ron was perturbed.
Gasping out a very rude word, he stumbled backward, almost knocking Rhysenn down the rest of the stairs. She shrieked and staggered to the side as he seized a torch out of a nearby bracket and spun to face the serpent.
Which had disappeared back around the corner of the stairs.
Ron swore again, under his breath. He hated snakes. Not as much as he hated spiders, but he was still not a fan. The fact that Harry could speak to them had never endeared the cold-blooded, slithering creatures to him
