felt as if he stood at the edge of the world.
'Is it gone yet?'
Rhysenn spoke from the shadow of the tower through which they had come up to the roof. Her eyes were shut, her narrow little face as white as salt. Her dress blew around her like wings in the cold mountain air. She had been clinging to the shadows at the base of the tower since they had come outside.
Ron turned back and looked at the last gleam of the sun as it vanished over the horizon, drowning itself in the shadow of the blue mountains.
'It's gone.'
She opened her eyes slowly.
'It's a nice night,' Ron said.
'Any night is better than any day,' said Rhysenn, her tone positive, but she came to join him at the edge of the roof. 'Careful,' she said. 'Fall, and I cannot catch you. I cannot fly.'
'Voldemort would be displeased with you if I died,' said Ron.
'Yes,' she agreed. 'Or I would not bother to warn you.' She sat down then, about a foot from the roof's edge, her black skirts spreading around her like dark water. 'I am here to watch you,' she said. 'But I will talk to you also, if you desire.'
'About what?' Ron demanded.
'Whatever you like.'
'You're being awfully agreeable,' Ron said bitterly. 'I suppose you've been told to keep me happy. What's next? Turn yourself into Hermione and offer to shag me?'
She opened her gray eyes wide. 'Is that what you want me to do?'
'No. But it would be a demon's trick.'
'I am only half a demon. And I would only trick you if it was what you wanted.'
'How does that work, anyway?' Ron asked, desperate to get off the subject of Hermione. 'How can you be only half a demon?'
Rhysenn looked, briefly, amused. 'It's a long story. I can tell it to you if you like.'
Ron shoved his hands in his pockets. He was cold. 'It isn't like I have anything better to do.'
Rhysenn took a deep breath. Ron decided not to notice that this made her bosom inflate impressively over the bodice of her corset. 'Six hundred years ago,' she said, 'A wizard, an ancestor of the Malfoys you know now, raised a demon with a spell…'
Harry ran.
He had left the Shrieking Teacup far behind him. But he had seen the Death Eaters pour out of the doors after him, a swift army of black-clad ants, and knew they were hot on his heels. They had Tracking Charms; they knew the area much better than he did. They would find him, and they would back him into a corner.
He hoped that when they did, he'd be able to kill at least a few of them before they took him.
He shook the thought out of his mind. He should not be defeatist. If he could find his way back to Diagon Alley he'd have a chance — But the narrow alleys had turned into an unrecognizable warren of twisting, labyrinthine tunnels between blind stone buildings. The streets were slick with frozen rain and the mist covered everything like a blinding cloud. There seemed no doors in any of the buildings, and no windows.
So Harry ran. His booted feet found a skidding purchase on the icy ground. For almost the first time, he blessed his scrawniness, his wiry lightness and delicate build. It was what made him such a good Seeker, and now it allowed him to race over the ground as swiftly as an arrow flying through the air.
His heart pounded in his ears and the blood sang in his veins and he felt a savage sort of satisfaction as he reached a low metal fence and scrambled up and over it, dropping lightly to the other side. He winced as his cloak caught on a barb — he twisted and slithered out of it — it marked him out too clearly, anyway, was too recognizable. He began running again, only his worn t-shirt covering his arms now, but he had been running too hard to really feel the cold.
The rain sizzled against his flushed cheeks as he ran, caught in the tangles of his soaking hair, dripped down the round collar of his shirt. His feet, inside the dragonhide boots, were dry, but his trousers were almost wet through.
He thought he could hear the Death Eaters behind him, the pound of feet on the pavement, but perhaps that was just his imagination.
He put on a burst of speed as he reached the end of a long alleyway, and spun around the corner. Two narrower alleys branched off in opposite directions here — Harry blinked, then flung himself blindly to the left.
He fled down the alley. He was beginning to tire now. His breath rasped in his chest. He heard Draco's voice in his head suddenly, laughing and incredulous: only a few months ago, they had been talking about their methods of Quidditch training. And you mean you don't make your team run laps around the field?
It's flying, Malfoy. Who cares if we can run?
And it doesn't even bother you that I can probably outrun you?
No, Harry had lied. It doesn't bother me at all. I can still outfly you.
Draco had grinned at him, obviously entertained. Whatever you say, Potter.
It was bloody buggering awful when Draco was right.
The alley turned a sharp corner. Harry spun around it at top speed — only to find that it dead-ended at the side of a building. He skidded to a stop and looking around himself despairingly. Wet black walls covered in ancient posters advertising now-defunct charms and potions rose all around him — there was a bolted door in the side of the wall furthest from him — he wiped rain out of his eyes and jogged forward quickly.
It was a moment before he realized there was someone there, leaning against the wall by the door. At first just a dark silhouette, and then there was a spark of light — it flared to a greater glow- and the faint illumination wove a thousand silver strands out of the still-falling frozen rain. He saw a slender figure in a long dark cloak, a bent fair head, a face hidden by a raised hand, a peeling poster behind the figure advertising Finian's Finishing Potion — Now in Brand New Cherry Flavor!
Harry felt a tightening around his heart, the sharp pressure of shock behind his eyes, even before the figure lowered its hand, and raised its head, and looked at him, and smiled.
'About time you got here,' Draco said.
The kitchen at the Burrow was full of light and warmth. Ginny submitted rather numbly to being kissed and hugged by her mother, whooped over by Fred and George, and ignored by Percy, who was sitting at the kitchen table behind a massive stack of parchments. There was ink in his hair and a deal of chalk dust on his nose. It suited him.
Mr. Weasley was apparently out; Mrs. Weasley only looked shifty when she was asked where 'out' was, although wherever it was he had apparently gone there with Mad-Eye Moody. Sirius Black, meanwhile, was in the living room with Professor Lupin. Like Percy, they were surrounded by parchments, file folders, and boxes of papers. Lupin was using his wand to draw bright sets of words on the air between the two of them; Sirius, sprawled and exhausted-looking on the couch, was nodding and adding check marks to some of them, x's to others. To Ginny, at this distance, it looked like a list of names.
'You're sure you're all right, Ginny darling?' her mother fussed anxiously.
'You look so pale — would you like some tea? Hot cocoa? Butterbeer?'
Ginny shook her head. 'I'm all right.'
'But you look miserable!' wailed Mrs. Weasley.
'It's nothing serious, Mum, really…'
'Boyfriend problems,' said George sagely, pointing at her with the end of the quill he'd been chewing on. 'I suspect little Ginny's been having boyfriend problems.'
'Ah, but which boy?' wondered Fred portentously. 'The dashing yet otherwise occupied Harry Potter? The stalwart yet tedious Seamus Finnigan? The redeemed-yet-still-sarcastic Draco Malfoy?'
